Terrance moseyed up the front steps and out of sight. The pound of a fist on the door scared a nesting bird from the eaves. The blue jay squawked in protest as it landed on the branch over Emmett’s head. If only Emmett could train the mean little cuss to attack on cue. The image of Terrance cowering for a bird would be worth millions on base.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Emmett swaggered from around the house to casually lean against the bottom rail of the stairs. “You here to recruit me?”
Terrance took the steps two at a time and pulled Emmett into a bear hug, lifting him off the ground. “Something like that, you hermity bastard.”
Terrance pulled back, looked Emmett up and down, and thumped him on the shoulder hard enough to send vibrations down his arm. “You’re looking a sight better than you were last time I saw you.”
Considering the last time had been at Walter Reed after his amputation, Emmett could only imagine. “I’ll always be better-looking than you, Terrance, down a leg or not.”
It wasn’t strictly true. Terrance was a bear of a man who attracted women like a beekeeper attracted bees, utilizing a smoke show to get their honey before leaving them with broken hearts. Or at least bruised ones. Emmett had never been able to switch off the gentlemanly conscience bred into him like his eye color. He’d been the Boy Scout. Not prudish, but unwilling to take part in the bar hops and one-night stands prevalent in a single soldier’s life.
“How’s your stump?” Terrance asked bluntly.
Emmett grinned. Most people felt the need to dance around the question—which was ironic, given the topic.
“What’s so funny?” Terrance was always afraid to be left out of the joke. Or worse, to be the butt of one.
“Glad to see you is all. Come on in. I’ll get us some drinks.” Emmett led the way up the stairs, his self-consciousness at being watched maneuvering his prosthetic acute but manageable.
The air-conditioning inside had a hard time keeping up with the ninety-plus-degree temperature on top of 100 percent humidity. Emmett flipped the overhead fan on and headed straight into the kitchen to pull out a container of sweet tea he’d brewed that morning.
“Dang, you’re like domesticated or something.” Terrance took a Mason jar of iced tea and killed it as if he’d been wandering the desert for days. He held it out for a refill. “That’s almost as good as my mama brews.”
Emmett topped his jar off and gestured toward the den. They sat and Terrance propped his feet up on the coffee table and groaned as his head fell back in a pose of relaxation. A comfortable silence mustered around them.
“I’m getting deployed again,” Terrance finally said.
Emmett’s stomach flopped. “When?”
“End of the summer.”
“Where to?”
Terrance hesitated. “Guess I’m not allowed to say, but it’s not a cush assignment.”
“Any assignment can go FUBAR in a blink. Even the cush ones.” Fucked up beyond all repair pretty much summed up his life. Or it had. Slowly, painstakingly, he was mending.
Terrance lifted his head, his eyes shining with understanding, but also with the relief it hadn’t been him. Terrance’s orders the day of the ambush had taken him and his men on a different route. The area had been in U.S. hands for so long, everyone—including Emmett—had grown complacent. Chance. Fate. What ruled their lives?
The whys tried to engulf Emmett. Why him? Why not him? The merry-go-round usually whirled him until he was sick, but this time he had the strength to step off. No answers were to be found there.
“Yeah. I’m feeling it more this time,” Terrance said solemnly. Introspection wasn’t a natural state for him.
“Feeling what?”
“Jesus, don’t laugh, okay?” At Emmett’s nod, Terrance said, “My fucking mortality.”
Terrance had come to the wrong person if he expected Emmett to dole out reassuring platitudes. “You might die. Statistically speaking, the more deployments you take, the longer you stay in, the more likely your number will come up.”
Terrance rubbed a hand over his scalp. “Thanks for sugarcoating it for me.”
“I hope you didn’t come here expecting some rah-rah patriotic bullshit.”
“No, I didn’t.” Terrance hunkered farther into the cushions. “I came to ask for a favor. And to extend an offer.”
“Is this a good news, bad news situation?”
