The Marine's Road Home

by Brenda Harlen

  Except that now he’d done a lot more than flirt with Sky Gilmore, he found himself in a bit of a dilemma. Should he stick with his usual routine, come directly home after the meeting or opt to stay in for the evening altogether?

  He glanced over at his dog, who was stretched out in the sun by the open doors of the converted barn while Jake tidied up what had been his uncle’s workspace. When he’d first arrived in Haven and walked into the house where he’d spent a couple of weeks every summer with his aunt and uncle, he’d been assailed by the memories. He could almost see Fred and George—red-haired Irish setters named for the Weasley twins from Harry Potter—jumping and playing in the yard, and could almost smell the scent of cinnamon lingering in the air, as if there was a tray of Aunt Anna’s snickerdoodle cookies ready to come out of the oven. But what he remembered most was the love and the laughter, so much so that it seemed to echo in every room.

  Yes, Ross had struggled to make a go of it as a rancher, and Anna had battled with health difficulties, but no one who’d spent any time with them would doubt how much they’d loved one another. Though Jake had been taken aback to learn that his uncle had passed within six months of his wife, he realized he shouldn’t have been surprised. Ross had often said that Anna was his heart, and without her, there was nothing left to pump life through his veins.

  It had been difficult enough for Jake to walk through the front door of their house and know that he wouldn’t ever see either of them again. It was even more difficult for him to enter the workshop, where he’d spent so many hours with his uncle during the annual summer visits that were intended to give his parents some time alone together. Even as a kid, Jake had known that he would be a Marine one day, and Ross had never tried to steer him in a different direction. But his uncle had thought it was important for a boy to know how to use some basic tools, and his instructions had been careful, his patience endless and his forgiveness of Jake’s mistakes sincere.

  “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs,” he’d liked to say.

  Jake had broken a lot of eggs.

  There were bits and pieces of wood scattered around the workshop now, as if his uncle had been sorting through them to find what he wanted for his current project. But there were no plans pinned up on the pegboard, nothing to indicate what, if anything, he had been working on.

  Jake’s cell phone rang, distracting him from his task, and he set the wood chisel back down on the workbench before picking up the phone. He swiped the screen to connect the call. “Hey, Mom. What’s up?”

  “I was just thinking about you,” Barbara Kelly replied.

  When he’d first moved to Haven, she’d “thought about” him several times every day, until he’d threatened to stop answering her numerous calls. Now they talked once a week, on Sunday afternoons. That wasn’t to say that she didn’t reach out to him otherwise, but she always had a specific purpose for doing so.

  “Any particular reason?” he prompted, wondering if he might have forgotten about a special occasion.

  Courtesy of the brain injury that was an unwanted souvenir from Iraq, he’d forgotten a lot of things when he first came home. Most of his memories had eventually returned, along with his ability to assimilate and retain new information, but there were still pieces missing.

  Was today one of those pieces?

  Was it his mom’s birthday?

  No, that was in November.

  “I thought you should know that Margot and Tim are getting married,” she said.

  The news didn’t surprise him. More important, it didn’t elicit any kind of emotional response, except relief that it wasn’t something he should have known about. Aside from that, he truly didn’t care.

  “Why are you telling me?” he asked.

  “Because I didn’t want you to hear it from someone else,” she admitted.

  “Because you thought it would upset me,” he guessed.

  “Doesn’t it?” she asked gently.

  “No.”

  “You must feel something,” she pressed. “It wasn’t all that long ago that Margot was wearing your ring.”

  As if he needed to be reminded.

  He’d put the ring on Margot’s finger before he went to Iraq the first time, because she’d wanted some kind of tangible reassurance that he was committed to her, to help her through the lonely nights while he was away.

  “Our engagement ended more than two years ago, Mom.”

  “But how do you feel?” she pressed.

  Because his mom always wanted him to talk about his feelings, preferring to believe that he was keeping his emotions bottled up rather than that he wasn’t capable of feeling anything anymore.

  “I feel fine,” he said.

  Okay, fine was a stretch—or maybe even an outright lie—but as far as his former fiancée’s wedding plans were concerned, he really couldn’t care less.

  “Well, that’s good then, because you’re going to get an invitation to the wedding.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Margot called and asked me for your address.”

  He didn’t have to ask if she’d given it. It would never have occurred to his mom to refuse such a request. Instead, he only said, “You should have told her not to waste a stamp.”

  “You were friends for a long time. You and Margot and Tim,” she reminded him gently.

  “And then Margot and Tim got really friendly when I was in rehab.”

  “It was a difficult time for everyone.”

  “Yeah, but only one of us was recovering from a blast injury and enduring hours of daily therapy.”

  “You’re still angry,” she noted.

  He sighed. “No, Mom. I’m not still angry. I’m just not prepared to celebrate a relationship built on a foundation of deceit and disloyalty.”

  “Going to the wedding would prove that you’re over her.”

