A Hero to Come Home To (23 page)

Dane lifted his head, just enough to break contact, and stared at her, that intensity still in his brown eyes. “You’re amazing.”

Suddenly, unexpectedly, she had the strangest need to cry, to curl up tight and weep—for Jeff, for Dane, for herself. She’d been so lost for so long, and though she dearly regretted Jeff wasn’t here to ground her, she was so very grateful Dane was.

Blinking rapidly, she forced a wobbly smile. “You’d better taste everything before you say that.”

He gave her a look that confirmed he wasn’t talking about her cooking abilities, then pulled out a chair for her at the table. She said a silent prayer that everything tasted as good as she hoped, only to get confirmation a moment later as Dane took his first bite of turkey. “Hmm,” was all he said, along with a thumbs-up, and she sighed gratefully.

“Did you have a good day?” she asked before sliding a spoonful of crusty browned marshmallow into her mouth.

“I’ve had worse.”

“Wow, that’s a ringing endorsement.”

“I talked to the first sergeant about whether or not I’m staying in the Army, then had a call from my mother. She wanted to know if I could plan a visit home around the time my ex-wife’s newest baby is due.”

Luckily, the marshmallow and bits of sweet potato were too soft to choke her. “What fun that would be. Was she serious?”

“Dead serious. She’s convinced she’s not getting any grandkids from me, so she’s glommed on to Sheryl’s as if they’re her own.”

Carly cut a piece of tender turkey with her fork, dipped it in gravy, then suspended it, over the dressing. “Do you not want kids?” She hoped the question didn’t sound as serious to him as it did to her, that he would think she was asking out of simple curiosity, not any real need to know.

His response—spooning another serving of dressing onto his plate—was as casual as she could have hoped for. “I always just figured that I’d have a couple at least. I mean, that’s what people did where I came from—grew up, got married, had children. Sheryl and I talked about it some, but it was never the right time for her. Of course, eventually I found out why. Hard to attract boyfriends when you’re obviously pregnant.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

His smile was faint and lopsided. “It happens. In the long run, it was best. She’s happier. I’m happier. And where would
we
be if I were still married to her?”

“Certainly not having dinner alone.” Something fluttered in Carly’s chest—sharp and sweet and almost painfully tender. He counted her a good thing in his life. She made him grateful for his divorce.

He
cared
about her.

“So…” She cleared the huskiness from her voice. “Back to the baby question. If you always planned to have kids, why is your mother convinced it isn’t going to ever happen?”

He set his fork down, took a long drink of pop, then reached for another roll from the basket. The sweet yeasty fragrance drifted over the table, made even more mouthwatering by the warm butter he spread over it. Finally, he looked up, not quite meeting her eyes, and shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she thinks I was such a lousy husband that I’ll never find anyone to marry me again. Maybe she thinks women have better choices than settling for me.”

Carly smiled though she didn’t feel like it. How sad that his mother apparently had such a low opinion of him. Granted, he had disappointed her by going for the life he’d wanted rather than one she’d picked for him, but children did that all the time and parents got over it.
Her
parents loved her in spite of her lonely little degree, and if they ever thought no one would want to marry her—an idea that seemed impossible because, despite her one degree, she was still an Anderson—they had the decency to keep it to themselves.

“Maybe your mother is just…gee, how do I say this politely? Crazy.”

He laughed. “Yeah, that’s one way of looking at it.” Then he sobered. “She’s…disappointed, not just in me but everything. She expected more out of life than she got.”

“Don’t we all? But you either deal with it or you lose out completely.” She couldn’t spend the rest of her life with Jeff, but she could fall in love and grow old with another man. She couldn’t have Jeff’s children, but she could have that other man’s. She couldn’t have her happily-ever-after with Jeff, but there were millions of happily-ever-afters out there. No law said a person was limited to just one.

She could be grateful for the time she’d had with Jeff and still live a happy, loving life without guilt.

They talked about little things through the rest of the meal, nothing memorable or important but special for its very ordinariness. She treasured moments of pure ordinariness.

After putting away the leftovers, Carly dished two slices of warm pie and topped each with a scoop of vanilla-caramel ice cream. They settled in the living room at opposite ends of the sofa, and she kicked off her shoes, then tucked her feet under her so she could face him. “What would you do if you got out of the Army?”

Though he’d brought up the subject over dinner, the question seemed to surprise or maybe discomfit him. “I don’t know.” He attempted to change the topic. “This pie is good. Is it from CaraCakes or did you bake it?”

