by Brooke May
Patience.
The old wound still smarts whenever my mind drifts to her, which is far too often. I think that’s why I haven’t actually been home since the early morning when I left. I’ve avoided asking about her after I learned she married that asshole Greg Parkers not even a year after I left.
She never waited for me.
Her smile and the thought of her … everything is what got me through boot camp, especially her words of love to me. They ran rampant in my head for months, and even after I learned she married that dickhead, they were still there.
Like a fucking plague.
She’s haunted ever since. No number of women or trying to move on has helped. I don’t think I could handle seeing her happy with someone who isn’t me.
“… and your uncle has been elected for sheriff. Oh! Duke, that would be a wonderful job for you with your military training. There isn’t much more you need to learn to be a deputy.”
“Dale’s the sheriff now?” I shouldn’t be surprised; my uncle is a great guy even when the uniform is on. Many let the power behind the badge get to them, but Dale never has. Aside from the one time he chased after Patience and me when we refused to attend our graduation party.
The truth is, I knew there would be talk about my departure, and I couldn’t bear seeing the lost look in Patience’s eyes when she found out.
And that’s why I ran like a fucking coward.
Anyway, I can’t wrap my head around my mom thinking I would be a great deputy. After all the trouble I was in as a kid, I’m sure the sheriff’s office is still waiting to throw me in a cell.
“Oh, yes. Duke, I think it would be a great opportunity for you. The experience you gained with the Marines could help and plus, think of all the trouble you’ve been in as a child. You would know how to sniff out the bullshit.”
Rubbing the steadily growing stubble on my jaw, I turn it over in my head. “You do have a point there.” Young Duke wouldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. I always wanted to be a soldier, not an officer of the law in any shape or form.
“Just think about it. I’ll talk to Dale tomorrow for you.”
“The crime in Centennial couldn’t have increased that much. If anything, it probably decreased after the guys and I left.”
“We are growing now.” She states the fact like I should know. I haven’t found the interest in looking up the population of Centennial, Montana since leaving. I just haven’t had the time.
What a shame.
“Angelica Reece came back to town and is now teaching at the middle school.”
Closing my eyes, I try to handle her jumping right into the gossip when I can’t even recall who Angelica is. My time is almost up, so I’ll humor her.
“Mrs. Forbes passed away after winning the grand prize for her pie, which was a close one because Patience has been giving her a run for her money for the past couple of years …”
Patience, she said Patience.
My Patience; or she was.
“Speaking of Patience, she’s finally getting divorced from that horrible Greg Parkers. I’m so glad she finally sees the light. He hasn’t been the same since his football career soured, and he lost all his scholarships. Now that poor girl can focus on finding a good man to stand by her side …”
My thoughts drown her out again. No one aside from myself and Patience knew about that night. No one knows the feelings I harbored for her and still do.
I know where she is going with this, and for my own sanity, it’s best if I tune her out. I can’t handle my emotions, my wayward thoughts, or what would come spilling out of my mouth if I think about Patience too much.
“… after everything she’s been through. The poor girl, she deserves something nice, someone nice in this life.”
Straightening up in my seat, I feel the rush to end this call. “I’ve got to go, Mom. Others are waiting to use the phone.”
“Oh, okay.”
“You can catch me up on all of it when I get home. You’re going to come to Great Falls to pick me up, right?”
“Of course, I wouldn’t miss seeing you first for the world.”
“I know and tell Uncle Dale I’ll take the job if he wants me. I’ll see you soon.”
“Okay, see you soon, Duke. I love you and fly safely.”
“Love you, too, Mom.”
Disconnecting the call, I wipe the sweat beading on my forehead before I put my cap back on after I head out the door. My head hangs low, blocking others from seeing the nervous, crazed look in my eyes. The last thing I need is for someone to think I’m losing my shit out here.
They don’t need to know how I flinch every time something loud and out of nowhere goes off either.
Getting to my bunkhouse, I sigh in relief when I find it mostly empty. Everyone else is probably still in the mess hall eating. My cot makes an irritating noise, causing the ever-present sand to kick up around me as I fall on it. Scrubbing my face, I check one last time to make sure I’m alone before I pull out my journal and an old picture of Patience.
It has dog ears, creases from being bent one way or another over the years, and it is slightly weathered, but her beautiful smiling face and long blond hair are still the same.
She’s standing on the middle railing of the corral fence by the barn at my parents’ place. She’s leaning forward; my worn flannel shirt she loved to use as a jacket hangs off her, making her look smaller than she really is. But it makes her look so much more beautiful than any other image I can conjure in my mind.
The light in her eyes still causes me to pause. The pad of my thumb runs the length of the miniature version of the girl I loved as I lose my thoughts to how perfect she looked the night I left her. It still guts me that I left her like that. I had no clue how to say goodbye to her while, at the same time, not actually meaning it as a final one.
