The Homecoming Queen Gets Her Man

by Shirley Jump

  “Ever since he heard about people going gluten-free, he’s been staging a one-man protest against wheat, cruciferous vegetables and low-fat margarine.”

  “In favor of the crap he normally eats?”

  “Hey, I eat the same crap.” Jack grinned.

  “Exactly why I’m buying this. And this one, too.” She tucked a second loaf into the cart. Jack mounted a protest, but she ignored him and headed for the vegetable aisle. “And some broccoli.”

  Behind her, Jack groaned. She just laughed and kept going.

  It was easier to tease him with dark leafy greens than to deal with whatever had been between them earlier. The second he’d closed the gap between them and touched her cheek, her heart had tripped, and she’d been sixteen again, standing in that garage, thinking there was no one in the world she’d ever love as much as she loved Jack Barlow. Then he’d broken her heart and she’d vowed to never, ever let anyone get that close.

  When he’d brushed her hair back behind her ear and told her she was beautiful, she had forgotten about that day in the garage. Forgotten about her promise to herself. She’d thought about him kissing her—did she want him to kiss her? How would it be, after so many years? Better? Sweeter?

  “Uh...zucchini or summer squash?” she asked Jack, if only to think about something other than his lips on hers.

  “Zucchini. Sauté it with a little garlic and a dash of dill, and it brings out the flavor without all the sodium.”

  She slid three zucchinis into a plastic bag, then turned to Jack. “You cook? Since when?”

  “I do a lot of things you don’t know about,” he said.

  “Me, too.” She shrugged. “I guess we both grew up a lot in the last few years.”

  “More than you know.” His voice was low, quiet.

  Again, another statement that invited questions. Questions she didn’t ask. “Fuji or Gala apples?”

  “I’m more of a Granny Smith guy. Ray likes Red Delicious.”

  “How do you know so much about what my grandfather likes to eat?”

  Jack shrugged, and avoided her gaze while he added a few apples to a bag and put them in the cart. “I’ve done his shopping for him for a while now.”

  “You have?”

  Another shrug. “He hasn’t been feeling well for a long time, Meri. And there was a time...” Jack cleared his throat. “Anyway, he’s getting better now, and that’s what matters.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Jack didn’t say anything for a long time. So long she began to wonder if he was going to answer her at all. “I really think it’s a good thing you’re home now. Ray isn’t the most compliant with doctors’ orders. It’ll be harder for him to sneak in a box of Twinkies with both of us watching over him.”

  He said it with a light tone, as if things weren’t all that serious. As if they didn’t have a thing to worry about as long as Grandpa chose wheat over white. But she read the unspoken message underlying Jack’s words—Grandpa’s health was still teetering on a dangerous edge. Aunt Betty tried, but Grandpa Ray had always kept his distance from Anna Lee’s side of the family, especially after his son had died. But he’d always treated Meri, Eli and Jack like his own children, which was probably why Jack saw him as family, not just a friend.

  Meri had seen the row of heart medications on Grandpa Ray’s counter. His heart was weak, and as he edged toward eighty-five, there was no chance of it getting stronger. If Grandpa Ray watched his health and took better care of himself, he would be here a good long while yet. Meri needed him still, needed his wisdom and his gentle love. Just the thought of losing Grandpa, so close in the wake of losing Eli—

  “Do you think it’s because of Eli?” she asked. “Maybe Grandpa was more upset about that than he let on. Eli was like a son to him, you know.”

  “You think I forgot about that? I know what Eli meant to him.” Jack turned away and started stuffing peppers into a bag. One, two, three, four.

  Meri laid a hand on his, just for a second, then withdrew. “You okay?”

  “I’m just buying peppers.”

  Five, six, seven.

  “Um, I don’t think we need that many peppers. I don’t even know what to do with that many.”

  He let out a long breath, as if he was pulling it from a well deep in his gut, then withdrew three of the peppers, twisted the top of the bag and fashioned a knot. He moved on to the tomatoes. She let him go. Watched him fill a bag with tomatoes, another with cucumbers, a third with onions.

