Chapter Sixteen
LUCKY HOVERED SOMEWHERE between the living room and the kitchen, caught in the no-man’s-land between those who watched Thanksgiving football and those who cooked Thanksgiving dinner. If he had his way, he’d be in the kitchen, standing right beside Rachel as she chatted with Brenda and mixed whipped cream or something like it in a bowl. But Brenda had chased him out of there not ten minutes before, stating that her kitchen wasn’t big enough for a peanut gallery and he was only in the way.
So he settled for watching Rachel from a distance as she dipped her finger in the mixture and stuck it in her mouth. Her eyes drifted up to meet his and she smiled around the end of her index finger as she pulled it free from her lips.
Tease.
She must have read his thoughts, because she laughed, shook her head, then went back to what she was doing.
The group watching football erupted behind him and Lucky turned to see one of Brenda’s sons and a grandson on their feet, high-fiving each other, obviously cheering for the Texans who had just scored. His own father was doing his best impersonation of a referee, waving his arms wildly as if the play would be called back. Meanwhile the rest sat and watched the whole sideshow in amusement.
All of Brenda’s family had made it in for the long holiday weekend, so her house was stuffed to the gills with her three children, their spouses, and their children. When he and Rachel were added to the mix, they brought the total to fifteen.
With kids of all ages running around, it was quite a different scene from his Thanksgiving the year before where he celebrated the holiday with his friends at one of the many forward operational bases in Afghanistan. As to which one in particular, Lucky wasn’t sure since over the course of a decade they had all started to blend together. In fact, the only Thanksgiving dinner from his time in the army that truly stood out was early on in the war. His company had spent several days traipsing through a snowpacked valley near the Pakistani border when they were surprised by a holiday dinner delivered via Blackhawk. There, in the shadow of the Hindu Kush Mountains, he had the best Thanksgiving dinner he’d ever eaten—military issue or not.
But if given the opportunity, he had a feeling Brenda was going to give that memorable meal a run for its money.
Lucky returned his attention to the kitchen where Brenda’s daughter Katie appeared with her new baby girl. Her grandmother kissed and cooed over her before Rachel gleefully took the newborn in the cradle of her arms. Then, just as he would have suspected, she fell into that smooth swaying rhythm that people who are naturally good with babies seemed to have.
“You sure do keep an eye on her.” When Lucky turned around, his father was standing there with a knowing grin on his face. “And it’s not the same as when you were here for your birthday. I take it things have changed?”
“That obvious, huh?”
Duke chuckled. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m a little slow on the uptake.” Then he pointed to Brenda, who was currently dropping an entire stick of butter into a steaming bowl of potatoes. “But that one there noticed the minute you walked in the door.”
Lucky thought back to when he and Rachel arrived earlier, how he kept his hand placed just above the swell of her ass as they came up the drive and made their way inside. Technically, they hadn’t even been together forty-eight hours and already he found it impossible to keep his hands off her. And he couldn’t imagine a time would ever come when he wouldn’t want to touch her.
“How goes the sleeping arrangements?”
Duke shook his head. “I should’ve moved home for the week. I’d forgotten what it’s like to be around a bunch of mouthy know-it-all teenagers.”
“That bad, huh?”
“You have no idea.” His father looked around the room to see if anyone was listening in on their conversation. “This morning at breakfast, Brenda’s grandson asked how old I was.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“Absolutely. That’s what I thought at first, too.” Duke smacked the backs of his fingers against Lucky’s shoulder. “Then I found out they did their sex education unit at school last week and they learned that the number of STD cases has risen in the over-fifty age bracket.”
Lucky shook his head in disbelief. “What did you say?”
“What could I say?” His father took another long pull from his longneck.
“How much longer are they all here?”
“Last group leaves Sunday morning.”
Lucky slapped his hand on the back of his dad’s shoulder. “Your room is ready and waiting.”
Duke shook his head. “The only way I’d leave now was if Brenda went with me. And that’s not going to happen.” And then his father took him by surprise when he pulled Lucky into a hug. “It’s great to have you here. The both of you.” He gave a final pat to Lucky’s back, even snuck in a discreet kiss to his cheek before he ventured into the kitchen where he attempted to steal a bite of Brenda’s sweet potatoes.
It was nice to see his father finally have someone like Brenda, a woman who valued his kindness and loyalty and fought fiercely to keep him by her side. It would have been so easy for her to let Duke pack his bags and move out for the week while her family was here. They would’ve easily avoided any awkward conversations if they’d done just that. But he liked that Brenda wasn’t willing to pretend their relationship wasn’t something serious.
As much as he disliked Rachel’s request to downplay their new relationship status, especially at work, he understood it. And he’d go along with it for her. But what he wouldn’t give to see her throw caution to the wind and not worry about what everyone else might say or think.
Once again, his eyes met hers across the room. This time, Rachel wove her way through the crowd to him, a soft smile on her face and a baby in her arms.
“Who do you have there?” he asked, reaching out to caress the sleeping baby’s head.
“This would be Emma.” She smiled down at the baby. “Isn’t she precious?”
