A Promise of Forever (23 page)

“What?! My own mom is suggesting I pimp myself out at the sleaziest soldier bar in town?”

Ben chuckled. “I think she said it’s not pimping if you don’t flash anything or let them touch.”

Avi opened the blinds and stretched out on the thick pad of the window seat. “My mom’s gotten a little strange since I moved out.”

“Maybe it comes from living so close to my mother.”

“Wouldn’t you hate to send them off on a road trip together? First, neither of them can read a map. Second, my mom knows how to operate a gas pump. She just refuses. She says for the prices they charge today, she should get full service. She’s lucky she hasn’t been stranded in the middle of nowhere. Funny thing, though, she always finds someone who will pump the gas for her.”

“They both get distracted by good-looking young men,” Ben added. “I don’t know about yours, but mine tries to mother everyone she meets.”

“Mine flirts with them. The only reason she hasn’t tried it with you is because Patricia told her you were hands-off.”

“Patricia went to buy ice on the Fourth of July and brought home three soldiers who didn’t have any plans. They stayed for dinner, watched the fireworks, and had a great time.”

Avi thought of several holidays where she’d been the one alone with nothing to do and someone had invited her to join their family or friends. It had been a lifesaver. Patricia had spent so many holidays away from her family that, of course, she couldn’t bear it for someone else. “Aw, that’s sweet.”

“Hmm.” Ben’s voice vibrated over the phone. “She showed them where she lived. She gave them a tour of the house. She introduced them to all the margarita girls and pointed out Lucy’s house across the yard.”

Avi hoped this story didn’t have a bad ending, like they came back and stole everything they could carry. “So what did they do?”

“They cleaned up the mess when the evening was over, and the next day they sent her flowers. A week later, they all chipped in and took her to dinner at Luca’s.” There was a tone in his voice, as if he hadn’t expected that outcome.

“She obviously read them right. They were good kids, probably missing their families, who were thrilled that someone took the time to be so nice to them.” She stretched out her feet, and the muscles in the back of her calves and thighs throbbed. “You’ve never lived out of state, Doc. It can get awfully lonely to have no place to go and no one special to be with. I think the military community is more open to remedying that, maybe, than civilians are because we’ve all found ourselves in that situation before.”

“That’s one of the benefits of not moving around. You have a place to go and people to be with.”

Snorting, she slid lower until she was lying on the window seat, her knees bent. The firm cushion felt very good against her achy spine, but the inverted vee of her legs wasn’t doing anything to help her knees. She braced her bare feet on the wall and vowed to not give up her workout again just because she was on leave. “Lots of people never move and still have no one to do holidays with.”

“That’s because they’re not blessed with a family like mine.”

Her smile was bittersweet. If it wasn’t for his family, she was pretty sure he could be persuaded to give Georgia a chance. His practice was important, but his sisters and the kids were the real reason he was so tied to Tulsa, and it wasn’t even that they truly
needed
him. They’d been abandoned by their mother in divorce, by their father in death, and Ben, who had been hurt the deepest, couldn’t bear to do anything remotely similar.

Of course, Avi would never wish his family away. His devotion to them was one of the things she loved about him. He would be even more devoted to his wife and children, and that was a special quality in a man.

“What kind of project are you helping your dad with?”

She was grateful he’d changed the subject, because all that hard work with the usual Oklahoma fall spores, molds, and pollens in the air had made her eyes watery. She described the fountain and the retaining wall/bench/flower beds. “I lifted seventeen thousand pounds of rock today.”

“Uh-huh,” he teased.

“I mixed twenty-nine bags of mortar. ‘To the consistency of brownie batter,’ Dad tells me. Do I look like a girl who makes brownie batter?”

“Huh-uh.”

“Then I hauled off
three
tons of dirt one wheelbarrow at a time.”

“Poor baby. I bet tomorrow you’ll be wanting to see what kind of magic I can work.”

Everything inside her went kind of warm and fuzzy and quivery. “I’ve already seen your magic, Doc. You are the magic man.”

He didn’t laugh, as she’d thought he might, but got very quiet and serious. “Only with you, gorgeous. Enjoy your evening with your parents, because tomorrow night’s mine, okay?”