  Jack Barlow was building a No Trespassing sign out of vegetables. And Meri Prescott, who had a few of those signs around herself, wasn’t about to cross the line. By the time they moved on, the cart was filled with enough vegetables to feed a small town in Ethiopia.

  “Are we done?” Jack asked. His tone had shifted and whatever storm had been in him earlier seemed to have abated.

  “Almost. Can’t forget cream for my coffee.” She swung the cart down the dairy aisle, opened one of the refrigerated cases and withdrew a pint of half-and-half for herself, a fat-free one for Grandpa Ray.

  He scoffed. “Now that’s something I never thought I’d see.”

  “What?”

  “The Meri I knew drank her coffee and her tea black. Never used salad dressing, butter, or had dessert.”

  “That Meri...” She let out a breath and debated how much to tell him, standing here between the sour cream and cottage cheese. “That Meri was someone else’s creation.”

  “And what about this Meri?”

  “This one is all mine, faults and all.”

  He shifted closer to her. The refrigerators hummed softly beside them. A tinny, distant voice called for a cleanup in aisle three over the tacky notes of the Muzak on the sound system. “From where I’m standing,” Jack said quietly, “there aren’t any faults at all.”

  She glanced away, caught her reflection in the glass doors, then dropped her gaze to the scuffed tiles. “You don’t know me anymore, Jack.”

  “I have known you since you were old enough to catch frogs in Skinner’s Pond, Meri. Since the day you showed up in my backyard with scuffed knees and one missing shoe. Since—”

  “Since the day you told me you wanted a woman who worried about more than what she was wearing and how her hair looked.”

  He winced. “I was young then. And stupid.”

  She raised her chin. “And what’s changed since then?”

  He cocked a messy grin. “I’m not young anymore.”

  Damn him for making her laugh. For making her hate him and forgive him, all in the same breath. If there was one thing that truly hadn’t changed since the old days, it was that a part of her heart was still in Jack Barlow’s hands.

  And that was the one thing she hadn’t counted on when she’d returned to Stone Gap.

  Chapter Five

  Ray sat back in the chrome-and-vinyl chair and patted his belly. “Merry Girl, I have to say, you are the best damned cook in the Prescott family.”

  Jack was inclined to agree. Meri had made enough to feed a horde of thousands, and like the man-pigs they were, he and Ray had tanked most of the roast turkey, steamed broccoli and sautéed carrots she’d arranged on a platter. Even the salad had been decimated, mostly by Meri and Jack, but Ray had dished up a healthy portion of his own. For a man who normally drew a hex around anything vegetable, he sure had gotten his fill of cruciferous today.

  “Thanks, Grandpa.” She smiled and got to her feet, reaching for Ray’s plate.

  “Now, now, let me help you.” Ray started to rise but Meri put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Stay right where you are, Grandpa. I’m here to take care of you, not the opposite.”

  Ray leaned back again and crossed his arms over his chest. “A man could sure get us
ed to this life of sloth. Before you know it, I’ll be wearing my slippers all damned day and watching Pat Sajak.”

  “You deserve to do that, Grandpa.” She kept her hand resting in a light, tender touch on his shoulder. “You’ve worked hard all your life.”

  Ray’s work-worn hand covered Meri’s and the smile on his face wobbled. “I think you got the best of all the Prescott genes, sweetheart.”

  Jack had to look away. For God’s sake, what the hell was wrong with him? He’d never been an emotional guy. Now he was all choked up, like some hormonal teenager watching a coffee commercial at Christmas. Meri gave her grandfather a soft kiss, then started clearing the table.

  Jack jerked to his feet, gathered up the dishes and followed Meri to the kitchen counter. He started the water and loaded the empty plates into the sink, then squirted some dish liquid over them. He told himself the actions would keep him from thinking, from dwelling.

  But his brain reached back to the sight of Ray’s hand on top of Meri’s, and in his head, he saw another moment, another hand reaching for his own. In that instant, there was sand beneath Jack’s feet, the pungent smell of gasoline and the sickening stench of charred flesh hanging heavy in the air.

