Once and For All: An American Valor Novel

by Cheryl Etchison

  “I’m sorry, but I have to go,” he said, removing the grip she held on his clothes. He kissed her fingers before taking her face in both of his hands. He pressed one more kiss to her forehead, another to the tip of her nose, and finally one last tender touch to her lips.

  Danny picked up his bags and took a few steps back, taking a long look at her as if committing her to memory. “Good luck in North Carolina, Dunbar. Kick some ass up there.” And then that trademark smile appeared like a ray of sunshine, the rarely seen dimple creasing his cheek. “Just so you know,” he called to her, “you’ll always be my favorite wife.”

  With one last wink, he turned and walked away, not bothering to look back.

  BREE RETURNED TO the bed-and-breakfast alone. She packed up her things, canceled her spa appointment, and checked out of the hotel. She was hardly in the mood to enjoy a massage, let alone celebrate her birthday. The owners of the bed-and-breakfast were lovely, boxing up the birthday cake Danny had special ordered along with a bottle of champagne. She also received a rain check for her spa day and two nights’ stay, the owners encouraging her to come back and celebrate his homecoming instead. Only problem with that idea was she’d likely be living in Greensboro by the time he returned stateside.

  For now, instead of going home, she drove to Marie’s, putting off the inevitable task of facing their apartment alone.

  As she climbed the steps of the front porch, she gathered a few items left scattered across the yard by the boys. She rang the doorbell once, to which the dogs barked in response. She waited and waited then rang again, wondering if Marie and the kids were out back and didn’t hear the bell.

  Finally, a shadowed silhouette approached the leaded glass door. When it opened, Bree was taken aback by the woman standing in front of her. Marie wore yellow gloves and carried a mop bucket in one hand. Her eyes, red and swollen, told Bree all she needed to know. She walked inside and closed the door behind her.

  “He left me one hell of a mess this time,” Marie said, marching through the house to the downstairs guest room they were remodeling. “Dust all over the damn place. I swear, I could clean for days and still not get all of it.”

  Bree followed behind her, along with the dogs. But the house was silent. No telltale signs of cartoons or video games blaring. No music playing, either. The only sounds to disrupt the silence were that of rain against the windows and Cosmo’s nails clicking on the wood floors as he trailed behind them.

  “Where are the kids?”

  “Leah went to a friend’s house after we got back. The boys are at a birthday party. Hannah is next door. Ben and I planned on hanging wallpaper today but—”

  On a mission of some sort, Marie marched down the back hallway until she reached the small bedroom facing the back of the house. For years it had been their staging area, a workshop of sorts as they remodeled the house room by room. With the rest of the house complete, the time had come for its face-lift.

  Several weeks before, Marie had shown her a sketch of her vision. Crown moulding banded the top of the room. Bright white plantation shutters covered the windows, matching the wainscoting wrapping around the lower half. Unlike the rest of the house, which was contemporary in style, this one was to be unabashedly feminine. The wallpaper a delicate floral and soft chenille fabrics on the four-poster bed. It screamed traditional Savannah, with a view into the backyard of the small rose garden and ivy-covered wall.

  She held her hands up momentarily before they dropped limply to her sides. “Now this all gets put on hold. Again.” Marie grabbed the sponge from the bottom of the bucket and dropped to her knees, scrubbing away the fine layer of construction dust from the baseboards. “Sometimes I get so tired of it all. Of our things being put on hold. Of him missing their first steps. Missing their birthdays. And dance recitals.

  “I knew what it meant when he enlisted. I knew he’d be absent a lot and I’d have to handle things on my own. And I’d like to think I’ve handled it all just fine, you know? The house hasn’t burned to the ground and I haven’t lost one of the kids yet, so I think I’m doing a pretty good job. But still there are days when I think it’d be easier to just—”

  Her words came to an abrupt stop and Marie sat back on her heels. She shook her head as if trying to rid the word she wanted to say from her thoughts. “I don’t know what I think.”

