Invincible- The Complete Set

by Michelle MacQueen

  “Hey.” Callie bumped her shoulder against mine. “What are you thinking about?”

  “It seems so surreal to be here with you.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?”

  “Do you regret things?” I wasn’t sure what I wanted with that question, because I didn’t know my own answer.

  She thought for a moment, her gaze going from the sleeping Declan to the two older boys. “If I did, that’d be like wishing them away. I can’t do that.”

  I nodded silently. “I don’t think I do either. I think we made the right decisions back then.” It was true. Joining the army had given me a sense of purpose that my life had sorely lacked. Becoming a Ranger made me into a man.

  Now it was her turn to nod. “Doesn’t make it feel better, does it?”

  “Did you love him?”

  “Hello subject change.”

  “Cal.”

  She sighed, refusing to look at me. “I assume we’re talking about Dylan, yes?”

  I nodded, and she finally met my gaze.

  “Yes, Jamie. I loved him with every piece of my heart I had left. If you’re asking if I loved him the same way I loved you, I don’t think that’s possible. No love is ever the same.” She softened her voice. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I won’t lie to you. He was there when you…”

  “Weren’t,” I finished for her, breathing deeply as the pain cut deep into my soul. I’d asked for honesty, and now I had to know. My voice came out more choked than I’d have liked. “How could you move on so fast? Cal, you were married less than a year after we’d ended and had a baby.”

  Her lips quivered, and I hated myself for causing the reaction.

  “Going out to California was the hardest thing I’d ever done.” She reached for my hand, but then thought better of it. “You have to understand. I was so alone. Things weren’t going well with my father at first. He didn’t know what to do with me. Then there was this boy-er, man - he was eight years older. Dylan and I were immediate friends. We surfed. He took me to parties to meet people. He even helped me connect with my dad. And then I found out I was pregnant.”

  She covered her face in her hands. “I was so lonely, Jamie. I just wanted you.”

  I put my arm around her shoulders, letting her bury her face in my chest. She shook with tears and it broke my heart to think of her going through that.

  “Dylan offered to marry me, and that was the beginning. I was thankful to just be taken care of. It took three kids, eight years, and his affair to realize he didn’t love me. He cared about me, but I was also a leg up in my father’s company. I left him, and he let me go.”

  She coughed out a laugh. “If I keep giving pieces of my heart to each sexy surfer I meet, I won’t have anything left.”

  “Hey.” I tilted her chin up, so she was looking at me. “Dylan is an idiot.”

  She laughed and relaxed into my arms as her sniffling stopped. “Don’t I know it.”

  I carried the sleeping Liam into the house, Callie directing me back toward her old room. It still looked the same. There were Star Wars sheets on the bed and toys tucked away, but it still felt like her.

  “Well, it’s cleaner than when you lived in here.” I laughed.

  “Hey,” she protested. “I wasn’t that bad.”

  “How much do you want to bet that if we went into your room, we’d find clothes thrown along the floor right now?” I laid Liam on the bed and backed away as Callie coughed uncomfortably at the mention of her room.

  I was so out of practice dealing with normal girls - if she could be called normal. There hadn’t been anyone since Jess. I breathed out slowly, letting the awkwardness settle.

  “Liam is my orderly one,” she said quietly. “Luckily, he takes after his father on that.”

  Dylan. That jerk who once again found his way between us. A part of me wanted to get out of this town as soon as possible, but then I looked into Callie’s eyes. Eyes that pleaded for someone to be there for her.

  I shut the door to Liam’s room as Callie shifted Declan in her arms and headed toward Colby’s old room to deposit him.

  Back in the living room, Jacks was sitting on the floor in front of the TV watching some cartoon. I watched him in fascination, feeling as if I was looking at what my life would have been with different choices. He said he was nine, meaning there’d been very little time between me leaving and him being conceived.

  That could have been us.

  As soon as I thought it, I knew it wouldn’t have been right. I needed the army as much as I suspected Callie had needed Jackson. They both gave us something to believe in.

  We should have been able to believe in each other.

  But we hadn’t. Not really. We were just a couple of scared kids figuring out that life outside the bubble of our small town was a lot bigger than we’d imagined.

  I gently touched the back of Jackson’s head as Callie came out.

  “I should go.” I wanted nothing more than to stay there with her, but I needed a bit of space. This wasn’t my family. As right as it felt today, the boys weren’t mine. They had a father. I had to remember that.

  “Okay.” She looked down for a moment in disappointment. When she raised her chin, the girl I knew so well had returned. The strength in her eyes had only grown over the years. I imagined it had to. She wasn’t only being strong for herself anymore.

  I hesitated at the door for a moment, smiling slightly before stepping out.

  Inside my truck, I rubbed a hand over my face.

  My cell vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out, grinning at the name that appeared.

  “Barrette.”

  “Daniels, my good man.”

  “Give me some news from base, I beg of you. I’m dying being away from the guys.”

  He laughed. “Franks kicked Manner out of the barracks last night. Made him sleep under the stars and we all got a much-needed respite from his chainsaw snores.”

