His Best Friend's Baby (11 page)

She was pretty in a slightly tawdry sort of way, and her smile was a sweet curve just beginning to grow jaded at the corners. “I’m Samantha,” she said and held out her hand. Her eyes darted with laser intensity over his shoulder toward the pool tables to the left of him for an instant. Three men wearing baseball caps and flannel shirts played pool.

He could feel their eyes watching this little scene between him and Sam with typical male propriety. One of them, a small guy, patted the big guy’s shoulder.

“Let it go, Mike,” he said, and reluctantly big Mike, looking murderous and hard done by, bent back to their game and beer.

A reckless anger churned through Jesse’s bloodstream. He couldn’t win against Julia. He couldn’t fight Mitch. And that’s what he wanted. He wanted to beat Mitch into the ground for the way he’d treated Julia.

His fists clenched, his lungs heaved hard. Adrenaline and the battle readiness he’d lived with for so long steeled him, seeped into his bones, through his nerves. He wanted to hit something, hurt something, be hurt in return. He wanted everything but survival to be obliterated. Destroyed. He wanted to live one breath at a time the way he had during the war.

Instead of sending young Samantha on her way, telling her to get out of this town before it used her up, he decided to let her stay.

Samantha with her sweet smile and old eyes didn’t have what he needed. But those three men, drinking hard and talking too loudly, held the salvation he was looking for.

Those three men he could fight.

It wasn’t good or decent of him. But nothing in him felt that way.

“Hi, Sam.” He smiled at her and shook her hand. “I’m Jesse.”

He ordered beers for the two of them and waited.

I
T TOOK A LITTLE LONGER
than Jesse expected. Sam had four beers while he nursed his one, but eventually the confrontation he’d been praying for did happen.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Sam?” an angry voice asked from Jesse’s left.

“Whatever I want, Mike,” Sam answered, hot and fast. Her eyes were heavy-lidded with alcohol but were still shooting out sparks. She’d clearly been waiting for this as long as he’d been. Jesse felt a sudden kinship with her.

“We broke up, remember?” she sneered.

Jesse turned to see the biggest of the three men, Mike, flanked by the smaller ones, not two feet from him.

Perfect.

“Why don’t you just leave me and Sammy alone,” Jesse asked, throwing gasoline on what was smoldering in the air. Mike went red then purple under his collar.

“Why don’t you mind your own business?” one of the sidekicks asked around his toothpick. Jesse wanted to warn him about that toothpick, how dangerous it could be to get in a fight with a weapon sticking out of his mouth.

But that would have been at cross-purposes. He intended to cause some damage with that sharp wood.

“Well.” Jesse pushed himself up and away from the stool. He smiled at the men, needling their pride, wanting to get this show on the
road. “I figure tonight, for the next few hours anyway, Sammy is my business.”

“Holy shit, I know that guy,” the other sidekick said, his blue eyes rimmed red. “He’s that soldier who survived the helicopter crash that killed Mitch Adams.”

And there it was. What Jesse never could outrun or outfight.

“Don’t forget Artie and Dave,” he muttered.

He stumbled, his knee stiff from the hours of sitting, and Sammy stood up next to him, a restraining hand on his elbow. “Jesse, let’s just go. You can come back to my place….”

Ah, she thought he was a cripple. Pitiful. Unable to stand up to a bunch of fat bullies. Even Mike took a step back and the air cooled a few degrees.

“He’s not going home with you, Sam,” Mike said, weary rather than angry.

“Well, you’re not coming home with me, that’s for sure,” she retorted.

“Sam, stop playing games.”

Well. Damn. Things were getting way out of control. He’d sat with her all damn night waiting for this moment and the big guy was getting distracted. That wouldn’t do. To remind Mike why he’d walked all the way across the
bar with his buddies beside him, Jesse gave him a solid right hook across the jaw and felt the crunch of bone and teeth.

That seemed to jog Mikey’s memory.

Mike roared and grabbed Jesse by his collar.

“Outside, Mike!” Billy yelled, from behind the bar. “You take this shit outside!”

“Gladly,” Mike said, spitting blood and saliva onto the floor. His eyes were hot and electric with rage. “You’re a dead man, asshole,” he growled and pushed Jesse toward the door.

That’s the idea, my friend. That’s the right
idea
.

T
HREE AGAINST ONE
were not his kind of odds, so to make things fair, he didn’t fight back for the first few punches. The shot to his face, badly timed and way off target, merely skittered across his cheek.

“Come on, boys. You’ve got to focus,” he told them. “Here, I’ll stand real still.” He locked his knees and stuck out his chin, taunting them.

The sidekick spit out his toothpick and landed a solid punch to Jesse’s gut that radiated down his legs and shook his bowels.

Good one. Better.

The men were mad and Jesse wasn’t stopping them so fists landed where they’d been aimed.

Any minute now he was going to fight back. He was going to lay them all out with busted wrists and sprained ankles and noses so broken they’d need surgery. That was what he was going to do. It had been his intention all along.
He was going to punish these men for all the things he couldn’t have.

