Jerricho

by Dale Mayer

  She looked at him eagerly. “Are you okay to spend some time together?”

  “We’ll be spending a lot of time together over the next few days,” he said. “I’m not deserting you.”

  She looked up at him, and he realized just how worried she was, and that’s really what would happen. He reached out, gave her a quick squeeze, and said, “I promise.”

  She smiled with relief. “I know you say that,” she said, “but it does seem that circumstances have been conspiring against me and that you’re likely to disappear.”

  “Not going to happen,” he said. “I promise.”

  She nodded, slipped her hand in his, and together they walked down the hallway.

  “We were good in a lot of other ways too,” he said, thinking about it. “We could always laugh together.”

  “Yes, we could always talk too,” she said. “I was just really demanding back then.”

  “And I wanted different things,” he said.

  She smiled, and so did he. “I wanted that big fancy house and the three-car garage with spare cars spilling out on the other side. I was all about stuff.”

  “What you were,” he said, “was all about growing up. And your growing-up version was a whole lot wealthier and more full of stuff than mine. But, as you have dumped off a lot of that stuff, you’ve become a very different person.”

  “I’ve become me, I think,” she said, “at least that’s the way I look at it. An awful lot of everybody else was stuck to me. Like I had to go take a very long shower and just scrub myself clean,” she murmured.

  “It’s not a bad analogy,” he said. “When you think about it, when you grow up, you are bits and pieces of everybody around you. You take on bits and pieces of who they are and what it is that they think that you need to learn and to know and their own code of morals and ethics to live by,” he said. “It’s almost never your own at that stage. Yours becomes more evident as you grow up and become older.” He led her to a small sitting area, where they could sit and stare out the window.

  “It’s such a unique small space here,” she said. “I don’t know if I don’t want to go to sleep because I’m scared the boogeyman might jump out at me,” she confessed, “or the fact that this time will end so soon, and I want to take a piece back with me.”

  “Do you want to take a piece back?” he asked in surprise.

  “Yes, so I always remember what it feels like, so I don’t come back here again,” she said.

  He stared at her in shock.

  She shrugged. “I know it’s foolish, but I can’t get away from that feeling that this will happen again, if I ever come back here.”

  “And, therefore, you won’t come back here,” he said.

  “No, I’m not, but that edginess remains in my mind.”

  “Got it,” he said.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “This experience just messed me up.”

  “No,” he said in a straightforward manner. “It’s giving you a chance to reevaluate.”

  She nodded slowly. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “When you get home, do you just turn around and do another one of these?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said cheerfully. “I know that the company I joined has a lot of team projects as well. I’m just not sure what I’m doing next.”

  “So we’re in the same boat then,” she said in surprise.

  “To a certain extent, yes, except that this is my job, and it’ll be the same form, one way or another, that I’ll be doing,” he murmured.

  She nodded slowly. “Do you ever stay home?”

  “Sure, lots of times. Why?”

  She shrugged. “I just can’t imagine that life. If you were always in danger all the time, I’d worry so much.”

  “Maybe,” he said, “but that would be like me worrying about you crossing the street.”

  She rolled her eyes at that. “I get that,” she said. “But this is obviously a little more dangerous than that.”

  “Yes, however, it’s not that dangerous. I’ve been doing it for many, many years, with no incidents.”

  “Maybe you’re just really lucky.”

  “Or I’m really careful,” he said in outrage but then laughed.

  “It’s all about trust, isn’t it?”

  “It’s about trust. It’s about knowing that somebody really wants to do something and letting them do it. Loving the fact that you’ll have time together and that sometimes there won’t be any time at all.”

  “Right,” she murmured. “It’s lots of variables.”

  “Always,” he said, “and what about your family?”

  “I’m better off if I stay away from them,” she said. “I know that I’m a failure to them, so I always have that harsh sense of criticism and judgment when they are around.”

  “And you don’t need that,” he said gently.

  “No, and it’s hard to tell them to back off and to stop when I’m there. They’re very strong,” she said. “I guess that’s a way to put it.”

  “It’s a one-way relationship,” he said. “Do you really not plan on ever having a family of your own though?”

  “I was just about to ask you that,” she said, with a chuckle. “Because, with your job, that’s got to be hard.”

  “And yet many people make it work,” he said. “I always figured that, when it was the right person, then she would want to make it work.”

  “And, of course, that’s the bottom line.”

  “It is. And you’ll go home, and you’ll start all over again,” he said. “You’ll build yourself something in your life that’ll make you really happy and make you smile, and you’ll carry on.”

  “That sounds very depressing,” she said.

  “And why is that?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I somehow thought that I already did all of that.”

  “So you don’t have to do it again?”

  “Maybe, or maybe because I want something more than just this.” She looked around at the hotel. “I’m not very good company,” she said abruptly. “We should get up and head back to my room.” She stood and started walking.

  He hopped to his feet and came beside her. “Did I say anything wrong?”

