by Caro Carson
The thought made her heart hurt. Meeting and marrying the same day was crazy, but it was crazy-optimistic. Optimism didn’t deserve scorn. No wonder Tom had asked her not to say anything. No wonder he’d been so desperate that he’d promised her February if she would pretend theirs wasn’t a temporary arrangement.
February. That made her heart hurt, too. It was supposed to make her feel free.
The ring was where she’d left it, a little circle of perfection abandoned on a wooden windowsill. Helen picked it up and slid it on. It sparkled. Her breath caught—it was really something, to see a wedding ring on your finger for the first time when you knew it would be there forever. Wasn’t it?
She felt a shiver down the back of her neck. Was that how she’d felt with this ring? Or was she remembering the first time she’d worn a ring, for Russell?
She returned to Tom’s side and held out her hand cautiously. His parents wanted to see the ring, but she wasn’t anticipating any joy in their reaction. More like an evaluation.
“Oh.” His mother nodded as if now she could believe they were married.
“He shouldn’t have bought you something that expensive if you don’t know how to keep accountability of your belongings. Do you always leave valuables in the kitchen?”
General Cross had that scorn thing down cold. Helen smiled, though it killed her.
“Only when I’m cooking or cleaning.” Like a good little wife. “I don’t want to get margarine or something like that all gummed up in the setting.” She looked at Tom, wanting to be convincing, but she was no actress. She had to stick to the truth. “Remember the margarine? I wouldn’t want to go through all that again.”
He picked up her hand and smoothed his thumb over the diamonds. “No harm done. It’s as good as new.” Then he linked his fingers with hers once more.
She placed her other hand over his and leaned her whole body into him. It felt odd to demonstrate physical affection in uniform, but they were in his house, so it was allowed. Besides, she wanted the support. Or she wanted him to have the support.
The general utterly dismissed her with a disgusted glance at their hands, then he focused his ire on Tom. “So that’s it. You’re married. You decided not to request my approval, because Oscar Reed condoned it, didn’t you? It wasn’t enough that he turned you away from flying and sucked you into the army, now he’s taken it upon himself to make decisions that belong to your family. He knew about the marriage before your own parents knew.”
“He’s the brigade commander. Helen and I are in the same brigade. He knows. As for the rest, I won’t rehash your expectations for me. I told you I was done with that when I was eighteen, and that has not changed.”
Oscar Reed? Oscar? Tom’s family had a history with the brigade commander that Helen hadn’t guessed at. She hoped her surprise and curiosity didn’t show. Her polite expression was, perhaps, not as vacant as Alice’s, but it was as close as she could approximate.
“The only thing that has changed is that you now have a daughter-in-law,” Tom said.
Helen tried to be sweet and supportive, and smooth things over for her husband. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”
His father and mother stared at her in silence, one hostilely, one vacantly.
To heck with it. She could only be herself, and she had questions. Jeez, Helen, can’t just sit there and shut up for five minutes, can you?
She shoved Russell’s voice out of her head. “It’s particularly pleasant to meet you now that I know you aren’t trying to break into the house. Why were you trying to open the sliding glass door?”
Neither parent answered her. The silence was chilly.
“He was hoping to get in my house before I got home.” Tom sighed. “Still think you have the right to conduct pop inspections, Dad? You miss the glory days, back when you treated your family the way you treated your flight crews.”
His father apparently found it more convenient to ignore Tom’s statement and answer Helen’s question instead. “This is our son’s house. It’s perfectly acceptable for his parents to make themselves at home. I have every right to look for an unlocked door or a hidden key.”
Tom stepped in front of her, so she only saw his broad back instead of his father’s hateful face. Hateful wasn’t too strong of a word. Arrogant. Selfish. They all fit.
“This is my wife’s house,” Tom said, “and you were attempting to break in. If you ever pull this crap again, I will charge you with trespassing. Are we clear?”
More silence.
I would at least try to be a decent father, Tom had said, as they’d watched an awful wedding movie and talked about regrets. She understood now where he’d been coming from. His childhood must have been warped by his father’s dysfunctions. But if Tom ever had a child, he was determined not to pass on that hurt. She didn’t know how a person could find the strength to break out of a mold that had been forced upon him since birth, but Tom had done it.
She stepped from behind him to stand at his side, taking his hand in hers. General Cross was refusing to respond, standing like a statue, looking at Tom but not really looking at him. Tom had done that in the dark kitchen that first night, when she’d taken off her ring. But Tom had caught himself doing it. He’d apologized. He’d given her room. He’d broken the mold.
His father was still stuck.
“You don’t want to talk to me, Dad? That’s okay. I don’t want to talk to you.” Tom let go of Helen’s hand and moved to open the door.
“You were not dismissed,” the general said.
Tom turned back to his father. “That doesn’t count as conversation between a father and a son. I’ll remind you again, you are not a hotshot pilot, and I am not a boy. It’s time to move on. We can’t have any kind of relationship until you do.”
“Oh, goodness,” Alice said.
Tom shook his head at his mother. Helen saw the resignation in his eyes. “If you’ll excuse me, there are three patrol cars outside my house right now, waiting for my orders.”