  “I don’t have to prove anything to anyone, least of all the girl who screwed around with my former best friend.”

  “I’m not making excuses for what they did—”

  “Good,” Jake said, cutting her off.

  Barbara’s sigh was a reluctant acknowledgment that the topic was closed. “Okay then, tell me when you’re going to come home.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We miss you,” she said.

  He knew what she really meant was that she missed him, and he missed her, too. But he knew it was best for everyone if he stayed away for a while.

  Or maybe forever.

  “Well, if you’re not planning to come home anytime soon, maybe we could come to Haven to see you,” she suggested.

  “You’d be bored to death here,” he said, offering her an out.

  Because the truth was, while his mother might be content enough to revisit the town where she’d grown up and where her brother had remained throughout his adult life, Jake knew she’d never convince his father to come.

  As far as Jake could recall, his father had visited Haven exactly once, and had grumbled the whole time that he was there. Major William Robert Kelly had never been a fan of his brother-in-law and he didn’t pretend otherwise. In his opinion, Ross was either a quitter or a failure, because after struggling for a lot of years as a cattle rancher, he’d chosen to sell off his stock and lease his land rather than knuckling down and working harder.

  “Knuckle down and work harder” was a big thing with the Major. He wasn’t entirely unsympathetic to his youngest son, but he continued to espouse the belief that Jake should shake off his moods, get himself back into fighting shape and reenlist. He’d made no effort to hide his displeasure when Jake told him that he was moving to Haven for a while. Then again, he’d always seemed to resent that his youngest son enjoyed hanging out with his maternal uncle, even accusing his brother-in-law of filling Jake’s head with sawdust drea
ms.

  Maybe that was why Ross had put Jake’s name on the title. According to the date on his will, it had been drafted after Jake had received his medical discharge from the Marine Corps. Maybe Ross understood that his nephew had failed, too, and this was his way of showing that there were always other opportunities in life. If only Jake had the courage to take them.

  “I’ve gotta go, Mom,” Jake said. “I’ve got a meeting tonight.”

  And then he’d see if he could get a cold beer without a colder shoulder from a certain sexy bartender.

  * * *

  When Wednesday rolled around again, Sky found herself alternately watching the clock—and cursing herself for doing so. Yet she couldn’t resist another glance.

  9:55 p.m.

  And still no sign of Jake.

  But why should she have expected anything different?

  He certainly wasn’t the first guy who’d dropped her like a hot potato as soon as she slept with him. And if she was disappointed, it was in herself as much as Jake, because she’d really thought she was making smarter choices now.

  Next time, she promised herself.

  “Next time what?” Mr. Virga asked her.

  She smiled at the retired ophthalmologist. “Next time I’m talking to myself, I’ll try to keep both sides of the conversation inside my head.”

  “They say that talking to—and even arguing with—yourself is okay,” the old man said. “It’s only when you lose those arguments that you should start to worry.”

  “Good to know,” she said, and smiled as she rang up his bill and took his money.

  When she turned back to give Mr. Virga his change, she saw Jake in his usual seat at the bar.

  Her heart did a happy little dance inside her chest, but she kept her attention focused on her elderly customer.

  “Thanks,” she said, when he pushed a tip across the counter to her. “You have a good night now, Mr. Virga.”

  “I surely will,” the old man said, with a wink.

  Jake watched the exchange, his expression inscrutable.

  “What are you having tonight?” she asked him, playing it cool.

  “A pint of Sam Adams.”

  She grabbed a mug and held it under the tap. “One step forward, two steps back.”

  “I don’t do well with change,” he admitted.

  “Is that why you’re here? Because Wednesday night at Diggers’ has become a habit?”

  “Partly,” he acknowledged.

  She set the beer in front of him.

  “But mostly because I wanted to see you—to explain.”

  “You don’t owe me any explanations, Jake.”

  “I kind of feel like I do.”

  “Neither one of us made any promises. In fact, neither one of us said very much of anything,” she remarked.

  “I thought we communicated pretty well without words.”

  “I guess we did,” she acknowledged.

  His gaze slid to the side, as if to ensure no one was close enough to overhear their conversation. “But this is weird now, isn’t it?”

  “Does it feel weird?”

  “A little,” he said.

  “Maybe that’s because you kicked me out of your bed before I’d even managed to catch my breath after we had sex,” she said, her tone deliberately light.

  “About that... I’m sorry that I couldn’t let you stay.”

  His remark only raised more questions in her mind, but since this wasn’t the time or the place for that conversation, she only said, “Is Molly the jealous type?”

  He smiled, apparently relieved that she wasn’t pushing for more of an explanation. “More possessive than jealous, I’d say.”

  She dumped a scoop of ice into a highball glass, squeezed a wedge of lime, poured a shot of gin and added a splash of tonic from the soda gun. “Maybe she just needs to get to know me better,” she suggested.

  “I think that’s a possibility worth exploring,” he agreed, as he lifted the mug to his lips.

