Here Comes The Groom: Special Forces #1

by Karina Bliss

  “If you come back now, lieveling,” Herman said softly, “you’ll never know who you were meant to be. I’ll end up the scapegoat again and I don’t deserve that.”

  Pat looked up. “No, you don’t,” she agreed.

  “Wait a minute,” said Dan, “am I hearing you both right? You’re giving up on thirty-five years of marriage just like that?”

  “Sometimes admitting defeat takes more courage than going on,” said his father. “But you’re too young to understand that. Patricia, I can still give you a ride home.”

  She straightened her shoulders and forced a smile. “Thank you, Herman.”

  His father helped his mother into the car with the same gallantry he’d always shown her. When he closed the door, Dan stopped him.

  “But, Dad,” he said, confused. “You don’t want this.”

  “No, son.” Herman smiled sadly. “Unfortunately that doesn’t mean it isn’t the right thing to do.”

  * * *

  Jo was in the farmhouse kitchen making two hot chocolates while Ross took a shower. She heard the rumble of a familiar engine on the driveway—it had been a long time but she still knew the sound of that Caddy.

  She reached the porch just as Claire got out of her late husband’s fifties Coupe de Ville. Jo had talked to Steve’s widow half a dozen times over the past year, but this was the first time since his death they’d caught up in person. Claire’s smile wobbled as she approached; so did Jo’s. Then they were wrapping their arms around each other and holding tight. They rocked like that for a moment then Claire murmured “Lewis” and they broke apart.

  Swallowing tears, Jo peered into the back window for Claire’s thirteen-year-old son. Moonlight revealed his face half buried in a pillow as he slept. “Out cold,” she reported. “Dan can carry him in when he gets home.” Tucking her arm through Claire’s she led her inside and settled her at the kitchen table with Ross’s hot chocolate. “Am I allowed to ask how you’re doing?” she said gently.

  Claire Langford had always been an ethereal beauty, fine-boned with long blond hair and delicate features. Only her eyes gave a clue to her character, being a fearless Viking blue. Now they were wary and sad. “To tell the truth, I cope best by concentrating on other people’s lives…. How’s your grandmother?”

  Jo took the hint. “Slowly settling in at Pinehill.” She found another mug for Ross, filled it with milk and spooned in some chocolate powder. “She’s becoming less aware of her condition, so happier I think. But again, I could be projecting,” she added ruefully. “It’s difficult to tell.”

  “Is she coming to the wedding?”

  Jo sighed. “Please tell me that’s not why you’re here.”

  “It’s off?”

  “It’s never been on.”

  Sitting down, she told Claire the truth. All of it. She reacted as Dan had. “You should have let us know when you were first diagnosed.”

  “I guess I still have something to learn about relying on other people,” she said.

  Claire was silent and Jo let it lie. She knew Dan was frustrated by Claire’s refusal to accept support. The SAS had a trust that provided financial assistance to widows, but emotionally she was going it alone.

  “Anyway you can see why I want to wait.” Choosing a pink marshmallow to annoy Ross, Jo put the mug in the microwave and keyed in a minute and a half. “At least until my odds of survival are closer to normal people’s.”

  “I can see you want to protect him,” Claire said slowly. “But Dan’s going into this with his eyes open. Just like I did when I married an SAS trooper. And hard as it is now, I still wouldn’t trade those fourteen years with Steve for fifty with anyone else.” She put down her mug and smiled. “I don’t want to make things harder for you, but think about it.”

  Before Jo could respond, the back door opened and Dan walked in. “Claire, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived.” Warily he looked at Jo but she was still too shaken by what Claire had said to challenge him on their so-called wedding guests.

  “Not a problem.” Claire returned his awkward hug. “It gave Jo and me a chance to catch up. Before I left Mum finally told me your parents split up. Why am I the last to know?”

  Dan’s smile grew fixed. “We didn’t want to worry you.” This self-consciousness wasn’t like him.

  “Like I told her, I’m a widow, not an invalid,” said Claire, an edge to her voice.

  “Of course not,” Dan said heartily.

