A Hero to Come Home To (6 page)

“My mom, dad, and three brothers are all happily researching, splitting atoms, and splicing genes in Utah. They have two or three alphabets’ worth of letters after their names, and my brothers’ wives are raising five little scientists.” She shrugged, making her hair sway again. It looked silky, the kind that couldn’t hold a tangle if it tried. “I’m the family black sheep. Only one degree.”

“But you’re using it to teach. A noble profession—isn’t that what they call it?”

She gave the snort he’d restrained a few moments ago. “The doctors Anderson believe that those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach.”

Her gaze settled across the room, and he followed it, watching a little girl with pigtails in red overalls talking with flourishing gestures to a captain whose brain injury made conversation difficult for him. Whether he completely followed the girl’s rapid speech was anyone’s guess, but his expression left no doubt that he enjoyed her company.

“The doctors Anderson sound a little full of themselves.”

Carly’s attention jerked back to him. “Oh, they’re not so bad. They weren’t thrilled when I chose to major in education, but they thought I would get at least one PhD. It was a surprise to them when I got a teaching job instead.”

His mother would have been thrilled if he’d gotten a college degree. He would have been the first in the family. She didn’t know that, with the classes he’d taken on post at the ed center and online, he was halfway there. Not that it would matter much. In her mind, it would take more than one degree to make up for being one-legged.

As childish voices rose in the far corner of the gym, Carly sighed and straightened. “I’d better see what’s up. Nice seeing you again, Dane.”

She stuck out her hand again, and he took it. Odd how soft her skin was. He was used to hands that could cause pain—they didn’t call them “physical terrorists” for nothing—but her grip was gentle, better suited to soothing.

He let go the instant he realized he didn’t want to and pushed away from the wall, hoping his body hadn’t stiffened too much with the inactivity. “Yeah, I gotta go.”

With a smile, she went off to referee the fuss, and he headed straight for the door and went to check out with the cadre. In addition to the physical and occupational therapists, physicians, psychologists, and psychiatrists available, each soldier at the WTU was assigned to a cadre with a squad leader, a nurse, and a doctor. As luck would have it, he’d known his squad leader back when they were both stationed in Korea and they’d both lost limbs in the desert. Now the first sergeant was overseeing other soldiers’ transitions, and Dane was struggling with his.

After a stop at the commissary for food, he was home within a half hour. Twenty minutes after that, he had everything put away, had done what little cleaning was needed to suit his standards and was considering doing laundry when someone knocked at the door.

It was Justin Stevens—not just a fellow patient but neighbor, too—leaning more heavily on his crutches than he had at the gym. “Where’d you disappear to?” he asked, limping into the kitchen to get a beer from the fridge and an ice pack from the freezer. Back in the living room, he lowered himself into the chair, propped his right leg on the table and rested the ice pack on his knee before popping the top on the beer.

Dane sat on the couch, propping his left leg up. “I was done for the day.” Therapy was never the same. Some days he could push way farther beyond anything he’d done before, and some days it seemed he’d lost ground overnight.

And some days he just had to avoid the people there.

“Did you talk to any of the kids?”

“Not today.” And he didn’t plan to in the future. He would make a point of being elsewhere on Tuesdays, and not just to avoid the kids.

Justin grinned. “You talked to Carly, though. What was that ‘caveman’ stuff about?”

“We, uh, met in a cave.”

After an expectant moment, Justin scoffed. “Yeah, right. You don’t want to say, man—”

“We did. At a park. Last weekend. She was with some friends.”

Justin nodded. “Oh, the margarita club.”

Dane remembered that moment at the red light in Davis, when he’d seen the women in the restaurant, toasting each other with margaritas. He liked his booze about as much as the average guy, but he’d never considered joining a club to celebrate it.

Aiming for casual, he asked, “Where is her husband assigned?”

Justin’s look was long and steady. “She’s in the club, man. The Tuesday Night Margarita Club. They meet at The Three Amigos for dinner and drinks every week.”

Feeling the way he imagined the brain injury patients did at times, Dane raised his brows. “And what does that have to do with her husband?”

“The margarita club is otherwise known as the ‘Fort Murphy Widows’ Club.’” Justin paused. “Staff Sergeant Lowry is dead, man. Has been for about two years.”

