The Marine's Road Home

by Brenda Harlen

  Sky set the mug back on the shelf. “Straight up or on the rocks?”

  “Straight up.”

  She reached for a glass and poured a shot of whiskey.

  “What’s the occasion?” she asked, as she set the drink in front of him.

  Jake’s only response was to lift the glass to his lips and toss back the alcohol.

  “Another one,” he said, pushing the empty glass toward her.

  Sky frowned but acquiesced to his request. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you?”

  “I’m not here for company or conversation,” he said, echoing the words he’d spoken ten weeks earlier.

  “That’s obvious,” she noted dryly. “But I thought we were already friends.”

  He lifted his gaze to hers then. “You might want to reconsider. Most of my friends don’t fare too well.”

  And there, she knew, was the heart of the story he had yet to tell her. Because the bits and pieces he’d shared about his life before coming to Haven were nothing more than that. But she hadn’t pushed, suspecting that if she did, he’d just withdraw further. Instead, she’d waited, confident that he would open up when he was ready.

  She hadn’t anticipated that he might be ready on a Friday night when she was working in a packed bar. So she poured and mixed, filling orders and keeping an eye on Jake as best she could.

  “Another one,” he said, nudging the glass toward her again.

  She tipped the bottle over the glass. “That’s a lot of whiskey for a guy who usually limits himself to a single draft beer,” she remarked.

  He tossed back the third shot.

  She finished an order for Courtney, then called out to Rowan, who was working the other end of the bar. “Can you hold down the fort for two minutes?”

  Her bartending partner nodded as he mixed drinks. “A quick two minutes,” he agreed. “That looks like a bachelorette party just coming in.”

  Sky glanced toward the door and noted the group of women decked out in sparkling tiaras and satin sashes identifying them as bridesmaid, maid of honor or bride.

  “I have no doubt you can deflect amorous advances and mix cosmopolitans at the same time,” she said lightly.

  “Of course, I can,” Rowan agreed with a wink. “But your two minutes are ticking.”

  She ducked away from the bar and into the kitchen, relieved to see that Duke was still there. The owner of Diggers’ usually stopped by most nights to check on his business and chat with his customers—and sample whatever was on special from the kitchen that day.

  “I’m glad I caught you,” Sky said, as her boss carried his empty plate and cutlery to the sink. “I need a favor.”

  * * *

  Jake didn’t protest when Sky took his arm and guided him through the kitchen and out the back door of the restaurant. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all until she opened the passenger door of her Jeep and nudged him in that direction.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’m taking you home,” she told him.

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to go home. I want another drink.”

  She held up the bottle of JD from the bar. “You can have another drink at home.”

  That seemed to satisfy Jake, as he got into the SUV without further protest.

  Molly was, as always, happy to see her master return. And though she let Sky fuss over her, too, she stayed close to Jake’s side. The dog might have flunked training, but there was no doubt that she was sensitive to Jake’s moods and protective of him.

  After walking through the door, Jake immediately went to the cupboard to retrieve two glasses, then reached for the bottle in Sky’s hand.

  “Don’t pour one for me,” she said. “Jack Daniels and I broke up a long time ago.”

  “I don’t see much of him anymore, either,” he said. “But we still get together once a year.”

  “Why tonight?”

  “Why not?” he countered, and tossed back another mouthful of whiskey.

  She moved past him and into the living room, because she sensed it was going to be a long night and preferred not to spend it on a hard chair in the kitchen.

  Jake—and, of course, Molly—followed.

  He set the bottle and glass on the coffee table before dropping onto the sofa. Frowning, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his cell phone, then tossed it on the table, too.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” she asked.

  “Why do you think something’s going on? Can’t a guy stop by the bar to have a few drinks without an interrogation?” he challenged.

  “I’m not interrogating you,” she denied, keeping her tone level. “I’m wondering why a man who usually doesn’t drink anything more than a single pint of beer when he comes into the bar is suddenly knocking back shots of hard liquor.”

  Jake knocked back another before replying. “I used to drink a lot. Probably too much and for too long.” He stared at the amber liquid in the bottle for a long moment, then shook his head, his expression bleak. “But no amount of alcohol could make me forget.”

  “How long has it been?” she asked gently.

  “Since what?”

  “I’m guessing today is the anniversary of whatever happened that led to the end of your military career.”

  “Not much gets past you, does it?”

  “I’m not asking you to share anything you don’t want to,” she said, ignoring the bitterness in his tone. “I just want you to know that I’m here if you want to share.”

  “People always want to hear the war stories,” he said, pouring another shot. “Like drivers slowing by the scene of a car wreck on the side of the road. There’s a morbid fascination...a need to know what went wrong...and a sense of relief that it happened to someone else and not you.

  “When they meet someone who’s seen action, they want to know all the details of battles fought and won. It’s like we’re actors playing at war on a movie screen and not real people who wake up every morning wondering if it might be our last.