“I baked it. It’s Dear Abby’s recipe. You remember, the advice columnist back when we were kids? Mia makes it all the time, and she gave the recipe to me in a family cookbook my first Christmas with them.” Just as easily, she switched back. “You had plans for after the Army. Teaching, coaching football, scuba diving, and hiking as torture.”

“Yeah, but that was before…”

He’d injured his leg. How had it happened? Had it been painful? Other than occasional stiffness or a limp, did it still bother him? She was curious, but she wouldn’t ask. Too many soldiers got questioned too avidly about their war experiences. Jeff hadn’t liked to talk about it. He hadn’t wanted to worry her about the close calls he’d survived, hadn’t wanted to relive the fear and the danger and the loss. He’d mourned for every guy or girl he’d worked with who’d been injured or killed, and chatting casually about them struck him as disrespectful.

When Dane was ready to talk about it, he would let her know.

“So that was then. This is now. If you got out of the Army, say, in six months, which one of those careers would you most like? Or have you thought of something else?”

“You like tough questions, don’t you?” He finished his pie, leaned forward to set the plate on the coffee table, then sat back, his left hand dropping automatically to his leg. “Those were just possibilities, for sometime in the distant future. Things I would have to prepare for in some way—finish my degree, get more certifications, save money for the investment. I figured on making a decision and having all that stuff in place by the time I did my twenty.”

“How close are you to the things you need?”

His gaze settled on the wall behind her. “I’m about sixty hours from finishing my degree. For scuba, I’d need to get through the rescue diver, dive master, and instructor development courses, which with my schedule would take a couple years. And I’m pretty sure I’ve crossed ‘hiking as torture’ off my list.”

“Aw, that’s a shame.” She stretched her legs out, socked feet resting on the coffee table. “I was thinking that could be a great adventure for the margarita club. You, me, and my six best friends.” Her grin was wicked, his expression akin to aghast. “It could be a real family thing. Therese’s step-kids could come, and of course Ilena would have to bring the baby, since she plans to nurse him. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

With a look so dry it could sear paint, he said, “I’ve spent eight days in the wilderness with people like your friends. It’s called war. I bet your group’s idea of roughing it is a hotel without room service. I can’t see any of you being happy humping a forty-pound pack for even one day.”

“Not even me?” she teased.

He reached forward, his strong fingers snagging the hem of both pant legs, and swung her feet onto the couch. “Imagine wearing hiking boots with these socks. Sheesh, they don’t even match.”

She wiggled her toes to better display the socks: definitely made to be worn together, same hues but wildly different patterns. “I know better than to wear these with boots. These are for cute. Boots are for work. I know the difference.”

Slowly he wrapped his fingers around her right ankle, circling them until his thumb and forefinger touched, then tightened his hold until his entire hand was in contact sliding down over her heel, to the arch, to her toes, then back again. Her eyes practically rolled up in her head, so she closed them and tilted her head back. Such attention to tight muscles and tired feet left her incapable of speech. A huge, relieved “Ahhhh” was all she could form.

“You’re on your feet too much.”

“Teachers do that.” She opened her eyes a slit to study him. “So do soldiers.”

That day they’d met, when she’d studied the photograph Lucy had sent of him, she’d thought his jaw was strong, his nose nice and straight, his eyes intense and his mouth sensitive. She’d thought those features had added up to a good face, but not a particularly handsome one.

Silently she snorted. Even a blind woman could have seen how gorgeous he was. But she’d still been mourning Jeff deeply at the time. She had rarely looked at male members of the species as men, but rather mere people.

She had also thought then that there was something haunted in his eyes. When he grinned or, better, smiled, his gaze was clear and deep, bottomless rich brown. But sometimes there was still a look…He’d been through things that had changed him. Loss of innocence, illusions, friends. Injury. Fear. Courage in spite of the fear. Was he a better man for it, damaged by it or simply different? Still good, honorable, decent, but with a different outlook on life and death and sacrifice.

He gave her foot a last squeeze right beneath the toes, then set it aside to pick up the other one. “Did you hear me?”

“No, I was just admiring your face.”

“Yeah, women do that all the time.” He grinned smugly. “I asked if redoing this room had taken care of your need to paint.”

“Oh, no. The hallways are next. I was thinking yellow. Then the dining room. I can actually move the computer out of there and use the room for its intended purpose. Then the bathrooms. One of them is Pepto-Bismol pink. Then that would leave just the bedrooms and the kitchen…oh, and the outside.”

