Solid Ground: a Wounded Love novel

by Megan Green

  I’m struck with the sudden realization of how much is missing from my life. I’ve always been happy with the way my life has turned out. Sure, losing a leg kind of sucks. But I’ve never really felt incomplete. Never really felt that overwhelming desire to spread my seed or whatever the fuck it is they say men instinctively want. I’ve never felt like I was lacking anything by not having children.

  But, for some reason, holding Cade in my arms has reminded me that while I might be content with the hand life has dealt me, there is always the capability of having more. Life isn’t about staying in one place, stagnating indefinitely, while the rest of the world continues on around you. I might have picked up my life in North Carolina and moved halfway across the country after my dad was injured and Emma found Isaiah, but I’m still stuck in that same place I’ve been since returning from the war. My career has changed. The scenery has changed. But, deep down, I’m still that same Joey who returned slightly bitter, a lot pissed off, and ready to show the world that he wouldn’t let something like a little missing leg slow him down.

  Now that I’ve proven to everyone just how capable I am, being one of only a handful of officers in the entire country to have a prosthetic anything, I feel like I’m ready to take the next step. Turn the page. Open the next chapter of my life. Whatever cliché you want to use, I realize I’m finally ready for it.

  Now, I just have to figure out what in the hell it is.

  Nichole gets to her feet, softly clearing her throat as if me holding her son might be making her uncomfortable. I loosen my grip on the boy, but he clings to me, his hold tightening so that he doesn’t slip.

  “Cade,” Nichole says cautiously, “I don’t think Joey—I mean, Officer Roberts wants to hold you for the rest of the night. You aren’t exactly light anymore.”

  Cade’s arms loosen around me, and I grab his legs, swinging him around so that he’s hanging upside down. He giggles frantically as I lift him up and down a few times by his feet.

  “I don’t know, Mom. He feels pretty light to me. You sure you’re feeding this kid? He needs some meat on his bones,” I say teasingly, crossing my forearm over Cade’s shin, freeing up my other hand so that I can playfully poke him in the ribs. “Yep. Just like I thought. Skin and bones. We’re going to have to fatten you up if we’re going to eat you for Thanksgiving dinner.”

  Cade claws at my legs as I tickle him, his laughs coming in breathy bursts. I let him down, noticing how flushed his face is from laughter and hanging upside down, but he looks positively thrilled.

  “You can’t eat me for Thanksgiving. I’m not a turkey.”

  I skeptically eye him. “You sure about that? You look like a turkey to me. And, when I poke you right here,” I say, jabbing him again in the ribs, getting yet another giggle out of him, “you definitely sound like a turkey, too.”

  Cade tucks his hands into his armpits, flapping his arms, while he clucks and bobs his head back and forth. Evidently, the kid doesn’t know the difference between a turkey and a chicken. But he’s having so much fun that I’m sure as hell not going to be the one to break it to him.

  After he’s done with his impression, Cade climbs back into the chair he was sitting in earlier at the patio table. He reaches for another slice of pizza that’s still out and shoves it into his mouth as he continues to try and talk to Nichole and me.

  “Cade,” Nichole snips at him, “manners!”

  I plop down in the chair next to him, grabbing my own slice and taking a huge bite. “It’s all good, Mom. We’re all friends here. Right, Cade?” I say through my mouthful of food.

  Nichole shakes her head at me, but I can see the small hint of a smile playing across her lips.

  “You are incorrigible. And stop calling me Mom.”

  I innocently hold my hands up. “Whatever you say, Nic-hole.”

  Cade bursts into laughter next to me. “Nic-hole. Your name is Nic-hole!”

  Nichole shoots me an evil glare before turning her attention to Cade. “No. To you, my name is Mom. Not Nichole. And definitely not Nic-hole. Mom. Got it?”

  Cade looks at me out of the corner of his eye, and I wink.

  “Okay, Mom,” we both say in unison.

  She throws her arms up in frustration and walks into the kitchen.

  “Hey, Nic!” I shout after her. “There are a couple of pints of ice cream in the freezer and some root beer in the fridge. Want to grab those on your way back out, and we can have some floats in a few?”

