The Damaged Heroes Collection [Box Set #1: The Damaged Heroes Collection] (BookStrand Publishing Mainstream)

by James, Sandy

  Joy saw Tamas looking a bit red-faced and standing with his fists clenched at his sides, his legs braced apart. She wasn’t afraid of him, not anymore. Janos stood next to him, probably riling Tamas enough to cause the irritated stance. She would miss Janos almost more than she could bear. He’d seen her through all of the trials and tribulations of her life. And he had lovingly kept her secret. Maybe he would find it in his heart to visit her now and again. He knew where she would be living, and he was kind to Lucas. He’d accepted her love for an outsider. She wondered if Janos knew just how much she loved him.

  And then there was her mother. Her beloved mother. What could she say to Illona to make her understand?

  Although she loved them all, Lucas was her family now.

  A quick scan of the area told her Lucas wasn’t waiting for her, but Joy understood why. She was having enough trouble dealing with all the anger and blame her relatives cast her way. Why should Lucas tolerate their hatred being tossed at him?

  He’ll be waiting for me in his truck. Lucas will be there, and he will take me home.

  Joy summoned all of her strength to say the words that needed to be said. “I love you all. With all of my heart, I love each and every one of you. But until you can accept Lucas, I can’t be with you. Papa won’t let me be in the circle.”

  “Jozsa, think about what you’re doing,” her mother cautioned. The tear she saw drop from her mother’s lashes made Joy’s stomach clench into a painful knot.

  “I have thought, Mama. More than you’ll ever know. I’ve spent night after sleepless night, trying to understand.” She threw a chastising glare at her brothers and their wives. “How can you all be so cruel, so unfeeling, to such a gentle, loving man? How can you not accept he’s the one I love, the one I’ll always love?” Suddenly anger washed through her in a tidal wave, stealing her breath, making her heart pound. They had no right. “How dare you! How dare you try to choose what I do with my life!”

  Tamas had the temerity to speak. “I love you, Jozsa. Not him, me.”

  She hauled back and slapped his cheek with her open palm. “You hypocrite!” She spat the words. “You don’t know what love is. You thought nothing of trying to force yourself on me to show your...love.”

  “What?” Janos bellowed. “He what?” He took a threatening step toward Tamas who retreated one in response. “That’s what you were trying to tell me.” Janos’s eyes flashed lethal intentions. “You son of a—”

  “No!” Illona shouted. “No more. There will be no more.” She turned to her daughter. “Make your choice, Jozsa. Bela won’t allow you to marry outside the circle. Ever. God help us all, but you must make your choice.”

  Then Joy knew they would never understand. Never. “I already did. I chose the moment I met Lucas.” She turned on her heel and walked out of the hospital. Her eyes burned with unshed tears, her legs felt heavy and stiff as she took the hardest steps of her life. God, she needed Lucas to wrap his comforting arms around her.

  But Lucas wasn’t there by the front doors. Her heart started slamming against her ribcage.

  Joy hurried to the parking lot, frantically searching for Lucas’s truck. But it was gone. Her world began to spin and a rush of nausea swept over her. She suddenly knew.

  I need you to let me go when the time comes, he’d said to her in her dream.

  The time had finally come; Lucas was gone. The tears came before she even had a mind to stop them. Joy found no comfort in what her dreams had told her, felt no happiness that Lucas had started his journey toward accepting what had happened in Iraq.

  Let me go, and I’ll find my way home.

  He’ll come back. I know he will.

  But the pain of his absence threatened to drown her anyway.

  Trying to find her way through her blinding tears, Joy took a seat on a bus stop bench and waited, hoping a bus would come and rescue her. She propped her elbows on her knees, buried her face in her hands, and wept as her hurt and grief consumed her.

  * * * *

  Janos’s right fist connected soundly with Tamas’s jaw. Tamas fell to his knees. “You son of a bitch!” Janos shouted, desperately wanting to hit the man again. “You hurt her. You tried to...to...” He was too angry to say all he now understood about how Tamas had treated Joy. “Stand up, you coward. Stand up and take what’s coming to you.”

  Tamas put his hand to his jaw and seemed to test it to see if the bone was intact. “It wasn’t like that,” he finally replied.

