by Gina Watson
“So is your mom in the hospital for that?”
“No, she already found a drug that helps her.” She inhaled and sighed. “She’s in there because she started drinking, and alcohol doesn’t mix well with Thorazine.”
“Oh.” His brows rose. “My mom’s medication doesn’t do well with her amaretto sours either.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t stop her from swallowing down her pills with it.”
She enjoyed talking with him. It was easy, and he seemed to enjoy the give and take as much as she did. “What happens when she does that?”
“She passes out.” He shook his head. “We had to take her to the emergency room twice. Combination of the pills with the alcohol slowed her heart rate. But even after all that, she still combines the two.”
“That’s hard.”
“Yeah.” He scratched his head with the car key. “Shall we go to the library? And we need to ditch the car.”
“Oh.” Her eyebrows rose. “Why?”
“A precaution. It may have been identified by the thugs. Doesn’t seem likely they’d give up on their mission. I wouldn’t.”
His words made Mia uneasy, and she was doubly thankful he was with her.
Chapter 3
They went to the library so Mia could send her email. While there, she purchased a couple of used books, excited about her finds. Augie enjoyed how something so simple delighted her.
As they exited the library, he pointed to a super-center store. “Would you like to get a few things: toothbrush, hair brush? Anything?”
“That’d be great.”
“Come on.”
When they left the store with their purchases, they watched a man attempt to tie a cast-iron mixer to a motorized scooter using one bungee cord. Mia’s hand landed on Augie’s forearm.
“Augie, look. He’s going to lose that load.” She clicked her tongue. “Oh, and there’s a white bow on top of the box. It’s probably for his girlfriend or wife. Let’s help him.”
“What kind of idiot drives a scooter to do his birthday shopping?”
“Maybe that’s all he has.”
Before he could answer, she took off.
She tried to reason with the man, but he was agitated.
“Sir, please let us help you. We can follow in the car with the mixer.”
His hand held stiffly between them indicated she should keep her distance.
“Just go away. I don’t need your help.”
“But the mixer is too heavy for this small fender. It’s going to hit the ground.”
“I said go away.”
Augie looped his arm in hers. “Come on, Mia, he said he’s got it.”
“That’s right, go on,” he yelled over his shoulder.
He sat on the scooter and started the engine. They stopped behind him. As soon as he put the scooter in drive, the mixer wobbled and Augie was there to catch it as it fell.
The man slammed the scooter onto the kickstand and jumped off, ready to strike, but Mia tried talking to soothe his agitation.
“Sir, your mixer was about to fall to the ground. It would have broken if not for this man. Please, can we offer you some help?”
The man was speaking gibberish under his breath and was clearly flustered about something.
Augie set the mixer on the ground. “Mia, forget it. Let’s get out of here.”
Mia’s eyes pleaded with him as she held up her index finger to ask him to wait. “Sir, it’s okay, where do you need to go?”
“For my mother.” The man rocked on his feet, but wouldn’t make eye contact with her.
“Okay. Is she close by?”
“Oakridge.”
“I know where that is. Shall we follow you with the mixer in our car?”
“No!”
“Mia, I don’t think this—”
“Augie, please. He needs our help.”
They ended up driving beside him so he could see Mia, in the passenger side of the car, holding the mixer. At every intersection she waved and smiled to the crazy bastard. When they arrived at his mother’s apartment in an assisted living facility, Mia suggested he wrap the gift, but he didn’t have any paper. Augie watched as she helped him wrap it in old comics from the stack of papers in the apartment.
“She’s going to love it!”
Mia smiled and so did the man. When they were leaving, he lunged at Mia, and Augie almost pounced on him, but the man only hugged and then released her.
“Thank you for letting us help you, Russell. Your mom is going to be thrilled with the mixer.” He said something under his breath and then waved goodbye like a small boy.
As they drove, Augie marveled at her patience with the aggressive man. “You’re really good with people.”
“Not all people. I work well with the afflicted.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I’ve just never been good at making friends. Normal people don’t typically gravitate to me; most think I’m strange.”
Still, he assumed that her being from a small town meant she’d have some long-lasting friendships.
“Don’t you have friends from high school?”
“There were roughly four hundred students at my high school. If anything, the small number just made me stand out more. I wasn’t very popular.”
He nodded as he pictured her during her awkward years. “Were you in sports or anything?”
“No, I had to get home to Mom.”
“Prom? Homecoming?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“You really mean no friends.”
“I know it seems weird, but the school really was small, and I worked hard to keep our private family business from being spread all over town.” She shrugged and looked at him. “I bet you were popular.”
“I did all right.”
“Did you play sports?”
“I did.”
“Which?”
“All of them, I think.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“I wasn’t very good at any of them, so that’s why I played them all.”
“Is that how they do it in Louisiana?”
“Yeah, everything’s backwards there.”
