by Caro Carson
Chapter Thirteen
Hugging was apparently as heinous as kissing.
Juliet had rolled her eyes at Matthew. She’d winked at Evan, they’d shared a laugh, and then she’d once more managed to get Matthew and his homework in the car without further fuss.
This time, Evan had watched it go down with different eyes. He stopped being impressed and amused by Juliet’s nerves of steel and looked a little harder as she faced a temper tantrum.
Juliet was barely hanging on.
She’d seemed so confident on Friday, walking into his office in her service uniform. The woman had her act together, her plans and contingency plans in order. She’d already chosen quarters for herself and had been ready to sign a lease, had Evan let her down.
She’d expected to be let down.
Why would she expect anything else? Time and again, she’d been through that pain.
It was all his fault.
The painful events in her life had hit her one after another, like dominoes falling. The cheating husband who’d abandoned her child while she was overseas, the second tries that ended in more cheating. The son who pleaded for her to make his father behave properly, the judge who ordered her to support her ex’s laziness, all of it was on Evan’s shoulders.
Evan had pushed that first domino.
He walked out to his patio. He didn’t light the firepit. He didn’t fire up the tower heater. Instead, he sat in the dark and lit a single cigar, taking a few shallow puffs to get the burn going.
He couldn’t push aside the guilt any longer.
He studied the ash glowing on the end of his cigar, and he remembered.
The wedding party had been huge, eight bridesmaids, a weeklong destination wedding. The groom had been the baseball team’s pitcher in college, a guy named Terry. His eight groomsmen had been the other eight starters of the team that had won the championship their senior year, including Evan, who’d played first base. Evan had been twenty-four. They all had been. Twenty-four and masters of the universe, kings of all they surveyed.
The bachelor party had moved from a swanky bar to a pool hall, everyone drunk enough to switch to cheap pool hall booze gladly.
The groom was being all grown-up, though. Instead of something cheap, Terry had produced a bootleg box of Cuban cigars and bottles of port. Evan and the rest had made manly noises of approval, as if they were experts on port and cigars at twenty-four. The groom had made an emotional speech and gotten all teary-eyed. Evan and the other true bachelors had been relieved when it was over. Someone had made a toast to Terry’s future fertility, and they’d all drunk their port.
Port was gross. Evan drank it anyway. It was expensive and sophisticated.
Their former catcher became glum. “I suppose we’ll all get tied down, sooner or later. Resistance is futile. I’m going to call dibs on one before all the good-looking women are gone.”
The second baseman tried to lighten things up as he lit his cigar. “Yeah? In that case, I call dibs on the blonde Evan brought this weekend. She got a twin?” He passed the butane torch to Evan.
Evan lit his cigar and took a few puffs, letting the smoke only flavor his mouth for a second before blowing it out. The cigar needed to develop a deep burn. These were just shallow puffs, to get it going. Shallow, like my women.
Shallow Issue Blondes. His friend Juliet had called his girlfriends that in college. No—that made no sense. He took another sip of port.
Standard Issue Blondes, that was it.
Juliet. What a smart aleck. Always fun. He’d hoped she’d be here for the wedding, but she wasn’t. He’d have to catch her at homecoming in the fall.
His favorite smart aleck was wrong anyway. Evan knew their names. He’d brought Christie to this week’s wedding festivities. Christie Brinkley. No—Christie Bartley. Bartles?
Christie What’s-her-name?
He’d studied the ash forming on the end of his cigar.
Juliet Grayson.
The second baseman clapped him on the back, making the ash drop to the floor.
“I’m not marrying Christie.” Evan took a deep drag on the very fine cigar, holding the smoke in his lungs this time. He wasn’t a smoker, so the nicotine hit him hard. He was still drunk, but suddenly alert.
Third base jumped in. “Damn, Stephens. She’s a knockout. If she’s not wife material, who is?”