  Laughing like that felt good. I missed my team. The fact that they weren’t exactly my team anymore would take a while to set in. “I shoulda thought of that. Can’t tell you how many times I came close to suffocating the fool with his own pillow.”

  “So, Carlson tells us you’re out.”

  “Yep, told me that too.”

  “Discharge?”

  “Nah, I hadn’t re-upped yet. They’re calling it retirement, but really it’s them telling me I’m not good enough to watch your backs anymore.”

  “Something wrong with your eyes?”

  Leave it to Barrette to make a joke out of the end of my career.

  “Ha-ha douchebag.”

  “You good?”

  I knew what he was asking, but didn’t know how to answer that. Did I tell him that I had no clue what happened next, and that scared the crap out of me? Or that things here were screwed up, and it was my fault? My brother. My best friend. At least Callie was speaking to me.

  No, I told him what he wanted to hear.

  “Yeah, bro. All good here.”

  “Good, good. Listen, I just wanted to check up on you.”

  “Aw.” I laughed. “I’m touched.”

  “We’re heading out at 0800 tomorrow for parts unknown.” Known to them, unknown to us suckers that were left here. “It’ll be a long one. They’re saying six months, but you know how these things go.”

  I did. Six months could mean two or it could mean ten. They wouldn’t know the true situation until they were well into their mission.

  “Good luck, man,” I said. “Come back in one piece.”

  “I’ll do my best. Don’t fall off the face of the earth, Jamie. We’re brothers whether you wear the uniform or not. If you disappear, I’ll never forgive you.”

  “You got it.”

  We hung up, and I pulled out of Callie’s driveway.

  We’re brothers. If you disappear, I’ll never forgive you.

  That was exactly what I’d done.

  Jay wasn’t ready to hear anything I had t
o say, but there was someone who might be. I texted Callie for her brother’s address, and she responded.

  It was only a few minutes away. I scanned the parking lot of the apartment building, but then realized I was looking for Colby’s old car. I had no idea what he drove now.

  His place was on the third floor of the modern building. I raised my hand to knock, hesitating for just a second before rapping my knuckles against the solid wood.

  No one came. I knocked again and was about to turn back when the door opened, revealing a tired looking Colby in navy blue hospital scrubs. His glasses were pushed up into his hair, and he rubbed a hand against his eyes.

  “Jamie,” he said, surprised.

  “Uh, hey. If this is a bad time…”

  He looked back into his place, making a decision. “No, it’s fine. Come in.”

  I followed him into the immaculate space. White tile covered the floor, with an ice blue rug centered in the living room in front of dark leather couches. Tall glass sliders opened onto a large balcony where two single chairs sat with a table between them.

  The place was sparse, almost unlived in.

  “I was about to grab a drink, you want one?” He pulled open the fridge in his open kitchen.

  “Sounds good.”

  He handed me a Cigar City beer. Colby drank craft beer - that didn’t surprise me.

  “You just get off work?” I asked.

  He nodded. “One of my patients took a bad turn last night, and they called me in.”

  “They okay?”

  “No.” His shoulders slumped. “I lost her.”

  He led me out onto the balcony, and I sat down, unable to take my eyes from him. He looked too despondent.

  “You’re in oncology, right?” I asked. “That’s got to be hard here in Florida with all the older folks. Do you lose a lot of patients?”

  “April was nine.” He looked at me. “Jackson’s age.” Taking a long sip of his drink, he looked off toward where the sun was setting. “It’s never easy, but when a patient is older, you can see it might just be their time. The kids, though, those you never get over.” A sigh shook his shoulders, and he closed his eyes as he took another drink. “Subject change.”

  “Ok, how about this? You’ve been avoiding me.”

  “I haven’t been avoiding you. I’ve been working.”

  “Then I have a follow-up. Why wouldn’t you avoid me?”

  He gave me a long look before cracking the first smile since I’d arrived. “You make no sense.”

  “Of course I do. Jay wants nothing to do with me. I expected you to be the same. I thought I’d have to make you to talk to me.”

  “Like you could,” he scoffed. “You couldn’t force me to do anything.”

  I matched his smile.

  “You want honesty?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less from a McCoy.”

  “I’ve seen a lot over the past few years. When you spend all your time in a hospital, you witness other people’s lives. I’ve seen people die, leaving behind a lot of devastated loved ones. I’ve seen people die, leaving behind no one at all. I’ve seen families reconcile over hospital beds, friends reconnect.” He drained the rest of his beer. “Maybe I don’t see the point in waiting until something terrible happens to realize we’re still family.”

  “Colby-”

  “I hate that you cut us off. I hate it so much. Not just for me, but Callie and even Jay.”

  “Callie was married,” I felt the need to say. It didn’t justify anything.

  “You still don’t get it. It wasn’t about your feelings for her. It was about the fact that you were friends for more than ten years and only dated for half of one. Does the latter destroy the former?”

  “That’s not exactly true.” I didn’t know why I was defending myself when I knew he was right. “I was friends with you. She was friends with Jay. She kind of hated me.”