  “And they don’t seem to know—or maybe don’t care—that most of us don’t want to talk about it. Most of us just want all the noise in our heads to go away. Just for a day. Or even an hour.” His tone was as anguished as his expression. “And then we feel guilty for wishing that we could forget. Because if we don’t remember those who didn’t make it back—if I don’t remember my team—who will?”

  “Can you tell me about them?” she asked.

  He seemed surprised by her request. “You want me to tell you about my recon team?”

  “Actually...can you start by telling me what a recon team is?”

  “You don’t know much about the military?” he guessed.

  “I can give you chapter and verse on breeding cattle, but the divisions and ranks of the armed forces are a mystery to me.”

  “You learn fast when your boots are on the ground.” He poured another drink. “But in answer to your question, Marine Division Recon are the reconnaissance assets of the MAGTAF. Marine Air-Ground Task Force,” he explained in response to her blank look.

  She nodded, encouraging him to continue.

  “It was our job to observe and report on enemy activity and anything else that might be significant to military operations, such as surveying routes, examining bridges and buildings, assessing LZs and DZs—landing zones and drop zones,” he clarified before she could ask.

  “How many soldiers are on a team?”

  He shook his head. “On a USMC recon team, none. A soldier serves in the army.”

  “Okay, how many Marines are on a USMC recon team?”

  “Usually six,” he told her. “The team leader, assistant team leader, point man, radio operator, assistant radio operator and slack man.”

  “You were the team leader?” sh
e guessed.

  He saluted sharply. “Staff Sergeant Jake Robert Kelly at your service.”

  “And the rest of your team?”

  “Sergeant Ken Baker was the assistant team leader and one of the toughest guys I’ve ever known—unless he was talking about his wife or any one of his three daughters, then he was a complete marshmallow. We called him Tex, because he was from El Paso and you could hear hints of his hometown in his voice.

  “Our point man was Lance Corporal Calvin Moore, otherwise known as Big Red because he stood six-feet-five-inches tall with a mop of ginger hair. No one was surprised to learn that he’d played on the basketball team in high school, but he’d also played trumpet in the marching band and liked to sing in the shower. Especially AC/DC tunes,” Jake said, and smiled a little at the memory.

  “Our radio operator was Corporal Anderson Walker. When Tex found out that he was a third generation Marine, he dubbed the RO Trey. Trey was a hardcore video gamer who could kick anyone’s ass at Call of Duty, but he hated having to fire a real weapon. He didn’t hesitate, when the need arose, but he never found any pleasure in it.”

  It wasn’t the names and roles he recited but the personal details that made Sky realize these men had been more than just Marines under Jake’s command. They’d been his brothers in arms, his family. And her heart ached for him, because she’d guessed what was coming.

  “Corporal Mario Lopez was our ARO,” he continued, “nicknamed Merlin because he was nothing less than a wizard when it came to fixing problems with the communications equipment. And there were frequently problems with the communications equipment. He was a quiet guy, totally smitten with his high school sweetheart and counting the days until he could marry her when he got back home.

  “And then there was Lance Corporal Brian Lucey, our slack man. He was another one from Texas—San Antonio, I think—but because the name Tex was already taken, he got Ditto. He enlisted as soon as he turned eighteen, desperate to get away from his abusive father. Or maybe he joined the Marine Corps to toughen him up so he could hit back. He had such a chip on his shoulder in the beginning, but he quickly became an integral part of the team.”

  “How many of them did you lose?” she asked gently.

  “Four. Three almost right away, because of their proximity to the blast. Merlin somehow held on for almost seventy-two hours, but he never regained consciousness. Trey was the only other survivor, but he lost the use of both of his legs. I was the lucky one,” he said, his tone bleak.

  “Merlin recognized Salah-al-din Hajjar walking down the street as we made our way through a remote village near Dohuk. He’d worked with us as an interpreter on an earlier mission and we wanted to get his take on some recent intel, so me and Trey jumped out of the truck to flag him down, just before the RPG hit.

  “The force of the blast threw us about twenty feet—or so I was told. I don’t remember any of it. And the not knowing is almost as bad...or maybe even worse...than remembering.”

  She’d seen the ink on his upper arm, of course, and realized it was a list of names:

  Sgt Ken Baker.

  Cpl Mario Lopez.

  LCpl Calvin Moore.

  LCpl Brian Lucey.

  Now she understood why.

  “Theirs are the names tattooed on your arm,” she said.

  He nodded. “I wasn’t there for the funeral. I’d been airlifted back to the US because of the head trauma, and I wanted—needed—in some way, to honor them. To ensure that I don’t ever forget—even if I can’t remember what happened.

  “The doctors say it’s not unusual after a brain injury, but I can’t help thinking that if I could only remember, there might have been something I could have done ...something that might have ensured they all came home.”

  “You can’t hold yourself responsible for what happened,” she told him.

  “But I am responsible. It was my team. They were my men.” He scrubbed his hands over his face to wipe away the tears that had spilled onto his cheeks. “Tex had a wife and three kids. Merlin was planning to get married. They were good men. They didn’t deserve to die. And there was no reason for me to live, except that I jumped out of the truck to try to catch up with Hajjar.”

