An Everyday Hero

by Laura Trentham

  “I see.” Ms. Justine’s gaze darted between the two of them.

  Greer didn’t recognize the quicksand until she was already sinking. “I’m helping as an old friend. We’re not … you know.”

  “Of course you’re not.” Justine waggled her fingers and strolled away. “Toodleloo, you two. Have fun.”

  Greer could only watch her leave. Whispers would sift through the town like smoke, and once the rumor was out, nothing could contain it.

  “Your dad is going to haul me in front of the church elders for an exorcism.” Greer sent a side-eye toward Emmett.

  “Screw him. And screw Justine Danvers.” Emmett pushed the cart toward the checkout, but faster now, his gait stiffer, the slight limp more noticeable, as if the confrontation and fallout raised his anxiety more than he wanted to let on.

  “Better not say that too loud. Justine Danvers would probably take you up on it.”

  Emmett’s face remained in profile, but she saw a smile tip the corner of his mouth.

  They made it through the checkout line and loaded the bags into the trunk of her car without running into anyone else they knew. Small talk filled the distance between the store and his cabin. She pulled to the side of the road by the locked gate, dreading the number of trips they would have to make.

  “Hang on.” Emmett climbed out, fished something out of his pocket, and fiddled with the lock and chain, finally pushing it open. He gestured her through. The car took a hard bounce off the pavement onto the soft needles. She stopped under the trees and waited for him to slip back in. He’d left the gate wide open.

  “Aren’t you afraid the Jehovah’s Witnesses will sense an opening and come a-knocking?”

  “Maybe I’ll invite them in and see if they have an insight into why I’m still around and so many of my buddies aren’t.”

  Her foot jerked on the brake, but she gained control over it and coasted along the overgrown ruts that passed for a road. She darted a look in his direction, but he was staring straight ahead. Fractious darkness erupted from him at odd times, only to settle into a bland silence.

  By the time they had his kitchen stocked, the sun was falling toward the horizon and a breeze had turned the evening pleasant. Greer dumped the spaghetti noodles into a pot of boiling water, set the timer, and joined Emmett on the porch.

  He held out a shot of whiskey. “Unless you’d prefer wine?”

  “Do you have wine?”

  “No.” He made a scoffing sound and tossed his shot back. She did the same with its companion, the slight burn pleasant.

  He screwed the top back on the bottle and set it aside. Bonnie had been fed and watered and was playing chase with a fluttering moth at the edge of the porch. Greer half sat on the rail, stretching one leg along the top, and leaned her head against the column. The squeak of Emmett’s rocking chair along with the tinkle of the wind chimes settled a contentment she hadn’t felt since she was a kid spending her summers reading endless books on the porch swing.

  “I can see why you chose to stay out here.” She kept her voice soft, as if she might scare away the peace that lurked at the edge of her consciousness.

  “I’m staying out here because I couldn’t stand Mom fussing over me like I had a terminal illness. The views are a bonus.”

  “She loves you.”

  “I have no idea why.”

  “I don’t know, you’re not so bad.” She let a beat of companionable silence hit before adding, “Once you dig past the jerky outer shell. And I mean dig deep. Like dig-a-hole-to-China deep.”

  With an agility she didn’t anticipate, he shot to his feet and squeezed her leg right above her knee. No one had pulled the “crow eating corn” tickle move on her in two decades.

  Laughing wildly, she jerked to get away and would have tumbled over the porch rail into the hydrangeas if he hadn’t grabbed hold of her arm to steady her.

  “Say it.” Laughter threaded his voice.

  “No,” she gasped out. Tears blurred her vision as his hand continued to gnaw on her leg like a crow.

  “Do you give the Lord a biscuit? Come on, say it and I’ll stop.”

  Words were near impossible to string together in her state of tickle torture, and the ridiculous saying had her laughing all the harder. “I-give-the-Lord-a-biscuit!”

