Loose Ends

by Kristen Ashley

  “She’s gonna have a name like Kia. A pretty one. An unusual one. One that not half the other girls in her class have,” he declared.

  That was sweet.

  I didn’t share that sentiment partly because I was gearing up to get on him again about Hap and Luci but mostly because the door to the deck slammed open and I was forced to jump in shock and twist in my seat.

  Skip was there.

  And he looked mad.

  Uh-oh.

  “Skip, whatever it is, I don’t wanna hear it,” Sam stated.

  “Well, you’re gonna hear it,” Skip stated, slamming the door shut behind him and marching in.

  “You wanna not slam our fuckin’ door?” Sam somewhat suggested (the “somewhat” part being that it was actually a demand).

  I stopped myself from rolling my eyes since Sam did that same thing to our bedroom door not fifteen minutes ago.

  It was then I saw Skip had a white envelope and he was digging in it.

  He stopped by me and slapped a photograph on the counter by my laptop.

  “Joey. Joe. Joseph Patrick McShane.”

  I studied the picture.

  Joey, Joe, Joseph Patrick McShane was a good-looking, dark-headed man in navy whites.

  And beside him in that picture was another man in navy whites, that man being a much younger Skip.

  Both of them were smiling.

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen Skip smiling.

  At least not like that.

  I held my breath.

  Another picture was slapped beside it and in it Joey, Joe, Joseph Patrick McShane was wearing jeans and a plaid shirt and had his arm wrapped around a very beautiful dark-haired woman wearing a very pretty flowered sundress.

  Oh no.

  “She was Rebecca. Becky,” Skip said. “Rebecca Dolores Skerritt McShane.”

  He knew all her names.

  Oh God.

  “He was my boy,” Skip told Sam, his eyes glued to my husband. All of a sudden he pounded his chest with his fist and I jumped again, then tensed. “My boy. My brother. My Gordo to your Sam.”

  “Skip,” I whispered, not surprised but still not liking the past tense.

  Sam said nothing.

  “She was his,” Skip went on. “They started dating before he joined the Navy. She was sixteen. He was seventeen. She was that girl. That girl who was all girl but who was also one of the boys. That girl who laughed easy and loved hard and stayed true no matter what.”

  As lovely as all that sounded, I didn’t like where this was going.

  My eyes slid to Sam to see his face set in granite.

  It was clear he didn’t like it either.

  Skip’s voice lowered. “Loved her, Joey did. We all did, but she was his moon and stars and sky and breath. She loved him back the same. I don’t talk about it, so I never told you about it. Tried to bury it so deep, even lied by omission, not mentioning it when shit went down in the next generation. But here it is. Never seen a love like that, until I saw Gordo with Luci. Never seen a love like that, until I saw you,” he jabbed a weather-beaten finger at Sam, “and Kia.” He jabbed his finger at me.

  Sam kept silent, but Skip did not.

  “He didn’t die in the line of duty. Nope.” He shook his head. “He got cancer. You know, my sister had ALS. And after what happened with Joey, I never thought I’d think this, even after I lost my sis the way I lost my sis. Never thought I’d say this out loud, but true to Christ, I wish she’d gotten his cancer. I wish she was just her one day and feeling weird and went to the doc and was told she had two months to live and then that was it for her. She’d get weak and endure immense pain and waste away and then there was nothing. I wished that, Sam. After watching what that disease did to her, I wished that for her. I wished it was fast instead of being so goddamned slow.”

  I slid off my seat to my feet and Skip’s head turned my way.

  “Please don’t touch me, sweetheart. Please,” he whispered.

  God, he was killing me.

  “Okay, Skip,” I whispered back, but stayed on my feet at the ready.

  Skip looked back at Sam and his tone was lower, more level, when he shared, “We didn’t expect it, Becky and me. We didn’t expect what happened after Joe was gone to happen. Truth be told, it wasn’t like I never thought it. Never thought I wished I had a girl like Joey’s. So pretty. So sweet. Funny. Able to take a ribbing and give as good as she got. Tough as nails and soft as silk.”

  He dug into his envelope and pulled out one last picture, putting it beside the others and tossing the envelope aside.

  It was a shot of slightly older Becky with her arms around a slightly older Skip’s middle, her front pressed to his side, his arm around her shoulders, her head on his chest. Her smile was happy.

  His was guarded.

  “We fell in love,” he said quietly.

  “Skip,” Sam said low.

  “Didn’t mean to. Didn’t even want to. She didn’t either. It just happened, few years after we lost Joe. We’d lost touch. We found each other again. It wasn’t about Joe. It was about us.”

  He paused.

  I held my breath.

  He continued.

  “I made it about Joe.”

  Oh God.

  “Man—” Sam started.

  “This life, this shitty mess that is life, it’s a struggle, Sam,” Skip told him. “It’s pain and it’s loss and it’s heartbreak. It’s disease and it’s death and it’s fighting to carry on. It’s hard, Sam, hard. Every day is a battle. Every . . . damned . . . day. Only way to make it through is to latch on to any good you can find. Latch on and do it tight. Sink your nails in and don’t . . . let . . . go.”