  Jo rescued him. “Lewis is asleep in the car. Can you carry him in?”

  He left with obvious relief. Jo looked at Claire, who shrugged. “He’s acted like this ever since Steve died.”

  Ross limped into the kitchen, drying his hair on a towel. “Hey, Claire, didn’t hear you arrive.”

  His greeting was more natural, but if anything Ross’s solicitude surpassed Dan’s. No wonder Claire avoided these guys, Jo thought. They were as suffocating as helicopter parents.

  After Dan settled Lewis they sat talking at the table, where Jo kept up a semblance of normalcy by picking on Ross. Claire was patently grateful, Ross gave as good as he got, but Dan became twitchy.

  “Jo, I’ll walk you to your car,” he said after fifteen minutes.

  “You understood what I was doing, right?” she said when they were outside. “Normalizing things until you relax around Claire…and Ross.” She smiled. “I swear when you gave him that cushion for his leg he was seriously contemplating ramming it down your throat.”

  “I know your heart’s in the right place,” he said carefully.

  “Dan, what’s going on?” She diverted him into the barn and switched on the light. Work benches, farm equipment and the ATV came into sharp focus. “You can’t stop treating Ross like an invalid. Every time I touched you in front of Claire you pulled away.”

  “I’m just trying to be sensitive,” he said. “She and Steve were always hugging and holding hands.”

  Jo tried to read his expression but even under stark fluorescent overheads it was shuttered. “By making such a big deal about showing me affection, you’re only drawing more attention to her loss.”

  “We don’t have to rub her nose in the fact that we’re happy, do we?”

  Happy? Jo nearly laughed. Happy in desperate snatches maybe, both conscious of the looming wedding, both deferring a final showdown. But they couldn’t go on like this. “Dan—”

  He cut her off, obviously aware he’d made a tactical error. “Like I said, your heart’s in the right place, but some of the things you said to Ross tonight were kind of on the nose.”

  At this, Jo did laugh. “Ross lives for conflict. And we always take potshots at each other. You think he’d want me to go easy on him because he’s in rehab? He hates being treated as a invalid.”

  “Is that a dig at me?”

  “No.” Still smiling, she put her arms around his waist. “Well, maybe a small one.”

  His arms stayed by his sides. “So you know Ross better than I do now, is that it?”

  “Hey.” She gave him a gentle shake. “Deep breaths. You’re overreacting.”

  He huffed out a long sigh of frustration, but returned her embrace. “Let’s shelve this discussion because I don’t want to fight with you unless we can have make-up sex afterward.”

  “Drive over when everyone’s in bed.” Since Herman’s return their sleepovers had moved to her place anyway. They needed to talk…really talk, not make love and pretend they were changing each other’s minds. Claire was here for the wedding. Jo had to challenge him on that and a cold drafty barn wasn’t the place to do it.

  “I can’t.” He told her what had happened with his parents. “I should stay here, wait for Dad.”

  And though she suspected he was buying time, Jo kissed him, because tonight he needed support not confrontation. Besides, Ross had said he’d help her; she had to give him that opportunity.

  * * *

  Dan moved through the next thirty hours feeling like a bad actor in a p
arody of his life.

  He frowned when he should have laughed and he laughed when he should have been serious. He was uncomfortable in his own skin.

  And despite his best efforts, he was unable to connect with the people he most cared about, particularly the woman he was trying to talk into marrying him.

  But the worst torture was spending time with his godson. Unlike the adults, the boy couldn’t pretend things would get better. His sorrow stripped Dan of every rationalization and left him nowhere to hide.

  The laughing enthusiast that Dan remembered had been replaced by an apathetic, taciturn teen who responded to his clumsy attempts to jolly him along with surly distrust. Claire desperately tried to laugh it off. Lewis looked at him like he didn’t know him anymore and Dan, trapped in this agonizing caricature of himself, didn’t blame him.

  But doggedly, he kept trying.

  This morning—Sunday—they were going duck-shooting, just the two of them, like Dan had promised. He’d been up since five getting gear ready even though they didn’t need to be in position by the farm’s pond until sunrise at seven-twenty.

