Steel Rain: A Military Romance Collection

by A. Gorman

  The house across the street has been cleaned up, gutted, and renovated the way I know Mr. Williams had always wanted. It is on the market now. We couldn’t live there. I’d had one hell of a time cleaning out the place considering I’d seen the man blow his brains all over the wall, but after the initial shock of walking through that front door, I’d cleaned and sorted, donated his furniture and clothing to goodwill, and kept the important things like his Military memorabilia, old family photos and the things that reminded us of him. I’d even taken a few shirts and knickknacks over to Miss Chelle’s place, and she’d broken down and wept. She’d told me over tea about their long, sordid past.

  I glance at my baby boy as he chews his cereal. Despite getting his cast off just yesterday, he looks as miserable as he has for two months. We’ve been going to Duck Pond Beach every morning as usual, but there has been no Jake Tucker and no Nuke. I know that’s my doing, but still, every time I drive down North Beach Road, I feel a pang of despair at not getting to see the two of them.

  Since Mr. Williams died, I haven’t seen him show interest in a single thing. All of the books and war memorabilia got shoved inside the closet the second I handed them to him, and Spencer shut down any conversation regarding their whereabouts.

  Until a few nights back, when I woke to a strange sound coming from his room. I found Spence under the sheets, ripping out pages from his favorite book. It’d hurt seeing him destroy something that he’d loved so much, and I couldn’t help but think of Jake and the way he’d destroyed us in his grief. Spencer needed an outlet to grieve, not just the loss of his friend Mr. Williams, but also the loss of Jake and Nuke in his life. I’d had half a mind to pick up the phone then and there. Instead, I’d climbed into his bed and began asking questions about the pictures with him until he fell asleep. In the morning, I’d taken all the pieces into the salon where I’d begun taping it all back together between processing Miss Maggie’s color and setting Miss Chelle’s waves.

  “Hey, Spence?” I ask. He gives me a glum look around a mouthful of Cheerios. “I was thinking; it’s been kind of quiet around here lately.”

  His eyes go wide and he shoots up from the table. “Let’s call Jake and Nuke. I promise I won’t go crazy and hurt my hurty leg.”

  Wow. The kid knows how to drive a blade right through your heart. “Well, I was thinking now that we own this place, it might be time to go see Olivia about a service dog.”

  His jaw drops open, and he immediately bursts into tears. “You mean it? My own dog?”

  I nod. “They’re having an adoption day today, but I talked to her a couple weeks ago and she’s been training someone special for you.”

  He throws his hands up in the air. “Well let’s go. What are we waiting for?”

  I laugh. “Hold on a minute there, Captain Cheerio, you’re wearing more of your breakfast than you actually put in your mouth. Let’s get you cleaned up a little first, and then we’ll go.”

  Twenty minutes later, I’m fixing my hair in a neat ponytail when Spence screams, “Come on, Mamma.”

  I stare at my reflection and frown. Maybe just a slick of gloss.

  “Mamma.”

  “I’m comin’, I’m comin’. Keep your pants on.” I slick a bit of Smith’s Rosebud Salve over my lips and smooth my ponytail down again. I don’t know why I’m bothering; all I know is there’s a good chance I’ll see Jake since he started working for Olivia about a month back, and he’s bound to be there today.

  I know, I shouldn’t be getting all worked up or dressed up over a man I can’t have—a man I pushed away, but it don’t make no difference. It still hurts like hell when I run into him at the grocery store and we don’t talk past “hello” and “see you ’round.” Hell, it hurts every time I enter my bedroom and look at my empty bed. I swear I didn’t wash my sheets after we’d made love for a whole two weeks because I couldn’t stand to rid the scent of him from my pillows. Which is just wrong on so many levels.

  Spence is still walking gingerly on that leg, and despite him being keen as mustard, it takes a few moments to get him in the car. I pull into the disabled park at the shelter, surprised to find it still empty on what’s clearly a very busy day for them, and we walk around the side of the building to the training yard beyond where all the festivities are taking place.