  As the tears began to fall, Marie looked in disbelief at the room around her.

  Then it all became clear.

  This was what Danny had warned her about. That even the strongest fortress had a weak point and could crumble to the ground in a moment’s notice. This woman, whom Bree thought was the strongest woman she’d ever known, a woman who wrangled four kids and ran her own business and handled any crisis with ease, had moments when she, too, broke down and cried, wanted to give up.

  Bree sat down next to her on the wooden floors and wrapped both arms around Marie’s shoulders. For those first few seconds Marie held stalwart and rigid. Then her arms embraced Bree and they cried together.

  They cried for the husbands they would miss. They cried out of anger at their leaving. But most of all, they cried in fear they might never return.

  WITHIN NINETY MINUTES of his arrival at Hunter Army Airfield, the transport planes were loaded and Charlie Company went wheels up. Early in the flight, Lucky made his way around the C–17, handing out sleeping pills so the guys could manipulate their sleep cycles and hit the ground running the moment they landed.

  On his previous deployments, Danny found it fairly easy to quiet his thoughts and fall asleep without the use of meds. He’d just pop in some earplugs and visualize the tide coming in while watching the sun rise over Myrtle Beach. But that wasn’t going to work this time since he’d been gutted by the woman he loved just before boarding.

  Everything about the weekend had been going according to plan. Right until his cell phone went off. Instead of being on a godforsaken plane headed to Africa, he should be enjoying the day with his wife.

  Their evening was to include a candlelit dinner with champagne and birthday cake, followed by a late-night ghost tour by horse-drawn carriage. Somewhere along the way, when the mood was just right, he’d tell her he loved her and that he didn’t want their marriage to ever end. And of course, in his head, she always agreed. Maybe even say she’d hoped from the very beginning he’d change his mind. Then she’d laugh a little, and cry a little, but only because she was so, so happy. And then they would return to their room and make love for hours on an antique brass bed covered in rose petals.

  What a fucking idiot he was.

  He’d spent weeks planning what he hoped would be a romantic birthday weekend she’d never forget only to find out Bree had spent that same time applying and interviewing for jobs hundreds of miles away.

  Karma, he supposed.

  It was for the better he hadn’t proclaimed his love. That he didn’t tell her how over the past few months she’d become as important as air to him. How after a long week of training he couldn’t wait to get home, wrap his arms around her and hold her tight. How he couldn’t believe he was so damned lucky to get a second chance at happiness with her. How he looked forward to spending the rest of their lives together.

  And now? Well, he didn’t want to think about that.

  Danny popped the two little pills into his mouth and finished off his bottle of water. He screwed the plastic cap back on and stowed the empty in his ruck. His stomach rumbled with hunger, but he ignored it, knowing the meds would kick in faster on an empty stomach. After all, the sooner he fell asleep, the sooner he’d forget he no longer had a wife to come back home to.

  He squirmed for a bit, trying to find a comfortable position. He propped his feet up then put them back on the floor. He tried leaning all the way over, nearly resting his head on his knees. Then he shifted sideways in his seat, hoping he didn’t wake up eight hours later with a massi
ve crick in his neck.

  Finally settled, Danny closed his eyes. And, much like he did almost ten years earlier on his first deployment, he thought of Bree.

  Her beautiful smile. Her contagious laugh.

  Those big brown eyes. The little crinkle between her brows when she was mad.

  Her ice-cold feet. The warm flush of her skin.

  The arch of her back. The scrape of her nails.

  Soft moans. Breathless gasps.

  Warm mouth. Full lips.

  Tender kisses.

  Wedding kisses.

  Wedding rings.

  I do.

  Forever.

  Always.

  AFTER THEIR TEARS had dried, Bree and Marie decided to commemorate her birthday as best they could, starting with the cake and champagne Danny had ordered. Each armed with a fork, they ate straight from the box. And with each bite, they felt a little bit better.