  At six forty-five the kid still wasn’t up even though Dan had personally set his alarm for six-thirty. On stocking feet, he crept past Ross’s bedroom door. He was staying behind. It wouldn’t be fair on the ducks, he’d said with his usual modesty, but Dan suspected his buddy felt too tempted to shoot him.

  “Back off,” he’d advised last night. “Back off nagging me to rest, back off smothering Claire, back off playing Mr. Hearty with Lewis. If I were you I’d concentrate on wooing my reluctant bride. I’ve bought you time to close the deal by saying I’d help her. Don’t blow it. I’m starting to think you don’t deserve Jo, and given how much she and I like making each other suffer, that’s saying something.”

  But for the first time Dan was suffering doubts about his ability to win her over.

  Which is why he’d fobbed her off last night. “Duck-shooting at dawn, things to organize. I’ll come over afterward, we’ll talk.”

  Jo had carried him since Claire and Lewis’s arrival, smoothing over the conversational rough spots, filling any awkward silences and patiently accepting his physical withdrawal because as hard as Dan tried, he couldn’t be natural in front of Claire. She’d carried him and he despised himself for letting her.

  Quietly, so as not to wake Claire in the adjoining bedroom, he tapped on Lewis’s door and opened it to darkness. He must have turned off the alarm and fallen asleep. Closing the door behind him, Dan switched on the light.

  “Ow, what did you do that for?” The boy buried his blond head under the pillow. Dan had borrowed extra beds from his mother.

  “Hey, mate, we’re going duck-shooting, remember?”

  Blinking, Lewis sat up. His eyes might be adjusting to the light but it was obvious he’d been wide-awake. “I’ve changed my mind. Go without me.”

  “But you were keen last night.” An exaggeration—resigned was more accurate.

  “I’m tired and it’s a long way to walk.” This from the kid who used to run everywhere.

  “C’mon,” Dan coaxed. “The fresh air will do you good. You’ve hardly been out of the house since you arrived.” Instead he’d spent most of his time on the internet playing Minecraft.

  The teen’s mouth turned sulky. “So you’re going to make me, is that it?”

  “Of course not.” Dan tamped down his disappointment. “But…last year you were looking forward to this.”

  “That was last year. Anyway I’ll be useless.”

  “You don’t know that. Besides, I’ll teach you.”

  “Nah, I’ll stay here.”

  Dan steeled himself. “Does it make you feel sad…because your Dad was going to do this with you?” It makes me sad.

  Scowling, Lewis flung himself on his side, hauling up the blankets. “You sound just like Mom, making a drama out of it. Not everything has to relate to Dad dying. And why do I have to be his clone…with all the same interests and stuff?”

  Dan was shocked. “No one expects you to be.”

  Lewis curled into a tight ball. “I’m tired of people doing things with me because they feel sorry for me, all right?”

  “Louie,” Dan said helplessly.

  “You didn’t even want to invite us,” Lewis accused, his green eyes hostile. “I heard Mum tell Grandma. Our invitation came ages after everyone else’s. You only asked us because you thought you should. Dad’s the one you cared about.”

  He’d heard enough. “I’m sorry, but that’s bullshit.”

  Lewis blinked but his mulish expression returned. “I don’t care anyway.” He pulled the blankets over his head.

  “Dan?” Claire came in, tying her dressing gown. “What’s going on?” She sat on the bed and laid a hand on Lewis’s shoulder.

  “He’s trying to make me go duck-shooting and I don’t want to,” said Lewis, his voice thick with tears, through the covers. Claire looked at Dan.

  Shaking his head, he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

  “It’s okay.” She managed a smile. “I’ll deal with it…you go.”

  Go away.

  Dan left the house and walked to the pond by flashlight only realizing when he got there that he’d left all the gear behind. Blue had followed him; he sent the dog home. Switching off the torch, he sat in Herman’s maimai—a hide made of wooden framing and corrugated iron covered in brush.

  Suffering alone in the dark.

