A Chance of a Lifetime (28 page)

Though the definition of
reasonable
was certainly subjective. If their places were switched and it had been Joe who'd suffered a heart attack—as if his heart would ever betray his gorgeously healthy, fit body—she would be hovering in constant panic mode. But there were little voices inside her that wanted to shriek,
I'm okay!

“This is just a stroll,” Joe reminded her, catching her hand and tugging her back to his side. “You don't want to overdo it before rehab. Wait until you're hooked up to the monitors and under supervision before you try to show them how far you've bounced back.”

“What do you know about cardiac rehab?” she asked, hands shoved in her pockets. They really were just strolling. She'd been outstripping this pace for all but the first week of their exercise program.

“I used to take my grandfather to rehab after school. And I talked to the nurse who came by your room to tell you about it.”

Lucy had listened to the nurse, a sweet woman named Debbie, but she'd still been in worried mode. How the heck could she have had a heart attack? How would it affect all the plans she'd made for life? Would she have to give up Prairie Harts? Was she going to die younger than all her family and friends? Could she have children? Could she live long enough to see them graduate and get married? Could she have
sex
?

She hadn't learned much about rehab.

 “You'll go in a week from Tuesday for an evaluation,” Joe went on. “Your mom wanted to stay to go with you for that first appointment, but I persuaded her I could be trusted to get you there and back.”

Saved from another week and a half of her mom's worry. “I owe you.”

Joe squeezed her fingers lightly. “I intend to collect.” At the end of the block, he steered her to the right and across the street. “The rehab staff has two RNs, Debbie and Tina, and Jill is an exercise physiologist. You'll have classes on medications, nutrition, weight training, diabetes, reading food labels, good stuff like that. You'll go Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for twelve weeks, and when you finish, you get a cool T-shirt.”

So far, nothing he'd said had made Lucy's ears perk up. Of course she would complete the course of rehab. She would work out and learn even better eating habits and everything else. She would do her best to keep the very scary heart attack thing from ever happening again.

But the idea of being rewarded with a cool T-shirt made her grin. “I will work for cool T-shirts,” she announced.

“And if a longer, happier, healthier life is a benefit of getting cool T-shirts, so be it,” he added dryly.

After a moment, they turned to the right at the next corner. A few blocks straight ahead, and they would be standing across the street from Prairie Harts. She hadn't asked if they could walk that far—she was just thrilled to be outside and moving—and she wouldn't. If she had to give up the shop after all her dreaming, if it was the stress factor that had pushed her into the event, maybe it was better that she start getting used to the idea now before the doctors came right out and said so.

But Joe didn't turn around at the next intersection, or the next. He kept heading east, and then there it was, looking exactly the way it had the first time she'd seen it. The front windows were still grimy, the parking lot still rutted. She'd thought it a wonderful place that first time and still thought so now. Her mind could so clearly see the bright paint and the cozy chairs, could smell the fresh baked goods and the rich coffee, and could hear the crowds waiting in line for breakfast pastries and after-dinner treats.

A lump formed in her throat as she tried to surreptitiously swipe her eyes. “What if I have to give it up, Joe?”

He bent to see her face. “Why would you have to do that?”

“Hello? MI?” She fluttered her hand over her chest.

He pulled her tight against him. “The docs don't know what caused it. They certainly didn't single out the bakery. But I can tell you as your coach, what you've got to do is work smarter, not harder. You might have to cut back on your hours at your regular job, or you might have to hire a few people sooner than you expected. I know one, in fact, who's determined to be first in line to put her application in.”

“Who?” Lucy's forehead wrinkled. Her friends had helped her out tremendously, but most of them had jobs and weren't looking for a career change.

“Patricia. Whenever you're up to talking business, she wants to come over and discuss it with you. I'm thinking that means after your mom goes home tomorrow. And I'll still help out, and I know a couple of kids from school who are dependable and like to earn their own spending money.”

Patricia.
He couldn't have said a name that could have brightened her as much. Lucy and the older woman were the best of friends, and Patricia was a fabulous baker herself. They got along well, and Patricia had a way of making everyone around her feel better about themselves. She would be perfect. And any kids Joe sent over would be exactly as he described. He had no patience for slackers.