D
inner was always casual: jeans, a sweater, a little bit of makeup. Carly sprayed on cologne, then closed her eyes and sniffed the shower-warmed air. The fragrance was light, sweet. Innocent, Jeff had said when he’d given her the first bottle. He’d smelled it on a woman at the PX, asked her what it was and gone to the perfume counter to buy it, and Carly had worn it ever since.

She liked the scent well enough, but she’d never loved it the way he did. Maybe it was time for a change. After work tomorrow, maybe she should go to the PX and pick out her own cologne. Something not so sweet and innocent.

Feeling vaguely guilty, she switched off the light, then twisted her wedding band as she went down the hall. It was a little early to leave for the restaurant, but she got her purse and jacket anyway and left the house, driving the mile or so to the strip center where The Three Amigos Mexican Grill sat right in the middle of the parking lot.

It stood out like a canary amidst doves. While the main buildings that enclosed the lot made at least an effort to fit in with the sandstone and brick storefronts of downtown, The Three Amigos’ colors were just short of garish: teal, orange, yellow, and lime green. The roof was red tile, and potted silk flowers in bright red filled the planters on either side of the doors year-round. The shaded patio on the east side held wrought-iron tables in a half dozen different styles, a dozen different colors of paint. It marked its little corner of the Tallgrass Center as a Mexican feast for both the eyes and the palate.

The sound of tumbling water greeted her when she opened the heavy door. The first thought that came to mind was the waterfalls from the previous weekend. The cave. Dane. She honestly hadn’t expected to see him again.

But it had been kind of nice.

Skirting the fountain in the center of the lobby, she greeted the hostess, then wove through tables to a rectangular table at the rear of the dining room. They never knew how many would join them each week, but there were always at least eight. She was settling in a chair, back to the wall, when Therese joined her.

“Oh, dear heavens, I need a drink.”

Carly caught the waitress’s attention and held up two fingers. With a wink, the woman headed for the bar. “Let me guess. Jacob is in the fiftieth straight hour of video games without so much as a bathroom break, and Abby has fallen desperately in love with a wannabe bad boy with spiked hair and a nose ring. Any chance she’ll run off with him?”

“The way things have been going, she’d probably move him in with us so I could support him.” Therese shuddered, then made an obvious attempt to loosen up. “No, Jacob does take bathroom breaks, at least, and Abby is hating all things male this week. From what I’ve overheard, the boy she thought liked her asked another girl out, then Mr. Snyder caught her texting at school—giving answers to a test, no less—and took her phone away, plus gave her detention. I had to go pick up her and the phone after work, and I didn’t give it back, and she’s livid.” Therese smiled gratefully as the waitress delivered the two margaritas, then she took a large drink.

Carly’s sip was much smaller. In keeping with their group’s name, she ordered a margarita every week, but she rarely finished one. She wasn’t much of a drinker. She preferred to save her calories for something worthwhile, like chocolate-covered caramels for breakfast.

“Did you ever cheat?” Therese lifted her glum gaze from the glass to Carly. “In school, I mean.”

“No.” Or anywhere else, unless an occasional white lie counted. She’d never stayed out past curfew, never gotten drunk or used drugs and had tried always to be fair and nice.
Goody Two-shoes
, Jeff had called her.

“Me, neither. I told Abby that, and she came
this
close to calling me a liar. At least she wasn’t doing it for herself. She’s good at history. She knew all the answers. She was helping out Nicole, who didn’t have time to study.” After a moment, she sighed. “So how was everyone at the transition unit?”

“Good. The kids were fine, the soldiers were fine.” Carly twisted her glass a time or two, leaving wet rings on the napkin, before going on. “I saw Dane.”

“Who is—” Therese’s brow furrowed. “The guy from the cave? Really? Where?”

“At the transition unit. He was visiting Justin. I told you about him. The surfer kid from California.”

“Yeah, yeah, younger than my baby brother. Stick to Dane. Was he as cute as we thought? Did he remember us fondly? Did you find out if he was married?”

Carly blinked, then laughed. “Sheesh, you’re channeling Jessy. Let’s see…did we even discuss whether we thought he was cute? I don’t remember. Did he remember us? I assume so, since he was trapped in a small space with us, though he didn’t remark on it.” But he
had
remembered her name, she thought with a small rush of warmth.