  I hear what sounds like an agreement mumbled from the kitchen, and I smile at Cade.

  “You like root beer floats?” I ask dumbly, knowing there isn’t a kid in this world who doesn’t love root beer floats.

  And, sure enough, he nods emphatically as he swallows the rest of his food.

  “Me, too. They’re the best. Give me an ice-cold root beer float over a banana split any day.”

  Cade giggles again, his eyes bright with amusement. I think back to the sullen kid I saw last month on the school playground, sluggishly pushing his truck through the dirt. He seemed so…down. So tired. Words you’d never think you’d be using in reference to a seven-year-old boy but nonetheless true.

  In just a few short days, that sad little boy has seemed to do a complete one-eighty. Instead of depressed and listless, this Cade is carefree and happy. Maybe even a little—dare I say it?—hyper. In essence, he is acting like a seven-year-old should. At least, he is acting the way I remember acting when I was seven.

  I look over at the flower beds I cleared out a few weeks ago, and the flowers I planted are thriving and flourishing. An idea hits me.

  “Cade,” I say with a smile.

  His eyes quickly dart to mine.

  “How about we do something nice for your mom? You know, as a thank-you for letting you come over and play with me tonight.”

  Cade nods enthusiastically.

  I get to my feet, nodding my head toward the garden. “Come on.”

  I peek into the kitchen through the window, seeing Nichole busy with the ice cream. She’s found the scoop and instead of bringing it all out here, she’s prepping the floats inside. It should keep her busy for at least a couple of minutes. I hurry Cade over to the garden, so we can be prepared when she comes out.

  Cade hustles after me as I stride across the yard.

  When we reach the garden, I nod for him to go ahead. “Don’t be shy. Grab as many as you want.”

  Cade gives me a puzzled look, his brows furrowed, as he warily stares at me. I laugh, stepping into the dirt and breaking off the end of a lily. When Cade still doesn’t follow my lead, I turn my back and go about my business, moving from plant to plant to gather as many different varieties of flowers as I can.

  After I’ve gathered three or four, I hear Cade rustling behind me. I smile when I turn around and see him struggling to pick a daisy from a rather large plant. I reach over, bending the stem down to give him better access. He grins at me as he breaks the flower free, handing it to me to add to the pile. I help him gather a few more, and then the two of us head back over to the table.

  As a single guy living all alone, I can’t say I’ve ever had the occasion to buy a vase. I mentally catalog the glasses in my cupboard, most of them little more than plastic tumblers that have seen better days, looking like they’ve been through a few rounds with the dishwasher. Deciding the paper cups I purchased for tonight—light-green ones with little purple flowers on them—are much nicer than anything I’ll find indoors, I grab one of the empty cups off the table and run over to the hose. I splash a little water in the bottom before returning to Cade, who arranges the flowers with such enthusiasm that you’d think they were three-dozen long-stemmed roses instead of a bunch of measly backyard blossoms.

  Cade slides the last stem into place just as I hear Nichole coming through the back door, floats in each of her hands and a third wedged in between her right arm and breast.

  Lucky cup.

  She smiles as she turns to face us, jugg
ling the floats so that she can hand one to Cade. “Here you go, sweetie,” she says as she holds the cup out for him to take.

  “Look, Mom! We got you a present.”

  The smile falls from Nichole’s face when she sees the flowers, and for a moment, I think I’ve made a mistake. Her lips turn down in a slight frown, and her eyes are unreadable, something I never thought I’d ever say about her.

  She looks…sad.

  Cade reaches out and takes her hand as she continues to stare at the flowers. This seems to snap her out of whatever spell she was under. She turns her head to Cade, and I can see the wetness pooling in her eyes.

  She falls down to her knees, tightly pulling him into a hug against her chest. “Thank you, baby. They’re beautiful.”

  Cade beams at me over his mother’s shoulder. After a moment, he pushes back from her hold, looking at her in the eye, before saying, “It was Joey’s idea.”

  I can see Nichole stiffen against Cade when she hears this, but he’s completely unaware of her change in demeanor. He continues to grin at me, encouragingly looking at me, like he expects me to step up and get a hug next.