“You definitely seem to be a natural.”
She lifted her face to look up at him with those big blue eyes. “You think?”
He smiled and nodded.
“I’ve always wondered what it would be like to work in a NICU or a pediatric facility. I think I’d like it.” That gentle swaying rhythm made its return as she stood in place. “When I first graduated I tried to find a job in one of the local pediatrician’s offices, but ended up at the hospital instead.”
They both stared down at the sleeping baby she held in her arms. Jet black hair covered her head and dark eyelashes rested on rounded cheeks. Her rosy heart-shaped lips pursed in her sleep. She was a perfect angel brought into a world filled with people hell-bent on destroying each other.
“I couldn’t do it,” he said, curling her tiny little fist around his index finger. “Work in a pediatric unit, I mean. One too many times I had to treat one of the local kids that had been injured by an IED or something else and . . .”
She pressed a palm to his cheek, her thumb stroking his chin. “Are you okay? If you want to go we can.”
Lucky shook his head. “No. It’s fine.” His eyes scanned the room. “I’ve just never been to a Thanksgiving dinner like this. It’s . . .”
“Overwhelming?”
“A bit,” he said with a shrug.
“You’ve always been with your friends.” He nodded. “And before that it was just you and your dad?”
He covered her hand with his own and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist. “What about you? You must have had Thanksgiving dinners.”
“Not as many as you’d think. Once my brothers left home they rarely came back, because really, what was the point? And when we were younger, we were too poor to have a meal like this.”
“No turkey and mashed potatoes even?”
“Oh, we always had that.
Usually a church or some other organization would give us everything to make a meal. But we never cooked it all at once. We had to make it last as long as we could since we never knew when the next meal would come.”
And here he’d thought the dinners with just him and his dad were sad. They may not have had much, but his dad was always able to put food on the table. And now he thought about it, Ethan had always followed him back to his house, often having a PB and J since they were both hungry after spending an hour or so shooting hoops. Not once did he ever consider Ethan might not have had much to eat once he got home. Now he felt a stab of guilt for never having invited Rachel or Ethan to their house when he was younger.
With the table set and the turkey carved, the crowd made their way into the dining room. With Brenda sitting at the head of the table, she asked her oldest son to say grace, after which she suggested they go around the table and everyone say something they were thankful for. She, of course, was thankful for his father and her entire family being there to celebrate. Duke was thankful for Brenda and for God watching over his son all those years he was in the army and safely returning him home.
As they worked their way around the table, Lucky stared at the empty plate in front of him. What the hell was he going to say? He knew what he should say. That he was thankful for his father, for Rachel, for this new journey he was taking. That he should be thankful for having survived a decade’s worth of deployments to be here with them.
But he didn’t feel thankful. He felt guilty.
His thoughts kept drifting to the friends he’d left behind, the friends who were still fighting in that godforsaken war, the friends who were laid up in Walter Reed.
The ones who came home in a box.
He shouldn’t be here. In this comfortable house, with enough food to feed an army. He should be over there, with all of them. Not here.
Then he felt Rachel’s hand slide into his, palm to palm; she twined her fingers with his and held him tight until he looked over at her. She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze and a sweet smile. Staring into those blue eyes, he felt as if she could read all of his thoughts. That she knew how he really felt.
“I’m thankful for Starbucks Frappuccino and free Wi-Fi,” said the teenage girl who sat next to him.
“Mackensie,” both her parents chastised in unison.
“What? You want me to be thankful for him?” She pointed across the table at her brother. “I don’t think so. Not when he posted that picture of me on Instagram and now everyone in school is making fun of me.”
Her parents collectively swung their gazes to the boy sitting near the end of the table. “What picture?” they asked, again in unison.
“The one from the plane. Where she was drooling on herself.”
Once the sibling argument began, the rest was forgotten. And while everyone else was annoyed by the disruption, Lucky was silently thankful. Finally, Brenda rose to her feet and grabbed the large platter of turkey. “Why don’t we go ahead and eat?”
AFTER A SECOND round of eats, Brenda packed up enough leftovers to feed them for two more days before they said goodnight and headed across town.
Rachel knew Lucky had always been the quiet sort, especially when he was around people he didn’t know very well. But today, he was even more so. He seemed distracted, lost in thought, not long after they arrived and even more so when the pregame football broadcast honored the different military branches, even showing live feed of troops gathered in Afghanistan. From that moment on, she could tell he wasn’t there in that room with them. He was lost in thought, likely wondering if his friends were okay, if they were having a nice meal of their own. Her gut told her he was thinking he should be there with them instead of here with his father, with her.
In the weeks since his friends were killed and injured, he’d repeatedly claimed to be fine. Why wouldn’t he be? After all, it wasn’t like his legs had been blown off or his life ended. When he would talk with his injured friend on the phone, or received an email from one of the guys, he seemed lighter for a bit. But afterward, his mood would slowly darken and she feared the pain and frustration he’d felt weeks before was still there below the surface, slowly simmering until one day it would boil over.