But they backed him up against a truck and the blows came hard and fast. His lip split and his eye got hot and swollen. There was a punch, a sharp pop and a crunch, then blood flooded his throat from his broken nose.

Soon, the pain of his body matched the pain he carried in his head and gut and the equilibrium was blissful.

I deserve this
.

These men weren’t strangers. They were Mitch and Dave and Artie. They were the families he’d ruined. They were the lives he’d destroyed.

If I’d only agreed with Mitch, just one last
time
…

“Hey, asshole!” Mike thrust his sweaty red face against Jesse’s. He grabbed the collar of Jesse’s shirt and yanked him around like a rag doll. “Where’s your smart mouth now, huh?”

Jesse didn’t want to talk, he wanted the beating to keep going. So he smiled, blood filled his mouth and he spit it in Mike’s face.

Mike growled, wiped the blood and spittle from his face with his shoulder and threw Jesse back against the truck. His head cracked on the metal and the pain skittered through his brain
and he embraced it, wrapped his whole body around it and smiled. He sagged against the vehicle, his body suddenly heavy.

Mike wrapped his thick fingers around Jesse’s neck and squeezed, blocking off the blood in his carotid artery.

Good. Yes
.

Mike’s big, hammy fist went back and Jesse knew this would end things. If he woke up from this punch, he’d be surprised. He lifted his chin just to improve the odds.

But before Mike could get his whole weight behind his fist a truck pulled into the gravel lot, headlights slicing the night to ribbons. Mike dropped Jesse’s neck and stepped back, shielding his eyes from the bright lights trained on them.

Jesse sagged.

“Come on, Mike. Let’s get out of here,” one of Mike’s friends said and they were already sliding backward into the shadows past the light.

“We’re not done,” Mike growled at him.

“Yes, we are,” Jesse muttered and spit blood.

Mike stepped close, as if he might finish that punch after all, but whoever was in the truck got out and slammed his driver side door shut.

It was Mac. Of course.

“Get home, Mike. Before the police get here,” Mac said and Mike, after one last shove, finally stalked off to his friends.

Jesse didn’t turn, he stayed leaning against the truck while his savior walked toward him, his boots crunching on the gravel.

“What the hell are you doing here, Mac?” Jesse asked past the burn of blood in his throat.

“Bailing you out,” Mac said, finally stepping into the light. “Again.”

“How’d you know I was here?”

“Billy called us, said you were getting your ass kicked.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“Then why weren’t you fighting back?” Mac asked.

Jesse spit into the gravel again but didn’t say anything.

The answer was as clear as the blood running down his face, and they both knew it.

“Let me get you home. You’re in no shape to drive,” Mac said, standing beside Jesse like a patient watchdog. A guard.

The death wish was gone, vanished under the lights of Mac’s truck. So Jesse nodded and pushed himself toward the passenger side of Mac’s truck.

Jesse rolled his head against the headrest and stared out the window at the night sky.

He was going to be sick tomorrow. Hurt and bruised and battered, but for right now, the fight had freed him from his place on this earth.

He didn’t recognize himself, as if he’d traveled all this way to finally slip his own skin.

“You gonna be sick?” Mac asked.

Jesse shook his head.

“Unroll the window just in case.”

“I’m not going to puke.”

“You always used to say that right before you puked.”

Jesse smiled and cringed at the pull of the cut on his lip.

“I’m not drunk,” he said and could feel Mac’s surprised gaze on the side of his face. “I had a half a beer.”

“What were you doing back there, Jess?” Mac finally asked, plucking the question from the thousand unasked ones that filled the cab like spiderwebs.

“I think I was trying to get the shit kicked out of myself.”

“But why?”

Jesse sighed and shut his eyes. The bump and sway of the truck over the old asphalt of
New Springs lulled him, not to sleep, but to am¬ bivalence. Peaceful uncaring.

“Julia. Mitch. Lots of reasons.”

Mac took a right turn and Jesse’s head swayed against the window. They hit a big bump, the driveway and then pulled to a stop.

Mac turned off the engine and Jesse could feel him turn to look at him.

“The men in the helicopter?”

Jesse nodded, kept his eyes shut, because that just felt better than seeing himself, this house, his old friend.

“It was an accident, Jess. That’s what the army said.”

“There are no such things as accidents,” Jesse muttered. “There are mistakes. Someone makes a mistake. Friendly fire, ambushes, bad machinery—those aren’t accidents, they’re mistakes. We tell ourselves that these things happen in war so we don’t all go nuts.”

I’m going nuts
. The thought was as clear as a bell, like a voice in his head.
I am losing my
mind
.

“What happened?” Mac asked, his voice as soft and light as shadow, as starlight. “With Mitch and the helicopter?”

Jesse’s skin crawled from the sympathy,
from the tone of Mac’s voice, from the words he knew would come next—
it’s not your fault
.

He fumbled with the handle, finally found it and yanked the door open. He overbalanced and nearly toppled onto his driveway, but he caught himself on his weaker leg and the pain spread like wildfire up his battered body.