“Patrol cars,” his father scoffed. “You could have been a fighter pilot.”
Resignation was obliterated by a flash of disgust. “You should be very glad I chose not to become a pilot, because right now, I am the only chance you have to avoid being charged for intentionally placing a false 911 call. This isn’t your turf. Remember that, the next time you feel the need to thump your chest and pick a fight to see if you’re still the king of the jungle. You aren’t.”
Helen watched him put on his patrol cap, pull the brim low and walk out into the December sun. She turned to her new father-in-law. “He’s right. You aren’t it. He is.”
Then she put on her own patrol cap and walked out the door, too.
* * *
Tom took Helen’s ID and his father’s ID from the corporal’s outstretched hand. He could practically feel the man’s relief to be done with them and gone from the scene.
“Merry Christmas, sir.”
“You, too.”
Undoubtedly, Dad would convince himself that he’d gotten away without punishment because he was too intimidating for a corporal to dare to arrest him, but that was a delusion. It wasn’t that an MP was reluctant to arrest a retired air force officer; it was that no MP wanted to arrest the father of Captain Cross. That was not because they were intimidated by Tom. They respected him. Tom took care of his troops. They took care of him.
He sure as hell hadn’t learned that kind of leadership from his father.
But he had learned it, and that was what mattered. Professionally, Tom was no longer either rebelling against his father or trying to impress him. He wasn’t out to meet anyone’s standards but his own, and his own were pretty damned high, thanks to the examples set for him over the years by good leaders like Colonel Reed.
Tom watched the three patrol cars take off. He’d been satisfied wi
th his career for some time now. Hadn’t he told Helen so at that first marriage counseling appointment? He hadn’t wanted fame because it would only get in the way of his service. But it wasn’t until today that he consciously realized his father’s negativity no longer had any influence in his professional life. He’d been free of that for years.
Tom looked at the IDs in his hand, his father’s and Helen’s. He couldn’t say the same of his personal life.
Those walls around his heart had originally been a defense against his father’s calculated emotional abuse. It wasn’t until Las Vegas, it wasn’t until Helen Pallas, that Tom had first realized how long he’d left those walls in place without question. He’d been allowing his father’s negative influence to prevent him from loving someone who could love him back.
Until Helen.
He’d wanted Helen more than he’d wanted to stay behind a wall, but then the unthinkable had happened, and, once more, Tom had been left loving someone who didn’t love him back. He’d spent every moment since then doing exactly what his father had taught him to do: putting the walls back up. Trying to build them higher.
It wasn’t working.
He tapped the ID cards on his hand. The way he’d felt when the 911 call had come in made it undeniable: Tom loved Helen. It didn’t matter what she remembered. It didn’t matter whether or not she ever loved him back. He loved her.
I feel awful... I don’t mean to disappoint you over and over... It’s tearing me up to live like this.
He loved her, even if that meant letting her go.
He turned around, and there she was, smiling at him in the cool December sun. He didn’t try to put up a wall; his heart just took the stab of pain.
“The MPs left?” she asked, although it wasn’t really a question. “No arrests?”
“Not this time.”
She stepped closer and tilted her head, looking up at him from under her brim. “I thought you said your childhood was like mine?”
He touched her cheek with the back of his hand, a brief caress of the face he loved. “Mom fed me three meals a day. Dad never broke my arm.”
“Oh, Tom.” He saw the shine of unshed tears in her eyes. She may not remember loving him, but she was softhearted enough to care for the boy he’d once been. “What’s next?”
“Let’s go get rid of my father.” He put his arm around her shoulders as they walked toward the house together, touching her while he still could.
Chapter Thirteen
Helen had never been so excited to boil water in her life.
They were going to eat dinner together.
She’d said it so casually, after his parents had driven away. “I’m starving. If I make spaghetti, would you help me eat it?”
He’d barely paused. “Sounds good. Thanks.”
He’d gone into his bedroom, so she’d gone into hers. Baggy camouflage had been dumped in favor of skintight but stretchy black yoga pants and a pink, low-cut top that was too clingy for her to wear any place she might run into the soldiers she worked with. Not too clingy to stay at home with a man who’d already carried her into a shower, naked and sated.
She set two place settings on the table, directly across from each other, because she wanted that blue gaze on her once more. When he’d looked at her after his parents had left, he’d looked a little sad. She wanted him to look at her the way he had this morning. The way he had at that casino. She tugged down her pink top.
Come find me.
She walked back into the kitchen. He was standing there, his back to her, staring at the pot of hot water. God’s reason for blue jeans. She’d wrapped her legs around his waist this morning. She’d held his hand and stood by his side this afternoon. She looked at him now, and felt shy.
“Hi,” she said.
He looked up, and she felt that little jolt when their eyes met. His gaze dropped down to her hips, rose to linger on her cleavage for a heart-stopping second, returned to her eyes. In half a step, he reached her and picked up her hand, then carried it to his lips. “You were amazing today.”
“Oh.” She watched his lips kiss her hand, and remembered them hot on nylon panties, her hand pressed to the ceiling. “So were you.”
