Forever Promised (14 page)

Deacon grunted. “She would have had a better one if her parents had let her stay with us.”

Shane sighed. “I bet she would have, but the person she is now isn’t going to see it that way.”

“God,” he said with feeling. “I don’t even want to tell Crick and Benny about this. She was sort of a little snot when she was a kid, but
now
she’s….” He shook his head.

“Unpleasant,” Jon supplied, and they all nodded. Yes. The life she’d been describing hadn’t been a picnic, but the person it had created….

“Here,” Deacon said, trying for authority. “Let me put some weight on this thing. If I’m going to give Crick news like this, I’m going to do it on my own two fe-
eet! Fuck!
”

Shane had to catch him for real this time, and God, wasn’t that embarrassing all over again.

“We can hobble now,” Deacon said meekly when they’d all regained their balance.

“Good,” Shane said. “Because if you do that again, I
will
carry you through Jon’s front door.”

B
Y
THE
time they got to Jon’s house—where Jon ran in and got the car keys—Deacon’s ankle had ballooned up to three times its normal size and turned purple. Jon shoved some ibuprofen at Deacon after they got him in the car, and Deacon leaned back against the seat and tried to think of something soothing that would make whatever Crick said to him feel less like a screeching steel violin and more like a lover who had faith that this giant watermelon appendage was no big deal.

Right. If Deacon had wanted an angel with the voice of symphonies, he should have married Amy when he’d had the chance.

“What in the fuck did you do?” Crick asked as Shane carried—yes, carried, damn him!—Deacon through the door.

It was too bad he was pissed, because he was doing laundry today and wearing his old holey basketball shorts and a faded red T-shirt that was falling right off his body. He looked cute and sexy, and when his shorts rode up, you could see his equipment through the thin spot in his underwear, but his shorts were
not
going to ride up when he had his hands on his hips like that.

“I rolled my ankle and alienated your youngest sister,” Deacon snapped, out of patience with his day. “Put me on the back of a horse and let’s see if I can raze the town!”

Crick came forward and cleared the laundry off the couch so Shane could deposit Deacon there. “Oh hell no. You’re staying here until I’m sure you can’t damage anyone but yourself. How in the hell did you manage to meet up with Missy?”

“Sheer fucking chance,” Jon said sourly, because God forbid Jon ever not be included in something. “He rolled his ankle and we were helping him back to my place when she passed us up.”

“Deacon!” Crick exclaimed, giving Jon maybe half an ear. “We’re going to have to get this X-rayed—”

“It’s not broken,” Deacon said stubbornly. It hurt, yes, but he knew the feel of broken bones, and this was not it.

Crick snorted softly. “Like I’d trust your opinion now. And you are
bleeding
on my couch!”

“Oh hell!” Deacon had forgotten about that. Jon had given him a towel, and it had sopped through. “I just need some gauze and some ice and—”

“And a doctor!” Crick snapped, and he turned to Shane apologetically. “I hate to ask you to do this, big guy, but—”

“No worries,” Shane said, grinning. “Mickey will like this story.”

“You don’t have to carry me,” Deacon snapped, shooing him off. “You can just help me down the steps—in fact, I think we’ve got some crutches and some ace bandages and—hey, wait, Crick, you can’t leave to take me to the doc. You’re in charge of the afternoon water!”

“I’ll do the afternoon water,” Jon said, “and Shane will help me. Crick, you take Deacon. Deacon, you tell Benny where you’re going—hey, see if you can jizz in a cup while you’re there. They can count your swimmers and everything—one-stop doc shop, it’ll be awesome.”

Deacon blinked at his best friend, the man he’d loved like a brother since he was five. “I can’t believe I was afraid I’d miss you,” he said with feeling, and Jon flashed that white smile and tossed back his surfer-blond hair.

“You will
pine
for me, Deacon Winters. Your soul will shrivel up and die without me. Now get the fuck out of here and go put a bandage on that thing—it’s, like, growing as I’m watching it, and it’s really grossing me out.”

“Yeah,” Deacon returned, still fuming, “it would take more than that to put you off your feed.”

“Yup!” Jon walked away from them so he could root through the refrigerator. “Crick, since you guys are going, tell me you’ve got some leftover beans. I need some sustenance before I take care of Deacon’s critters. Shane, you’re gonna help me, right?”