  Janos wanted Tamas to get back to his feet so he could knock him down again, but Tamas just continued to cower on the floor.

  Janos turned to his brothers. “He attacked Jozsa. Tried to force himself on her.” Their response was stoic silence. Not one of them moved to offer retribution for what Tamas had done to her.

  Just a damn wall of stubborn Hungarians.

  He’d seen enough. No wonder his baby sister had never shared any of her news with them or told them about her move to Lucas’s house and the baby she carried. “You should all be ashamed of yourselves. You drove her away.” Janos let his gaze settle on each of the family members, hoping they saw the condemnation in his eyes. “All of you. You and your goddamn Romungro nonsense drove her away.”

  “She chose against the family,” Jakob replied, sounding so much like Bela it almost made Janos wince.

  “She fell in love, you dumbass. All she did was fall in love.” He glared down Tamas who still sat on the floor. “You’d choose that pathetic piece of slime over your own sister?” He shifted his gaze back to his four older brothers. “You should all be ashamed. Your own sister. And you drove her away.”

  Janos considered the whole ridiculous situation and finally chose a plan of action. “I’m going with Jozsa. Keep your restaurant. Keep your pure bloodlines. Keep your goddamn pride. Until you accept her, until you accept that she loves Lucas, then I’m out of the circle too.”

  With one last threatening glare at Tamas, Janos left the hospital. Marching straight toward the parking lot, he hoped he could find Joy and Lucas and get a ride back to Indiana. He came to an abrupt halt as he saw Joy sitting on a bench not far from the hospital doors. Where in the hell was Lucas?

  Glancing around, he couldn’t locate Lucas’s truck in the E.R. parking lot. He looked back at Joy and realized she was weeping as her hands covered her face and her whole body shook. He could hear her sobs and broke into a run to reach her.

  “Jozsa? What’s wrong, Noverke?”

  Joy gave her head a slight shake, not bothering to move her hands.

  Janos sighed. “He left, didn’t he?” When she began to cry harder, he had his answer. Sitting down next to her on the bench, Janos wrapped his arm around his sister. She leaned into him, clenched his shirt into her small fists, and buried her face against his chest. All he could do was let her cry. The poor girl was more than entitled to a few tears.

  After a few moments, Joy seemed to get herself composed. She sat up and released his shirt. Wiping the remaining tears away with the backs of her hands, she gave him a weak smile. “I’m sorry, Janos,” she said with a hiccough. “I...I didn’t mean to drag you into this. I know how much this hurt you, how much leaving them hurt you.”

  He smiled when he realized she already knew what he had done.

  She hiccoughed and sniffled. “Lucas is gone.”

  He gave her a curt nod. Having no idea what had happened between them, Janos didn’t want to make her start crying again, but he was having a hard time understanding how the man could abandon her. How could he abandon the woman who was carrying his child?

  “He’ll come back. I know he’ll come back,” she said in a voice with so much confidence Janos almost believed her. Reality said otherwise.

  “We need to find a way back to Indiana.”

  “I was going to catch a bus and try to get to the Greyhound station.” She sniffled again. “I figured I’d call Samantha when I got back.” Joy stared at her lap for a long moment. “I’m going back to o
ur house.”

  “Jozsa, are you sure that’s wise? What if he isn’t there? Come to my place, Shortstuff.”

  “Oh, he won’t be there. He’s on a...a...journey. But he’ll be back.” She glanced away. “I just don’t know...when.”

  Janos took her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. He wanted to believe her, wanted to have the faith in Lucas that she did. Perhaps he would be waiting when they got to the old house. Perhaps his family would know where he was.

  Or perhaps Lucas had simply abandoned her.

  Her brown eyes fixed on him. “He’ll be back, Janos.”

  “I hope so, Jozsa. I really hope so. I’ve got no idea when a local bus will get here. I’m heading inside to call a cab to take us to the Greyhound station.” He held a hand out to her. “Why don’t you come inside with me?”

  Joy shook her head. “I can’t face them again. I can’t. I’ll just wait here.”

  Janos stood up, kissed the top of his sister’s head, and headed back through the front doors in search of a payphone.