  “No,” she said in a faint voice. “I just realized how much of the good things in my life I still wanted to have around, and, now that I see them, I thought maybe they were there for me, but they aren’t.”

  He stopped, looked at her in complete confusion. “Sorry?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it.” She quickly unlocked the door, smiled, and said, “Good night,” and closed the door in front of him.

  Confused, not sure what had just gone wrong, but obviously something had, he slowly walked back to his room. Killian was sound asleep, which was exactly what Jerricho should be doing. Jerricho stretched out on his bed, wondering what she meant, and, afraid that it would keep him awake, he went back over her words, and a thought suddenly came to him. He pulled out his phone and realized she didn’t have hers anymore. He groaned.

  It would be a long night at this rate. And he couldn’t afford that. But he wondered if maybe she was talking about him. Was she interested in staying friends? Was she interested in something more, or had he completely misread all the signs? He frowned as his mind kept going back and forth over a lot of the different bits and pieces of their conversation. They had definitely reconnected, and still something special existed between the two of them. Something more than what he had imagined.

  Killian had seen it; in fact, Killian had seen it right from the beginning.

  But Jerricho hadn’t, and, with that thought in his mind, knowing he would have to clear the air with her in the morning, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

  Chapter 10

  Brenna woke the next morning, tired, with a sense of defeat coursing through her. She lay in bed for the longest time, until she heard Jessie get up to shower. Even when Jessie came back ou
t, Brenna hadn’t moved.

  “I can tell you’re awake,” Jessie said. “Your eyes are open.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “I am awake. I just don’t want to be.”

  “I do,” she said. “I want to go home today.”

  “Yes, with that I can agree.” She slowly pulled herself up into a sitting position and looked at her friend.

  “You were up late with Jerricho.”

  “Yep, I was,” she said, “but I probably shouldn’t have been.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it just reminded me how much I always liked him and how we aren’t together anymore.”

  “So what’s wrong with being together now versus being together before?” she asked. “Don’t start pulling all your history into this relationship. It’s been long enough, and you’re both different enough that it should be brand-new.”

  “And yet I don’t know if I could handle his job.”

  “He would have to handle whatever you did. You were traveling all over the world. Will you give that up?”

  “I was thinking about it, yes,” she said.

  At that, Jessie stopped, looked at her slowly, and said, “You loved it.”

  “I did. I don’t know if I still do.”

  “I won’t judge you for that,” she said. “After what we’ve been through, I’m not sure anybody would expect you to ever travel again. But you did have that travel bug, and you may want to again. So, if you do, wouldn’t you want somebody who could accept what you did?”

  “Well, of course,” she said.

  “No of course about it. When you think about it, you want somebody who would accept you doing what you love, and he’ll want somebody who’ll accept him doing what he loves.”

  Brenna looked at her friend in surprise. “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh,” she said. “What’s talking right now is the fear inside you because of what happened to you. That doesn’t mean he can’t do what he loves, and it doesn’t mean,” she murmured, as she got dressed slowly, “that you can’t do what you love. But, if the travel bug bites you again, surely you would want somebody to support you in whatever direction you wanted to go in.”

  “That’s how it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? Partners?” She shook her head. “I got cold feet last night, when I thought about him taking off on these missions, going all over the world and getting shot at,” she said. “It just makes me feel like I couldn’t go back there anymore.”

  “Of course you can’t. There’s no going back when it comes to something like this. But there is going forward. That’s up to you to figure out.”

  “Wow,” Brenna said. “When did you get so wise?”

  “I’ve always been wise,” Jessie said, with a laugh. “You just never listened.” And, with that, she smacked Brenna on the leg and said, “Come on. Get up, and let’s go get breakfast. I’m not exactly sure when we’re leaving today, but I want to be ready.”

  “Okay, give me a few minutes,” Brenna said, feeling much better as she hopped up, and went into the bathroom. The hot shower was a gift and one she enjoyed but didn’t have time to savor. As she stepped out, she dried off and quickly dressed. With both of their bags packed and ready to snag at a moment’s notice, they slipped out the door and walked down to the lobby. A small coffee shop was attached, but it didn’t offer much. And it was pretty full as well. They waited to see if a table would open up, and then the waitress called them to share another table. As they walked up to it, both Killian and Jerricho sat there. “Wow,” Brenna said, “I didn’t know if we were allowed to come for breakfast or not.”

  “Why not?” Killian asked, with a bright smile. “It’s morning. We all need food. We have a long day ahead of us.”

  “I guess,” she said. She smiled at Jerricho. “Good morning.”

  His gaze was searching, but he answered readily enough. “Good morning. Did you get any sleep?”

  “Some,” she said. “It’s amazingly hard to sleep, even after all that. I thought I’d crash and burn. Instead it’s like I was still on the water, caught up in a never-ending nightmare.”

  “Sometimes your thoughts just keep circling the hamster wheel,” he said, “and then it’s really hard to drop it all.”