As to whether he was married…the thought hadn’t occurred to her. In her world, there were two kinds of people: those who were widowed and those who weren’t. Of course,
those who weren’t
broke down into two more groups: those who were married and those who weren’t.

Which one was Dane? Face-to-face with him, she hadn’t given it a thought, but now she wondered. Was he single, involved, or did he go home to a wife every night?

“I don’t know if he’s married.” She shrugged as if she didn’t care. Though he hadn’t been wearing a ring. She hadn’t realized she’d noticed, but obviously she had. “Why? Are you interested in him?”

Therese’s gesture was dismissive. “He’s awfully cute, but he’s not my type.” Then she teasingly added, “I think he might be
your
type.”

“I’ve been alone so long, I’m not sure I still
have
a type.”

Reaching across the table, Therese squeezed her hand. “You do. Trust me.”

“Yeah, right. Paul’s been gone longer than Jeff, and you haven’t even looked at another man.” She regretted the words almost as soon as they were out, because they intensified the sorrow that was always barely there in her friend’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Therese.”

“Aren’t we all, sweetie.” After an uncomfortable silence, Therese straightened, her determination to brighten the mood apparent on her face. “Today the new boy in my class said, ‘Miss Twace, the windows are dirty.’ I said, ‘Yes, they are, Kelvin. I’ll give you a dollar to clean them.’ He rolled his eyes and said, ‘I don’t need a dowwar to cwean them, Miss Twace. I need paper towels.’”

Carly laughed, the tension easing in her shoulders. Before the chuckles had quieted, Jessy slid into the chair beside Therese and, without greetings, demanded, “Share the joke. I had a crappy day at the bank, and I need someone to amuse me almost as much as I need a drink.”

“What happened at the bank?”

Jessy waved her hand carelessly, the diamonds in her wedding ring catching a bit of sparkle from the overhead light. “People are idiots. Whatever possessed me to get a job where I have to deal with them every single day of the workweek?”

“You’re in customer service,” Therese said with a snort. “It never occurred to you that meant dealing with idiots?”

The redhead sniffed regally. “I’m an account representative. Which our customers apparently translate to ‘complaint taker.’ Ugh.” Her shudder was delicate, fading as the waitress brought her drink. “Thanks so much, Miriam. One of these every fifteen minutes, and by the time I leave here, I won’t care about work.”

“Or anything else,” Carly retorted.

“Carly saw Dane from the cave again,” Therese announced.

“Really. Was he any less intimidated? More talkative? Did he appear to be involved with anyone else? Is he as cute in uniform as he was in jeans?” Jessy sighed. “I love a man in uniform.”

Coming up in time to hear the last, Marti Levin and Lucy Hart added their own sighs. “Didn’t we all,” Marti said softly.

Melancholy settled over the table for a moment before Jessy scattered it with a blunt command. “Sit. Order your drinks. Be quiet. Carly ran into Dane from the cave again. She’s going to tell all.”

“Ooh. Wait. Here come Fia and Ilena. You can tell us all at once.” Lucy shrugged out of her jacket and scooted into the chair next to Carly.

Ilena, round with pregnancy, her center of gravity shifted, looked graceful next to Fia, who limped, favoring her left side a bit. When she noticed them watching, she shrugged and gave them a lopsided smile. “Too much fun Saturday. I must have pulled a muscle.”

Once they were all settled and had ordered drinks—iced tea for Ilena—Lucy turned to Carly. “Okay. Tell us all about running into Dane.”

With six expectant faces turned her way, Carly laughed. “Guys, it’s not like I never see men. I work on post, remember.”

“With ankle-biters, which Dane is not,” Jessy said, then mused, “though maybe a gentle nip or two would be fun.”

“Ahh, I miss gentle nips,” Ilena said wistfully.

Carly gave the details of the encounter—heavens, that sounded so much more significant than it had really been—then finished with a shrug. “Coincidence.”

“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Marti said. “However, I do believe in fate.”

“Right.” Carly scoffed. “It was a matter of timing. If we’d been five minutes later getting there, he probably would have been gone.”