“You need to help him,” Deacon said, loud enough for Jon to hear. “It’s been so long since he’s been to the stables, I’m not sure he remembers which end of the critter to feed!”

“There’s plenty of kids from Promise House here,” Shane said mildly. “Lucas is supervising today. We’ll just go out and lend a hand. But I can get you to the car, Deacon. Crick can drive up to the ER and put you in a wheelchair—it’ll be easier that way.”

Deacon looked at Shane appreciatively as he pretty much manhandled Deacon back out the door and down the porch stairs to the car.

“You are damned helpful in a crisis,” Deacon told him sincerely. “Jesus, Shane—you’re like a superhero.”

Shane grinned, as gleeful as a child. “That’s what Mickey says about you! Now call us to let us know how you’re doing—and don’t forget to tell Benny you’re going to have that baby!”

Deacon’s jaw dropped as Crick said, “Really?” and suddenly Deacon’s day got a whole lot more confusing.

“I
DON
’
T
know why he said that,” Deacon said a few minutes later as Crick drove his little sedan way too damned fast. “We hadn’t even really started talking about it when I rolled my ankle.”

Crick growled. It was low and intense, like a feral dog. “Nrrrrgrrrrnrrrrr….”

“I’m sorry about the ankle.”

“Are we going to have to wrap you in cotton wool?” Crick asked, irritated. “I swear, I thought when I got back from Iraq it would be different, but look at you. Horses are falling on you, stepping on you, throwing you—”

“That was once!” Deacon’s pride still stung. Damned SpongeBob Star. Moodiest animal he’d ever had on his ranch, and that included Shooting Star.

“And just when I think, ‘Hey! It’s a run! He’s safe!’ you find a whole new way to scare me to death!”

“It’s a sprain! People get hurt all the time!”

“No,
you
get hurt all the time and you just raise the average!”

Deacon thought about that for a minute. “That’s not possible,” he said doubtfully. “I think you’re overreacting.”

“No! I’m reacting just fine! You get hurt all the fucking time, and when it’s not rolling an ankle or getting pummeled by a giant horse that thinks it’s a poodle, it’s having a heart attack—”

“That was
not
my fault!” Deacon snapped.
God
, two and a half years of good behavior and you’d think the guy would cut him some slack. “And it’s not the point!”

“It’s
exactly
the point!” Crick snarled, stopping with too much force at a stop sign in the middle of nowhere. Deacon let out a yelp when he tried to brace himself against the floor, and Crick slammed his foot onto the gas pedal while pounding on the steering wheel in frustration. “
Shit
!”

“Carrick, either calm down or pull over to the side,” Deacon muttered. It would have been an order, but damn, he was queasy with pain.

“I’ll calm down,” Crick muttered. “I’ll calm down when you agree to this baby thing,
that’s
when I’ll calm down.”

“I don’t know that the baby and my damned ankle have anything to do with each other,” Deacon said, blinking, because that was some logic that did not track.

“Oh, sure you don’t,” Crick said bitterly. “That’s because when I was in Iraq, you were getting all Zen and shit about what would happen if
I
died. But I came home, and you were all happy! And people depended on you, and you had a
family!
And that whole time, we were all worried about
me
, and the fact is, the gods fucking have it out for you, and what am I going to do if you just up and d… disappear.”

Deacon swallowed. “You have the same family I do,” he said, and Crick shook his head. “You do—”

“I
know
I do! But I want a little piece of
you.
Do you get that? You’ve got my sister, and Parry, and any children she and Drew have—I’ve got bupkes!”

Deacon kept the corners of his mouth from turning up, but it took an effort. “You’ll have a useless horse ranch full of overgrown puppies and a shit-ton of debt!” he corrected, and Crick rolled his eyes.

“The debt is manageable, the horses will probably all go tits up without you, and you are, once again, missing the fucking point!”

“Well if someone was trying to stab you in the ass with your own death, you’d be dodging that fucker too!” Deacon snapped, sweating, in pain, and out of patience.

“Oh if
only
your death was stabbing me in the ass. You keep trying to club me over the head with it, Deacon! You want me to calm the fuck down?
Stop getting hurt
!”