  Sam stared at Skip.

  Skip stared at Sam.

  I stared between the both of them, no longer wondering why Skip was so grouchy all the time.

  At least that mystery was solved.

  I just wished he was hilariously cantankerous because that was him.

  I would never wish this.

  Not on anybody.

  Especially not Skip.

  “I let her go, Sam,” Skip whispered, and I had to start deep breathing so I wouldn’t cry. “It was the stupidest damn thing I’ve done in my life, and I’ve been pretty damned stupid, son. And I’ve regretted it every day. And the biggest regret I have is that I broke her heart. I broke her, Sam. Joe did that and it destroyed him before the cancer took him, and he didn’t have any control over it. But when I did it, I did have control, and I did it anyway. And I knew there wasn’t another woman for me. I knew it. I still let her go and I paid the price, and that price was steep, believe me. Because I was right. There was never another woman for me. Thirty-five years, she was the one then, she’s the one now, she’ll be the one the day I die, and I let her go.”

  “You need to find her, Skippy,” I said softly, and he turned his head toward me.

  “She died of a stroke three years ago, Kia.”

  I put my hand over my mouth and looked to Sam.

  Skip looked to Sam too.

  “Hap and Luci came to the shack and they were happy. I’ve seen that before from our girl but never from our boy. He’s blind in love. Lost to it. And the only thing that’s making that less than all it should be for them is me asking if you knew and Hap tellin’ me you weren’t best pleased.”

  He leaned into his fist on the counter, eyes locked on Sam.

  I slid my hand down to my throat and held my breath again.

  “They know the pain of life. The loss. The heartbreak, son,” he said quietly. “Let them have their happy.” He pushed off his fist but knocked his knuckles into the counter. “I’m leaving those for you. You think on things. But I want them back. It’s all I have left . . . of either of them. You think on that too. Because when life boils down to paper and memories, you’ll want all you can get of that last.”

  And with that, he turned on his foot and strode right out.

  I watched him go then turned to my
husband.

  “Honey,” I whispered.

  Sam looked to me. “Tell my wife I love her.”

  Slowly, I closed my eyes.

  Gordo’s last words.

  “Baby,” Sam called.

  I opened my eyes.

  “I want more for him.”

  “I . . . sorry?” I asked.

  “Hap,” he answered. “He deserves more than to be second best to a dead man.”

  “He deserves to have what he wants.”

  “He deserves more.”

  “How can you have more than Luci?”

  “She loved him like you love me.”

  “And then he died.”

  Sam shut his mouth.

  I kept going.

  “They’ve been together a week and Hap came to you to tell you so you wouldn’t think they were hiding things. He knows what you were to Gordo. What Gordo is to you. What Gordo was to Luci. Can you honestly know that man longer than I’ve known that man and not know he would not be on our deck, explaining he and Luci were falling in love, if he did not believe he was getting what he needed and intent on giving her the same?”

  “You don’t know.”

  “I know your thinking is colored by your brother’s girlfriend settling for something she didn’t want after she lost Ben. She is not Luci. Luci’s older, wiser, knows what she wants, knows how precious life is, love is, and she’s very much in love with Hap.”

  “It’s been a week.”

  “And I fell in love with you over breakfast the first time we met. Do you not believe that?”

  Sam shut his mouth again.

  “When did you fall in love with me, honey?” I whispered.

  He didn’t whisper, or hesitate, when he answered, “Over breakfast.”

  God, I loved my husband.

  I smiled at him.

  He took in my smile then looked down at the pictures.

  “I hate that for Skip,” he murmured.

  Yes.

  I loved my husband.

  “Me too,” I agreed.

  I watched his wide chest expand then he let out a breath and looked at me.

  “I’ll go talk to Hap tomorrow.”

  Oh yeah.

  I really, really loved my husband.

  “Need you right here, Kia,” he stated.

  It was my turn not to hesitate.

  I rounded the bar and went to him.

  The second I got close, he folded me in his arms.

  So I did the same with him.

  “I struggle,” he said into the top of my hair.

  I tipped my head back. “With what?”

  “With you, especially pregnant. I wanna wrap you up in cotton wool. Get itchy, you goin’ out in a car by yourself. Get jumpy, I’m at work, expect you to text you’re home, and you’re late tellin’ me you got home.”

  I didn’t know he felt that.

  I didn’t like he felt that.

  At the same time, I did because it shared how much he felt for me.

  It was time to start communicating more effusively with my husband.

  I gave him a squeeze. “Nothing is going to happen to me, baby.”

  “You had a hit out on you when I met you.”

  Well, that was quite the drama.

  I pressed closer. “It’s all good now.”

  “I lost Ben. I lost Gordo. I watched my mother lose her son. I watched Luci lose Gordo.” His hold on me tightened. “I’m holding on to happy.”

  I was so down with that.

  “Hold on all you want, Sam, I’m not going anywhere.”

  He bent his head and kissed me.

  He lifted away, thought better of it, and bent in again.

  It got heated.

  He started shuffling me backward.

  I broke the connection of our mouths. “I thought you were going to the grocery store.”

  His lips twitched. “Don’t be a smartass.”