“Okay.” She hesitated a moment, then blurted out, “I love you, Ben.”

“I know,” he said smugly. Her
grrr
made him laugh, then he went soft again. “I love you, too, gorgeous. Good night.”

C
alvin had left his cell phone behind when he’d gone out to pick up dinner, and it was ringing when he walked back into his apartment. He dropped the thin bag on the coffee table, got a bottle of water from the kitchen, sat down on the couch, and silenced the phone without looking at it. It would ring again and again until he finally answered, and he didn’t see that happening anytime soon.
Sorry, Mom, it’s just not your month.

After turning on the television, he unwrapped the sandwich he’d brought home and stared at it. Between the time he’d ordered it and the time the teenager behind the counter handed it over, his turkey and provolone with mayo on white had morphed into a ham and cheddar with mustard on wheat.

What was so damn difficult about it? Tens of thousands of people walked into delis every day, this meat on that bread with those vegetables and these dressings. Making them was a small matter of following directions. All the kid had to do was
listen
to Calvin—just listen, that was it—and then do what he was told. A monkey could have done it. Hell, the idiot kid could have done it if he’d taken the damn earbuds out and paid attention.

Anger built inside Calvin, not the good righteous kind but the ugly, irrational sort. The kid had screwed up his order. It wasn’t a big deal, but it felt like one. It felt like just one more thing in a hundred-mile string of bad things that plagued Calvin wherever he went, whatever he did. It seemed like people were just damn determined to mess with him—at work, on the street, in the damn freaking deli. Hell, even people on the phone, he added as the cell started ringing again. Grabbing it from the coffee table, he threw it the way he would have thrown a baseball, with a good wind-up, flinging it hard with a little extra oomph.

It slammed into the wall next to the door, and the next ring was a cartoonish little warble before it hit the floor and went silent. The slamming continued, though, raising the hair on Calvin’s neck, until he realized someone had chosen that moment to knock at his door.

His normal response was to sit quiet, and they would go away. When he’d just destroyed a smartphone two inches from the door, anyone who continued knocking was either brave or foolish. Slowing his breathing, he took a few steps toward the door. It was probably the manager of the crappy apartments, or maybe the next-door neighbor. It couldn’t be a friend. He didn’t have any. Didn’t want any. Would never have any again.

The knocking came again, then a voice. “Calvin? Calvin Sweet?”

The voice sounded authoritative. Maybe a police officer. Had he given anyone cause to call the cops on him? He couldn’t honestly say no. Some mornings he couldn’t always remember everything that had gone on the night before. Sweat began to gather between his shoulders, rolling down his spine. He didn’t want any run-ins with cops, especially white ones. It could be bad for his career, to say nothing of his life.

Two more steps brought him to the table beside the door. He didn’t notice the phone, and it skittered off the toe of his shoe to hit the wall again. Stealthily, he drew open the drawer, removed the Springfield XDM, and held the .45-caliber weapon in his right hand, along his side, tilted slightly back for maximum concealment.

As another round of knocks started, he eased up to the peephole in the door. It wasn’t the manager or a neighbor or a police officer standing in the light of the bare bulb overhead in the corridor. It was worse.

It was the damned chaplain.

“Calvin, it’s Chaplain Reed. I know you’re here,” said a heavily Southern accented voice. “I saw you come in a few minutes ago. I know there’s no rear exit. I saw the shadows when you checked the peephole. Can I come in and talk with you?”

If the chaplain left, it wouldn’t mean Calvin’s problem was solved. It just meant it would become official tomorrow. Maybe, if he cooperated right now, he could shut this down before it went anywhere.

Silently, he returned the weapon to the drawer, then opened the door. The chaplain was leaning one shoulder against the door frame, looking comfortable, like he wasn’t leaving until he got what he wanted. Calvin made a gesture, then turned and went back to the sofa.

Reed came in, giving the place a quick look. It wasn’t the sort of place Elizabeth ever would have imagined her boy living in.
I’ve seen pigpens cleaner that this,
he could hear her saying.
What’s wrong with you, son?

Everything. Everything in his whole damn life was wrong.

The chaplain ignored the empty end of the sofa and dragged a wood chair from the dining table over to sit on. Once seated, he studied Calvin. “I got a call today. Miss Elizabeth is worried. Not answering her letters, not even picking up her calls anymore…”

“How’d she find you?”