  Apparently he understood her breathy shout and stopped, but kept her in his grip, his palm sliding enough north on her thigh to add strange dimensions to the pseudo-brotherly moment. Her breaths were labored but she wasn’t sure it was all due to their tickle fight. He was breathing hard too, his eyes crinkled and absent their usual shadows.

  Instead of being able to catch her breath, it hitched even worse. Her body became aware of his like hunter and prey. What if she grabbed his shirt and pulled him into her? Would he taste of whiskey?

  She wasn’t destined to find out. The beep of the kitchen timer cut them apart. He stepped back and ran his hands down the front of his pants. Red burnished his cheeks. Whether from the same physical awareness coursing through her or simple exertion, she couldn’t discern.

  The beep continued like a warning.

  “I should get that.” She hopped off the rail, thumbed over her shoulder, and backed to the door.

  “Need help?”

  “No,” she said too forcefully. The last thing she needed was being confined with him in the small kitchen. She might continue their foray into adolescent games with a round of Seven Minutes in Heaven. She softened her tone. “Do you want to eat out here?”

  “Sure. Let’s enjoy the evening.”

  Greer retreated, gathered her self-control, and returned with two bowls plus a slice of garlic bread each. She sat next to him in a matching rocking chair. They didn’t speak or look at each other. The awkwardness of the silence was tempered by the noise of the wind in the trees and the insects awakening for their evening concert.

  She shot a side-eye glance in his direction, not turning her head. His pose was pure relaxation, his good leg thrown over the arm of the chair, his other leg rocking him.

  The tension holding her in its grip lessened but didn’t disappear. Had the lightning strike of sexual awareness been one-sided? Even down a leg, he was still Emmett Lawson, the golden boy of Madison, Tennessee.

  She popped up and gathered their empty bowls. “I’ll clean up then head out.”

  “You don’t have to—” He bit off his protest and stood, tugging the bowls out of her hands.

  What had he been about to say? She didn’t have to clean up? Or leave? His face didn’t provide any clues, but his stillness was expectant. She wasn’t brave—or stupid—enough to ask him what he expected, so she took a step back and tucked her hands into her back pockets.

  “Since I cooked, it’s only fair you clean, I suppose.”

  He set the bowls on the side table but didn’t draw closer to her. “I appreciate everything today.”

  “You need a jump for your truck?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get Dad out here tomorrow.”

  “That’s going to mean leaving the gate open.”

  “Yeah, I guess it will.”

  She stepped backward down the steps, hanging on to the handrail, and gave him a teasing smile. “Aren’t you worried about the stampede of women who are going to demand to save you with sex?”

  “Maybe I’m in the mood to take one of them up on the offer.”

  She stopped short in the dirt at the bottom of the steps while her stomach wanted to send her spaghetti back up. “What?”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a man, Greer.”

  Dammit, she’d noticed. Hadn’t he noticed her noticing? “Well, I hope you have fun.”

  That was a lie. She hoped he couldn’t get it up.

  She couldn’t get in her car and moving quick enough. Darkness closed around her in the trees, and she had to blink around tears to fumble her headlights on. Bugs swarmed in the beams. A lightning bug splatted on her windshield in her line of sight. The w
indshield wipers smeared its glow.

  “I feel you, bug. I feel you.”

  Chapter 12

  Emmett might be down a leg, but he hadn’t been neutered. Everything down there was in working order, as he proved on an almost nightly basis. Yet Ryan and Beau had cast bait for Greer right in front of him the day before. And she hadn’t seemed the least bit concerned at his threat of messing around with Madison’s female population.

  Granted, the tentative friendship that had sprung up between them like kudzu was devoid of sexual overtones. Wasn’t it? For a moment on the porch after tickling her breathless, he’d sensed … something. Something that made him stand up a little straighter. Something that had thickened the air like honey.

  But then the moment passed, and she had been back to teasing him like a brother. A concrete foundation had been poured in the construction of their friend zone. Which was for the best. He needed a friend, not a girlfriend or a lover. He touched his stump. Sex was unimaginable.

  Was he supposed to keep his prosthetic on? He sure as hell didn’t want Greer to see him without it. He didn’t want anyone to see him without it.