  Hours later the late-afternoon sun broke through the rain clouds and the silence disappeared as each child returned home. The neighbor keeping Hannah brought her home after her nap. Leah returned home after the movie, no longer in the mood to spend the night with friends. The boys burst through the front door in a ruckus with noisemakers and goodies and loud stories of how one boy smacked another in the head while taking a whack at the piñata. Within a matter of minutes the Wojciechowski house had returned to its normal chaotic routine with siblings fighting and children laughing and dogs racing wildly through the house.

  As darkness fell and the house eased into nighttime routines, Bree said good-night.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay the night?” Marie asked at the door. “I know sleeping on the twin bed in the nursery doesn’t hold the same appeal as my soon-to-be guest room would, but it still beats going home alone to an empty apartment.”

  Bree shrugged her shoulders. “I have to go home sometime.”

  Marie nodded in understanding. “Just so you know, you are always welcome here.”

  “I know,” she called out as she headed down the front steps. “I’ll see you Monday.”

  For the short drive home, she pulled one of Danny’s favorite CDs from the holder strapped to the sun visor and slid it into the player. The heavy metal rock blasting from the speakers wasn’t her preference, but she found herself sitting in the parking lot of their apartment complex, listening until the very end. Of course she was just delaying the inevitable.

  Instead of loading in another disc, she chose to face the quiet dark of their apartment. Although she’d spent many nights here alone, it felt different this time. Knowing if there was an emergency, if she really needed him, he couldn’t come rushing home to her rescue.

  On the floor of their closet she found the shirt he’d run in the day before. She kicked off her shoes and stripped down to her panties then pulled the soft gray cotton over her head. Holes dotted the seams in the armpits and collar, and the hem was split and frayed from age. Holding the fabric up to her nose, she breathed in Danny’s scent, a combination of sport deodorant and sweat.

  After double-checking the locks and turning out the lights, she checked her phone one last time for any messages. Then she crawled into his side of the bed, buried herself deep within the covers and cried herself to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  THE AFRICAN SUN blazed down as Danny hurried across the tarmac to C-Co’s makeshift living quarters in an airport hangar. Since landing in Niamey ten days earlier, they had been running round-the-clock missions along with French Special Forces. Their targets, Al-Qaeda-linked militants in northern Mali, were responsible for everything from tourist kidnappings to embassy bombings across northern Africa.

  Ben waited for him within the shade of the hangar, offering him a bottled water. “Hot enough for you? Only forty-four today.”

  Gratefully, Danny took the bottle of water, unscrewed the cap and drank it down all at once. While catching his breath, he did the temperature conversion in his head. “Fuck, man. That means it’s actually 111 out there.” Which wasn’t hard to believe. It had felt as if the soles of his boots were melting beneath him as he crossed the asphalt. “Why do you insist on using Celsius anyway?”

  “It sounds cooler.” Ben chuckled. “Literally.”

  Danny shook his head and headed for his cot.

  “Did you talk to Bree?”

  It hadn’t taken long for Ben to figure out Danny’s head wasn’t in the right place and like the good friend he was, kept pushing and pushing until Danny told him everything. How Bree had been offered a new job. How she had asked him if she should take it. How he wished her luck and instead of telling her how he felt, he took the pussy way out. Again.

  “Went to voice mail.” Never before had he requested to call home. Of course, he’d always deployed as a single guy. Never had to fear the love of his life leaving him while he was gone. Although this had been their plan from the very beginning, Danny now hated it was coming to pass.

  “Did you leave her a message at least?”

  Danny scrubbed a hand over his face and fell back onto his cot. “No. Probably pointless to call her anyway.” Bree wasn’t expecting his call and likely wouldn’t answer without an identifying caller number. “I’d bet she’s on the way to Greensboro if she’s not already there.”

  Fuck. He was an idiot for letting her go.

  “So that’s it? You’re just gonna let her go?”

  Danny shrugged his shoulders. “What am I supposed to do?”

  Ben shot to his feet and began pacing the same ten feet of concrete floor. Then just as quickly as he started, he stopped. “Get up,” Ben said, throwing his hands in the air. “Come on. Get your ass up.”