His fingers continued squeezing long and slow the length of her foot before he finally spoke. “Give me a pen and paper before I leave.”

“To make a list of supplies?”

“To make a list of my favorite foods. You’ll have plenty of chances to cook dinner again before we finish all that.”

She gave him two thumbs-up. “Sounds like a plan.”

One she could eagerly embrace. If he stuck around as long as there were projects to help with, the work on her house would never be finished. She would make sure of that.

When he finished rubbing her right foot, she groaned. “That feels so good. Kick your shoes off and stick your feet up here. I’ll return the favor.”

The strangest expression crossed his face—panic, she might have thought—and he shook his head. “Thanks but no, thanks. I’m fine.”

He wouldn’t get any argument from her about that.

Y
ou want to go into town for dinner?”

Noah looked as if Dalton had suggested they flap their arms and fly to the moon. Quickly he adjusted his expression, though, and said, “Sure. I like Mom’s casseroles, but I sure wouldn’t mind having a big greasy burger hot off the grill. Get changed and let’s go.”

Dalton’s first impulse was to ask why he should change, but he knew the answer without even looking. There was a time his mother would have swatted him if he’d even thought of leaving the house looking like this. His jeans were the rattiest, oldest pair he owned, with both knees worn clear through and jagged rips along one leg where he’d gotten caught up on a nail in the barn. His T-shirt was pretty old, too, from a trip he’d taken his sophomore year in high school. The writing had flaked until only a letter here or there was legible.

Upstairs in his room, he shucked the boots and clothes in exchange for his newest jeans, a plain white shirt and his good boots. He tucked the shirt into his jeans, slid a leather belt through the loops and went into the bathroom to comb his hair and take a look.

The image gazing at him from the mirror was painfully familiar: brown hair, brown eyes, skin tanned from so much time outside. The lines around his eyes and mouth made him look older, wearier, much more like his father than he should look at this age.

Was Dillon out there somewhere, staring into a similar version of the same face? Did he ever look at himself and think about home, about Mom and Dad and Dalton and Noah? He could have come back any time in the first couple years after he’d left, and everything would have been okay, but he was too selfish. Too irresponsible. Maybe too ashamed.

As he should be.

Dalton rubbed one hand across his jaw, feeling the stubble there, wondering for just a moment if he should have shaved when he’d showered. It was Saturday night, after all, and he was fixed up every other way.

But he was only going into town to eat. Not to have fun. Not to do anything that might require him to look more reasonably presentable.

Damn well not because of his last trip into town.

Scowling, he flipped the light switch and headed down the hall to the stairs. That last trip had been a major mistake. He’d spent the first twenty-four hours feeling sick over it, and the six days since pretending it hadn’t happened.

He hadn’t taken flowers to Sandra’s grave.

He hadn’t met Jessy Lawrence.

He hadn’t gone to Bubba’s with her.

God, he wished he hadn’t gone to bed with her.

But he had. He’d done all those things. And even now, as he took his Stetson from the hook beside the door and clamped it on his head, as he locked up behind them, as he and Noah climbed into the truck and started the drive into Tallgrass, he couldn’t help but wonder if he went to Bubba’s again, would she be there?

And if he did, if they shared a few drinks again, would they wind up in the same place?

Brutal honesty forced him to admit that the knot in his gut wasn’t entirely disgust for what they’d done. Four years was a long time to go without sex. Man wasn’t meant to be celibate, Dillon used to say.

Granted, in Dillon’s mind, man wasn’t meant to be faithful, either. He’d had no boundaries, not in his own relationship or anyone else’s.

“You heard from Mom and Dad?”

Dalton glanced at Noah, so quiet on the other side that he’d practically forgotten he was there. “They’re in Wyoming. Mom said tell you to listen to your voice mail from time to time.”

He could practically hear the eye-roll in Noah’s voice. “Everyone knows if you want me to notice, you should email or text.”

“I don’t text.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t call, either.”

That was true. Dalton couldn’t remember the last time he’d made a phone call that hadn’t involved ranch business. It probably would have been a few months after Sandra’s funeral, when he’d called her parents just to…to connect with someone who’d known her even better than he had. Her mom had started crying so hard the moment he’d identified himself that her father had taken the phone, and he’d cried, too. The call had put Dalton in a bad place, when he’d already been barely functioning.