“Depends on your outlook, I guess.” Terrance pulled a throw pillow into his lap and fiddled with the fringe along the edge. His unrest was unusual. He’d grown up in rural Alabama and from the time his dad had given him his first gun at seven, he’d spent every minute he could in the woods hunting. He could maintain a still alertness longer than anyone Emmett had ever met. It was both enviable and eerie.
“Spit it out. You’re making me nervous.” Emmett tried not to squirm himself.
“I’m an only child and my dad died a few years ago.” Terrance knew Emmett knew all this. Emmett had attended the funeral. “My mom has a couple of cousins, but they aren’t close. She’s not good with money and I need … I need…”
“Someone to look after your mom in case something happens?”
“Yes,” he said on a huge breath. “I know it’s a lot to ask.”
It was a lot to ask. Especially of a man who had spent the last weeks and months attempting to disconnect himself with the world. Terrance had been by his side since officer training. The experiences they’d shared had forged their friendship in fire. How could he say no?
“No,” he said on a whisper.
Terrance let his face fall onto the pillow. As if he’d received a physical blow, Emmett felt the pain of their friendship fracturing.
“You’re not going to die, Terrance,” Emmett said, even though he no longer believed the good guys always won.
“You of all people can’t say that. Look, I get it. We’re not family. I shouldn’t have asked considering…”
“Considering what?” Emmett’s tone hardened.
Terrance sat up and met Emmett’s gaze. “Considering you’ve all but given up on living. I would never have pegged you as a quitter.”
“Quitter? Taking my discharge because my leg got blown off is not quitting.”
“You quit on those boys.”
Numbness spread from Emmett’s chest outward. His sweat-soaked shirt turned clammy against his skin. He clutched his knees to hide his shaking hands. If he closed his eyes, he would be on a blood-soaked dirt road, his ears ringing from the blast, choking on dust. His sergeant would be there, reaching for him with terror in his eyes.
“I did my best. I made a tourniquet and dragged myself—”
“Jesus, I’m not talking about the ambush. Everyone knows you did everything you could and then some. I’m talking about right here, right now. How many of those guys would rather be in your place right now, alive? What are you doing out here, man, except wasting your life?”
“Fuck off.” His plans for his future had been upended in a millisecond. He’d expected to move up the ranks, retire from the army just like his dad and his grandfather before him, and take over the horse farm. He’d failed his family name, he’d failed his men, he’d failed himself.
“When’s the last time you lived a little? Had a drink, had fun, kissed a girl without feeling guilty?” Terrance asked with the patience of a therapist.
Guilt tracked him like his shadow, always there but only revealed in certain circumstances. Like after the unexpected kiss with Greer. At the touch of her lips, his failures and his leg had faded from his thoughts. His physical response had been quick and volatile and had left all other emotions dwarfed.
His last months had been spent enduring the impersonal touch of doctors and therapists. He’d forgotten how soft a woman’s body was and how amazing a woman’s needy hands felt against his skin.
That it was Greer—hot-tempered, sass-mouthed Greer—had only raised the stakes. She wasn’t some random woman he was using to
get back in the saddle or for a sexual fix. She’d been hurt, the reality of it still raw in her eyes, and he didn’t want to add to her pain. But he would. As soon as her hand trailed down his leg and wakened the shorted-out nerve endings close to his amputation, he’d come to his senses.
He would disappoint Greer, just like he was disappointing Terrance, just like he’d disappointed his dad.
Terrance killed the last of his watered-down tea, set the glass on the coffee table, and rose. “I’ll get out of here, so you can continue to sit on your ass.”
“I wasn’t sitting on my ass when you got here.” Defensiveness leapt into his voice, but it was bogus. He’d spent the majority of the time since his discharge planted in a rocking chair with only Jack for company. That was slowly changing, though.
Emmett trailed him to the door and stood at the top of the porch steps. The air between them snapped with contentiousness. Unable to bear the thought of adding one more regret to his stash, Emmett hopped down the stairs on his good leg and knocked on the truck’s driver’s window.