  Sky poured the ingredients for a couple of Nevada cocktails into a shaker, gave it a vigorous shake, then strained the drink into martini glasses for Courtney to deliver. Catching her eye, Adrian Romanos lifted his empty glass. She nodded and tipped a mug beneath the tap to pour him another draft, then made her way down the bar to deliver it.

  Adrian was a regular who spent a lot of hours—and more than a few dollars—at the bar, and Sky wasn’t going to neglect him just because she’d rather be talking to—and maybe flirting with—Jake. Adrian also worked for the town planning department, and he was chatting with her about the proposed schedule of events for the upcoming Haven Heritage Day celebrations—including the addition of a charity softball game this year—when Jake finished his drink.

  Though it would have been out of character for him to hang around after his glass was empty, she was still a little disappointed to watch him pull some money out of his wallet, tuck it under the bottom of his glass and walk out.

  Proving to Sky that nothing had changed.

  Sure, she’d had the most amazing sex of her life with the man, but he still didn’t want her company or conversation.

  Good thing she wasn’t thin-skinned, or his disappearing act might have hurt her feelings.

  Of course, it was her own fault for falling into bed with a man she knew nothing about. She could make excuses for her behavior—and it was true that she’d been feeling lonely and that it had been a very long time since she’d been intimate with a man. But it was also true that neither of those factors was as significant as the attraction she’d felt the first time Jake walked into the bar.

  And while she was admittedly a little baffled by his actions, she suspected that Jake’s determination to keep everyone at a distance was connected to the scars she’d discovered on his body. Or the invisible ones that he clearly carried inside.

  You don’t know anything about me.

  But she wanted to.

  The scars, along with military tattoo, suggested that he was a man who’d been through a lot. Though post-traumatic stress disorder wasn’t her area of expertise, she was familiar with the basic origins and symptoms. Witnessing or experiencing a traumatic event could result in difficulties in social situations and personal relationships.

  She imagined that many people who’d served in the military had witnessed or experienced traumatic events. And she wondered if Jake would ever open up to her enough to tell her about his experiences.

  Of course, getting naked with the guy didn’t give her any right to poke around in his head. And the fact that she’d been naked with him was a pretty solid reason for her not to be the one poking around in his head.

  They’d had sex—they didn’t have a relationship.

  If she was under any illusions otherwise, his exit from the bar without so much as a goodbye had effectively obliterated them.

  * * *

  Sunday through Wednesday, Diggers’ closed at midnight. Still, by the time the last lingering customers were gone, the receipts were tallied and the bar was tidied, it was almost 1:00 a.m. Sky exited through the kitchen, as she always did, waving to Marty—who was still up to his elbows in soapy water scrubbing pans—on her way out. The dishwasher usually walked to work, since he lived just down the street, so Sky was surprised to see a truck parked beside her SUV when she stepped outside.

  Warning signs immediately flashed in her mind for a split second before recognition set in and she realized it was Jake’s vehicle—and the man himself was leaning against the hood of the pickup.

  Her heart, ignoring the warnings of her head, started to pound harder and faster.

  She took a few steps closer. “What’s the matter? Did you run out of gas?”

  His lips twitched. “No.”

  She hadn’t realized Molly was in the truck until the dog poked h
er head out of the open driver’s side window.

  Unable to resist the animal’s imploring gaze, Sky lifted a hand and scratched the soft fur beneath her chin. “What are you doing out so late at night?”

  “I told her what you said, about her needing to get to know you better, and she agreed it was a good idea,” Jake said.

  “And you thought now would be a good time for that?”

  He shrugged. “I wanted to see you and I thought, even if you were mad at me, you wouldn’t be able to resist her.”

  “I wasn’t mad at you.”

  “You weren’t happy with me.”

  “I’m not entirely sure what I feel,” she admitted.

  “That makes two of us,” he confided.

  He came closer, until they were nearly touching.

  “I want you, Skylar.” The words were barely more than a whisper in the night. “Even though I know I shouldn’t, I can’t seem to stop wanting you.”

  “Why do you think you shouldn’t?”

  “Because my life is seriously screwed up.”

  “Anything you want to talk about?” she asked him.

  He shook his head.

  “You just want to go back to your place and get naked together again?”

  “It’s not a very tempting offer, is it?” he acknowledged ruefully.

  “It works for me,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. When you left the bar earlier tonight, I was convinced that the best sex of my life was going to be a one-night stand.”

  “The best sex of your life?” He grinned. “I’m flattered.”

  “Maybe life is an exaggeration,” she said. “Prior to Saturday, it had been a really long time for me, so my perception might have been a little skewed.”

  “Or maybe you just need an encore performance to convince you.”

  Then he drew her into his arms and lowered his head to cover her lips with his own.

  His hands slid up her back, a sensual caress, then down again, over the curve of her buttocks. She could feel the evidence of his arousal pressed against her belly and thrilled in the knowledge that he was as turned on as she was.