  * * * *

  Brian and Sam were quiet on the drive from the bus station to the house. When they’d dropped Janos off at his place, there had only been nods and a quick “thank you” instead of a farewell. Joy was grateful for the silence because she had no idea what she would say to any of them anyway. Not even to Janos, but she knew he understood. The bus trip from Erie had consisted mostly of Joy sleeping against her brother’s broad shoulder.

  At least Sam and Brian didn’t seem to think it was odd that she wanted to return to the house, even knowing Lucas wouldn’t be there. The place was really, after all, his house. But neither of the Mitchells faulted her choice of location when they’d come to pick them up.

  As they pulled into the driveway, Joy held her breath, hoping to see the familiar pickup while knowing all the while it wouldn’t be there. “Thank you for coming to get us,” she murmured as she unfastened her seatbelt.

  “Do you want me to go in?” Brian asked. Joy could hear the concern in his voice, but she wasn’t up to talking to anyone.

  She shook her head. “Lucas isn’t here.”

  “I kinda figured that. I just didn’t know if you were afraid to go into the house by yourself,” Brian replied.

  “I’ll be fine. The cats will keep me company until Lucas comes back.”

  “What happened, Joy?” Samantha finally asked as she turned around to lock eyes with Joy. The concern in Sam’s gaze was comforting. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”

  Joy shook her head again, unable to answer because her throat had closed up to choke off her air. All that had happened, all the changes, were suddenly too much. Joy felt as if she would die drowning in her sadness and despair. It took every ounce of strength not to fling the truck door open and run inside, screaming all the way.

  “Tell him what?” Brian asked with an annoyed tone to his voice.

  “Just let it go for a while, honey.” Sam fixed a hard stare at her husband. “Are you all right?” she asked as she glanced at Joy again.

  Joy wrung her hands, trying to find any words to give to Brian and Sam, but none would come. Sam reached back over the seat and put her hand over Joy’s. “We’ll come back tomorrow...”

  “Please, no. I...I need some time,” Joy begged. Tomorrow would be too soon. Her grief would still be blinding her.

  Sam nodded. “Fine. A couple of days. We’ll be back in a couple of days. We can talk then. Go on. Go get some rest. We’ll feed the horses before we go.”

  Joy just nodded, unable to even mouth her thanks. She fled the truck, ran up the porch stairs, and hurried through the unlocked kitchen door.

  The house was empty. Even the ghosts seemed to have gone into hiding. “He’ll be back.” She nodded an affirmation but wiped away a few tears. Her hand lightly caressing her stomach, she said again, “He’ll be back. I know he will.” She hoped their baby heard her.

  Exhausted and emotionally drained, Joy worked her way up the stairs, straining to listen for the familiar sounds she knew she wouldn’t hear. Sounds of Lucas puttering around the rooms or snoring in their bed. The silence was deafening.

  Joy tugged her clothes off and donned the t-shirt Lucas had left lying on the bed a pair of days before as they’d changed for the trip to Andras’s wedding. Lucas’s scent, his essence, comforted her, and she wanted to wrap herself in it. She wanted to drown in her sorrow and let herself mourn his absence, if only for a short time. Then, after spending her grief, she could go to work fixing the house and preparing for his return.

  Lying on their bed, she pulled his pillow into her embrace and cried herself to sleep as four cats suddenly appeared to curl their purring bodies around her and the ghosts came out to watch over her as she slept.

  Chapter 26

  Brian had no idea what was going on.

  Lucas had only been gone a couple of days when it suddenly dawned on Brian that Joy might want some help caring for the horses. He’d driven out after training his own horses to tend the animals. Lucas might have disappeared, but his responsibilities hadn’t. It wasn’t fair to make Joy do all the work. She would obviously want to get back to her restaurant and to the life she’d known before Lucas had blown in like a bad storm and turned the poor girl’s world upside down.

  Seeing Joy standing on the top step of a ladder, cleaning one of the tall kitchen windows took him by surprise. The fact that there were men with tools wandering in and around the house was even more bewildering.

  Brian parked his truck and decided to find out what was going on. After ducking into the barn to see that the horses had water, he was relieved when he realized they had also been fed. Both of them were still contentedly munching their hay. He made a mental note of going back to turn them out to corrals before he left.