  “Yep, that’s about the size of it,” she said, with a chuckle. She sat down and waited for the waitress to return. By the time they’d ordered and had food coming, she looked at the two of them and asked, “Do we have a plan for today?”

  “We’re leaving in an hour and a half,” Killian said.

  “Okay, good,” she said. “I wondered when you would tell us that.”

  “Didn’t know you were awake yet,” he said. “We figured we would finish eating, then come wake you. It’s actually still pretty early.”

  She glanced around to see multiple groups of the women. “Are they all leaving?”

  “Some have already left,” he said. “This is the last of them here.”

  “Wow,” she said, “I wasn’t expecting this much progress so fast.”

  “It’s the best way,” Killian said. “The faster people return to their lives, the faster it feels more normal.”

  She nodded. “I guess part of what I’m feeling is that whole disconnect about this mess.”

  “And that’s normal.”

  Just then, their food arrived, and, by the time they were done eating, Jerricho said, “We’ll go grab our bags.”

  “We’ll come with you,” she said. “We’ll get our stuff, and then hopefully we can grab the flights that we need and get home.”

  “We’ll get flights,” he said. “Come on.”

  With that, the next hour was busy collecting their gear, packing up the last of it, checking out, saying goodbye to the few women who hadn’t left yet but were waiting at their ride for their driver, and getting into one of the vehicles that the guys had rented. They made it to the small local airport.

  Brenna looked around and asked, “Don’t we need IDs? Passports? Is it safe to travel without?”

  “We have all that taken care of. And this transportation is all we have available here,” he said. “Small planes will fly us into the main city.”

  She knew she was going home, but, from there, she wasn’t sure where they flew first. “Where are we going from here?”

  “Spain,” he said, “and then we’ll head to England and likely to the States.”

  “So a circular route.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Jessie, you wanted to end in England, didn’t you?”

  She looked at Brenna. “Yes.”

  “I thought you were coming back to the US with me?” Brenna asked, surprised.

  “My fiancé is English,” she said. “We’ll get married there.”

  Brenna stared at her friend. “Oh, is that why we’re doing the circular route?”

  “Yes,” Jerricho said. “We promised to get you both home, and that’s what she has determined as home.”

  “Okay,” Brenna said, “I’m good with that.”

  “You don’t mind the extra flight?”

  “Not particularly. I’m not rushing home for anything.” She reached over and gave her friend a hug. “Have you already quit your job?”

  “I did last night,” she said. “I got an email from them this morning, saying they were sorry to see me go, blah blah blah, but they understood, due to the stress of the job, etcetera.” She rolled her eyes at that. “Of course they don’t know I’m pregnant.”

  “No, they don’t,” she said. “Maybe it’s better to keep it that way.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m not exactly sure what I’ll do when I get to England.”

  “Yes, you do,” Brenna said, “you’ll get married, and you’ll have a family.” She studied the quiet glow on her friend’s face. “What does he do for a living?”

  “He’s a software producer,” she said quietly. “He has his own business, centered in New York, but, once he realized that we were having a family,” she said, “he had always talked ab
out raising them in his hometown in England,” she said. “Plus I am okay with that.”

  “You’ve always talked about England too. You love it.”

  “I do,” she said. “I’m actually pretty happy to go.”

  “Good,” It was easy to say good, but, at the same time, it felt like a loss all over again. But Brenna kept up a cheerful banter, as they worked their way through the various flights.

  By the time they landed in London, Brenna was sorry she had agreed to go the circular route. It probably wouldn’t have taken that much longer than any other flight, but she was tired as they landed. Then she finally got out of her seat and stood in line and worked her way through the crowd, until they picked up the luggage and walked out onto the fresh air. “Now I’m really tired.”

  “Nothing quite like traveling to wear you down,” Killian said, with a bright smile.

  “Isn’t that the truth.” She instinctively navigated toward Jerricho. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her gently up against him. “You okay?”

  “I am,” she said, “but I’m exhausted.”

  “With good reason,” he said. “But we’re back on English soil, and pretty soon we’ll be in the US.”

  “Good,” she said. “What are we doing here then? Another short flight? Another short turnaround or what?” She couldn’t believe she hadn’t even asked before this. She’d left all the arrangements to them. She yawned.

  “Nope, we’ll stay here for the night,” he said.

  “Okay, and then leave in the morning?” she asked.

  “Yep, a transatlantic flight, where you might be in your bed tomorrow night.”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice,” she murmured.

  He led the way to the hotel, but, as they stepped out, Jessie cried out, and Brenna turned around to see Jessie throwing herself into another man’s arms. This must be the fiancé. They all shook hands and then shared quick tearful goodbyes, and, just like that, Jessie was gone. It was just Brenna and the two men.

  “And then there were none,” she murmured.

  He looked at her curiously.

  She shrugged. “Ten Little Indians.”