Terrance rolled it down, smirked, and quirked an eyebrow. “What is it, asshole?”
His response settled Emmett. They would be okay. “I don’t want to give you a big head, because Lord knows, you can barely get that eight ball through the neck of a T-shirt as it is, but…” He paused to assemble his thoughts. “You might have a point. About the wallowing thing. Believe it or not, I’m working on figuring things out.”
“Glad to hear it. I’ll shoot you a text before we fly out.”
The waters between them had calmed. Terrance had his window halfway up, when Emmett put his hand over the top. “Hang on. You said you had a favor and an offer. What was the offer?”
Terrance ran a hand over his chin. “Hell, I nearly forgot. The Colonel wants me to find out if you’d be interested in a job.”
It was the last thing Emmett expected. “Doing what? Cleaning his personal shitter with a toothbrush?”
Terrance barked a laugh. “As a contractor helping manage special projects.”
“Why me?”
“Colonel Harrison seems to remember a captain who was diplomatic and well-liked but could come down like a hammer. I think he meant you.” Terrance’s teasing sarcasm felt like a big brother’s; like family.
“I’m not sure I’m ready.”
“Get ready because he wants an answer by the end of the month. It pays well, and you’d be a welcome sight on base.”
Nothing could compare to the atmosphere on a military base. The one time Emmett had been back for a checkup at the VA medical center, he’d both missed it and couldn’t get away fast enough. Could he work on base as a civilian and not feel left behind watching friends like Terrance climb the ranks?
Emmett stepped back and waved Terrance down the lane, standing in the sun until the rumble of his truck faded into birdcalls and solitude.
A meow swung his attention to the here and now. Bonnie sat at his ankle and stared off to where Terrance had disappeared.
“Done hiding?” He scratched her behind the ears, inciting a loud purr. The kitten had at least doubled in size and filled out with regular feeding. “Probably a good thing you didn’t show yourself. Terrance would bust my ass if he knew I’d adopted a kitten.”
He retreated to the cabin, fed Bonnie, and paced. The offer from Colonel Harrison was another ingredient in his stew of confusion. He hadn’t considered his future since he’d come back to Madison because he hadn’t felt like he deserved one. Was Terrance right? Was he letting his men down by living half a life and denying himself love and friendship and a purpose?
He had to get out of his own head. More often the silence and solitude he’d sought weren’t comforting but oppressive. He changed shirts and fired up his truck. The rumble of the engine in his chest and the feel of the leather under his hands was like clutching a security blanket.
He headed toward the farm with the excuse of borrowing a ladder. Not only would honest manual labor distract him from a looming decision he didn’t want to make, his exhaustion would leave less room for nightmares.
He bounced off the driveway and cut across open grass for the barn. Alfie was in the paddock with a young stallion, putting him through his first paces.
In his mid-fifties, Alfie had been part of the farm as long as Emmett could remember. To say his face was weathered was a compliment to driftwood. The scars from skin cancer removals pocked his forehead and nose, but he was still lean as a stalk of okra with ropy muscles and a spry, bowlegged gait.
Emmett grabbed an apple and a brush from the stable and found Eddie Munster munching grass in the shade of a water oak to the side of the barn, his tail twitching lazily. When he spotted Emmett, he tossed his head and chuffed a greeting. Emmett took his time giving the horse the treat and a thorough brushing, keeping half his attention on Alfie and the young, high-strung but beautiful stallion.
Yes, he’d missed his horse, and he also missed the excitement of watching the yearlings grow in their confidence as they learned their craft. Emmett wasn’t ready to abandon his life of limbo, but with the Colonel’s offer on the table, he had decisions to make. Decisions that would alter the trajectory of his life.
Alfie sent the stallion toward the water trough and approached Emmett and Eddie Munster with a shy smile. “Well, I’ll be. That you, Emmett?”
Emmett patted Eddie’s rump before making his way around to shake Alfie’s hand. “I stopped by last week but you must have been up at the house. How are you?”