“I’m in the phone book.” He shrugged, both hands turned palm up. “Mamas have resources, Captain. They are fearsome creatures.”

Fearsome. Calvin couldn’t think of a better description of his mother. She was fierce and stern and demanding—even his father knew better than to cross her—but she’d shown him enough love for ten kids. She deserved better treatment than he’d given her. He just didn’t know anymore how to give it to her.

He didn’t know how to make himself care enough to try.

“She’s worried about you, Calvin.”

“She’s got nothing to worry about, Chaplain.”

Reed made a point of looking around the apartment, then at the broken phone. “Are you sure about that? Calvin, our troops lived better than this in the early days in Iraq. I bet none of your neighbors heard that phone break because if they’ve got jobs, they’re the kind that keep ’em out on the streets at night. I saw your vehicle out there. All of its windows are cracked, and two of ’em are completely gone. Just living here is something to worry about. Miss Elizabeth would ’bout have a heart attack if she knew.”

Of course he was right. Calvin’s mother’s family had never had much; neither had his dad’s. But they’d been proud of what they’d had, and they took care of it. They might have been poor, but their kids, their houses, and their vehicles had been spotless and in good working order.

Seeing Calvin living like this would rouse a lot of emotions in his parents: concern, fear, and—if he had no good reason to explain it—anger and shame.
We raised you better than that,
his father had told him the one and only time he got into trouble at school. It was true; they had. But this stuff going on now…

“Is money an issue?”

Calvin shook his head. He’d built a nice savings account while he was deployed and still added to it the first and fifteenth of every month. Little of his income went for living expenses.

“No gambling? Drinking? Drugs?”

Another shake of his head. Part of him wanted to demand
Who the hell are you to be so damn nosy?
His job performance hadn’t suffered. He wasn’t missing work or getting arrested or out raising hell in the strip clubs. What business was it of Chaplain Reed’s what he did on his time off?

But this was the Army, and everything he did was pretty much their business.

“No,” he said flatly. “None of that.”

Reed glanced around again. There wasn’t much to see. No furniture that belonged to Calvin, no pictures on the walls, no souvenirs from his previous tours, no knickknacks, nothing personal. Just walls that might have been white twenty years ago, furniture that should have been lit on fire ten years ago, and emptiness.

“How long have you been here?”

“At JBLM? Fourteen months.”

“You must have some buddies here.”

Calvin shook his head. “I don’t have time for that.”

“What keeps you so busy?”

He didn’t answer.

Reed leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I’ve been over your record, Calvin. You’ve been a rising star since basic. Every single evaluation report has been stellar. Despite your four rotations to the Middle East, you earned your college degree with a 3.98 grade point average. You’ve been an outstanding soldier, personable and well liked by everyone you worked for and everyone who worked for you. So what is this?” He indicated the apartment with another sweeping gaze.

Calvin’s fingers tightened at his side. “Would it make you happier if I found a nicer place to live, Chaplain?”

“No. It would make me happy if you’d seek help for what’s bothering you.”

Seek help.
No. No, no, and hell, no.
Seek help
meant see a doctor who would give him a referral to psychiatry. Psychiatry meant a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder. Calvin was no fool. He knew that was the label they would hang on him, and that would likely mean the end of his career. It wasn’t much at this point, but it was all he had, and if he lost it…

He stood, forcing a smile so foreign that it actually hurt. “I appreciate the visit, Chaplain, but I’m fine. I’ll find a better place to live. Hell, I’ll even go out to the club for a drink. And I’ll call my mama. I’m sorry she bothered you for nothing.” He said the last with an inward cringe. If Elizabeth ever suspected he’d apologized for something she’d done, she’d stand him at attention and chew his ass like a private.

Reed wasn’t convinced by Calvin’s change in attitude, but he let him usher him to the door. There, he stopped and fixed his gaze on him. “My office is right down the hall from yours. Any time you want to stop by, the door’s open.”

Calvin kept the smile on his face through sheer will until the door was closed and he was leaning against it. Heaving a sigh, he picked up his cell—busted—and swore. Now he’d have to talk to his mother
and
find a pay phone to do it.