  Don’t leave me, man. Don’t let me die. Eli’s words, sounding empty and slow above the hollowness in Jack’s ears, as if Eli was yelling down a long, long tunnel.

  I won’t. I swear to God, Eli, you’re not going to die. It was a lie, and Jack had known it, but still he’d refused to believe it. There wasn’t enough of Eli’s body left to save—most of it lost to the twisted, mangled wreckage that had severed him as easily as cutting a ribbon.

  Eli’s eyes, wide with terror, and Jack screaming for help, for someone to do something, praying for a miracle in the middle of nowhere. The others in the convoy, littering the ground among them, and Jack trying not to notice one of Eli’s legs sitting four feet away, as if it were waiting for him to just pick it up and put it back on. The tourniquets Jack had fashioned on Eli’s thighs doing little more than holding on. Then the worst moment of all, when the terror ebbed away and a strange complacency slackened Eli’s features.

  Tell them I’m sorry. Tell my parents I love...

  “Hey, Jack, you trying to start a flood?”

  Jack jerked his attention to Meri’s voice. He shook off the visions, tried to reorient himself. But his mind stayed back in the desert, back with Eli, back with that last horrible, agonizing, powerless moment.

  “Sorry. I...uh...got a little distracted.” He shut off the water and plunged the sponge into the sink. Cold. Damn. He emptied the sink and refilled it with hot water. His heart thudded in his chest, his throat seemed to be clogged, and he couldn’t think.

  “Having some trouble with domestic duties?” She gave him a teasing smile.

  “Yeah.” Better her thinking that than knowing Jack’s real problem was in his head and had been in his head for nearly a year now. It was the one thing he couldn’t fix no matter how hard he tried. The one thing they couldn’t medicate or bandage or amputate. He’d had a few cuts and scrapes after that day, but nothing that hadn’t healed. Externally.

  On the outside, he looked the same as always. Maybe a little less trim than the day he enlisted, but the same. Inside, though, he was a scrambled yowling mess, like a crate of feral cats.

  He gave Meri a grin he didn’t feel. “You know men. We like to pretend we know it all.”

  “Here, let me.” She slid into place in front of him, and for five seconds, he stayed where he was, with the fresh, light scent of her perfume wafting up to tease his senses. The warmth of her body inches from his. Meri Prescott, the woman he had never really forgotten, standing so close, he’d only have to shift his weight to touch her again.

  And where would that get him? Nowhere he could go, that was for damned sure. He’d learned his lesson in the few times he’d tried to date since he got home. Women in relationships wanted to know. They wanted to ask questions.

  Meri, of all people, would want to know everything. Once she realized he’d been with Eli...

  Getting close to Meri would mean talking about that day.

  Telling her how he had watched the light and life slowly ebb from Eli’s eyes. How he had held Meri’s cousin’s hand and lied about saving him and protecting him and being the friend he was supposed to be. How at the moment when Eli needed him most, Jack hadn’t been there.

  “Hey, remember that time Eli twisted a rubber band around the sprayer?” Ray said. “He talked you into getting him a glass of water and damned near busted a gut when that sprayer soaked you, Jack.”

  Meri laughed. “I remember that. Eli would get that little devilish look in his eyes and you knew he had a prank waiting for some poor soul.”

  “God, that boy made me laugh.” Ray shook his head.

  Jack gripped the edge of the sink, fighting the urge to tell them all to stop talking, to stop mentioning Eli’s name. Hearing it was like drowning an open wound in bleach.

  “Remember that April Fools’ Day when he put that rubber snake—”

  “In the toilet,” Ray finished for Meri. He laughed for a long time, then sobered and dropped his gaze. “Lord, do I miss that kid. It’s a damned shame what happened to him over there. War is a terrible thing. A terrible, terrible thing.”

  The air thickened. Jack’s chest constricted and his heart began to race. Sweat beaded on his brow and he clawed at the top of his T-shirt, as if the soft cotton was a boa constrictor.