“Jesse,” Mac said, urgent and worried. “Man, let me help you. Let me—”

Jesse shook his head and held up his hand. “Go home, Mac. You’ve done your good deed. You’ve saved me again. Go home.”

Mac sighed, clearly wanting to do more, wanting to fix what could never be fixed. Jesse stumbled away, but Mac was soon right beside him. “Who is Julia?”

Jesse’s head shot up. His eyelids flinched and his hands fisted as all that useless frustration bobbed and jerked in him again.

“Amanda came home talking about her. She thought you guys knew each other.”

“She’s Mitch’s widow,” Jesse said and swallowed the words, dusty in his throat.

“Oh, Jesus,” Mac swore. “What a mess. Amanda said—”

“The roof will be done in another week. Then I’m selling the house and leaving.”

Mac breathed hard through his nose. “But—”

Jesse lurched away.

“Jesse.” Mac caught up with him again. “Let me look at your nose and that eye—”

“Leave me alone!” Jesse finally roared. “Jesus! How many times do I have to say it?” He got in Mac’s face. “Leave me alone!”

“You think you’re the only one who’s mad?” Mac shouted back. “You think you’re the only one hurt by what’s happened? Screw you, Jesse. We’re hurt, too. All of us! Your whole family hurts with you. But you’re too stubborn to see it.”

Jesse’s rage, boiling over for hours, finally evaporated into mist. Spent. He was an empty sack of broken bones and scar tissue. His anger had burned everything in its path and now he had nothing left.

He shook his head and stepped backward onto the broken and cracked driveway. “I don’t want to fight anymore.”

Tears burned in his eyes and he smiled sadly at his old friend, begging him silently to understand that there was nothing Mac could do for him. Jesse was past help—a lost cause, a survivor who’d actually died in the crash, his body just didn’t know it yet. “I’m tired.” He sighed. “I’m just…tired. Okay?”

Mac nodded, his eyes glowing in the darkness like beacons in the night.

Jesse turned away from the safe harbor and staggered into the dark haunted house of his youth, where he’d never been safe.

Mac followed and Jesse didn’t have the strength to fight or care. He lay still on the couch while Mac cleaned his cuts and put ice on his fat lip.

He smiled when Mac called him a headstrong son of a bitch.

He let Mac throw the blanket over his worn-out body and even pretended to snore just to get Mac out of the house.

As soon as he heard Mac’s truck drive away, his eyes opened and he stared at the ceiling until he felt Wain’s soft nose under his hand.

“Hey, Wain,” he murmured, giving the dumb dog a scratch under the collar. Wain liked that and climbed up on the couch with a sigh.

Jesse let the old boy walk up his legs to curl his old crippled body into Jesse’s lap.

Jesse stroked the velvet of Wain’s ears, the short fine hairs across his nose and down his graying muzzle.

“I’m sorry, boy,” he whispered. “You should be with Artie.”

The dog licked his hand in quick absolution.

The earth spun inordinately fast on its axis tonight, no doubt due to the solid shots to the head he’d taken. Jesse dropped one foot to the floor to steady himself so he wouldn’t get spun off this twirling ball of rock up into the stars.

“Sorry, Mitch,” he whispered. “Sorry about not listening to you and for getting mad. I’m sorry I didn’t save you. I’m sorry about Julia.” He sighed. He’d made this very same speech so often he had it memorized. Every breath, every blink of his eye was an apology. A plea for forgiveness he’d never receive.

Sorry, Artie
.

Sorry, Dave
.

Sorry, Mitch
.

He closed his eyes, feeling sick, and it wasn’t from his ribs and broken nose. He’d carried this sick feeling for months, wore it like a hair shirt. It was guilt laced with something else. Resentment. Resentment that he continued to eat shit for his old friend. That his whole life seemed dictated by Mitch, alive or dead. Married. Cheating. Drinking. Gambling. And he was sorry?

“I’m not sorry about Julia,” he said. His eyes popped open.

Wain scrambled off his legs and curled up
between his arm and chest, against the couch. Jesse hissed as the old dog pressed against his ribs, but he didn’t push him off. “You never deserved her, man. Never.”

And you do?

Jesse crossed his arms behind his head and decided tonight he wouldn’t answer his own question. Tonight he was going to let the possibility linger. Morning would come soon enough and reality could strip all possibilities away then.

But tonight he was going to pretend that he did deserve Julia. That he still had it in him to create happiness for her.

He imagined her lithe, strong body crossing the moonlit-splashed room toward him. He imagined her hands, warm and sure and small. So small—delicate, like birds. He imagined their touch, their strokes and heat danced across his skin.

He imagined her skin, white and clean and pure. He imagined her naked, pressed against his body, wrapping her arms around him, close enough that he could absorb her if they both tried hard enough.

He imagined telling her, in breaths, in kisses and in long slow strokes of his body, that he loved her. That he’d loved her since she’d opened the door that day in Germany.

He imagined her lips, pink and lush, opening and he imagined her voice, a sweet whisper, a soft sigh saying
I love you, too
.