Chaplain was right, he thought as he dug his keys from his pocket. Mothers were fearsome creatures.

“Time for you to knock off, sweetheart,” Beth said shortly after noon.

“But I’ve still got a lot to do,” Avi’s father protested, and she poked him with her elbow.

“Not you. Avi. You keep working until this project is finished. Avi, you come with me.”

Obediently Avi straightened, stripped off her gloves, and stretched the kinks from her back. “See you later, Dad.” As she walked with her mother toward the car, she added in a low voice, “Thanks for rescuing me. I don’t know how he works like that.”

“You and me both. Keeps him in fine shape, though, doesn’t it?” Beth cast him a lascivious look over her shoulder.

Avi laughed. She didn’t want to watch her parents ogle each other like teenagers, but better that than to have them hardly notice each other’s existence. “Where are we going?”

“To get Sundance a sister.”

After starting the engine, Avi faced her wide-eyed. “I could never have one dog, but now you’re gonna have
two
?”

“Your father and I are gone all day. Sundance gets lonely.”

“Yeah, I bet she gets real lonely curled up on the couch with the ceiling fan blowing on her.”

“Sundance doesn’t get on the furniture.”

“Uh-huh,” Avi said in the same skeptical tone Ben had used upon hearing of the rigors of her work the day before. Maybe it hadn’t occurred to Beth: She could post her no-no notes all over the house, but unless Sundance learned to read, the pup was doing what she wanted. “Where are we getting this sister?”

“From the animal shelter. I splurged on Sundance because your father had always wanted a purebred setter, but I don’t approve of buying dogs from breeders when there are so many in need of homes.”

That was something new. Avi totally agreed with her, but she hadn’t supposed her mother had even thought about dogs in the fifteen years before acquiring the setter.

Beth gave her directions to the shelter, located on the north edge of town. Given its purpose as a home for unwanted pets, it was a cheerful enough place. Dogs barked and played and snoozed in the outside enclosures, while cats appeared to rule the indoor office.

They were greeted by two gorgeous blondes who introduced themselves as Angela and Meredith, owners of the shelter. Angela handled the day-to-day running, and Meredith provided veterinary services in her free hours from the clinic where she worked. They talked with Beth a bit about what she wanted, then headed through a door into a large room with kennels lined in neat rows. The ones against the outside walls opened into runs. The ones without openings were home to the newer, needier dogs who were still adjusting to the change in their circumstances. They hadn’t been cleared to mingle with the others, or they had behavioral issues.

Of course, the first one to tug on Avi’s heart was included in that bunch. It was just some indefinable sadness in the black Lab’s eyes that brought her to her knees a safe distance from the kennel’s wire. “Look at this face, Mom.”

Her mother looked, made an
aw
expression, then wrinkled her nose. “I really want another puppy, Av.”

“Doesn’t everybody? But just look at everything”—she tilted her head back to read the sign at the top of the kennel—“Sadie can teach Sundance. And look at her little white chin hairs. They’re just like yours.”

“Avery!” Beth exclaimed, instantly raising one hand to cover her chin as Angela and Meredith stifled their laughs. “I swear, you raise a perfectly nice child, send her out into the world, and she comes back talking about your chin hairs
in public
.”

Footsteps sounded from the direction of the door going out into the runs. “I heard ‘Avery’ followed by a shriek and figured it had to be you.” Jessy Lawrence came around a stack of cages, wearing shorts and a tank top and smelling rather like the dogs. Sweat stuck her red hair to her forehead, and water and suds spotted her clothes.

“You work here?” Avi grinned. “Lucky you.”

“I am the luckiest woman in the world,” Jessy agreed. She knelt beside Avi while the other three moved on to look at puppies. “You trying to persuade your mom to adopt Sadie?”

“She didn’t even want to look at her.”

Jessy opened the gate, hooked a lead onto the dog’s collar, and drew her out to a corner of the room empty but for an old sofa and a few chairs. “A lot of people don’t want to adopt an older dog. Best guess, Sadie’s maybe nine, ten. People look at her and see that the best of her life is behind her. They think all that’s left is for her to get sick, maybe run up a lot of bills, and die. But they’re wrong.”