  Danny moved to sit on his cot, but nothing more, wary of Ben’s sudden change in demeanor. “What the hell for?”

  Ben cracked his knuckles. “Because I’m going to single-handedly knock some fucking sense into that goddamn thick-headed, dumb-ass skull of yours.”

  Danny’s jaw dropped. “The heat is making you fucking crazy.”

  “I’m crazy? I’m crazy?” Veins he didn’t know existed popped out on Ben’s forehead as his face went beet-red. “I’d rather be crazy than a fucking idiot!”

  Danny made no move to get up. “This is what she wants.”

  “Are you sure about that? She’s making a decision based on bad intel. If you’d had the balls to tell her how you really feel, I bet money she would have stayed.”

  “You don’t know Bree like I do. She’s so very smart. Bad luck combined with rotten timing is the only reason she hasn’t been a huge success so far. This job is a huge opportunity. I couldn’t ask her to give it up.”

  Having calmed down a bit, Ben dropped onto the cot next to Danny. “Then go with her. You’ve only got a few months left on your contract. You could leave the military and follow her.”

  “Really? And do what? This is all I know. It’s all I’m good at.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Danny pointed at him. “It absolutely is fucking true. If leaving the military is such a damn good idea, why aren’t you considering it? Why aren’t you putting that good ol’ GI Bill to use and living off your wife’s business, huh?”

  Ben remained silent.

  “You and I, we’re not cut out for boring office jobs. And we sure as hell aren’t cut out to teach Crossfit to middle-aged soccer moms. This—” he said, waving a finger at the hangar full of men and equipment around them “—is what we do. We like the adrenaline. The camaraderie. But most of all we’ve got each other’s backs. We equally support each other. If I were to leave the military, I’d have nothing.”

  “But you’d have Bree. If ever the day came that Marie said it was her or the army, I’d choose her. Every. Single. Time. I’d choose her. And I’d never spend a day regretting it. Because she is the single most important person in my
life.”

  Exhausted, Danny rested his elbows on his knees, his head hanging from his shoulders. “It’s my job as a man to take care of her and support her and keep her safe. If I can’t do that, then what’s the point?”

  Ben rose to his feet, all the while shaking his head in disbelief. “I don’t get your thinking, Danny. I don’t get it at all. We’re Rangers. We don’t know the meaning of quit. And yet, that’s exactly what you just did.”

  Before Danny could respond, Ben turned his back on him and walked away.

  BY THE TIME Bree reached the second-floor landing she was an exhausted, sweaty mess. If she was having issues hauling the flattened cardboard boxes she purchased across the parking lot and up the stairs while they were empty, she sure as hell wouldn’t be able to move them once they were full.

  Thankfully, Marie knew a couple of college guys with a truck and nothing but free time who were willing to help her out with the move. It wasn’t as if she had much, so all she had to do was pay for their food, gas, and a day’s work.

  Within a matter of days she’d be more than 300 miles away, starting her new job, her new life. Although she didn’t really want to go, she also knew she couldn’t stay. Ring or no ring. Vows or no vows.

  For ten days she’d held out hope Danny would change his mind and ask her to stay. That time and distance would somehow bring them closer. Instead, there had only been silence. Which, of course, played right into her insecurities, letting her imagination run wild with reasons as to why he let her go so easily.

  Like the thought that Danny had changed more in the past ten years than she’d realized and he had no desire to marry, ever. That their temporary arrangement was nothing more than a chance to play house, to try the idea on for size to see if marriage was or wasn’t for him. In which case, so be it.

  Or maybe he did like being married, but what she felt in her heart was completely one-sided and his love for her wasn’t more than as a friend. With or without benefits. Which completely sucked.

  Or even worse, he liked being married to her and loved her, but now that he’d had a taste of family life he wanted to have it all, including children. Or at the very least he didn’t want to rule out the possibility. In which case, she was completely shit out of luck. And that hurt like hell.