He’d been better the past couple of days, at least when he was with her. Probably because when they were together, he was one hundred percent completely focused on her. It was clear she could distract him for the moment. But what would happen if a time came where she couldn’t lift him out of his funk?
Only after she climbed into his truck did she bother to check her phone, having left it in her purse for the entire day. She wasn’t surprised to see several notifications listed on her lock screen. Several Facebook notifications, a couple from Pinterest. A missed call from her brother David. A text message from Adam. Another from Dottie. And not one but three from Rich. Wanting to know if she was in town. Another asking if they could get together. Another that simply read tequila and pumpkin pie followed by a winking emoji.
Her phone buzzed while she held it in her hand and she practically threw it back into her purse, not even wanting to see the message he sent this time.
“Everything okay?”
For a split second she thought about telling him about the messages, but he’d already had a rough day and the last thing she wanted was to compound it.
“Everything’s fine.”
When they arrived at his place, she changed into her pajamas and powered off her phone. After she climbed into bed, she rested her head on Lucky’s shoulder as he wrapped her up in his arms. As she soaked up his warmth and drifted off to sleep, she feared this would be their last night of solace. Because she knew in her heart, when they returned to work the following night, all hell was going to break loose.
Chapter Seventeen
ON FRIDAY MORNING, Rachel finally went back to her place. Without him. Because later on she’d need to sleep before going in to work her shift. And if they spent the day together, she wouldn’t get any rest. And unlike him, she needed more than three or four hours of sleep to survive her shift.
She’d planned on cleaning the house, doing some laundry. The one thing she was not going to do was go to her parents’ house. Since she hadn’t received any text messages from her mother instructing her to pick up her medicine or stop for groceries, she assumed things were taken care of for the week. And if they weren’t . . . well, she wasn’t going to invite trouble by texting her and double-checking everything was okay.
After putting her work scrubs in the wash and making her lunch for work, she sat down in one of her hot pink camping chairs and powered up Netflix. Having heard a couple of nurses talking about a show called The Tudors, she decided now was as good a time as ever. And by the time Charles Brandon lifted Princess Margaret’s skirts and had sex with her on the ship carrying her to Portugal and her husband to be . . . well, she was hooked. Suddenly one episode turned into another, then another. The next thing she knew, she only had time for a three-hour nap before work.
As she climbed into her bed, she couldn’t help but notice how empty it felt. How she’d probably have slept better if she’d stayed with Lucky. She tossed and turned for the next hour, her mind spinning as she wondered what he was doing now. If he was sleeping in the bed they’d shared for the past three days or if he was sleeping on the couch. Or maybe he wasn’t sleeping at all. Maybe he was lying there awake thinking of her.
She must have fallen asleep at some point in time, because the alarm clock on her phone scared the bejeezus out of her. As she got ready for work, Rachel caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror and noticed she was smiling. Even when she was away from him, she couldn’t hide how happy she was.
It was usually in these euphoric, early days of a budding romance she’d get ahead of herself. Not unlike a schoolgirl, she’d test the sound of her first name mixed with a different last name. She’d daydream of
an entirely different life, one that began with an elegant wedding and ended with a beautiful home filled with the laughter of children.
“Do not do that this time,” she told her reflection. “Not with him.”
Because when the day came that he moved on with his life it would most likely be without her. Unless she could somehow convince him to stay here in this town. Odds were he’d leave her brokenhearted, but she would never, ever regret him.
Within minutes of clocking in for work on Friday night, Rich Hamilton was shadowing her. “I texted you a couple of times.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that.” She’d hoped to avoid this whole confrontation, that he would catch the hint since she wasn’t returning his messages. And even now she didn’t stop to talk to him or look him in the eye while he spoke to her. “I’ve been really busy the past few days.”
With an ambulance en route, she went into the trauma bay and grabbed a paper gown from the shelf, pulling it on and tying it in back as she walked to the ambulance entrance. But of course, he was the only ER doc working, so he followed right along.
“I was hoping we could pick up where we left off,” he said as the ambulance pulled into the drive. “Maybe skip the dinner and go straight for dessert this time.”
Ewww.
And really? The cheap bastard wasn’t even willing to buy her a lousy dinner again? Not that she’d be caught dead going anywhere with him after the way he behaved last time. Even if she weren’t with Lucky, she wouldn’t dare go out with Rich again.
The automatic doors opened and the paramedics rushed in with their patient, saving her from a reply. As they made their way to the trauma bay, she noticed Lucky keeping a watchful eye on things while talking on the phone. Just as she began to wonder if he was still upset about keeping things hushed, the one corner of his mouth lifted and he gave a little wink before he disappeared out of sight.
A little after three in the morning, she wandered into the break room, finally ready to take lunch. Much to her surprise she found Lucky sitting hunched over an open book on the table, with a sandwich in one hand and a yellow highlighter in the other. Her ass had been dragging most of the night, but once she saw him, it sparked a sudden burst of energy. Almost immediately she realized the salad she packed to eat wouldn’t satisfy her cravings.
Here And Now (American Valor 2) Page 16