He hadn’t reached out to anyone since. That was a long time to be so alone. No wonder he’d screwed up so bad with Jessy Lawrence.

The highway was widening into a street, better paved and better lit, when Noah spoke again. “Where we going?”

“What do you want?”

“How about that little café downtown? The one with the pot roast like Granny’s?”

Their grandmother had died when Noah was ten, but it wasn’t a surprise that he thought of food when he thought of her. Pot roast had been a Sunday routine, with no exceptions but Christmas, along with meat loaf on Fridays, snow ice cream with every heavy fall and oatmeal-raisin cookies any time her grandchildren visited. Food had been her way of showing she loved them. Not many hugs or kisses, but lots of homemade treats.

Dalton responded with a grunt as he turned east a block before Main. On a Saturday night, the only parking near Serena’s was going to be on the side streets. He parked in the sole spot in front of the newspaper office, blocked on each side by driveways running back from the street, and they headed toward Main.

It was a nice night, warm early for the season but with enough of a bite to make Noah’s jacket comfortable. Dalton didn’t mind the chill, though. Just the air from his brother who’d suddenly decided to fill him in on his last week at school was enough to keep him warm.

Tallgrass’s downtown didn’t close up and go dark on Saturday nights, at least not all of it. There were restaurants, a gym, a couple clubs, and a few small shops that stayed open late to benefit from the others’ business. Muttering “uh-huh” in the appropriate places in Noah’s monologue, he glanced in the store windows as they passed, almost stumbling when he caught a glimpse of a redhead at the back of the gym.

She disappeared behind a machine, then reappeared an instant later: tall, muscular, hair too short. Not Jessy.

His heart thundering in his chest, he reminded himself of why he’d stiffened. He never wanted to see her again. Wanted to forget he ever
had
seen her.

“So what do you think?” Noah asked.

“About what?”

Noah’s sigh was heavy with impatience. “Me going to summer school. Do you never listen to anything I say?”

The desire to grin cut through Dalton like wind-driven fire across a dry prairie. It seemed odd and felt odder, as if the muscles in his face had forgotten how to make that action. He popped his brother on the back of the head, just hard enough to let him know he’d been popped. “You sound just like Mom. ‘Do you ever listen to anything I say? No, of course not, and then you come whining wanting your father and me to get you out of trouble.’”

“I didn’t get into
that
much trouble,” Noah muttered before catching sight of Dalton’s grin. He stared, first in surprise, then narrowed his gaze. It stayed that way until they’d been seated against the back wall at Serena’s. They’d asked for a table. The booths were close quarters and they always wound up kicking each other for space underneath because of their long legs and Noah’s big feet.

“So what’s up with you, man?”

The grin was long gone, and Dalton’s face had settled back into a more comfortable scowl. “What do you mean?”

“You were weird last weekend, and you’re weird this weekend. Wanting to come to town for dinner? Smiling like you used to?” A light lit Noah’s eyes. “Did you meet someone last Saturday? What did you do while you were gone all day?”

Dalton flipped through the menu though he would order what he always did: the pot roast that was, like Noah said, the closest they would ever get to Granny’s. After a moment of silence, he met his brother’s gaze. “I took flowers to Sandra’s grave.”

There was a time when Noah’s response would have been predictable:
For all frickin’ day?
Unbelievable as it sounded, he knew Dalton had done just that a time or two in the beginning. He also knew of plenty of times when Dalton had visited a bar after the grave, when someone had called him hours later to drag his brother’s sorry ass home.

He and Noah might not be the twins in the family, but Noah knew him as well as—better than Dillon.

The waitress came to take their orders, then brought pop for both of them. “It’s a shame they don’t serve beer here,” Noah remarked. “That’s my favorite drink with a burger. It makes the finishing touch to the meal.”

“You’re not old enough to legally drink.”

Noah shrugged. “Minor technicality.”

“Yeah,
you’re
the minor.”

“And you’re a major pain. Sorry to not tiptoe around you for once, but I’m gonna say it anyway. You need to get laid, Dalton. Maybe then you wouldn’t be moping around all the time acting so tortured.”

Noah looked defensive, obviously expecting something major from him—a blowup, maybe even walking out and leaving him to find his own way home. There was a minute of anger where Dalton considered doing just that. But the earlier words stopped him.
“
Sorry not to tiptoe around you for once.”
Noah had been doing that, and so had their parents, for a long time. They’d given him space and time to grieve, and he was still taking both all these years later. It had come to feel natural to him, but it wasn’t, not really.