  Lying in bed thinking about sex and Greer was a bad combination when he was expecting his dad any minute. With early morning light suffusing his bedroom, he sat up, swung himself to the side of the bed, and pulled on the same pair of khakis he’d worn the day before. If he and his dad were going to get his truck running, he might as well anticipate getting dirty and sweaty.

  His prosthetic leaned up against his dresser. He slipped a sleeve over his residual limb and then a special sock with a ratchet sewn in. Standing up, he balanced himself against the wall with one hand while fitting his leg into it. He’d gotten to be expert at lining up the ratchet system that held it in place.

  One running shoe was already on his fake foot, so he hobbled to the dresser for a sock for his other foot. He had a stockpile of white athletic socks to match with the one covering his prosthetic. The one time he’d gone barefoot in front of his parents, they hadn’t been able to stop staring at his feet— or foot.

  The sound of a diesel work truck brought him out on the porch. His dad pulled up beside his old gray Ford F-150. It was a remnant of his high school days. He’d bought a fancy Dodge truck when the army money rolled in, but sold it before he deployed. The logic of making payments on a truck that would sit for a year didn’t make sense. He’d planned to buy something fun and risky like a motorcycle when his tour was up, but no more. He was done with risk.

  His mom and dad climbed out of the truck. She held a covered dish. His stomach growled before he even smelled it. The spaghetti the night before had jump-started his appetite. A raggedy-sounding meow and slight bump against his leg turned his attention to Bonnie and her empty food bowl.

  He poured kibble into the new food dish and Bonnie attacked it the way he wanted to attack whatever homemade goodness his mother had brought him.

  His dad pulled out jumper cables from the back of his truck. “You want to pop the hood, Emmett?”

  His mom looked … worn. Her hair showed gray at the roots and her face was devoid of makeup. Had he done this to her? All his attention had been sucked up by his own needy selfishness, and he had lashed out without recognizing the damage he was inflicting.

  “How about we tackle whatever delicious casserole Mom brought before we get all dirty and sweaty?”

  His mom and dad exchanged a look. One that encompassed a conversation they would have later about him. A few days ago, he might have had to beat back anger like a whack-a-mole mallet, but this morning, something resembling contentment kept his frustration from spilling over. The bad stuff was still there but manageable.

  He threw an arm around his mom’s shoulder and gave her a little shake. “Come on in. You and dad can discuss my mental frailties later. I’m starving.”

  The tentative smile that broke over her face made her look like a hopeful puppy who’d been kicked one too many times when it tried to get close. Another failure and regret to add to the list, right below his inability to save his guys.

  “You go sit and let me handle things. Okay?” She waited, her body reflecting a tense defensiveness.

  He had blown up at her for less. Sitting and letting someone else handle things had the earmarks of pity. Yet, his mom had fixed him food and taken care of him all his life. Letting her help him would go a long way to returning to their old mother-son dynamic.

  “Sure. That sounds great.” He brushed a kiss along her cheek.

  Her hand flew up to press against the spot before she retreated to bustle around the kitchen. At least he hadn’t left her a mess to clean up from the night before. He was tired of letting everyone else clean up his messes. He had to do better. Be a better son. A better man.

  He sat on the flower-patterned couch. It had once graced his grandparents’ den, and he remembered climbing onto his grandfather’s lap to hear his war stories from Vietnam, playing with the same frayed piping he fiddled with now.

  His dad crossed the threshold into the cabin as if expecting a booby trap. Instead, the smell of coffee brewing filled the room with welcome, and his dad took a seat in a chair across from him. The silence wasn’t wholly comfortable but held a lightness that had been absent for too long.

  His mom came out holding two mugs of steaming coffee. “Both black.”

  “Thanks,” Emmett and his dad said in unison.

  His mom smiled and looked back and forth at them a few times as if reassuring herself the scene wasn’t in her imagination before returning to the kitchen. The church hymn she hummed was one of the few uplifting ones he could remember.