She laughed, and Augie was rewarded with a beautiful pearly white angelic smile. It was breathtaking. He needed to make her laugh more often. He was going to make it his new mission.
*
He drove the car to a junkyard. “Ready?” He grabbed the sack of toiletries from the back seat.
“What are we doing here?”
“I’m having the car destroyed.”
“Isn’t that excessive?”
“Not at all.”
“Couldn’t we give the car to someone in need? Like Russell.”
“Car has to be destroyed. We must erase all traces of me ever being here.”
She frowned.
“Please trust me.”
When she looked into his pleading brown eyes, she saw warmth and honesty.
“Okay.”
She opened her door and followed after him. A man stepped out from a metal building and shared a funny-looking handshake with Augie. He was American, tall and wide, with a deep scar across his left cheek. After a few exchanges, she learned they’d fought together in Afghanistan. Augie and Scott discussed the car. He said he’d drain the tank and then the car would be destroyed within the hour.
“Let me give you a lift.”
“That’d be great. To the train station.”
Train station?
Mia wondered if she should introduce herself—since Augie hadn’t—but once they started driving, she just sat back and listened.
“How are the nightmares?” Augie asked.
“Every night. Sleeping pills they give me make ’em worse. It’s always the same thing—what would have happened if you hadn’t come when you did.” He shook his head vigorously. “And then I see their faces.”
Augie squeezed Scott’s forearm. “Hey, I was there and that wasn’t our fault; we we
re sent for the civilians, and we got to all of them.”
“We did, but their faces—those sweet faces—haunt my dreams.”
His voice was shrill and so highly pitched, it sounded painful. Was he referring to children? What had he and Augie been involved with?
“Do you keep up with Gloria?” Scott asked.
Who’s Gloria?
“Not really.”
“You guys were great together.”
And when were they together?
“Not great enough.”
Looking out the window, Mia realized they’d reached their extremely odd destination.
“Good seeing you, Scott.”
They did their handshake again and Scott backed the car out. Augie watched as the car drove off.
“Augie? Everything okay?”
Their eyes met and his pained, saddened eyes blinked at her.
She squeezed his arm. “You okay?”
He nodded. “Let’s go.”
“What are we doing at the train station?”
“No trails.”
“Trails?”
“The less Scott knows the better so I had him drop us here. It’s close enough that we can walk back to a hotel, and if anybody comes sniffing around it won’t put him in a compromising position.”
“Are we switching hotels too?”
“Yes.”
“Was Scott referring to children?”
He froze.
“He said sweet faces. I was wondering if he meant children.”
He walked slowly, hands locked behind his back. “Yes, children.”
“Did some die?”
“Yes.”
“He … he was trying to save them?”
Augie stopped walking and pointed. “Do you want a soft pretzel?” They each got one and took a seat on a nearby bench. She sensed the moment was over and though she wanted information, she didn’t want to pry. The overwhelming compassion she felt for him and his friend at what she imagined they’d endured twisted in her gut. If he didn’t discuss it with her, she hoped he’d find someone he could confide in. She understood how the negative festered, bringing sickness and weakness to all parts of the body and mind.
Augie was a good man. She didn’t want him weighed down with unchecked and heavy emotional burdens.
*
They ate in silence and luckily Mia didn’t press him anymore about Scott’s admissions in the car. He didn’t want to talk about that mission or those days.
When they finished they walked, fingers laced, to their motel two blocks away. He couldn’t explain it, but he didn’t want to break their connection, so he kept hold of her hand. She didn’t seem to think anything of it, but her touch meant everything to him—she was a mountain guide in a blinding blizzard. A Sherpa. Seeing Scott again had Augie back where he never wanted to be—forever lost in an arid desert. But her warm hand in his anchored him to the present.
She pulled him through the station. He still hadn’t said anything, but she was undemanding. She stopped at a candy shop and only dropped his hand to fill a bag with … Runts. No wonder she smelled fruity and sweet; she still ate this candy he’d given up as an adult. A cool refreshing, like an internal breeze, rushed through him, linking the good memories from his past to the very real present. And there had been good memories. Lots of them before the war and before death and loss. Hell, he even had good memories of his buddies from the combat zone.
He shook his head, but couldn’t hold back a smile. This slight girl and her sugar craving had saved him from floundering into an abyss after the meet with Scott. He scratched his head. Clay had saved him when he’d returned from the Middle East, but that had been a different, rougher, kind of therapy. He’d needed that demanding presence of a buddy kicking his butt then, but now he needed her sincere compassion. Or maybe he just wanted it. Or shit, maybe because he’d been denying himself the gentle concern of a woman for far too long he now craved it. She was gentle yet concerned and seemed to know his innate needs, needs he wasn’t aware he had, such as talking about the darkness and devouring sugary, enamel-damaging junk.
She popped a handful of fruit shapes into her mouth and laced her fingers through his.
“Sherpa,” he whispered as he smiled down at their linked hands.
She blinked her eyes at him. “Did you just call me a Sherpa?”