She got married and is now divorcing the ass. Why did it take her so long to dump him? I swear to God if he ever laid a hand on her, he’s a dead man.
“Shit, Patience.”
Why didn’t you wait for me?
A faint laughter and other noises start to draw closer, I quickly put her picture back into my journal and slide it back under my bed just as my bunkmates come in.
Just a few more days and I can get all my answers.
Chapter Three
Patience
Two months earlier
CLOSING MY EYES, I take in every fragment of courage I have managed to gather in the past several weeks and do what I should have done a long time ago. My eye doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as it did the other day, but it still smarts if I touch my face.
That was the last goddamn straw for me.
After belittling me, yelling, screaming, and blaming me for everything for years, Greg finally struck me. Of course, I didn’t report him, but my parents did. I didn’t hesitate when the police came to haul him off, though. I politely stood by the door while they dragged a raving mad Greg out of my house. I answered all the questions the assisting officer had to ask and haven’t seen Greg since.
I’ve had a few days to think everything over, and now I’m ready to draw one final line.
“Divorce him now, Patience. Your father and I can’t see you going through any more than he has already put you through.”
“I’ll bury the fucker if he touches you again. Do you still have the pistol I gave you?”
“Next time could be worse. Nothing is holding you to him, so end it before something deadlier happens.”
My resolve shutters as the front door is slammed shut with such power I can feel it through the floor here in the kitchen, and the cabinets before me vibrate.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
It’s time to break this vicious cycle that I have endured for far too long. This isn’t who I am. This isn’t how my parents raised me to be.
Rolling my neck, I slowly open my eyes when I hear his chair scrape again
st the hardwood floor of our—no, my dining room. This is my grandma’s house. She gifted it to me, solely me.
He does it even though he knows how I feel about how he pulls out any chair. These floors are old.
The clinking of the fork hitting the plate is the only sign I get that he has found his food. The last meal I will ever prepare for the asshole. It’s clear he hasn’t found his packed bag at the door, or the legal-size envelope tucked next to his glass of orange juice yet since there hasn’t been any sound of rage from him.
Not a shout.
Not a yell.
Absolutely nothing yet but the sound of food being eaten.
Settling my nerves, I wait, unmoving in front of the window in the corner of my kitchen. The window rests above the deep sink, looking out to a cottonwood and my neighbor’s yard where the little neighbor girl plays with her horses.
Sadness seeps into my chest. my little boy could have been out there playing with her right now. They would have been around the same age.
Shaking the thought from my head, I need to focus on what is going to happen the moment Greg’s gaze lands on the envelope.
I’m leaving him.
I will no longer be his wife, the one who does his laundry, dishes, makes his meals, or tends to him like a goddamn house servant. My last name will return to LaClare. I want nothing linked to this horrible man. He is entitled to nothing in this house except for his clothing and the very few personal items his mom allowed him to bring with him when we moved in.
It’s all mine.
And my life is about to become mine as well.
My fingers no longer tremble with nerves. That has passed. For the first time in forever, I feel at peace with this decision. Biting back the smile that starts to form, I stretch out my fingers.
Anytime now.
He’s going to see it soon. It has never taken him long to eat, his ever-protruding belly is a clear indicator of that. I’m sure he’s famished since he’s spent the last couple of nights in a jail cell.
Curse his mom for posting his bail. She knows how he treats me, and you would think she would want her son to be better to his wife, but she doesn’t care. She blames me for ruining her precious son’s life as well. She doesn’t condemn his cheating or his abuse toward me.
It isn’t your fault.
No, it isn’t my fault. Who was the one who put the needle in his arm? Not me. Who thought the bottle was better than studying or practicing? Greg did everything to himself. I share no part of the blame with this.
But they think it was the loss of the baby that triggered it all.
Simply not true.
He didn’t want the baby, and frankly, I didn’t want him to want the baby. I knew in my soul that my little boy didn’t belong to him. And it was completely obvious the moment Greg held him for the first time. There was no connection like there should have been between a father and his son.
It was because of the one truth that only my mom and I knew that I knew their bond would be nothing.
Placing a hand over my chest, I roll my thumb and middle finger over my collarbone.
Greg’s problems started well before I even moved to Alabama.
“What the fuck is this?” Steeling myself, I lift my head to hold it high, and my back goes ramrod straight. “Patience!” With every fiber of reclaimed courage I now possess, I take confident strides out to the table and stand next to him. There is still food on his plate, but it is forgotten as he fists the divorce papers in his tight hands. “What the fuck is this?” He hisses his question again.
I will not break.
This control is mine.
“Divorce papers,” I state as plainly and as strongly as I can.
“I can fucking see that.” He drops them and stands up. “You’re leaving me?” His shoulders round in an attempt to make him look more threatening.
Not this time.
“Yes, I want a divorce, so you can go be with whoever you are seeing now. And I want you out of my house today.” My eyes remain unblinking and locked on him. His pale gray gaze flames with anger.
