by C. B. Stagg
“It’s not my job to find out what brought them to my door. Everyone carries their own burdens. I’m only here to put food in their bellies and hopefully a smile on their faces a few nights a week. The rest of it is between them and God.” He started his engine as he tapped the horn to get his wife’s attention. She’d been talking to one of the poor people, the man with the sexy voice, I think. She waved goodbye, hurried into the passenger seat, and they drove off into the night.
It didn’t take but a glance at my car to see something was off. “Damn it!” I marched over, kneeling down to see the shiny nail stuck into my deflated driver’s side tire. This day could go to hell.
“Can I help you out with that?” My heart about jumped out of my throat as I looked up into the face of the man Chance called Bennett. Yep, he was every bit as delicious as his voice indicated, with cheekbones sharp as a machete and closely cropped hair the exact color of a Hershey’s bar. Standing, I brushed my hands off on my jeans.
“No, don’t worry. I have a car phone for just such an emergency. I can call the dealership. They have roadside assistance.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure they do, at 9:00 on a Friday night. Give me the keys.” He held his hand out.
“What? No, I’m not giving you the keys to my brand-new Beamer. You’re nuts.” Sure, poor, possibly homeless man... I’ll just hand over my keys so you can stab me with a shank, stuff me in the trunk, and ride off into the sunset in my $40,000 vehicle, paper plates from the dealer still attached. He wasn’t going to charm me with that hunky, husky voice of his.
“Nuts? Maybe… but right now I’m all you got, so pop that trunk?”
“Excuse me? What the hell do you need out of my trunk?” My voice was at least two octaves higher than usual and I prayed the Lowes lived the rest of their lives with the guilt of knowing they left me all alone with this murderer with the bronze-colored eyes and smooth as silk voice.
“Well, I’d like to get your spare out and change this tire before we both melt. Just because the sun’s gone down doesn’t mean the temperature has.”
He leaned into the trunk to retrieve the spare and whatever else he needed to fix the flat, and in doing that, flexed some muscles that made my temperature rise. I physically fanned my heated cheeks, shaking my head. No, I could not be looking at this guy’s perfectly sculpted ass and massive thighs. I was spoken for. And no matter how many times I said that to myself, I only looked away a split second before he turned back around. And oh, those arms.
“Can I, I dunno, hold the flashlight for you at least?” He grunted and shook his head, already jacking up the car. So I grabbed my car phone, stood back, and let him get to it so I could get home.
I called home to check my answering machine. After leaving several messages on Gareth’s machine, it was about damn time for him to return one of my calls.
“Hey, babe, sorry I’ve been MIA lately, this semester is already kicking my ass. I’m calling to see if you have plans over Christmas break—I was thinking we could go up to the Aspen cottage. Let me know. Bye.”
Finally, there it was. Aspen. Just as Lori predicted. Three months ago—even three weeks ago—all I wanted was this: an invite to a posh ski resort, a diamond ring, and a question I’d been promised since I first had hormones. Yet, all I could focus on was the sight in front of me.
Homeless or not, the man made changing a tire look like a well-rehearsed dance, with the heavy steel light perched efficiently between his shoulder and his head like a telephone receiver. It was impossible not to notice how his grey T-shirt, with ARMY printed across his chest in block letters, started to dampen as it stretched across his broad, muscular shoulders.
I meandered closer and got a whiff of his clean, sweaty, manly smell. I leaned in for more while he made the dirty work of loosening, screwing, and fastening look like child’s play and in just a few more minutes, I was afraid I’d once again be roadworthy.
“You’re good at that.” I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed the shirt hadn’t come off. It was wicked hot.
“Yeah, well. When the difference of a few minutes could mean the difference between life and death, you learn to be quick.” I was all for dramatics, but something told me he wasn’t exaggerating, which made me even more curious as to who this dark-haired stranger really was. I sat on the curb.