  She returned with a tray bearing another mug of coffee and three plates with varying amounts of cheesy sausage and egg casserole. He took the one nearest him, which happened to have a mountain of casserole.

  He intercepted another look between his parents but the happy signals his taste buds were sending to his brain overwhelmed any annoyance.

  “Someone dump a litter of cats out here?” his dad asked.

  “If they did, only one made it. I found her cowering under the porch the other night during the big storm,” Emmett said between bites.

  His mom cleared her throat and poked at her food. “We heard you went to town yesterday.”

  If they’d heard he was in town, they also knew who he’d been with. “Bonnie needed a once-over.”

  “Bonnie?” His mom’s brow knitted.

  “The kitten. She’s named after Bonnie Raitt, the singer? It was Greer’s idea.”

  His dad emitted a huff laden with disapproval, and another meaning-filled glance passed between his parents before his dad glared at him. This one he couldn’t let go with equanimity. Emmett dropped his fork, the clatter against the plate ratcheting up the tension. He opened his mouth but his mom preempted him.

  “I’m pleased as punch Greer managed to drag you out of the cabin. Did you have a nice time?” It seemed his mom had won whatever power play was occurring between her and his dad.

  Emmett let himself relax back against the cushion. “It was good to see Ryan.”

  It had been good to see him until he’d made a blatant play for Greer right in front of him. That never would have happened in high school.

  “I didn’t think he was smart enough to make a vet, but he’s got a good reputation. Thought about calling him out to the farm to check on Daisy. She’s getting close to her first foaling. Did you eat at the café? I’ve found their desserts to be the only thing palatable on the menu,” his dad said, still edging toward surly.

  “I wanted cobbler, but unfortunately, Greer and I were interrupted.”

  “We heard Beau caused a scene,” his mom said.

  His dad harrumphed. “Only because that girl—”

  “Hush your mouth, Henry.”

  Emmett had only heard his mom use that tone of voice when he was a kid, and only when he’d deserved a good spanking for talking back. To hear her chastise his dad like a child w
as strangely satisfying and poked him in the funny bone.

  He laughed.

  His mom gasped and covered her mouth. His dad put his plate down and sat back in the chair.

  “Y’all are killing me.” Emmett grinned and shoved another bite in his mouth. “Greer has been a good friend, Dad. Better than I deserve after you complained to Amelia.”

  “Greer was supposed to leave you alone so you could heal.”

  “Yeah, well. She wasn’t in the service and doesn’t follow orders.” Emmett scraped the last forkful off his plate. “Apparently, I needed a good kick in the butt more than I needed to sit on my thumbs.”

  “Is that all she is? A friend?” His mom had perfected the art of interrogation with sugar.

  “Only a friend.” A pang at the truth of the statement made him rub his chest and retreat to the kitchen for a second helping.

  His parents watched him finish off another huge plateful while sipping their coffee and discussing mundane gossip about who was in the hospital and who was on vacation.

  His mom gathered his plate a millisecond after it made contact with the table. “I’ll clean up. You boys have work to do, don’t you?”

  His dad rose and rubbed his hands together. “Let’s get to it, then. I have chores around the farm to attend to.”

  A slice of guilt emerged from the clouds of his depression like blinding sunlight. It had been understood from the time his dad retired from the army to take the horse farm over from his father that Emmett would eventually do the same. Now he didn’t know if his dad still wanted him at all. His dad’s faith seemed shaken. Maybe he’d sell out to some big-shot trainer and take his mom to Florida to retire. It wasn’t only a physically demanding profession but required the patience of Job. Emmett was unqualified.

  They hooked up the jumper cables, moving as if they had trained together, not needing to speak. His dad cranked the diesel truck and let it run. The noise made conversation difficult, and Emmett was glad.

  “Try it now,” his dad finally hollered.

  Emmett got behind the wheel of his old Ford and turned the key. After one failed try, the engine caught and chugged awake. It wasn’t smooth like his Dodge or powerful like his dad’s diesel, but sitting in the cab beside him on the worn leather seats was the ghost of his younger self.