Her day suddenly lighter and sunnier, Lucy smiled up at Joe and asked a question she knew he'd heard a lot, especially from the margarita girls. “You're about as close to perfect as a man can get. Why aren't you married?”

His grin faded as he raised his hand to her face, brushing her cheek, touching her as if she were gentle and fragile and precious, then he did it again with his mouth. It started as just a touch, lips to skin, but in a heartbeat—yep, her heart was beating steady and strong—he'd kissed his way to her mouth and was doing some interesting nibbling at the corner. “I've been waiting for you, Luce.”

His husky voice sent shivers through her, and the kiss that followed spread heat, made her feel weak and strong and excited. It also made her wish she'd paid more attention to her doctor during the discharge meeting.
Do you have any questions about activities?
he'd asked, and one had instantly danced into her mind:
Can I have sex?
She'd kept it in, though, because her mother was there, and Joe was there, and after all, she hadn't had sex in seven years. Waiting a week until her follow-up appointment was no big deal.

Right this moment, standing on the sidewalk across from her shop, resting her hands on Joe's waist and getting her toes curled by his kiss, she decided for future reference that she
really
needed to redefine
no big deal
.

 “Remember when we went skinny-dipping here?”

Bennie lay on her side on the quilt, her head pillowed on her bent arm, feeling as full, fat, and lazy as the pooch snoring next to Calvin, who mimicked Bennie's position. The remains of their lunch were scattered between them: fried chicken, potato salad, tabouli, and a foil pan of frosted brownies topped with giant walnut halves. Perfect picnic food.

“I didn't go skinny-dipping here,” she disagreed. “The only naked bodies in that water belonged to you and J'Myel. I kept my T-shirt and shorts on.”

“Yeah, but we could see right through your shirt.”

She feigned a scandalized look, then laughed. “We were so afraid of getting caught. Not that I did anything wrong. I didn't even sneak a peek at your scrawny selves.” They'd been eleven, maybe twelve years old. She'd been learning from her friends that boys might be good for something other than outrunning, outfishing, and outsmarting. Of course she'd sneaked peeks. “Oh, we thought we were something back then,” she said with a sigh.

The humor faded from Calvin's eyes, and his mouth thinned as he stared off into the distance. Was he seeing J'Myel instead of their setting? Or maybe his innocent naïve self with his innocent naïve view of the future?

She wished he didn't have so many sorrows in his life. Their pastor said they needed the bad times to appreciate the good ones, but Bennie was pretty sure she could be totally appreciative of the good without the adversity. She would at least like to give it a try.

“What are you thinking about, Squeaky?”

For a long time he didn't acknowledge even hearing her. He reached out one unsteady hand and scooted QBit—sorry, Nita—closer so he could rub her spine and shoulders. The dog had been fun to watch, fierce one moment, timid the next. She clearly knew she was Calvin's girl, showing an occasional interest in Bennie but mostly ignoring her. Whether he knew it yet, Calvin had himself a dog. Someone might have to house her until he moved out of the barracks—Gran would surely volunteer—but Bennie doubted Nita would deign to a home longer than very short-term with anyone other than Calvin.

Good thing Bennie liked dogs.

A low sigh came from the other side of the quilt, drawing Bennie's gaze from the puppy to Calvin. His expression was haunted, tightening his face, his muscles, his nerves, as he stared bleakly at her. “Before I came here, I tried to kill myself.”

Bennie blinked, confused. There was no doubt she'd heard the words, that they'd come, broken and guttural, from him. There was no doubt she understood what each of them meant. They just didn't—couldn't—register in her brain. “You—you what?” She tried to laugh at the ludicrousness of it, but the laugh was a failure. With her chest suddenly tight and her hands clenching into fists, with fear washing through her and blocking the sun's heat, she was pretty sure not so much as a choked giggle was hiding anywhere inside her.

“God, that's not how I intended to do this.” He sat up, covering his face with both hands, scrubbing at his eyes. The blood veins in the backs of his hands stood out with the movement, and a sudden, sob-like breath shook his shoulders. Shame darkened his eyes when he lowered his hands, but she caught only a glimpse as he pushed to his feet. He collected Nita's leash in one hand, then extended the other to Bennie. “Can we walk?”