“No worries God can’t handle. The missus and I have been praying for you.”
The platitude usually got Emmett’s hackles up, but Alfie didn’t say it in a bless-your-heart, backhanded way. He spoke from a place of true faith. Faith that eluded Emmett.
“I appreciate it. How’re the horses?”
“We’ve got two ready to foal. Another three to be shipped to their new owners. Business is good.” Even though Alfie spoke all good news, troubles trenched his forehead and his lips pursed as if there was more to be said.
“What’s going on? What are you not telling me?”
“Not my place.” He hustled past Emmett toward the stable.
Emmett could barely keep up. “You can’t leave me hanging like that.”
Alfie stopped at the roomy birthing stall on the end of the stable and pulled out a carrot. A placard painted with the name Daisy hung askew off a hook to the side. Heavy with foal, the tan mare that had been to visit Emmett months earlier lumbered to poke her head over and snuffle at the treat.
“No, you shouldn’t leave it like that. Talk to your daddy.”
“I’m just here to borrow a ladder.”
“I keep them where I always have. Help yourself.” Alfie patted the mare on the neck as she crunched the carrot.
Emmett felt dismissed by a favorite teacher after failing an exam. If the farm was in trouble he wouldn’t put it past his dad to use it as leverage to get him back into the fold. If not the farm, then what was wrong?
After spending a few minutes with the mare, Emmett pulled a paint-stained A-frame ladder out of the storage room and slid it into his truck bed. He’d gotten what he came for, and it would take hours to get the gutters cleared. The air was thick and portended an afternoon thunderstorm. He needed to get to work.
He sat behind the steering wheel, his hand on the key but not turning it. The sweat creeping down the side of his face was the only thing that moved. The string of curses he let ring out made him feel marginally better. He climbed out, slammed the door, and trekked toward the big house.
A glance over his shoulder revealed Alfie standing in the door of the barn watching him. He waved a white cleaning rag in acknowledgment. That felt about right. A white flag of surrender.
An awkwardness descended when he faced the front door. He’d walked straight in countless times, dumped his backpack or rucksack on the floor next to the stairs, and headed straight to his dad’s office or the kitchen, depending on h
ow hungry he was.
That boy was a stranger. Should he knock like one?
He forced his hand to squeeze the latch. The door opened and blessed cool air took him in its grip and swept him inside. The smell of baking drew him toward the kitchen. He’d snuck out enough in high school to have memorized the creaky boards. Except a board that used to be safe creaked under his foot. Time had crept in and changed the map in his mind.
His mom called out, “Is that you, Henry? The banana bread is still warm if you want a slice with butter.”
Emmett stopped trying to muffle his steps and walked into the kitchen, but his mother hadn’t heard him. She pushed a piece of her graying bob behind an ear while she wrapped up a loaf in a colorful dish towel. He knew without a doubt it was for him.
“I’d love a piece if you have it to spare.”
She started with a gasp, then laughed. The pure joy on her face pained him, because it emphasized the anguish he’d brought her. He joined her at the counter. She had a streak of flour on her cheek and tears shining in her eyes.
“I’d hug you but I’m all sweaty,” he said.
“I don’t mind a little sweat. I’m married to a horse trainer, after all.” She leaned toward him and he wrapped her in a hug. She felt more delicate in his arms than he remembered. Closing his eyes, he could cast back to when her hugs had been all-encompassing, making him feel safe through every move they made as a family.
During those first few days at a new school when no one invited him to play at recess or sit next to them at lunch, he’d had her hug to welcome him home and assure him he would make new friends and find his place. She’d always been right.
She pulled away to cut him a slice of banana bread. A fallen tear had streaked the flour on her cheek. Shooing him to the table, she lay the plated slice in front of him, the butter already melted, the smell intoxicating. He ignored the fork and used his fingers, eating the bread in three bites.
Before he even swallowed, his mom put another, thicker slice on the plate along with a glass of milk. “Thanks,” he mumbled.
An Everyday Hero Page 18