  Spencer ignores the face painters, the jumping castle, and the clown—who I think might be Olivia’s new love interest from Mobile, though it’s still so new I haven’t met him yet—and makes a beeline for the doggy obstacle course. Nuke sits by the gate, waiting patiently. He wags his tail and licks Spencer’s hand, turning around in circles and yipping his excitement, which of course draws the attention of his owner, who happens to be standing in the middle of the ring running a gorgeous chocolate Lab through a newly upgraded obstacle course. His eyes meet mine, and the butterflies in my belly flutter at full tilt.

  His gaze moves from mine to my son’s as Spencer shouts, “Hi, Jake Tucker!”

  “Hey, Spence, how you doing?”

  “Guess what, guess what?” He jumps up and down with excitement, which scares me with his leg still being so weak from misuse. “Mamma said I can get my very own service dog today.”

  “No way?” Jake says, coming closer to us and exiting the ring. “Guess what? This is him. Spencer meet Sergeant Nutter Butter.”

  “Get outta town,” Spence squeals. Right away, the dog sniffs Spencer’s leg and woofs. My son leans down and pats the dog’s big round head.

  “He’s fully trained—been working on him for several weeks. Best temperament out of any dog I ever saw, next to Nuke, that is.” Jake scratches Nuke’s ears and the dog closes his big brown eyes, his tongue lolling out.

  “I didn’t know you were training him,” I say.

  “Yep, picked him out, too. What do you think of the name, Spence?”

  Spencer’s eyes are huge and sparkling with excitement. “It’s awesome.”

  “We been calling him Nutters for short,” Jake says. “But he’ll answer to both.”

  “Well howdy strangers,” Olivia yells comin’ across the lawn toward us. When she’s close enough, we hug one another. “I was wondering when we’d see you two around here. You haven’t even come by to see all the changes we made thanks to our anonymous donor.” She pins me with a look that says she has my number.

  “It looks incredible; y’all have done an amazing job.”

  “Well, thanks to that money and to Jake’s willingness to do free labor, we’ve made a lot of changes around here.” Olivia squeezes my shoulders. “Thank you. We were barely stayin’ afloat before, and now look at this place.” She stretches her arms out wide. “Now it’s thrivin’.”

  “I don’t know why you’re thanking me,” I say, but I flush crimson from neck to nose.

  “Mm-hmm, honey you ain’t fooling anyone.”

  I clap my hands together. “So . . . maybe we should get those papers sorted.”

  “Of course,” Olivia says. “I’m about to head into the ring to do a quick demonstration, but I’m sure Jake would be happy to help you out with all of that stuff, wouldn’t you, Jake?”

  “Happy to.”

  Trust Olivia to meddle.

  “Thanks,” I say, and follow my son, whose leg seems to be doing a lot better because he’s taken off with the two dogs up toward the office.

  Jake falls into step beside me. “You two been okay?”

  “Yeah.” I smile, but I don’t feel it. Being here with him, standing next to him and breathing in his cologne and the scent of his sweat—it’s heady and heartbreaking, too. “We’re getting through it. I think this will be good for Spence. He misses Nuke a lot.”

  “Nuke misses him,” Jake says, pinning me with his stare, as if it’s my fault that things are the way they are. The truth is this isn’t anyone’s fault. Love is messy—it’s complicated and difficult. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t.

  He clears his throat. “So, Nutters may be fully tr
ained, but Spencer isn’t.”

  I roll my eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  He laughs. “We’re going to need to train Spence in what Nutters can do and what he’s capable of, and sort out what we want him to work towards in the future. He’s a therapy dog, but in the future we can train him to track, in case Spence ever goes walkabout again. He can alert you to things like seizures as well. Eventually, he’ll learn Spencer’s cues for meltdowns and how to assist those before they get out of hand. But for now, we want to focus on the two of them getting to know one another and Spence giving Nutters basic commands.”

  I stop walking and stare at him. “Did you suddenly become a professional when it comes to autism? Do you have a degree in pediatrics I don’t know about?”

