Foster Siblings 3: Brokedown Hearts (4 page)

Ben hadn’t expected the shrink to spill David’s secrets, but he’d wanted to try to pump the man for as much information about the state of David’s mental health as possible. Over the course of time David had been imprisoned, he’d also been counseled by two medical students doing psychiatric residencies up in the minimum-security prison in Pensacola. Ben wanted to get ahold of them too. Even if they all shut him down for asking personal questions, Ben at least had to try. Gathering information was part of his job.

A job where Jonah wanted Ben to watch David. Jonah wanted to make sure David didn’t start stalking Christian again. Ben would happily do that for the protective man. But what Jonah really wanted, Ben knew, underneath this request, was peace of mind and a good gut feeling from an authority figure that David was better and wouldn’t be a danger to Christian any longer. The man was scared for the safety of the person he loved. Therefore Ben would do his best to research everything he could about David Joyner and put Jonah’s mind at ease.

Oh shit. Movement
. A woman approached David outside the restaurant, and Ben slunk down farther in his seat. He quickly shuffled through his file, searching for printouts.
I know that face. I’ve seen it before.

Yep.
The haircut and color were different from those in the wedding photo Ben had found on the Internet, but that was definitely Carrie Joyner. Well, now back to Carrie Hobbs, David’s ex-wife.

Interesting. Maybe
. Ben couldn’t get into that small restaurant without being noticed—not after the lunch crowd had already left—so he shifted upright for a better angle and view. Sometimes body language said everything.

Let’s see what yours says to your ex, David Joyner.

Fascinated—maybe more than he should be, for such a low-rent gig—Ben nonetheless got comfortable and watched.

WITH HIS HEART hammering hard enough to make his chest hurt, David stuck his hand out in greeting to his ex-wife. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me.” Hell, as much as David hadn’t been in love with Carrie, she was a good woman and a sight for sore eyes.

Rather than shake David’s hand, Carrie pushed her purse higher on her shoulder and tightly crossed her arms against her breasts. “I almost didn’t. I went back and forth with it.” She finally gave him a fleeting moment of eye contact. “That’s why I’m late.”

David ignored the jab to his middle, something he had no right to feel, and gestured inside. “I’m glad you decided to come. Let’s go place an order and get a table.”

Although Carrie followed David inside the restaurant, she said, “I’m not hungry. I don’t want to eat.”

David heard the unspoken
with you
added to the end of that sentence, but once again he forced himself to take the hit without flinching. “If you want to grab a table, I’ll just get us some lemonade, then.” He remembered from their time together the tart and sweet drink was Carrie’s favorite.

With a murmur to the manager behind the counter, David placed his order. As he waited, he noticed Carrie shift repeatedly in the booth she’d taken, and she watched him like a hawk. Carrie’s behavior stung. Under the woman’s open scrutiny, David’s skin crawled, and he wanted to run away.
No
. With deliberate force, David planted his feet into the tile flooring.
Don’t you dare bolt out that door.

Christ, though, he really wanted to leave. Right now. Rather than let such a destructive desire get the better of him, David snapped the elastic hair band wrapped around his wrist. And then did it again. And again. And again. With each biting sting against his skin, he reminded himself that he was not the victim and that any thoughts in that vein would infect his brain and regress him to that unhealthy, bad head space he’d lived in for most of his teenage and adult life.
Say what you need to say to her. Be polite. Stop having expectations. Things will go how they go, and you need to deal with it no matter what happens.

With the words and advice of multiple psychiatrists spinning in his head, David grabbed their drinks and an order of fried
platanos
and eased into the booth seat across from Carrie. Tentatively, he slid one of the icy glasses to her side of the table. She took it but didn’t drink. She didn’t speak, and she kept glancing out the picture window to the street.

After studying Carrie’s profile in silence for at least two minutes, taking in all the differences during the uncomfortable quiet, David blurted, “You look good. I like the new haircut.” Where she’d once had long, dark hair, she now had a sleek, blonde pixie bob. “And the new color is pretty too.”

Carrie whipped around and put a laser focus on him. “You look the same. Except paler.” She arched a brow pointedly at him. “I guess prison wasn’t so tough after all.”