“You led me away from the darkness.”
She smiled and squeezed his fingers.
“It’s true—the damning thoughts didn’t overtake me. It’s gotta be the first time I’ve ever thought about what happened and didn’t vomit and feel the walls closing in on me, cutting off my oxygen.”
Her jaw dropped and her intake of air was sharp. She held the bag of candy up in the space between them.
“Runts?”
People swirled around them, and he laughed. Cleansing, all-consuming laughter until tears dripped from his eyes. She did the same, and he scooped up a handful of the fruity candy.
As they walked to the hotel he thought about the effect she had on him: she kept his demons at bay. There was a lot of downtime in the desert and he’d filled it by memorizing poems and literary passages. She reminded him of one particular Will Fitzgerald haiku:
I needed her
not because
her kiss
lit up my days
but because
the scent of
her skin
guided me through
the dark
At the motel he stood in line to register for a room. Pointing to a beverage stand, she whispered in his ear, “I’m going to grab a hot tea. You want one?”
“I’ll take a coffee. Lots of cream, no sugar.”
He waited in line for several minutes while the elderly couple ahead of him tried to hurry, but failed miserably. The woman had misplaced her wallet. They searched the luggage and her purse, twice. She smiled at him.
“It’s hell to get old and senile. I apologize for the delay.”
When she turned, he saw a strip of red leather poking out from her jacket pocket. “I think what you’re looking for may be in your pocket.”
He gestured and she pulled it out with a giggle while her husband rolled his eyes.
Finally he paid for their room and then searched the lobby for Mia. He observed her as she watched a couple with a child swipe crackers and condiments from a shelf outside the hotel restaurant. A man in an apron approached, gesturing wildly and pointing to a stack of menus. The father shook his head. Mia stepped in and had an exchange with the efficient employee, and not a very nice one by the look of it. The couple put the items back, and Augie watched as Mia pointed to the restaurant and placed cash in the woman’s hand. Mia shook her head, holding her hands in the air, obviously refusing to take back the money, and then placed a hand on the mother’s back and prodded her into the restaurant.
Augie crossed the lobby and took his coffee from her.
“Thanks, Mia.” Still smiling at her sweetly bossy ways, he took a sip.
And he naturally wondered how she’d react to being bossed around.
Hot images of her responding to a dominant man, to him, heated him more than his coffee.
Chapter 4
They occupied the same bed.
Last night he’d slept in a chair, but she’d said there was plenty of room in the king bed.
She’d started out under the covers and that had been a good thing since they had nothing to sleep in. But Mia wasn’t a quiet sleeper, and she’d shifted excessively the last few hours. Augie glanced again at the woman currently taking up two-thirds of the mattress, the woman who wore only her underwear. He’d taken off his shirt, but knew better than to remove his jeans. A slender arm landed across his chest. He exhaled loudly, hoping to disturb her enough so she’d reposition herself. She rolled and her thigh slid onto his, but she was still asleep. He’d be changing his name to Saint Augustine as soon as he got back to Baton Rouge. His hand went to her hip in an effort to move her, b
ut that was a mistake.
She was warm and smooth and her hips were displayed in a provocative manner that had him going full-on hard. He clicked on the television and the shopping network came blaring to life. She stirred and raised her head from his chest. She eyed him with one eye open and one squinted shut, looking disoriented.
“Were you deliberately trying to wake me up?”
“I don’t know—were you deliberately trying to give me a hard-on?”
She pushed herself up, attempting to push away from him, but the bed was shit—soft in the middle and hard on the edge, creating a bowl effect.
“God, do you have to answer using vulgar language and descriptions?” She ran her hand through her hair. “And for the record, I wasn’t aware I was disturbing you. I apologize.”
“Human-body pillow aside, can you at least get under the covers so I’m not in pain?”
From the glow of the television he could see that she turned as red as an apple when she eyed his erection. She quickly pulled back the covers and slid under them.
He turned off the television and rested his eyes. Her warmth seeped through the comforter, but she was safely covered, so at last he could get some sleep. His muscles slowly relaxed.
A blood-curdling scream pierced the room and hit his brain like a two by four. She jumped up and he followed. Eyes wide, they gawked at each other across the bed.
“What the hell?” he demanded.
She was shuddering as she rubbed one leg and pointed with an unsteady hand to the bed.
“Something bit me on the leg. Something huge. Oh God, it was on me.”
Her voice was so high, she squeaked. She shrieked again, and his head pounded.
“Goddamn, woman.” He took a deep breath. Patience wasn’t his strongest character trait. He pulled back the sheets and identified the culprit. A huge beetle. He approached from the back and was closing in on it when Mia screamed again, causing his pulse to hammer in his ear.
“Oh my God, is that what bit me?” She cupped her hands to her mouth.
“Stop screaming. Let me get rid of it, and then I’ll look at your leg. Sit in the desk chair.”