  “No, I became a qualified dog trainer.” Jake smiles, and good God does it make my insides melt. “I’ve been working with Nutters since we rescued him. Olivia told me who he was for. I did a little research; it’s not a big deal.”

  “Actually it is. This means a lot to me, to Spence. Thank you.”

  Jake turns to look at me. His gaze meets mine and darts away up the hill to his own dog and my son. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what?”

  “The two of you saved my life. You’re saving possibly twenty, thirty, fifty more with the money you donated to this place, both humans and dogs, and yet you still don’t see how you’re deserving of someone doing something nice for you?”

  I shrug. He’s right, though I am annoyed that it was so obvious that the money had come from me when I’d taken great pains to make it anonymous, opening a new bank account and requesting that the check be made out to Paws for Cause by an unnamed donor.

  Jake shakes his head. “One day, Elle. One day I’ll show you just how grateful I am that you came barging into my life and made me whole again.”

  I don’t have a reply for that but tears, and I do not want to shed those in front of Jake. Not now, and not ever again. Apparently my tear ducts didn’t get that memo, because my eyes well up and I have to blink like an epileptic hamster to get them gone.

  Not fast enough though. Jake reaches out a hand and collects a droplet of saltwater from off of my cheekbone. I reach up to knock his hand away, but those butterflies in my stomach take flight again and I wind up slipping my hand around his. I forget all about why he shouldn’t be touching me and start to wonder if maybe he should be.

  “Come on, slow pokes,” Spencer calls to us and I glance away from Jake’s too familiar gaze and walk up to my son, giving his new dog a pat.

  Jake follows. “So we finish up here around three. I’ll come by later and teach you all the commands you’ll need for a day or so, but we’ll need to draw it out to a few sessions so that Spence isn’t overwhelmed and doesn’t become impatient with him.”

  “Sure.”

  “I better get back in the ring, but if you head into the office Eloise will have the paperwork all ready for you. I’ll see you later.”

  “Jake,” I say, stopping him from leaving. “Thank you.”

  He nods and calls Nuke to his side, walking back to the ring.

  Spencer, Nutters, and I head into the office. We’re met by a sour Eloise, who all but throws the adoption paperwork at me. I get to work filling it in and the little evil harpy storms out the second Olivia glides in, looking smug. “Find everything you need?”

  I frown at my meddling best friend. “I didn’t know he’d be here today.”

  “Well sure, he’s my best trainer. All the bitches love him.” She winks at me.

  I can’t help but laugh at her. Spence laughs too, a rare treat.

  My humor all but evaporates when he starts yelling, “bitches,” over and over. He twirls on the spot, and his dog barks and jumps about with him.

  “Spencer, no,” I say. “Sit down.”

  The dog obeys; my son doesn’t.

  Olivia goes back to ignoring his behavior, but it only gets louder.

  “Give me that,” she says, taking the paperwork from me. “You don’t need to fill that out.”

  “But you said . . .” I trail off and glare at my friend. “You did that just so I would talk to him didn’t you?”

  She pins me with a look and ignores the subject. “So, Jake will be by later today to help with in-home training.”

  “You know if you had told me sooner we could have been here for his training so that Jake wouldn’t have to come to the house.”

  “And miss out on all that sexual tension? Hell no. You forget, sugar, that up until the last month I was living vicariously through you.”

  “Bitches!” Spence shouts again.

  I shoot him a look that he misses because he’s too busy sniffing his new dog’s butt. “Spence, what did we talk about? Remember there are adult words and kid words.” I lower my voice a fraction, “Bitches is not a kid word, and stop doing that.”

  “Dogs sniff one another’s butts. It’s how they say hello.”

  “I know, honey, but you are not a dog, you’re a people, and people do not sniff butts.” I turn back to Olivia. “I see what you’re doing here, and it isn’t going to work.”

  “We’ll see.” She grins wickedly. “My money’s on the Marine.”