  It occurs to me how much I’d like to do exactly that. How tired I am of trying to deny the feelings I still hold for Nichole, of fighting the attraction that obviously still exists between us. Things might have ended poorly between us, but we were a couple of stupid kids. Holding a grudge over something that happened over a decade ago seems sillier the more time I spend around this girl. She isn’t the same girl I once knew. My beautiful girl has turned into an even more gorgeous woman. Deep down, I can see traces of the Nichole I used to know and love. But she’s different now. She’s experienced so much. She’s lived through things that I can’t imagine, and somehow, she’s come out even stronger for them.

  I laugh at this thought in my head, thinking how many times I’ve heard it said to me. But, honestly, I’d take the horrors of war over the horrors of an abusive marriage any day. At least over there, I knew who my enemy was. They didn’t pretend to love me with one breath and turn around and punch me in the gut with the next.

  Nichole slowly turns and looks at me, pushing up off her knees as she faces me. “Thanks, Joey. You didn’t need to ruin your garden for me.”

  I wave her off. “It’s far from ruined. And it isn’t right, having a beautiful woman over for dinner and not at least having flowers for her.”

  Her eyes laser into me, her expression clouded and again unreadable, but I think I have a good idea of what she’s thinking.

  I turn to Cade, seeing him watching our interaction with equal parts excitement and confusion. “Hey, little dude, how about you run upstairs and grab the football I’ve got up there? Second door on the right. There’s a box in the closet with a bunch of sports stuff in it. Grab the football, and I’ll teach you how to throw a perfect spiral.”

  Cade’s face lights up, and he takes off without a word. I smile as I watch him shoot through the door and pound up the stairs. With the smile still in place, I turn back to Nichole, expecting to find her with a similar look after seeing her little boy go off like a runaway train. Instead, I’m greeted with that same steely glare she’s been giving me since I called her beautiful.

  “What are you doing, Joey?” she cautiously asks me, her gaze not softening in the slightest. If anything, it becomes even more skeptical as she waits for me to respond.

  For some reason, this makes what I’m about to do even more inevitable. Seeing her so guarded, so closed off, has me wanting nothing more than to get under her hard shell to find out exactly who Nichole really is.

  “Have dinner with me.” It comes out more as a command than a request.

  There’s no way I’m taking no for an answer. I like to consider myself a gentleman, never wanting to make a woman feel uncomfortable or push her past her limits. But I know I can’t let her get away. I can’t let her say no. I need to get her alone just once. And it’s not even a physical thing—though I’d be lying if I said my thoughts hadn’t wandered there once or twice tonight. But, even if our relationship didn’t progress past friendship, I’d be completely fine. I just know I need her in my life.

  I didn’t realize how much I’d missed my best friend until this very moment.

  Nichole’s guarded expression slips up just a little bit, and I can see the doubt and fear churning in her eyes for a moment before she slams her wall back into place. “Joey, I—”

  I hold my hand up, silencing her. Her mouth snaps shut, and she crosses her arms over her chest, waiting.

  “Just dinner, Nic. Just friends. It doesn’t have to be anything more. I just…I miss you. I didn’t realize how much until tonight. Come have dinner with me. We can catch up. Talk about old times. It’ll be fun, I promise,” I add, putting on my most charming smile, the one I know women aren’t able to resist. Hey, a guy’s got to use his advantages when he can. Mine just happens to be my smile. I’m not being cocky. It’s just a fact. “What do you say?”

  Nichole chews her bottom lip for a second as she regards me. I hear Cade storming back down the stairs, so I give her one final prod.

  “Running out of time, Nic. Want to settle this the old-fashioned way?” I ask as I pull a coin out of my pocket.

  Her eyes light up at the reminder of the way we’d settle so many disagreements in the past.

  “Heads or tails?” I ask as I flip the coin high in the air.

  Cade comes bursting back through the door, shouting that he found the ball and triumphantly waving it in the air.

  Just before the coin hits the ground, Nichole finally speaks, “Heads.”