“Fuck!” My strong front recoils when the plate goes soaring past my head and shatters against the china hutch behind me. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” Spittle hits my face, but I don’t let my wall fall. I won’t let it crumble because this is my only hope.
“We don’t love one another, Greg. You aren’t happy here with me, and I’m not happy with you. We should have never gotten married.” I’m so proud of the even tone of my voice. There is only a fraction of chill to it, so it doesn’t turn bitter or accusatory.
“You’re right.” He sneers. “I should have left you behind here to turn out like the rest of the trash in this town. I should have never fucking proposed to you, but my parents expected me to, and I had to listen to them.” Malice and bitterness are etched into every word he tosses at me.
It should be directed at them, not me. I never told him I expected marriage or anything.
“And I should have never agreed. I’m to blame for that as well.”
“Will you just fucking quit, Patience!” The hot air of his scream hits me in the eyes, forcing my eyes to close momentarily. “You have all the fucking blame!”
The last shred of composure I have to do this civilly falls away as white-hot rage bursts from somewhere long forgotten in my soul. My brows crease, and a glare forms on my face.
“I didn’t fuck up your scholarship.” I step into his space. For all the fights we’ve had, I have never once fought back like this. He doesn’t know what to do with my advance. “I didn’t mess up your life, but you did.” I poke him in the center of his soft chest. “You drank, you fucked around on me, you did the fucking drugs, and you partied. You are the only one who messed up your own goddamn future.”
I feel hot tears burning to be unleashed.
No, don’t cry, Patience.
Momentarily, I stop to rein my tears in. I will never cry for this useless man for another second.
It takes him a moment to find his voice. “You’re the one who couldn’t keep the kid alive and haven’t been able to give me another since.”
My brain doesn’t even register my fist flying into the center of his rounded fat face, nor does it pay mind to the pain that comes directly after it.
“Sign the paperwork and get the hell out of my house.” My own sneer causes his face to turn back to me with complete and utter shock. I’ve always known how to throw a punch, to fight, but somewhere along the way, my mind forgot though my body never did.
A low, slow laugh comes from his bloodied mouth. It is cold, chilling the room by several degrees as he rights himself and glares down at me with a broken, deranged humorous look in his eyes.
“I’ve fucked other women, any one of them willing to give me kids. I needed a real woman who wasn’t fucked up and broken.” I punch him again, and this time the laughter doesn’t come back. “I’ve drunk away every paycheck I’ve gotten in the last three years. And the whole fucking town knows you are nothing but a doormat.”
I knew all of this. I want to be a smartass and tell him it’s good to hear him owning up his mistakes, but it won’t matter.
“Get. Out.” I seethe. My small body floods with a volatile energy I’ve never felt before. “Leave.”
“You’re nothing but a cold, broken bitch, Patience.” He finds the pen I left on the table and quickly scribbles his name wherever the paperwork asks for it, and then drops it, a nice one that was one of my grandma’s, in the glass of orange juice. “Have a nice fucking life being alone, cunt.”
I don’t let his words get to me. He’s said worse. His words don’t matter. Everything is changing for me, and I’m doing it myself. I’m broken because of him. He broke me.
I didn’t think it would be this easy because he has never let something go like this. He has always had some form of revenge,1 even when I didn’t do anything wrong. Not wasting a moment after the front door closes, I get my small toolbox f
rom under the kitchen sink along with three boxes of new doorknobs and get to work.
I’m going to make sure he never is able to get in here again. Today starts a new Patience.
Chapter Four
Duke
Present
STEPPING OFF THE PLANE and onto American soil as everyone is reunited with their loved ones never grows old. Getting off on the East Coast doesn’t even compare to unloading in the brisk Montana landscape I was born and raised in. It’s hard as fuck to walk past all the couples who embrace one another with the newborn babies who have never met their dads or the kids who haven’t seen their mom in nearly a year.
It negates the feeling of excitement I had for the whole flight. The thrill of the ideas I had formulating in my mind of what I plan to do once I get back to Centennial. While everyone around me rested or did something to keep their minds busy like reading, I wrote out my plan in my journal. And I still have one more flight to go. Why I couldn’t get a direct flight to Billings or Great Falls baffles me.
I’m going to settle into my parents’ converted barn until I can figure out where I can either buy a house or find some land to build on. Getting accepted as a deputy was easy, but I’ll really have to focus on acclimating myself to the position. Going from a combat zone to civilian living will be a huge adjustment. It’s going to be strange driving a cruiser or truck without needing to wear a helmet.
And then there is Patience.
I wanted so badly to make her my number one priority, but I don’t know how to approach her after all this time. I figure I would get the other two things under control first, then I would have a better plan on how to surprise Patience and pray everything would turn out just fine.
Tossing my bag over my shoulder, I make my way through the Denver airport to the gate for my connecting flight. I don’t have as long to travel as others do, but doing it alone fucking blows. Plus, there is the drive home after the flights.