“Stop biting.” I yanked my finger from my mouth and narrowed my eyes at Bennett as he tightened a lug nut on my spare.
“I wasn’t biting—,” I spat, the lie coming to my lips as naturally as breathing. He reminded me of my brother, with the nagging.
“Oh yeah, tell that to your cuticles.” With a grunt, he grabbed the deflated tire and popped it back in the trunk, followed by the lug wrench and the jack. “All right, you’re good to go.”
“Thank you. I’m Jillian, by the way.” I extended my arm, but was grateful when he backed away, showing me his blackened palms.
“Bennett Hanson and you’re welcome. It’s nice to meet you, Jill.”
“Don’t call me Jill. My name is Jillian.” My mother always said, upper-crust, well-bred girls did not tolerate nicknames.
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Look, can I pay you or something?” I ducked inside for my wallet, but he was already several feet from the car.
“No, thank you.” He kept walking to the spigot on the side of the building to wash his hands. I looked up and down the street for signs of Bennett Hanson’s truck, but came up empty. We were in College Station, where the pickup truck to good ole boy ratio was high, so it was easy to assume that was this man’s chosen mode of transportation.
“Can I at least give you a ride to your car?” The question surprised me as much as it did him. He stopped and turned, cocking his head to one side.
“No, I can manage. I certainly wouldn’t want to take advantage of your kindness.” And turning on his toes, he started toward campus with a smile on his face and a bounce in his step.
I watched Bennett walk toward campus, backpack slung over his right shoulder, left hand in his pocket. When he turned a corner and was out of sight, I pulled out and headed down Jersey toward home.
Who was Bennett Hanson? And why was he at a soup kitchen? Clearly, that hadn’t been his first visit. He and Chance had a special rapport and his bond with Mrs. Lowe was touching. She looked at him the way I imagine she most likely looked at her son when he was still alive. My heart hiccuped as memories tried to surface, but I pushed them back down. I was taught to bury my feelings, never show emotion.
The whole ride home, my mind was consumed with one man, and it wasn’t the one who was having a four-carat diamond ring fitted to my finger.
Chapter 7
Bennett
“Chance, get off man!” I gasped, using all my strength to pull much needed oxygen into my lungs. Between the weight of his body and the raw heat, I was suffocating, each breath dragging more and more fine desert sand into my lungs. I coughed, sputtering as I tried to draw a deep breath. “Chance! Move!”
“No, man! If I move, you die!” We were in the bunks at basic training, worlds away from any real dangers. But the unmistakable rattle of gunfire echoed through the night and the shouts of soldiers just outside were nothing short of frantic.
“Dude, this isn’t funny. Off. Now.” As I tried to push him off, he laughed. What started low and rough, morphed into something loud and full, coming from somewhere deep inside my friend. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard come from Chance’s mouth.
He rolled off, clutching the battle worn picture in his bloody hand over his heart. “I forgot to save the arms, man, I’m sorry. I forgot all about the arms.” Sure enough, what I’d been using to push him off were gone, now only bloody stumps at the elbows.
“They don’t hurt.” I raised them, inspecting the beauty of the red muscle against bright white bone, jagged at the break. “Why don’t they hurt?” I look over and see Chance has my hands in his, dangling them over where I lay.
“They can’t hurt, Ben. They’re gone. I didn’t save them. Remember?” He was monotone, looking at the bloody scrap of a picture on the ground at his feet. “Ben, you don’t have arms. Now you can’t hold her. You can’t hold my golden girl. You don’t have arms, but don’t worry Ben. I can hold her with your arms.
He then began trying to grab the picture using my hands like the claw machine you’d see at an arcade.
I sat straight up, letting the darkness of the room wrap around me like a warm blanket on a winter morning. My arms, curled tight around my midsection, had fallen asleep. As I bent and moved each finger, pins and needles took over, reminding me they were still very much attached.