  I shake my head in disappointment. “What does that even mean?”

  “We have a little pool going down at the Sister’s Bakery. That boy is crazy about you. He’s been miserable since you left him.”

  “I didn’t leave him, he—”

  She shuts me up with a glare. “Girl, you left him high and dry.”

  “No I didn’t. He looks just fine to me.”

  “Then you ain’t looking hard enough. Way I see it, you got two choices. You take a chance and let him in again, or you and me take on the world together, these two old biddies with more dogs and cats than county law will allow any pair of jilted spinsters to own.” She gently squeezes my arm. “Honey, I know you’ve had a tough year, what with Jimmy and Mr. Williams, and yes, even Jake. But that boy brought you to life again. You really wanna go and throw that all away?”

  I sigh, not knowing what to say to that. Of course there’s a legion of excuses right on the very tip of my tongue, but I can’t get into those with Spencer here.

  “I don’t know what I want, Liv. All I know is that I’m tired of working this hard. I’m stretched so thin I don’t know if I’m even here anymore. I just can’t deal with Jake Tucker right now.”

  “When will be a good time for you to deal with him? Living is work, Ellie; love is work.”

  “Maybe it shouldn’t be,” I say impatiently. Why is she pushing so hard? “If it’s meant to be, it should be easy.”

  “Who told you that? Disney?” She looks askance. “Honey, anything worth having is worth fightin’ for, and let me tell you right now, that man is worth fightin’ for.”

  “Then maybe you should date him,” I say childishly.

  “Maybe I would, if he weren’t in love with someone else.”

  I frown. This annoys me more than I care to admit, but I can see she’s proving a point because she raises her eyebrow with a smirk as if to say see?

  I shake my head. “Are we done here?”

  “For now,” she remarks, and walks over to Spencer. “Congratulations, Spencer. You’re now the proud owner of Sergeant Nutter Butters here.”

  “Bitches!”

  “Spencer,” I admonish.

  At the same time, Olivia nods in agreement and says, “Bitches. You be good now, Nutters.” She pats his head and he closes his eyes in the way dogs do when you find a really good spot on your path to ear-scratch doggy heaven.

  “He will.” Spence throws his arms around her. For a stunned moment Olivia and I just stare at one another, and then he makes a beeline for the door. Nutters follows behind, his lead trailing along the ground. I give Liv one last semi-reproachful look and snatch up the dog’s lead as we push out into the parking lot.

  * * *

  Several long
, tedious hours later, the bell rings. Nutters and Spence had been lying on the rug, cuddled up together, but the two of them jump up and race one another to the door.

  “Spencer Mason, what did I tell you about runnin’ around on the leg?”

  “To not to,” he replies. Nutters parks in front of the door, barking at the person on the other side.

  I check my reflection in the hall mirror again and give up on trying to look nice for him. Thanks to a completely off afternoon in the kitchen making Jake’s favorites, I wound up falling asleep because it was so quiet with Spence and Nutters chilling on the floor.

  I let Spence open the door, because I know he’s excited about seeing Jake. I guess he’s not the only one. Nutters’s tail is wagging so fast, he could be a little doggy helicopter.

  “Jake,” Spence shouts, as if he’s surprised to see him. He and Nutters rush forward and Jake and Nuke are swallowed up by affection from the two of them. He gives me that same pleasantly astonished look that Olivia had earlier today, and I just shrug. My son didn’t like to be touched, and yet here he is hugging not one, but two people in one day. Spencer darts off to the living room and Nutters follows.

  “Hey.” Jake offers up a warm smile.

  “Hi,” I say, grinning back. I’m sure I look like a loon.

  “Smells good in here.” He reaches out to touch my cheek, gently brushing his thumb over my skin. I let out a strangled gasp. “You had a little flour on your cheek there.” Jake moves past me, into the living room, while I’m left standing in the hallway wondering if that tightening in my lady parts was actually my ovaries fist bumping one another.

  “Alright, boys, you two ready for boot camp?” Jake says, as I follow them into the living room.