Juliet Grayson. Her name made his brain hum like a live wire. He could suddenly recall every detail of her face, perfectly clearly. Clearly perfect—Juliet had been clearly perfect. Violins on the college green—he’d kissed her. Why had he never kissed her before that? They had a pact, though. A fallback plan. An ace in his pocket.
A pinkie promise.
Evan had smiled smugly. “All in good time. Haven’t gotten to her in the lineup yet.”
Rob Jones, who’d literally been out in left field their whole season, had never been able to tolerate it when anyone else got too much admiration. “You guys are buying this? Suckers. Stephens doesn’t have a lineup of potential wives.”
“Ah, Robbie, my friend.” Evan blew out the smoke, a deep, satisfying exhalation. “There’s no list for the wife potential. You only need one. Got that already squared away, gentlemen. She’ll be ready for the altar when I’m ready.” He chomped the cigar between his teeth on one side as he chalked his pool cue. “If I’m ever ready. Not likely.” He threw a comical look toward the groom. “No offense.”
Everyone laughed, except Rob. “You’re full of it, Stephens. You’re not the stud you pretend you are.”
“Whoa, there.” The catcher tried to put his hand on Rob’s shoulder to calm him down—and missed. “Whoa. Crap.”
“It’s supposed to be a party,” Terry said with a smile—and an undertone of warning.
Rob shook off the groom’s restraining hand. “Right. A party. We’re here to shoot some pool, so let’s do this, Stephens. You and me. A friendly game.”
There was no one Evan wanted to play against less, but he was in it now.
The pool table was readied, and Evan lined up his shot. Just as he was drawing back the stick, Robbie called his name.
What an ass. Thinks he’ll mess up my game.
“Who’s this woman that’s willing to wait for you to decide you’re in the mood to get married? Name her, or I don’t believe it. None of us do.”
Evan took his shot. The sound of pool balls ricocheting off one another was satisfying. Two sank in pockets. “What’s wrong, Robbie? Just because you can’t keep a girl longer than a week, you think a guy like me can’t?”
“A guy like you.” Rob snorted. “The guy who struck out and lost us the championship.”
“That was four years ago. Kid stuff. It’s time to man up.”
But Rob’s snide remark hit Evan where it hurt, right in the ego. He’d ended their junior year as the player who’d struck out in the bottom of the ninth, the final out that had ended the championship game with a loss.
He’d learned a lot of lessons from that, like how it didn’t matter that two other guys had struck out before him, because he was the one who’d struck out last. The infamy belonged to him, fair or not. He’d learned how to keep his head up, how to keep practicing, how to keep his faith in himself—how to step up to bat the next year and do better. His senior year, he’d been the player who’d hit the RBI that had won the whole enchilada.
He put those lessons to use in the army now. He encouraged the soldiers of his platoon to have the same response to setbacks. His biggest failure had made him a better leader.
A winner.
Screw Rob. He was a loser, and he always would be.
Evan sank the orange ball in the corner pocket. The cigar was making him frigging dizzy. It was a miracle he’d sunk that shot.
But he had.
“See, while you’re still
clinging to old glory on the baseball diamond, I’ve already been promoted to first lieutenant. Why do I have a woman lined up to marry me and you don’t? Because no woman is going to marry a guy she has to support. Do you know how much a dozen roses costs? What about a mortgage? Insurance? You want a wife? You need a real career.”
“Join the army?” Rob all but spit the words. “Be like you and a bunch of eighteen-year-olds trying to stay out of jail?”
Evan bent over the table, lined up his next shot, then looked up at Rob. “You got a better career going?” Without taking his eyes off Rob, he struck the cue ball and sank the shot.
Everyone around the table reacted like they were at a comedy roast, and Evan had just delivered a killing zinger.
He had. The guys all knew Rob flitted from project to project, pursuing business ideas that were little more than scams. He wanted to make a quick buck without having a boss to answer to, but he was failing. Rob didn’t answer to authority well.