  “That’s crap. Even if she didn’t know it, you spent all those years protecting her. And she didn’t hate you. You two would have done anything for each other. All four of us would have. But then you left, and she left, and we were fractured. That’s why I can forgive you, because I want us to be fixed more than anything else in the world. I don’t want to stand over a hospital bed one day looking into the face of the guy who used to be my brother and realizing I don’t know him anymore.”

  My hand tightened up as I lifted my beer. I almost dropped the bottle, catching it with my other hand. Colby was watching me as I set the bottle down and massaged my bad hand, my fingers still curled as if holding an imaginary object. The pain barely registered as I pushed my fingers flat.

  “I’ve changed, Colby. We all have. But it looks like we’ll get the chance to see what that means because I’ll be around for a while.”

  “What happened?” Colby asked.

  I hadn’t yet told anyone, not even Callie. She still thought I’d be leaving soon to rejoin my platoon.

  “If we’re going to have this discussion.” I rose to my feet. “I need another beer.”

  “I’ll order a pizza. Sausage and pepper okay?”

  “Is there any other kind?” I asked.

  “See,” he said. “At least I know some things didn’t change.”

  I handed him a bottle as I took my seat again. Setting my bottle on the table with a sigh, I reached back and pulled my shirt off over my head.

  Colby pulled his glasses down and straightened them on his nose as I showed him my shoulder.

  “Crap.”

  The bullet hadn’t gone all the way through, lodging itself in the muscle instead. It required three surgeries to repair the damage. Ironically, it’d been one of the surgeries to cause most of the nerve damage to my arm.

  The entry point itself was smooth and slightly red, but the surrounding skin was puckered and marked with scars from the surgeries. It had looked pretty gruesome soon after, but now just looked like it contained a good story.

  “I don’t remember getting shot,” I admitted. “I think that’s a good thing. But my buddies told me the guy who got me was taken down when they came after me. I passed out, only to wake up hours after I’d been rescued with a medic tending to me in a field hospital. I was flown to Germany soon after, and my company was recalled, our mission unfinished.”

  “Your hand-”

  “Nerve damage. All down my arm.” I grabbed my beer bottle again and tipped it back against my lips, taking comfort in the cool liquid before giving him the final piece of the puzzle. “It’s why I can’t go back.”

  I pulled my shirt back over my head and down my chest as the silence stretched between us. Colby thought for a moment, then reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. “Then you aren’t staying in a hotel. I have an extra room.”

  I nodded, unable to form words. I had a lot of good friends in the army, ones I risked my neck for time and again. They did the same for me, but none of them were Colby. He’d been there for me at a time in my life when I didn’t have anyone else in my corner. He’d kept me going. A lot of the time he’d been the only reason I didn’t go off the deep end. I’d screw up, and he’d pull me back from the edge.

  I’d made a huge mistake when I thought it was too hard to keep in touch, when I decided to just let the people of Gulf City be a part of my childhood. Growing up didn’t mean growing apart. It was something I hadn’t understood. But, as usual, Colby was smarter than me.

  The pizza arrived, and we’d both had enough of serious topics for now. Our talk moved on to the upcoming NHL season. He shared stories of his nephews and the funny things they did. I told him about the guys in my platoon and some of the crazier things we’d had to do.

  And just like that, it was as it used to be; as it was supposed to be.

  11

  Callie

  I took some much-needed space from Jamie. We’d barely spent time together, and he already had me questioning everything. I moved home for a lot of reasons. I didn’t want to raise my ki
ds in L.A. any longer. It’d never felt like home. I wanted to be near Kat, Colby, and Jay. I never in a million years would have thought Jamie would come back.

  But how long was he back for? He hadn’t brought it up. I didn’t know how leave worked in the army, but I knew it didn’t last forever. There were things he wasn’t telling me, but could I fault him? It wasn’t like he had a whopper of a secret like I did.

  The sad truth was, I didn’t even know if I had a secret. I’d been too scared to have the test done, and Dylan had assumed the role of father in Jackson’s life. Did I have a right to take that away from either of them?

  If Dylan were here, that’d be an easy no. Jackson would eventually deserve the truth, but not at nine years old.

  I pushed my hair behind my ears, stepping around an older couple on the sidewalk as I walked through the downtown area.

  I wanted to scream at something. Dylan wasn’t here. That was his choice, and it changed things.

  My phone beeped. Another text message from my agent, Nicole. She was pushing hard for me to sell these movie rights. Of course she was. It’d be a huge paycheck for her. For me too. And for Dylan.

  Divorce sucked. Especially when you publish a book months before the proceedings start. My hard work, my mother’s story, was no longer just mine. What’s mine is yours and all that bull. That’d probably explain the three missed calls I had from Dylan - not the fact that I was now raising his sons across the country.

  Nicole: California, we need a meeting. Choose a time for a video call, and I’ll make it work.

  I knew how this meeting was going to go.

  Her: California, not selling these rights is a mistake.

  Me: Good thing it’s my mistake to make.

  Her: You’re being stubborn. Stop it.

  Then, I’d laugh because she’d known me for over six years, before there even was a finished book, and she knew me well.

  I stopped under the overhang of a nearby building, shielded from the sun as I shot her back a message.

  Me: Give me two hours.