He hesitated, then held her gaze as he spoke over the back of her hand. “You were amazing with my parents. Thank you.”
She’d sounded so breathy. He sounded very deliberate as he clarified what had been so amazing. His mind wasn’t where hers was. Shyness turned to mortification.
She forced herself to say something. “I can see why you wouldn’t want them to know your personal details.”
More and more serious—she was killing the mood she’d wanted to set with her dinner and her pink top. “I’m sorry.”
He looked at her hand, not at her. With his other hand, he touched the diamond circlet, then held it between his finger and thumb, and gave it a little twist. It slid right off, but Helen made a little gasp of pain. “I thought you said you would never take that ring off me.”
He set it on the windowsill. “I also said I would never divorce you. I promised you this afternoon I would.”
She hadn’t been thinking of this afternoon. This morning, two bodies, one intent, one pleasure... He’d promised to divorce her. “But not until February.”
He misunderstood the disappointment in her voice. “That’s as soon as I can, legally. Colonel Reed wants to see us in his office tomorrow morning—”
“On Saturday? Why?” This was confusing. It was all confusing.
“My guess is that he got a preview of the police blotter from the watch commander.”
“Oh, yes. That.” She’d been scared. Called 911.
Tom gave her fingers a squeeze and dropped her hand. “While we’re there, we can tell him we’ve come to an agreement. Maybe now that we’ve gone to a few marriage counseling appointments, he’ll let you move out sooner. I can’t make the divorce happen faster than February, but I’m willing to try to get you some relief.”
Relief? He didn’t want to know what kind of relief she was aching for. She wanted more of what they’d had this morning. He wanted her to move out.
“I’ve had time to think about it,” he said. “When you told me in Jennifer’s office that dragging this out was a punishment for you, I should have listened.”
You had sex with me, and now you’ve decided I can go.
She pressed her ring-free hand against her stomach, but the nausea still turned into a knot. Russell’s taunts, his accusations, gurgled up. Just once, you could be late to formation. You’re too tired for anything but the basics. Very basic. The insecurity overwhelmed her. She was bad in bed. That’s why Russell had been unfaithful. That’s why Tom no longer cared if she wore her ring.
She turned on her heel and stepped out of the kitchen.
“Helen?”
The hallway lay just to her right. This morning had been... She’d actually been late to formation. She hadn’t rushed, not when her lover had put her in a steamy shower and left her feeling so deliciously languid. That plain, white wall? That had been anything but basic. That had been—Russell had probably never imagined that position.
Tom was right behind her. “Helen, I didn’t mean to—”
“We should talk about this morning.” She sounded like a robot, monotone. Monotonous. What an invitation to sex.
Tom was silent, but she waited. After this afternoon, she knew he hated silence for an answer as much as she did. His father was even worse than Russell. Tom was just thinking of the right words to say.
He said them. “This morning was good, but it probably wasn’t a good idea.”
She died inside.
“We’re supposed to be building emotional intimacy. Friendship. The romantic intimacy is... Those memories are gone.”
Maybe not. I first saw you in a casino. But that wo
uld sound too desperate, too much like begging. Wait, give me a chance, I remembered one thing. I remembered thirty seconds out of fourteen hours.
“Sexual intimacy was not on the agenda,” he said, sounding clinical. “I don’t really want to discuss it with Jennifer, either, so we shouldn’t—”
“This morning will be our dirty little secret.”
That shut him up. Whether it was the actual words or just the sarcasm in her voice, it shut him up.
“The timing here sucks,” she said. “My household goods are due to arrive tomorrow, sometime between noon and four. Even if Colonel Reed agrees to let me find my own place tomorrow morning, I don’t think I can sign a lease and redirect a moving van before noon.”
“No.” He ran a hand down her arm, a soothing gesture. “But we’ll work it out. If you leave everything in boxes, it won’t be too hard to move when you get your own place.”
She didn’t want to be soothed. She shook off his hand and went back to the stove. The water had started to boil. “There’s furniture, too. It’s not going to all fit in the spare bedroom.”
“I’ll be here tomorrow. We’ll work on it together. It’ll give us something to talk about with Jennifer. She’ll be happy we worked as a team.”
Yes, Jennifer would be happy. But not me.
Helen dumped the spaghetti in the water and set the timer. “Your supper will be ready in eight minutes.”
She headed for the front door, grabbing her coat and her car keys on the way.
“Where are you going?” Tom asked, as if it was amazing she wouldn’t want to stay and eat spaghetti with him after he’d told her sex was a mistake and he’d help her move out.
“It’s Friday night. I’m going to the pub.”
* * *
Tom shoveled spaghetti into his mouth as he stood at the kitchen sink, glaring at the diamond ring.
His car was still at the headquarters building. He’d come home in an MP cruiser going sixty in a thirty, running with lights and sirens. He could call the station on a back line, ask them to send a patrol car around if things were slow, get a ride to the Legends Pub. Hypothetically, he could do that. It would probably be a small abuse of power. It would be a huge chunk of grist for the rumor mill. Things were already going to be bad enough with his frigging father calling 911 to report that Captain Pallas was in Captain Cross’s house.