  She knew there were no words that could possibly make him feel any better. Sure, she could tell him that it wasn’t his fault, but no doubt he’d already been told the same thing by countless people before her. It didn’t matter that it was probably even true. The only thing that mattered was the grief and the guilt that obviously weighed heavy in his heart.

  “We want to believe that we’d more easily accept the tragic events that happen if only we could understand why,” she said. “As if there could possibly be some reason or higher purpose that would help it all make sense. But even if that were true, it doesn’t really change anything. Knowing the how or why certainly can’t bring back the lives of those we’ve lost.”

  He nodded and lifted his glass to his lips, then put it down again to look at her more closely. “Who did you lose?”

  “My mom,” she confided.

  “How?”

  “She died in a riding accident when I was seven. I’m not trying to equate her death with the loss of your men,” she hastened to assure him. “I only wanted you to know that I understand how the what-ifs can haunt you.”

  “You were seven—what could you have done any differently?” he wondered.

  “Had oatmeal for breakfast.”

  He looked at the nearly empty bottle of JD. “Either I’ve had too much of this or not enough, because that didn’t make any sense to me.”

  “My mom loved to ride,” Sky explained. “Every morning after we’d all had breakfast, she’d saddle up Honey and go for a ride.

  “The morning of the accident, I overslept a little, and everyone else had finished eating by the time I sat at the table. She had a bowl of oatmeal waiting for me, but I wanted toast with Grandma’s homemade strawberry jam.”

  “Make your own stupid toast,” Katelyn had said.

  Because Mom had invited Katelyn to go riding with her that morning, and Sky’s sister was eager to get started.

  “I want Mom to make it,” she’d insisted.

  “Maybe if I hadn’t insisted on having toast that morning, my mom would have started out on her ride five minutes earlier. And maybe when she got to the ridge, whatever spooked her horse wouldn’t have been there yet and she wouldn’t have fallen. She wouldn’t have died.”

  And Kate wouldn’t have had to watch it all unfold.

  “It’s hard not to wonder,” Jake acknowledged.

  She nodded, because she knew Kate still wondered, too. If she’d called 9-1-1 using their mom’s cell phone instead of riding back to the house for help, could the paramedics have got there in time to save her?

  Jake offered his glass to Sky. “Are you sure you don’t want some of this?”

  “I’m sure,” she said, taking the now-empty bottle from his other hand.

  He’d undoubtedly overindulged and would pay the price tomorrow, but he hadn’t drunk as much as he probably thought because the bottle she’d brought from the bar had been more than half empty before she’d even poured his first shot at Diggers’. She returned from the kitchen, only a couple of minutes later, with a glass of water and the bottle of Tylenol to find Jake asleep on the sofa.

  Sky didn’t worry about trying to get him to the bedroom. As he’d pointed out to her once before, he’d slept in worse places than the sofa in his living room.

  She did worry about the nightmares he’d mentioned and the likelihood that they would plague him tonight. But as reluctant as she was to leave him alone to battle those demons, she sensed that he wouldn’t want her to stay. Maybe they were gradually working their way toward a real relationship, and maybe they’d taken a few steps closer tonight, but they weren’t quite there yet.

&
nbsp; So she put the glass and the pills on the end table, plugged his phone into the charging cable there, and gave the Lab a scratch behind her ears.

  “Take care of him, Molly.”

  The dog lifted her head, as if to acknowledge the request, but she didn’t move from Jake’s side.

  So Sky pulled a blanket up over both of them and headed back to her own home. Once there, she sat outside on the porch steps for a while, leaning against a support post to look up at the stars and pray to the heavens that her wounded warrior would find peace.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jake felt the press of something cold and wet against his cheek. “Go away,” he muttered.

  Molly nudged him again.

  He sighed wearily. “I really need to put in a doggy door.”

  And while that was probably a good plan for the future, the idea was absolutely no help to him now.

  Molly whined.

  He pushed himself into a seated position and opened bleary eyes just as his phone began to blast Reveille—the ringtone he’d assigned to his brother’s number. It had seemed funny at the time. This morning, not so much.

  He grabbed for the phone—not because he wanted to talk to Luke so much as he wanted the damn music to stop.

  “’Lo,” he said, wondering if the hoarse syllable was his own voice. His mouth felt as if it was stuffed with cotton, his head felt as if jackhammers were trying to break through his skull and his whole body ached.

  “Jake?”

  He cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

  He kicked off the blanket that was tangled around his legs and rose to his feet. Molly raced to the door.

  “I’ve been going out of my mind with worry. Why didn’t you return my calls?”

  “You called?” He opened the door, squinting against the bright morning sun as the dog streaked past him.

  “I left four, maybe five, voicemail messages yesterday,” Luke said impatiently.

  “I didn’t get any—oh.” As the fog that surrounded his brain began to clear, memories of the night before slowly came into focus. “The battery on my cell phone died when I was out.”