  I grinned at him.

  He kept shuffling me.

  “So, about that eight-thousand-dollar crib,” I teased as he rounded us at the corner by the stairs.

  “Get what you want. I’ve contacted an architect. We’re adding on to the house.”

  I planted my feet.

  “Babe,” he growled.

  I lifted my brows. “We’re adding on to the house?”

  “We havin’ more than one kid?”

  Absolutely.

  “Yes.”

  “We need more room.”

  “That’s construction, and mess, and construction workers, and dust, and noise, and construction.”

  “We need more room, Kia.”

  “We can find another house.”

  His voice was steel when he declared, “I’m not leaving the house where you fell in love with me.”

  That was super sweet.

  But still.

  “We fell in love over a breakfast table in a hotel in Lake Como,” I reminded him.

  “We started the fall there. We landed,” he gave me a squeeze, “here.”

  Okay.

  Well.

  I couldn’t argue that.

  Actually, I kind of could since there was Crete and Indiana in between.

  But I just didn’t feel like it.

  And the bottom line truth was, we did, indeed, land right here.

  “Whatever. I’ll move in with Luci while they’re building.”

  His expression turned stormy. “You’re not moving away from me.”

  “You can come with.”

  His eyes lifted to the ceiling.

  I went solid.

  “Where’s Memphis?”

  Memphis was our King Charles spaniel.

  Memphis was cute as heck and totally social, even with Skip, who that day had been angry, but he was typically seriously grumpy.

  Memphis was only not social when she was feeling like napping or when she was doing something she shouldn’t be doing, like chewing one of Sam’s running shoes.

  It was a new thing of hers.

  Sam figured she sensed I was pregnant and was acting out to get my attention.

  I figured it was something else entirely.

  What could I say?

  She was no longer a puppy.

  But she loved her dad.

  And she sensed I was pregnant, so she wanted to make sure she didn’t lose his attention.

  Sam went solid too, except his lips muttered, “Shit.”

  “Memphis!” I shouted.

  “Yap!” Memphis shouted back from upstairs.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled.

  “Yap, yap, yap!” Memphis told me.

  “She was snoozing on our bed when I went in to take a shower,” Sam told me. “Then she was snoozing on the rug in the bathroom that’s outside the shower, so I nearly broke my neck when I got out of the fuckin’ shower.”

  That would be funny if I didn’t have to say what I had to say.

  And, by the way, it proved my theory that our furry little girl wanted her daddy’s attention.

  “Did you put your shoes in the closet?”

  “No.”

  “Then kiss at least one good-bye.”

  “Yap, yap, yap!” Memphis yelled.

  “And you want another dog,” he reminded me.

  “Maybe I’m rethinking that.”

  “Yap!” Memphis chimed in.

  Sam grinned at me.

  I remembered what we’d been doing.

  So I pulled from his arms and raced up the stairs.

  “Dammit, Kia! Don’t run on the fuckin’ stairs!” Sam shouted from behind me, and I heard his heavy footfalls as he chased me.

  My husband loved me.

  That was good.

  Because he, Memphis, and the baby inside me were my world.

  Luci

  Just after dawn the next morning, with windswept hair, her arms wrapped around her holding her cardigan closed, Luci moved across the deck to Sam and Kia’s back door.

  She knocked. She
had to do it loud because it was early, they’d likely still be asleep, but she knew Sam would hear her.

  She stopped knocking and turned to the surf, the wind blowing in her face, taking her hair back, eyes seeing the sun not very high over the sea.

  She drew in a breath, turned again to the door, and saw Sam coming down the stairs wearing dark track pants with a light stripe down the side, pulling down a long-sleeved white tee.

  He came right to the door, his expression gentle but inscrutable, and immediately opened the door.

  “Luci, babe, get in from the chill,” he murmured.

  “Thank you.”

  His big body gave a slight jerk. “For what?”

  “For not letting him die alone.”

  That big body went utterly still.

  “Thank you, Sam, for bringing him back to me,” she whispered.

  “Luci,” Sam whispered back.

  “He loved you, but he would love you so much more if he knew how you were going to take care of me.”

  “Babe, come in from the chill,” Sam urged quietly.

  “Now you have to let me go.”

  Something moved over his face. A pain she understood. A pain she’d lived with for years. A pain that had buried itself deep inside her and would always be there, even if she’d learned to live with it.

  A pain, his brand of it, that Sam was learning to live with too.

  Yes.

  She’d been right when she’d had her thought that morning after waking in Hap’s arms.

  This wasn’t about “The Code.”

  Or it was about “a code,” just not the one she thought it was.

  For some men, duty and brotherhood never died.

  Sam was one of those men.

  And Luci understood it, for if you kept it alive, you could fool yourself into keeping what you loved alive, even after it was indisputably lost.

  She lifted her hand to press it to her heart. “We will keep him alive in here.” She reached out and pressed his chest over his heart. “And in here. It is not how we would want him to be with us. But it’s all we have and having had Travis for the short time we did, we both know it’s better than nothing.”

  Sam’s fingers curled around the back of her hand and held tight, now pressing her hand into his chest.

  But he said nothing.