  “I gotta go clean up outside,” Jack said. “It’s getting near dark.”

  He bolted out the back door and stumbled down the three steps that led to the yard. He stood there, bent over, fighting the urge to heave up his dinner, and drawing in deep of the warm, thick air.

  His heart slammed against his chest as if it was trying to bust through the walls around it and leap from the cold prison of Jack’s body. His throat tightened and the world darkened. He gripped his knees, struggling for air, for clarity, for...reality. Focusing on the details, just like the doctor had taught him to do.

  Thick green blades of grass. A smooth gray stone, no bigger than a quarter. A stray nail, rusted and bent, forgotten long ago.

  “Jack?”

  Thick green blades of grass. A smooth gray stone, no bigger than a quarter. A stray—

  “Jack, you okay?” A hand on his back.

  He tensed, his fists curling at his sides, his instincts screaming at him to fend off the danger, save the others, do something, soldier.

  He took a breath, another. Focused on the thick green blades of grass. The touch lingered, innocent, worried, and after a long, long moment, Jack’s fists uncurled and the tension eased a notch. “I’m...I’m fine.”

  He straightened and noticed Meri staring at him. “No, you’re not.”

  “I’m fine, Meri.” Maybe if he said it enough, he’d believe it, too.

  “You’re not fine.” Her green eyes were dark pools in the night, catching the moon and reflecting it like diamonds on the water. “Talk to me.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. Not with you or anyone else.” Hadn’t he talked enough to that damned psychologist? And where had it gotten him? “I said I’m fine, let it go.”

  She blew out a breath and propped her hands on her hips. “Okay, if you say you’re fine, then you are. But if you ever want to talk, I’m here.”

  She started to turn away. He didn’t think, he just reached for her, catching her arm and spinning her back toward him. Maybe it was the dark. Maybe it was the sound of the water lapping against the banks of the lake. Maybe it was the waking nightmare she’d dragged him out of. But the tides inside of Jack shifted, and needed more of whatever it was that he seemed to feel every time Meri was near.

  She let out a little gasp. Her eyes widened. Her pulse ticked in her thr
oat. But she didn’t back away. She just held his gaze and waited.

  This wasn’t the Meri he remembered. The girl who had been too scared to stand up to her demanding mother, the girl who had trotted across stage after stage like a blue-ribbon colt, as perfect as a porcelain doll.

  This Meri stood tall and firm, never flinching. He reached up and cupped her jaw, letting his thumb trace along the crescent scar that creased her perfect face. “What happened to you, Meri?”

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

  “Is that why you’re back here? Because you handled it so well in New York?”

  “I’m here...” Her gaze went to the lake, to something far beyond him. “To figure out where to go next.”

  “You and me both.” He had a stack of discharge papers and a pile of medals he didn’t want, and no freaking idea what he was going to do tomorrow or the next day or the day after that.

  “What do you want, Jack?” she asked, her breath warming the space between them.

  “I want...” His gaze dropped to her lips, to the way they parted softly when she let out a breath.

  He shifted closer, his hands going up to tangle in her long blond hair. He stopped thinking, stopped second-guessing himself and kissed her. This wasn’t the kind of kiss he’d given her all those years ago, both of them young and inexperienced, clumsy and unsure. Those kisses had been sweet, almost chaste compared to this one.

  This kiss exploded, a hot, rushed frenzy, his mouth sliding over hers, his tongue darting into her mouth, hungry, needy, wanting and seeking something he’d seen in her eyes, something he had lost a long time ago. Then Meri opened against him with a soft mew, and he nearly came undone.

  Then just as quickly, he jerked himself back to reality. This was Meri. The last woman on the planet he needed to kiss, to get close to again. Meri, who loved her grandfather and her cousin with a fierceness that most people never got to experience—

  Meri, who would never forgive Jack for what he had done.

  Jack stumbled back, away from her. “I’m sorry, Meri. Just...stay away from me.”