She reached through the anguish and despair hovering suffocatingly thick around him, swore it was clammy against her skin before she found his hand. Under other circumstances, she would have teased about whether he was capable of pulling her rounded curves up from the ground, but instead all she did was cling tightly to his hand, even after she was on her feet, even when it would have been polite to let go or to at least ease her grip.

With Nita exploring as far ahead as her leash allowed, they started along the neatly mowed bank of the pond. There were little soothing sounds: fish splashing, a frog ribbeting on a rock, a light breeze, Nita's snuffle when she found a particularly interesting scent. There weren't any sounds from Bennie or Calvin. She didn't know what to say or how to say it. Did she need to be gentler, warier, in the way she couched things to him? Was his suicide attempt a one-time thing, a heat-of-the-moment-things-are-bad-so-screw-life action? Or was it something he still wanted, that he would keep trying until he succeeded?

The possibility of Calvin dying, of not being there for her and his parents and Gran and Mama, absolutely broke Bennie's heart. It was so ugly a thought, so hurtful, that her knees buckled, sending her stumbling a few feet across the yellowed grass before his grip brought back her balance. If he let go, she would sink to the ground and sob the way she sobbed only twice in her life: when her daddy died and when J'Myel died.

Would he cry with her?

With her free hand, she swiped away tears seeping down her cheeks. It took a huge effort to make her voice work, to get the words out in a somewhat coherent stream. “Calvin Clyde Sweet, you know I love you, but I'm going to beat you senseless if you don't start talking fast.” She waggled her index finger. “And before you pull any of that I'm-a-boy-you're-a-girl crap, just remember that I've done it before.”

His mouth tried to smile, tilting up the tiniest bit at one corner, but the light moment faded into the darkness around him as if it had never been there. He took a breath, fixed his gaze on Nita, and slid quick glances Bennie's way as he began talking. His voice was heavy, empty of emotion because, she knew, he was overwhelmed by emotion. “The Army's getting rid of me. After the suicide attempt, I was diagnosed with PTSD. They sent me to the Warrior Transition Unit here so I can get treatment before they boot me out.”

Then his voice broke. “They say I'm too unstable to wear the uniform anymore. And they're right.”

It was the most surreal situation she had ever found herself in—a place where she'd spent a thousand happy hours growing up, a boy she'd relied on and trusted and looked up to all those years, a beautiful fall day, a happy puppy, and words that made perfect sense and absolutely no sense at all. Yes, people attempted suicide, but not Calvin. People suffered psychiatric problems, but not him. He was too strong. Too centered. Too spiritual. Too normal. Too—

Haunted,
the voice in her head whispered.
Broken.
She'd thought it was weariness from the war, grief about J'Myel, guilt for missing his funeral. She'd thought it would pass, a phase people went through, tough times that they dealt with, that made them stronger.

But post-traumatic stress disorder…suicide. Having to leave the Army that was all he'd ever wanted to do with his life. Those things didn't sound like phases. Tough? Oh, yell, yes. Making him stronger?

He'd considered suicide.
Justice and Elizabeth's boy, the light of Gran's life, had wanted to die so badly that he'd tried to make it happen.

And J'Myel had wanted to live just as badly. Carly's husband, Ilena's, Therese's, Lucy's, Marti's, Fia's, Jessy's, Patricia's—all their husbands had fought to live, to come home to the people they loved.

That last thought stirred a twinge of anger underneath her shock and disbelief and fear, but she burrowed it in deeper. It was one more emotion she couldn't deal with at the moment.

A shudder vibrated through him, transferring into his fingers that still clenched hers. “That's how I met Diez—the night I tried to…He tackled me, got the gun, and threw it away—threw it onto a damn train passing by. That's when he stole my car and wallet, and that's how he ended up here. That's how
I
ended up here, Bennie, because the Army doesn't want me anymore. Because I was stupid and depressed, and no one knows how long the patches keeping me together will hold or even if they will hold, and I'm not fit for duty anymore.” His next words were little more than a whisper. “Some days I don't think I'm fit for anything.”