He was the adult, the older brother to Noah’s kid. If anyone should be doing any caretaking, it was him, but instead he spent his time dwelling on Sandra and himself.

It was okay to grieve. He didn’t need anyone to tell him that. But it wasn’t okay to wallow in it to the point that his family had to change who they were to accommodate him.

Aware that Noah was waiting for a response, Dalton breathed deeply. “I don’t recall ever asking you to tiptoe around me.” No doubt, though, his behavior had demanded it. He’d been on the edge for so long, refusing to talk about Sandra, refusing to talk, period. “But feel free to go back to being the pesky little brother you always were. I wouldn’t want you to fall off those tiptoes and hurt something. I’ve got enough critters to take care of already.”

Noah continued to stare at him, still a little challenging and a little confused. After a long silence, he finally said, “Right. For your information, if I fall and hurt something, I don’t need you to take care of me. Two of the most gorgeous women I’ve ever seen live in the apartment across the hall from me, and they are both just aching to take me on. Let me tell you…”

His smugness was familiar—a perfect mimic of their missing brother. Dalton wondered if Noah had always had the attitude and he just hadn’t seen it because everyone had been treating him like fragile glass, or if Noah had picked it up from Dillon. The kid had been barely seven when Dillon took off. For the two years before then, Dillon had been too busy letting every girl in the county catch him to spend much time with the rest of the family, and he’d had no patience for a little kid.

What other things, Dalton wondered, had he missed seeing in Noah because he’d been too absorbed in himself?

Noah was a ladies’ man, he learned when they went to pay. There was a crowd at the door, people waiting for seats or to pick up carry-out orders, others trying to pay. While Dalton settled the bill, he heard Noah talking a few feet away. He didn’t need to understand the words to know his little brother had met a pretty woman. That came out in the tone, his laughter, hell, in the air that surrounded him. Dalton was probably in for a drive to the house alone, with the rest of the evening on his own. That was fine with him.

Then, after shoving his wallet back into his pocket, he took the few steps to reach his brother, getting close enough to see around Noah’s broad shoulders to the short, slender woman the kid was charming: abbreviated clothing to show lots of smooth golden skin, a mouth worth kissing, green eyes, red hair.

Dalton’s gut tightened. It was Jessy Lawrence.

She glanced up at him—he was hard to ignore, looming over her and Noah, surprised and embarrassed and, someplace where he didn’t quite have to admit it, pleased to see her again—then her gaze slid back to his brother as if he weren’t there. Not even the slightest flicker of recognition, good or bad, crossed her pretty face, and her words flowed without so much as a hitch.

Anger built inside him, knotting his fists, creeping across his face in a steel-cold scowl. Either she was deliberately ignoring him or she didn’t recognize him. Was she embarrassed by what they’d done? Didn’t appear so, not the way she was touching Noah’s arm and smiling at him as if she were parched and he was a long tall drink. Could she have been so drunk that she didn’t remember Dalton even though she’d been sober when they met?

Either way he was relieved, or so he told himself. Last Saturday had been a huge mistake. The best thing either of them could do was pretend it had never happened.

But all this heat and tension didn’t feel like relief.

“Come on, Noah.” Dalton didn’t care that he’d interrupted Jessy midsentence. “Let’s go.”

“Hold on.” Noah’s expression was his usual charm-the-girls smile with a heaping helping of I-can’t-believe-I-got-this-lucky excitement. “Jessy was just suggesting—”

“We’ve got work to do.” Dalton clamped his fingers on his brother’s arm and pulled him toward the door. He’d be lucky to make it five feet out the door before Noah exploded and demanded to know what the hell was wrong with him, but Dalton didn’t care.

He wasn’t sharing another woman with either of his brothers.

After work Tuesday, Carly stopped at Walmart to pick up Easter gifts for her nieces and nephews. Buying for Eleanor was easy; she liked what any little girl liked. The four boys would much prefer chemistry sets, equipment or possibly a little yellow-cake uranium for their latest experiments, but they’d accepted there was only so much their aunt Carly could or would do.

After gathering toys, sweets, games, and cards, she was on her way to find shipping boxes when she passed a display of plastic storage tubs. Her feet slowly came to a stop as she looked at them. Big, tight-fitting lids, decent protection for whatever they held, like clothes. Uniforms. Jeff’s uniforms.