David gritted his teeth. He tried to swallow down a retort, but heat bubbled up in his gut, and he couldn’t push it back down. “Once I was functional again, I was fortunate the court listened to my doctor’s recommendation of a minimum-security facility, but neither place was easy or fun. You’re still locked up. In your head you always know you can never leave.” Things David had been forced to do still gave him nightmares. “Prison is not a vacation or a cakewalk, even minimum-security ones.”

Carrie snorted and laughed. “If you’re looking for sympathy or to be friends again, it isn’t going to happen. You lied to me repeatedly, and you humiliated me in the biggest way a husband can do to a wife, in the worst way one friend can do to another, which was what I thought we were, if nothing else. I don’t see myself ever forgetting the past or forgiving you.”

The quick flame inside David died, snuffing life. He withdrew his hands from his drink and curled them in his lap under the table. “I know.” Humiliation burned his face and neck, but somehow he didn’t break eye contact. “And I don’t expect you to. I just wanted to apologize for putting you through what I did, and for pretending to be someone I wasn’t. You returned the letters I sent to you from prison, so I wanted to meet with you at least once to tell you how sorry I am for everything, all the way from agreeing to the first date to the sideshow I must have put you through in the aftermath of everything that was exposed about me after I got arrested.” David’s throat constricted, and his voice turned scratchy. “You didn’t deserve any of that, and I will spend the rest of my life sorry for how much I hurt you.”

Carrie bit off, “Well, good for you. As long as you feel guilty, then everything is better. Except, oh”—she snatched up her purse and shot to her feet—“it’s not. I thought I could be a bigger person, but I admit I borderline hate you. I’m still suffering the consequences of what you did to me, and I don’t forgive you. You never should have come back here.” Streaks of jet black darkened her brown eyes, and venom dripped from each word aimed at David. “All you’re doing by showing up in Coleman is bringing up memories for everyone of exactly what you did. You should have gone somewhere nobody knows you. As long as you’re here, you’ll always be seen as a weak and pathetic liar.”

Carrie swung to walk away but then turned back, slapped her hand on the table, and got right in David’s face. “The truth is, most folks here wouldn’t have cared all that much that you’re gay. They’re too busy with their own lives to do more than harmlessly gossip about yours. Christian and his man go around town with nobody looking at them twice.” At the mention of Christian, David flinched, and Carrie narrowed her stare and flashed a quick smile. “Yeah, that’s right. Christian. If you’d had some balls, it could have been you holding his hand while eating a meal in this very restaurant instead of that gorgeous giant he’s with now. But the way you lied to the women you dated for years, going so far as to trick and marry one, all while stalking a man who didn’t want you anymore… That’s what people remember about you now. That’s what they won’t ever forgive. Don’t call me again. If you do, I’ll have you arrested for harassment.” Then, without so much as a good-bye, Carrie strode out of the eatery and never once looked back.

David sat in place, stiff as a statue, too mortified to move. The manager and a young female server behind the counter both kept giving him furtive glances, clearly having heard everything Carrie had said. Awful cold flooded through every inch of David’s body, and he couldn’t feel his feet in his sneakers. Less than a half hour ago, on his walk from the bus stop to the restaurant, he’d cringed at the thought of meeting Carrie while all gross and sweaty. Although it was only April, the temperature was already into the upper eighties, and the humidity level gave the heat a run for its money. Now, if David were to wrap his hand around his glass, he would be able to turn the liquid inside into an icy treat.

The waitress behind the counter giggled right then, and David wanted to slink under the table and die. The manager told her to shush, but she visibly tried to hold in laughter too. David wanted to disappear into a puff of smoke forever, worse than the time his father had mocked him in front of his brothers for not being able to shoot an eight-point buck on his first hunting trip as a boy.

The server texted someone, looked at David, and busted into laughter. In a shot David found his footing. He raced out of the restaurant and kept a fast pace down the street. A deep, tangible heat burned through him, chasing away the freeze, but the warming sensation did not make David feel better. He didn’t know if he was madder at himself for letting Carrie get under his skin or for running away like a coward in the face of two people whispering about him.