  “Hi, Brian,” Joy shouted from her perch. Tucking the cleaning rag she had been using into her back pocket, she made her way down the ladder.

  “What in the hell is going on?” he asked as he moved out of the way of a burly guy hauling a huge bundle of wiring into the kitchen.

  “I hired some people to help get things fixed,” she calmly replied.

  “I don’t understand. Lucas isn’t here. Why are you fixing his house?”

  “Our house. And yes, Lucas isn’t here. But he’ll be back,” she said with such an air of confidence Brian was afraid to give her his opinion on the likelihood of Lucas coming back anytime soon, if at all.

  It seemed like Lucas had been running away from something his whole life. Farm life. Their parents’ deaths. The Army. Lucas never seemed to settle down, never sought simple contentment, never found an anchor to ground him to any one place for too very long.

  Remembering the fireworks and how awful Lucas had looked the night of Chris’s wedding, Brian couldn’t help but be concerned. For a quick moment, he wondered if Lucas might have finally decided to talk to one of the V.A. doctors. God, he hoped so.

  Holding out hope for awhile that Joy might finally be that anchor in Lucas’s life, a stabilizing force to finally help him, Brian was ready to give up thinking Lucas would ever be content. His little brother had pulled another disappearing act, and this time, he’d hurt a woman who, despite her bizarre family, had obviously loved Lucas a great deal. Unsure as to what he should say to her, he chose the most obvious problem. “Lucas can’t afford this.”

  Joy’s lips formed a grin. “Maybe not. But I can.”

  One of the workers stopped to talk to her. “We’ll need a couple of days to finish everything, but we should have the circuit breakers set up before we leave.” The man snorted a laugh. “At least now you shouldn’t start a fire when you make coffee.”

  “Thank you,” Joy replied before the guy walked up the stairs and disappeared into the kitchen. “Electricity is fixed. Want a cup of coffee?” she asked Brian.

  “Umm. Sure. Sugar, no cream, please,” Brian replied. Joy led the way into the kitchen.

  He stared at the room with an open mouth.
The disgusting avocado was gone. A warm peach tone coated all the walls, accented by a colorful wallpaper border and small wicker baskets. A worker was adding what appeared to be a last coat of varnish to the kitchen cabinets.

  Not even bothering to talk to Joy, Brian moved into the foyer. Two men sharing a ladder were finishing the wiring and hanging of a small, crystal chandelier that replaced the ancient light fixture Lucas had always sworn he hated with a passion.

  Atop another enormous ladder, a worker in navy blue coveralls tapped the last piece of wood trim around an octagon window. Light streamed in through the new glass, making the foyer so warm and inviting, Brian felt a pinch of envy. The old place was slowly becoming beautiful.

  “Hey, Brian!” Janos shouted from the top of the stairs. “Come on up!”

  Following his overwhelming curiosity, Brian climbed the staircase and trailed Janos into the master bedroom.

  The hideous flowers were almost gone. Janos had obviously been steaming it away, and the big pieces of psychedelic wallpaper littered the new hardwood floor that no longer had piss green swatches of spray paint marking soft spots.

  “Joy wants me to finish this, and then she’s going to paint the room sky blue. What do you think?”

  Brian just stared at Janos, not knowing what to say. He wondered for a moment if Joy was throwing herself into all of the home improvements as a misguided way to deal with Lucas’s leaving. Although he understood she was probably in denial, he couldn’t comprehend how any of them would be able to pay her back for all the changes she was making. “It’s nice, Janos, but... Lucas won’t be able to pay for all this stuff.”

  “He won’t have to,” Joy replied as she walked into the room, carrying a coffee mug that she handed to Brian. “I’m taking care of it. I had some money saved up for... Well, for something else. Something much less important. I want the place ready when he comes home.”

  Sipping his coffee so he wouldn’t have to immediately address her statement, Brian let his gaze wander. The freshly painted closet doors hung open revealing that her clothes now hung side-by-side with Lucas’s garments. A couple of pieces of furniture that Brian didn’t recognize had joined Lucas’s furnishings.