First Lieutenant Evan Stephens could take an order, and he could give one. He was the platoon leader of thirty soldiers, which meant he was personally responsible for thirty lives. It was a sacred duty, one he’d been sworn to. Not something to laugh over at a bachelor party. Not even something to brag about.
He eyed Rob through a curl of smoke. “You wouldn’t make it through basic training. You’re scoffing at eighteen-year-olds who did. They succeeded. They’re part of something bigger than themselves.”
Now Evan was the one getting the warning pat on the shoulder from the catcher. “Don’t get so heavy, either one of you. This is a wedding. We’re talking about women.”
The groom, who probably liked the idea of someone else on the old team tying the knot, pressed Evan. “Who is this woman that the legendary Evan Stephens will deign to marry? This paragon of women? This...dare I say it? This unicorn?”
More guys weighed in. “If she’ll wait indefinitely, she’s not a unicorn. She’s a dog.”
Evan sipped his port. “Gentlemen, please. We’re talking about the future mother of my children. I’m not going to have ugly children. Not stupid ones, either.”
“I think Rob might be right. I think you’re making this up.”
“I think you’ve forgotten quality women exist.” Evan raised his glass in a little toast. “Women like Juliet Grayson.”
The murmurs of approval went around the room. Someone whistled.
“You’ve got one problem, Stephens. She’s a brunette.”
“She’s not brunette. She’s dirty blonde.” Since he had the cigar in his hand, he wiggled his eyebrows like Groucho Marx. “Emphasis on the dirty.”
Everyone laughed, except Rob, who was still glaring at him like he hated him.
Evan kept a smile on his face while his gut began to churn. What the hell was he doing? He made Juliet sound like she was a nympho. “Kidding, guys. Kidding. Juliet and I are only friends.”
It was time to change the subject, but when he asked the third baseman about his new job, Rob cut him off. “Wasn’t Juliet in ROTC? Is she stationed with you?”
“Fort Huachuca is a thousand miles away from my post.” He walked away from Rob, rounding the table to line up his next shot. “That’s why you need money. If you can buy plane tickets, distance won’t matter. Hell, it’ll help. A woman with wife potential will be impressed you spent your money and your time to see her. You have to make the effort.”
Evan ought to do that. Fly to Juliet’s place for a weekend. Not to impress her, not to date her, but just to pal around with the smart aleck for laughs.
“She’s got the same career you do,” Rob said. “She doesn’t need your money.”
Evan didn’t hit the next shot well. The ball ricocheted badly, but it hit another ball into the pocket instead. As long as Evan sank a ball with every shot, Rob would never get a turn.
Evan kept going. “There’s more to pocketing a wife than having a job. You’ve gotta show them you’ve got fatherhood potential, too.”
A couple of guys groaned.
“I didn’t say you had to like it, gentlemen. I just said you had to do it. You’ve got to show them you’re daddy material if you want them to think you’re husband material.”
“How do you do that?”
Evan hadn’t actually done that. He’d just told Juliet he was willing to have kids someday, when they were over the hill. Past thirty-five. Geezers.
He puffed on his cigar, buying time.
“Borrow a baby?” one guy suggested. The rest laughed, except Evan, because he was in midinhalation, and Rob, because he was a jerk.
“Buy her a kitten?”
Evan pointed his cigar at that guy. “That’s actually a good one.”
“It’s perfect,” the catcher said with enthusiasm. Maybe he had someone in mind already. “I can buy her a kitten.”
“It would have to be a puppy for Juliet.” Evan took aim at the last ball on the table. “She’s allergic to cats.”
He hit the ball, a perfect strike that sank the last ball in the side pocket.
Game over.
“Sorry, Rob. You didn’t get to take a shot, did you? Play the next guy. I’ve got a cigar to finish.”
That had been that.
The domino had been pushed. At homecoming that fall, Evan had been astonished to learn that Rob Jones had enlisted in the army. Evan had been sickened to learn that the reason Juliet wasn’t at homecoming was because she’d gone to Rob’s basic training graduation instead. Rob wasn’t good enough for Juliet. Surely, she’d see that.