What the hell was that about? I shook my head, trying to shake off the residue of the dream. His golden girl. I didn’t even know her name. All I know is he grew up in New York. In the Bronx, actually. He was all The Yankees are bad asses, they’re gonna kick the Astro’s farmer asses this year. Truth? I didn’t care, but when he started talking smack about Houston, I became the ‘Stro’s biggest fan. It was a guy thing, something I hadn’t known much about before joining the army and meeting Chance.
It had crossed my mind more than once that I should try to find his golden girl. Did she know he was dead? Did she even exist? And how on earth would I find her with no name, a picture almost worn clean of ink, and the name of a soldier who let her live in his heart?
I’d spent more time than I’d like to admit watching the sun push the darkness away, craving that same relief. It was nights like this I wish I’d never surrendered to sleep. Pulling out the picture from my wallet, I looked again, willing something to pop out at me. A pudgy face with braces and what appeared to be dark hair, dark eyes. I just described more than half the population of Brooklyn.
Trudging out of bed, I started a pot of coffee before heading toward the shower. Fridays were always tough, thanks to 8:00 a.m. statistics. It wouldn’t have been my first choice, but beggars can most certainly not be choosers. I was lucky to be enrolled at all. Plus, math and I got along just fine, so this was a fluff class for me.
The water took a millennium to heat up, but this was an odd morning. I actually had time to wait. I was caught up on homework and reading, and the night I changed Jill’s—no, Jillian’s tire—I’d come right back and used a computer on the third floor to knock out the paper I’d been writing for my sociology class.
When steam started escaping from under the bathroom door, I jumped in and stood completely still, letting the water run over my tired body. Hot showers were another thing falling under the ‘You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone’ category. There are so many things in life I’d taken for granted that the army taught me to appreciate. Hot showers, real food, beautiful women.
And there she was, in my mind, just like she was that night. Any red-blooded man would have appreciated watching her bend and stretch as she replenished the supplies, but when Jillian turned around, all coherent thought left my brain. I’d been speaking with Mrs. Lowe and there’s no way she missed how my words evaporated into thin air and how my eyes affixed to Jillian, following her for the rest of the night.
The pull of gravity was stronger in Texas than it was overseas. It probably had something to do with the twenty-four/ seven adrenaline high of combat. Seeing Jillian that night brought that high right back. That apron tied around her slim waist created an off-key harmony with the stylish, name brand clothing hugging her curves, but it also served as a mask. I saw through her artifice though. I saw her. In the moments when she spoke with Chance, she let her guard down and her true self emerged. That girl, the one humming George Strait as she washed dishes, wiggling her hips to the beat when she thought no one was watching. That girl was someone the old Bennett Hanson would have given a limb to love.
Dressed and ready for class a full hour earlier than planned, I crept into Chance’s office, grabbed the phone receiver, and started dialing. The call was well overdue.
“Hello?” Her tone held a tremor I’d equate to fear. God, it was good to hear her voice.
“Rosie!” I heard the rustle of her covering the phone while she barked admonitions to whoever was in her kitchen. I imagine it was something like, Settle down and zip it, I’m on the phone. I have a wooden spoon and I’m not afraid to use it, or something like that.
“Mijo?” My son? I laughed.
“Yeah, one of them. Now you get to figure out which.” Rosie and Doc had fostered nearly a hundred kids over the years on their ranch. Well, technically, now it was my ranch too, but it would always be their ranch.
“Bravo, you think I do not know you when you call me? But I shouldn't, should I? I should forget your voice, you call me so little, but I will always know mi bravo.” Bravo. Brave. She’d called me that since I stepped on her porch as a skinny, know-it-all who had no use for a short, squatty Mexican woman who tried to wipe my face with her dish towel before she even introduced herself.
“I sure do miss you, old woman.” I could hear her smile over the phone and I felt it in my gut. It may have never been official, but this was my family and I think I missed them now more than I had when I was more than seven thousand miles away.
“How is class? Are you paying attention? Keeping up with your studies? You’re a smart boy, Bravo. Very smart.”