“Yeah, but that has nothing to do with—”

“
Or
let’s stop this stupid pointless argument and you could just see things my way.”

Deacon couldn’t help it—
that
made him laugh. It was irritated, savage laughter, but it was laughter. “That is the
worst
way to get what you want in the history of fighting!”

Crick had his mouth open to say something, and then he shut it, took a deep breath, and said, “Yeah. Yeah, that was pretty lame.”

Oh no. If Crick was thinking straight and calming down, that meant Deacon was
really
in trouble. “Look,” Deacon said, backing down for a moment too. “Maybe we just worry about the ankle, and
then
talk about the baby? Or, you know, even better, run the tests and the blood work, and
then
worry about the baby. I hear what you’re saying—or, you know, trying
not
to say. I….” He sighed. It felt so mean, really. So damned petty to remind Crick of all the failings pumping through his blood. Crick thought he was worth something—really, who wanted to shit all over that? “I don’t mean to keep worrying you, Crick. I think this all might be easier if you could just… I don’t know. Forgive me for the heart attack and take stupid shit like this in stride.”

Crick sighed and took a right down Watt, where traffic picked up. “Yeah. You forgave me, I guess. It’s only fair.”

Deacon laughed a little. “Generous of you,” he said dryly, and Crick was too intent on traffic to scowl at him, but Deacon knew his narrowed eyes weren’t for the Lexus in front of them.

“Don’t say it!”

Say what? That Iraq had been Crick’s choice—shit-for-brains though it might have been? And that Deacon had, at no point in his life, elected to inherit a weak heart?

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Deacon sighed, and as some of the adrenaline eased out of him, so did some of his defense against the damned ankle. He leaned back and closed his eyes and wished he was on a horse.

I
T
TURNED
out to be a sprain, just like Deacon thought it would be. When he got out of X-ray, Crick was there with a big cold cup of iced tea and a bagel sandwich, since it was lunchtime and Deacon hadn’t even had breakfast.

“’Preciate it,” Deacon said after a long draught of tea. They were lodged in a corridor, Deacon in a wheelchair, Crick in a waiting room chair, and Deacon was feeling the need for a nap—probably thanks to all the ibuprofen Jon had shoved down his throat.

“You know,” Crick said conversationally, “I’m not ever going to get over the worry.”

Deacon paused in the middle of a bite of his sandwich, took it anyway, and chewed thoughtfully. He swallowed and said, “Me neither. Do you think, maybe, that’s part of the risk of loving someone?”

He was unprepared for Crick’s triumphant smile. “Yup!” Crick crowed, throwing back his head to get the brown hair out of his eyes. “Yup! And
that’s
what parents have to go through every day.”

Deacon leaned his head back and groaned. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

Crick took a bite of his own sandwich. “Mm-hm,” he said and then swallowed too. “But I’ll leave you alone now, since, you know, you’re an invalid and everything. But once we get you on crutches, it’s on again.”

“You mean it’s going to get worse than the fight we just had?” he asked with a certain amount of fear. “Because Drew’s old apartment is still cleared out—I could always go sleep—”

“Try it, and you’ll find a horse shitting on your cot while you sleep,” Crick said dangerously. “There is one place you get to lay down at The Pulpit, and it’s not the damned barn.”

Deacon sighed and looked mournfully at his naked propped ankle. He was still wearing his old running shorts and T-shirt, and so was Crick. Of course, he should have learned years ago the hospital was the last place you got to keep your dignity.

“I would give my left nut,” he said, “to have yours and Benny’s optimism, do you know that?”

“Family trait,” Crick said and took another bite of his sandwich.

“No.” Deacon thought about Missy. “No, no, it’s not.”

“How was my little sister?” Crick asked, and Deacon glared at him.

“God, would you
stop
reading my mind? It’s irritating!”

Crick’s laugh was evil. “Nope! Won’t. Refuse to. I’ve earned it. It’s like one of those magic superpowers. You live through the fear and the anxiety and the oh-hey-he-fucks-like-a-god, and if you do it with your sanity intact? You get to read his mind! You know, like the little gold coin in the video game? So, spill. And don’t spare my feelings.”