Months later, when he’d heard that Rob and Juliet had gotten married, he’d punched a hole in a wall. He’d gotten his hand in a cast and he’d paid for the drywall repair, but it would take another three years before Evan would see Juliet laughing at a hamburger-stealing toddler, and he’d realize the life he’d ruined had been his own. Not hers.
But he’d been wrong about that.
He’d fallen out of touch with Juliet after Afghanistan intentionally. She’d seemed happy on that airstrip, happy to go home to Rob and her four-year-old. For that one moment in time, her life had seemed good, so Evan had cut off everything there, wanting to believe that pushing that domino hadn’t really hurt her, after all.
At the time, he’d told himself that he couldn’t have her, so he couldn’t think about her. But the truth was, he hadn’t wanted to know if she was struggling as Rob’s wife, because then Evan would have had to accept the blame. That made him more than a bad friend. That made him a coward.
Evan stubbed out his cigar and tossed it into the cold firepit. He hated his old, arrogant boasts. He hated the way he’d underestimated Rob, and it had nothing to do with his pride or his manhood or any other foolishness. He hated it because it had resulted in years of pain for Juliet.
He was going to fix this.
Everything he’d taken from her, he was going to give back. She was going to have a faithful husband. She was going to have a happy son. The things she didn’t realize she’d lost, he would give back as well, like days spent having fun, free time to develop her own friends and her own interests. He wanted to put the joy back in sex, and give her—God, yes—that second child she’d denied herself.
And he was going to pray that she never, ever found out he was the one who had taken all those things from her in the first place.
Chapter Fourteen
“Grab your fishing pole. We’ll walk the rest of the way to the dock.”
Matthew trudged along, complaining all the way. “I didn’t want to come. I told you that. I told my mom that.”
His tone bordered on insolent, but Evan focused on the telltale tremor that sounded more fearful than hostile. It was Wednesday, and the first time the two of them had done anything alone. Matthew knew the man he’d never heard of a week ago was going to be his stepfather, and he was as keyed u
p as if that man was taking him to jail instead of an empty dock on a pond.
Earlier in his MP career, when he’d taken patrol, Evan had taken enough men to jail to know that the more powerless they felt, the more they tried to bait officers into arguments. Their emotional maturity could quickly regress to schoolyard level. Evan had kept himself above it by addressing insolent criminals as if they were rational adults. It had always helped defuse the situation. Evan hoped it would help him deal with a pouting, angry, frightened eleven-year-old.
“Why aren’t we playing catch?” Matthew complained. “I thought we were going to play catch.”
“We did, Monday and Tuesday. You practiced at school today, so we can do something different this evening.”
“But why are you making me fish?”
Because it’s Wednesday, and I’m marrying Juliet on Friday, and before that happens, you and I are going to come to an understanding. Your mother is sad, and you are sad, and it’s Rob’s fault, but mine, too. I’m going to fix everything I can fix.
Evan sat on the end of the dock, letting his feet hang freely over the edge. The water level was far enough below them, he could leave his shoes on.
Matthew sat, too. “If you didn’t want to practice, then I could’ve played Avengers instead of doing this. There’s nothing out here.”
Evan looked at the still water of the little pond, at the wild brush on the opposite bank, the golden cast to the sunset. There was a beauty to it, but when he was eleven, he would have thought this was nothing, too.
Evan kept his tone matter-of-fact. “I thought this might be fun.”
“What if I don’t think sitting on a dock is fun?”
Evan shrugged. “Then you won’t have fun. But by the time we’re done, you’ll know how to bait a hook and cast a line. Good skills for a boy to know.”
“I don’t want you to teach me boy stuff. I don’t want to learn boy stuff.”
“Why not?” Evan tore a slice of white bread in half and handed him one piece. “Here, mash this into a ball.”
“My dad said kiddie time was over.”