Maybe I should leave Coleman, like Carrie said. This is not the place for me
. With that thought, guilt ate a hole through David’s middle, making him feel worse than running just now had. Brittany had taken such pains to bring him home to Coleman; she’d gotten him a job at an animal sanctuary, and he enjoyed the work quite a lot. Mostly he cleaned out kennels and pens and runs, but he didn’t mind the smell or the work. When his boss tasked him with exercising the dogs in a big, open pasture, the running made him feel freer than he had in ages, and that included before his time behind bars.

On the other side of the coin, David’s entire family had disowned him and probably wished him dead. Travis was still faking kindness around Brittany, but that likely had a shelf life too. Maybe getting out of town was the best David could do to make up for the hell he’d put everyone through five years ago.

If you leave, though, you’ll be a quitter. Is that any different from being a coward?

Torn, when David got to the bus stop, he took a seat. Slumping forward, he put his face in his hands and blinked and blinked and blinked back the threat of tears.

During his last months in prison, David had told himself time and again that release wouldn’t be easy. He’d understood how difficult it was for most convicted felons to integrate back into society. Intellectually, he’d told himself to prepare for whatever negativity came his way. The reality, though—the rejection and the laughing and the isolation—slammed through his mind and body in a manner no amount of pep talk could make better.

Here David was, barely a week out of prison, and he was letting this much stuff—small-time crap, really—get to him so quickly and easily. How in the hell was he supposed to convince himself he had the strength to withstand a month, six months, or a year?
I won’t
. Dejected, David slumped even more.

The blistering sun burned high in the sky, but David rubbed his arms and shivered. Even though sweat dripped down his neck into his shirt, goose bumps dotted his arms, and he got that same thud of dread in his belly he’d had in prison when he’d sensed things were about to go bad. He sat on the bus-stop bench by himself but covertly glanced left and right and over his shoulder, certain someone was watching him. But nobody was in sight.
You’re being paranoid
. David ran his hand down the back of his neck anyway, not liking the way the hairs stood on end.
You spent your last months in this town stalking someone; it’s poetic justice that you’re so freaked out by everything that you believe everyone is watching you too.

Sick with guilt and shame from his choices regarding Christian those years ago, David crossed his legs and arms, huddled in on himself as much as he could, and tried to disappear.

A pickup truck whizzed by, dangerously close to the bus shelter, and David reared back just in time to see a guy lean out the passenger-side window and shout, “Faggot!” as the truck sped past.

Flinching, David closed his eyes and then squeezed them shut tight.
You can’t escape; you have to face it, even the bad stuff
. David started to count, breathe, and mentally replay the conversations of every therapy session he’d gone through about how to deal with pressure and excel under duress.

He didn’t know what else to do.

Chapter Two

With the sun beaming down across a huge patch of open land, David laughed and jogged while holding on to the leashes of two dogs. “Slow down,” he admonished but chuckled too. The animals, one a caramel-colored Chihuahua named Brucie and the other a cocker spaniel called Tippy, yipped and ran, and all the while their tails wagged from side to side at a hundred miles a minute.

As David picked up the pace to keep up with the dogs, his lungs burned with each breath he took, his thighs ached from running half the afternoon away, and he’d never felt more alive in his life. The crisp smell of freshly cut grass and the pungent odors of animals and manure filled the brightly lit air, mixing in David’s nostrils to something that made his whole body sing. His mother had been allergic to cats, and two of his brothers to dogs, and so David had never been able to have a pet as a kid. As an adult, a cautious voice in his head had kept him from buying or adopting an animal; something about taking the plunge spiked adrenaline in him and made him too nervous to act on his desire to have a dog of his own.

Even when Brittany had explained the job she’d found for him—assisting in all manner of physical labor at a no-kill animal sanctuary a friend of hers operated—David had thanked her, but at the same time his pulse had kicked up a dozen notches. He’d felt certain he wouldn’t be able to sell himself as a good fit for this kind of work, and that the animals wouldn’t like him, and that Brittany’s friend would fire him on the first day.