  The rain began at dawn, a fine mist that softened the slowly revealed landscape, the pond, marsh and reeds. Through the hide’s narrow aperture, Dan watched ripples stir on the water, as fish broke the surface, listened to the first tentative birdsong.

  A duck flew in; planing across the pond’s surface with its webbed feet angled and wings outstretched, quacking loudly.

  The rain gathered force until heavy raindrops bounced off the water’s surface and blew under the tin roof. Within ten minutes it was running in a rivulet down one corner post, sending a black spider scurrying from its web.

  A drop landed on Dan’s head, then another, forcing him to change position. Blood returned to his cramped legs.

  I should have been there. He’d nearly said it to Claire, but Steve’s widow didn’t need the added burden of his regret. He buried his face in his hands.

  His mother had told him he was broken but he hadn’t wanted to believe her.

  He did now.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jo was marshaling her final arguments against the wedding when the doorbell rang. He was early. Taking a deep breath she opened the front door. “You’re right,” Dan said before she could exhale. “We should postpone the wedding.”

  It was the last thing Jo had expected to hear and her relief was so overwhelming, she started to laugh. “Thank you. Dan, thank you!” Dragging him inside she peppered his face with kisses. “I was so worried… I mean, I’d even packed a bag to do a runner…” She stopped because his face was drawn and tired. Defeated. Something was terribly wrong.

  “What happened?”

  He raked a hand through his hair. “I’ve screwed everything up.”

  Leading him to the kitchen, she pointed to a chair. “Sit down, I’ll make a cup of tea.”

  Instead he went to the window and looked out on the garden, while he explained what had happened with Lewis in a flat voice.

  “So you’ll talk to him,” she said quietly, putting the kettle on. “Make him understand how important he is to you. For his own sake, not just because he’s Steve’s son.”

  He was still looking out the window and she followed his gaze. Not a breath of wind stirred the trees; it was like looking at a photograph. “Dan?”

  “Live big,” he said. When he turned, she could see his self-contempt. “Tell me, Jo, what kind of loser says that? Claire and Lewis are suffering, Ross is goddamn handicapped and Nate…who knows where Nate’s head’s at. And what do I do? Make some hollow vow to honor my dead buddies’ memories by c
hasing happiness. It’s pathetic.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with lighting a beacon in the dark.”

  “If I’d been there, I would have been driving. Instead Steve died—the guy with a wife and kid. It should have been me, Jo. I had no dependents.”

  “Yes, you did.” Going to him, she gripped his shoulders. “You had me, even if I was just your best friend then. And I don’t care if it’s selfish, I thank God every day that you survived, Dan. And so does your mother and your father and your sisters.”

  Removing her hands, he kissed them and brought them to his chest. “I love you,” he said. “So much. But you were right. Part of the reason I’ve been so desperate to get you to the altar is that I want to move forward…get past pain.” Her knuckles ached under the pressure of his grip. “We’ll postpone the wedding until I get my shit together. You deserve better than to be dragged through my grieving process.”

  Only Dan would see his vulnerability as weakness. No, not only Dan. She did that, too. That’s what happened when you were stronger than most people. You began to think everything was your responsibility—and your fault.

  “To paraphrase my father—” Dan mustered a smile “—sometimes backing off is the right thing to do.”

  She stared at him. Dan was a protector. He didn’t think of adversity as something to be avoided. Claire had tried to tell her that but Jo hadn’t wanted to hear it because she was afraid of relying on anyone but herself. The truth was she loved a man who could handle anything her cancer threw at them, who would be strong even when she couldn’t. All she had to do was let him. Fear released its hold on her.

  “We’re not postponing the wedding,” she said.

  It was his turn to stare. “What?”

  “We’re not postponing the wedding.” Dan wanted to be his best for her; it was in his DNA. Jo understood that because it was in hers. But she’d learned something when he’d laid his hand against her scar. I don’t care about perfect. I just care that you’re here.

  Pulling her hands free, Jo wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love you,” she said. “And I need you, Dan.” Her laugh was shaky. “God, how long has it taken me to admit that? And I don’t care how you come—whole or broken. Like you don’t care how I come. Because that’s how much we love each other.”