“It’s good, Rosie. I have a little apartment. And I have a job working in the library.” It was true. Due to my financial aid paperwork, essentially stating I had zero dollars, Chance was able to hire me as a student worker. I worked when I could, after hours, copying old documents in sets to be sent to different campus libraries within the Texas A&M University system. I can’t say it’s the most stimulating work, but I essentially get paid to push a few buttons and study, so no complaints here.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Why would you think something’s wrong?” I swear she was involved in some Mexican voodoo. She knew what was up from hundreds of miles away.
“No me mientas.”
“I’m not lying. I’m just not sleeping.”
“Pesadillas?” Nightmares? She whispered it like a revelation, not a question.
“Yeah. It’s getting better though. It’s not as bad as it was.”
“Como se llama?”
“Rosie. Sweetie. I don’t speak Spanish. But who? I haven’t met anyone special.”
“Mentira.” She mumbled under her breath.
“Her name is Jillian. I changed her tire. She’s highborn, you can tell, and she’d never give a second look to a guy like me.” I sighed. “Besides, I’m not here to find a girl. That’s the last thing I want to do.”
“Bonita?” Grrr. She never listened. I dropped my chin to my chest, mourning once again the man I was and the man I could have been.
“Muy bonita.” And she was. She will make some man terribly happy. Hell, she might be with him right now, waking up in his bed, stretching out like a cat, before flopping back down for a few more minutes of sleep in his arms, lucky bastard.
“Come home, Mijo.”
“I can’t. I have to work. I have class. I’m taking a full load and if I don’t stay on top of it, I’ll drown.” But I wanted to. I really wanted to. I could work on the ranch without thought. Doc and I could work side by side for ten hours and exchange even fewer words. It was familiar. It was safe. But being on the ranch wasn’t moving me forward in life.
“Te amo mi cielo.” Oh, she was laying it on thick.
“I’ll try and come home for Christmas, Mama.”
“I’ll send you a bus ticket. And Benito? You are a good boy and you are so easy to love. Don’t ever forget.”
I hung up the phone, lonelier than I’d been before. I’d always been part of something bigger. I entered the system at fifteen after both of my parents were imprisoned for running a drug ring out of our shanty in East Texas. From there, I was sent to a foster ranch, where I met Rosie and Doc. For the next three years, they did their best to infuse into me all the love I’d
missed out on in a household where I remained invisible… albeit tough to do most of the time.
The day I turned eighteen, I enlisted in the US Army and the rest is history. Now, four years later, I’m stronger, smarter, and despite my current living situation, I feel more stable than I have in years. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss being part of a group. I thought all this alone time was what I needed, if for nothing else than to sort myself out and get my mind right. But the persistent silence was doing more harm than good.
All day long, I’d been debating dinner. I was surviving fine on bread, peanut butter, and whatever else I could pick up at the general store on the edge of campus for weeks, but the idea of a hot meal was too much to resist.
I hadn’t returned to The Community Cafe for their infamous big Friday night dinner since I’d changed Princess Jillian’s tire a few weeks before. The Monday/ Wednesday dinners were different. Sometimes breakfast food, once a big salad bar, and a few days before, when the temperature dropped, they served soup and sandwiches. I enjoyed those meals, but I’d been dreaming of all-American beef for a month. I think part of me still struggled with the whole charity aspect of things, but another part of me knew Friday was the day she was there. I had no desire to see the mix of pity and disgust in Jillian’s eyes when she looked at me in that place. I could go a lifetime without hot food to spare myself from that look again.
“Hey, wait! Bennett?” I was thinking of food, deciding if I should shower or not, as I entered the library. But hearing my name, I stopped cold. I’d gotten so good at skirting past the circulation desk undetected, but it was Friday afternoon—the place was deader than disco, and I feared my cover had been blown.
It was cool, I was cool. I certainly wasn’t a stowaway in the weird little hobbit hole under the stairs this guy may or may not even know about.