  We both lean over and stare at the coin as it bounces against the cement patio. When it finally comes to rest, I squat down to get a better look.

  I hope Nichole likes Mexican food, I think with a smile.

  “Hold on, hold on. Jasper wants to say hello.” Emma’s voice is muffled over the phone as she wrestles with what is, no doubt, seventy pounds of golden retriever.

  A sloppy wet noise comes across the line, and I laugh as I hear Emma struggling with the phone and the dog. I hear the beep of several buttons being pressed as she curses under her breath.

  Finally, I hear her shout, “Okay, you’re on speaker!”

  “Hey, buddy!” I say into the phone with far too much enthusiasm.

  Jasper whines when he hears my voice, and I hear what I know must be his big paws coming down on the phone.

  Emma laughs. “Dude, don’t break my phone,” she says, her voice closer to the speaker now.

  Jasper barks in protest.

  “Oh, you big baby,” Emma coos to him. She comes back on the line, taking me off speaker. “You know, Joey, this would be so much easier if you’d get your computer up and running, so we could Skype. Or, better yet, get a damn iPhone, so we can FaceTime. These dogs freak out when they hear your voice. You’d love it. And I’m sure they’d freak even more if they could see your face.”

  I promise her I’ll call and get someone out to hook up my Internet ASAP. I’ve been in my house for several months now, but it just hasn’t been a priority with all the other shit I’ve had going on around here. Now that things are settling down though, I realize how much I would like to see Emma and the pups. Hell, I wouldn’t even mind seeing Isaiah at this point.

  Hearing her voice makes me realize how homesick I really am.

  “Miss you, guys,” I tell her honestly.

  Emma and I were never ones to beat around the bush. After her fiancé—and one of my best friends—Chris died in Iraq, the two of us sort of went off the deep end. The only thing that saved us was Maggie, the golden Emma had found and rescued all those years ago. Maggie brought me and Emma together during one of the hardest times in each of our lives. And the two of us quickly realized that keeping things bottled up, not sharing what we were feeling, was the fastest way back down the dark and lonely road of depression we’d so narrowly escaped.

  Emma sighs into the phone, and I can just pictur
e her curled up on the couch with the dog at her feet, phone tucked between her ear and her shoulder as she strokes his fur. I can see the sappy smile that is, no doubt, crossing her lips at this very moment.

  “Aw, I miss you, too, Joe.”

  Since I joined the police force, Emma has taken to calling me Joe. She says Officer Joey just doesn’t have the same authority to it as Officer Joe. Joey is her fun-loving, puppy-cuddling, smack-talking best friend. Joe, she explained to me, was my new identity. The big, bad cop who could whoop anybody’s ass.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I still wasn’t big, nor was I bad, and I certainly wouldn’t be whooping anybody’s ass anytime soon. She’s built up this little fantasy life for me in her head, one in which I am the hero who every eligible woman in town is throwing herself at, and she won’t hear of it otherwise. And, to be honest, it is nice—her being so happy. She’s found a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love with Isaiah, and I am thrilled for her. I can’t blame her for wanting the same thing for me, regardless of how misguided it is.

  Emma talks for a minute about the training and therapy services that they’ve had going on at Keen Komrades for the past few months. We started Komrades to provide service dogs for returning soldiers with PTSD. After seeing the amazing benefits that came from training and getting to know these dogs, I started a program for veterans to come out and help at KK. It was how Emma met Isaiah. He’d returned with a hell of a lot of guilt after several men in the troop he’d commanded were killed and even more were injured. In order to help him learn how to deal with it, his therapist had arranged for him to come out and work with our dogs. He was a stubborn son of a bitch, and he hated even the idea of a service dog. We won him over in the end though. Well, maybe not me. But Emma sure as hell did. And Jasper.

  Since I left, Isaiah has taken over the therapy side of Keen Komrades, and it has completely exploded. In the few months I’ve been gone, he’s used his contacts to receive more funding and more referrals, and now, they are placing twice as many service dogs with injured soldiers and have dozens of vets out every day in order to oversee their training. The business is flourishing, and they are doing a damn world of good in our predominantly military North Carolina town.