“But he wasn’t,” several voices chimed together, then Lucy pointed out, “Therese and I work on post, too, but
we
didn’t run into him. And he must leave the fort occasionally, but no one else has run into him.”

Marti nodded as if that made her point. “Fate.”

Carly rolled her eyes, then gestured across the room. “Look, our every-other-weeklies are here.”

Everyone greeted the four newcomers and the conversation—thankfully—turned to catching up with them. She didn’t need any more talk about Dane. She’d thought about him enough today. And that nonsense about fate…She took her class to the Warrior Transition Unit every Tuesday; he had a buddy there. It was just coincidence that they’d shown up at the same time. Nothing more.

She believed it, too, until after ordering fajitas, then excusing herself to go to the ladies’ room. On the way back to the table, she took a shortcut through the bar, where she glanced over a half dozen men, hardly noticing them, before her gaze caught on a lone man at a tall round table. She would have skimmed right over him, as well, if he hadn’t looked up at exactly the same moment to lock gazes with her.

You don’t believe in fate, remember? Coincidence. A matter of timing. That’s all it is.

A tiny doubt-filled voice spoke up then.
Isn’t it?

Once Dane had excelled at stealth, camouflage, and going unnoticed, but it seemed he’d lost more than his foot in Afghanistan. He could have chosen a dozen better tables. He could have taken into account that the clear path through the bar, which allowed him to see the women at the back, also increased the possibility of one of them seeing him. He should have seen that the shortest path from the table to the ladies’ room, of course, went right through the bar.

Carly stopped abruptly, still holding his gaze. When a young soldier tried to squeeze past with an apology, she realized she was blocking the way and took a couple of slow steps to bring her to his table. “The world’s even smaller than I thought.”

He didn’t know what a person from Utah sounded like, or if years in Colorado and Oklahoma had made her accent uniquely her own. He did know her voice was quiet, definitely female and, at the moment, lacked the all-business edge he associated with the only women in his life: doctors, nurses, and physical therapists. Only the women shrinks he’d seen back east had ever sounded that soft.

“They tell me this is the best Mexican restaurant in town.” Someone had actually told him that, when he’d first arrived. He hadn’t paid attention, since he hadn’t eaten in a restaurant since he’d come back to the States.

“It is.” A group of girls who looked barely old enough to be in the bar swarmed past on their way to the biggest table in the corner, and Carly eased out of their path, practically hugging the tall chair across from him. Her left hand rested on its back, the wedding ring prominent.

He’d taken his gold band off the day his buddies had confirmed his suspicions of Sheryl’s affair. Last he’d seen it, it was sinking in the polluted waters of the Bacchiglione River. Surely by now it had been silted over or had been carried into the Adriatic Sea.

Picking up his beer bottle, he gestured toward her table. “So you guys are intrepid adventurers and connoisseurs of Mexican food?”

She glanced at her friends, none of them watching, then slid onto the stool and folded her hands on the tabletop. “Connoisseurs of margaritas, actually—but yes to the ‘adventurer’ part, too. We’ve scaled high peaks, braved dark caves, and hiked until our feet blistered. We even dared to attend the Tulsa State Fair with a group of twenty, rode every ride and sampled every food available. On opening day, no less.”

“I’m impressed.”

Her smile appeared suddenly, softening the seriousness of her expression. “Don’t be. You saw the high peak and the cave, and the hiking trail was paved. But the state fair…it was two thumbs-up until Jessy puked up a funnel cake and a fried Snickers on the Ferris wheel. From the top. The people below were not happy.”

“Jessy—the redhead?”

Carly nodded, and a thick strand of her hair, worn down tonight, fell from her shoulder to dangle over a sweater the color of a fine Italian red wine. “Never ride a Ferris wheel with her.”

Like that’s gonna happen.
He’d never been fond of amusement park rides when he had two good legs to escape if he got trapped at the top. Not even a pretty woman like Jessy—or a prettier one like Carly—could entice him to put his life in the hands of old equipment and traveling carnies.

His cell phone rang, and he fumbled it out of his pocket, glanced at the screen, then muted it. Carly moved as if to leave. “You can take that.”

“Nah. No name. I don’t answer calls with no name.”

She smiled faintly. “Afraid the command’s trying to call you in to work?”