A Promise of Forever (17 page)

Like Jolie, she was definitely adaptable.

B
en walked in the door expecting the novel experience of incredible aromas coming from his kitchen, but the only unusual scent in the air was Avi’s. She was coming down the hall from the bedroom, wearing a snug-fitting top and shorts that started low on her hips and ended a few amazing inches later. Her feet were shoved into flip-flops, of course, gray ones, the straps covered with silver sequins that caught the light coming in the west-facing windows. Her hair was pulled up on her head in a style so careless, it didn’t deserve the name. It should have looked a mess, but it didn’t. It was, in fact, incredibly sexy.

Seeing her had the impact of a fist to the gut. He had less than two weeks left, fewer than fourteen days when he could come home to her, talk to her, touch her, make love with her, spend time with her, laugh with her. Fewer than fourteen days before she broke his heart.

Don’t think about it.
He couldn’t, or he’d find himself dwelling on it, and dwelling never did anyone any good.

“Hey, sweetie.” He met her halfway, hugging her, kissing her.

“I bet you call all the women in your life that,” she teased in a husky voice that warmed his blood.

“Just my niece. And my sisters on occasion.” And his medical assistant. Most of his female patients. A few nurses. An OR tech or two. It wasn’t that he didn’t know their names. He did. It was affection, easy and familiar and comfortable. “You prefer babe?”

“My mom calls me that.”

“Sugar pie honeybunch?”

She laughed, as he’d intended.

“How about gorgeous?”

She tilted her head, forehead wrinkled as if she were giving it serious consideration, then a smile spread across her face. “I like it.” Sliding out of his embrace, she gave him a push toward the bedroom. “Quick, go get changed. We’re going out for dinner, after all.”

“Where are we going?” He pulled his scrub top off as he went and loosened the drawstring on his pants.

“You’ll see when we get there.”

He was fine with not knowing. He’d figured out the day after they’d met that it wasn’t where they went, what they ate, or what they did that made the time together important. It was her.

Well, having great sex was pretty damn important.

He changed into cargo shorts and a T-shirt, slid his cell and wallet into his pocket, then returned to the living room, where she waited at the door. After locking up, he pocketed his keys, too, and took her hand. “Are your parents expecting you back tonight?”

“My mom just said be careful. My dad said have a good time and don’t worry about waking him because he’s always up by six.”

They turned right when they left the building. There was a fair amount of traffic on the streets and not a single parking space to be found. Drillers’ games always made his little corner of downtown busy. This would be the third game he’d missed since meeting Avi, but that was okay. The Drillers would always be there.

She wouldn’t.

At the corner, she nudged him to cross the street to the left. He looked at the stadium ahead, then at her, but her bland expression gave away nothing.

“George was a big baseball fan,” she remarked. “Not as much as football—he played at West Point—but he had a fine appreciation for the game. Wherever he traveled, he saw a game if he could and bought a cap. He must have had at least fifty of them.”

Ben knew he’d played football. Cadore had told him. He didn’t know much else about him. Where was he from? Had he been married before Patricia? What had drawn him to a military career? Had he regretted the harm they’d caused Patricia’s family, and had it been worth it?

No, Ben knew the answer to that last one. He’d seen it in the way Patricia grieved for George, had heard it from people who’d known them. They hadn’t broken up her family for a fling. They’d loved each other deeply, right up until his death. She still loved him, and Ben had no doubt she always would.

Somehow that made what they’d done…not okay, but better. Patricia hadn’t left the family on a whim, and that mattered.

Outside the gates to the park, Avi stopped and made a
ta-da
game-show hostess gesture. “Dr. Ben Noble, it’s your lucky night. Your date includes two tickets to watch the Tulsa Drillers annihilate the Arkansas Travelers at lovely ONEOK Field. You’ll be provided with all the hot dogs and popcorn you can eat, along with your choice of beverage. You’ll be allowed to cheer, hoot, holler, and jeer the umpire all you want, and afterward you’ll be spending the night in a beautiful loft with your gorgeous and sexy girlfriend, who’s been cruising the Internet on her smartphone to find new ways to be naughty, and it’s all her treat. Sound good?”

Avi, who, impossible though it seemed, didn’t like baseball, was taking him to a game. He laughed, opened his mouth to say
Sounds good,
and something totally different came out. “I love you.”

The words hung between them in a moment of shock. Her eyes widened, and her mouth formed a soft little
O.
She looked stunned and just a little bit afraid. He was stunned, too. He hadn’t meant to say it, hadn’t even known it was in his head. But he wouldn’t take it back. He meant it. In the end, would it change anything? Would it stop her from getting on that plane to Georgia? Would it keep them together?

No. But not every love had to be a forever sort of thing. He’d been in love before—
not like this,
a voice whispered—but it hadn’t lasted, and he’d survived. He would survive this one, too.

Slowly Avi recovered, an unsteady smile curving her lips. “Well, Doc, you sure know how to make my inner romantic tremble with pleasure. She intends to do the same for you when this game is over.” With that promise, she turned and walked to the ticket booth with a bit of extra sway in her hips for his benefit.

He didn’t care that she hadn’t said the words back. That wasn’t his reason for saying them—though damned if he knew at the moment what
was
the reason. She liked him a lot, and that was enough.

And now she knows how much you like her.
As if she hadn’t figured it out already.

She came back with the tickets, and they made their way inside, bought food, then found seats. As he prepared to take a bite of his hot dog, she asked, “Did you know Arkansas Traveler is a variety of tomato? GrandMir and Popi sold it at the nursery. What kind of sports team names itself after a tomato?”

“Hey, tomatoes are very important vegetables.”

“Technically, they’re fruit.”

“Your head is just filled with trivial information, isn’t it?”

She flashed him a smile. “It’s good that you said trivial rather than useless. That will earn you points in bed tonight.”

A few hours later, with another game in the win column for the Drillers, Ben cashed in those points. Afterward, in the cool stillness of the bedroom, with nothing between them but steady breathing, he spoke. “You met Patricia when she and George were…”

“Dating. Falling in love.” Avi’s hair brushed like silk across his arm as she snuggled in closer. “Yes. She was happy, Ben, in this lighthearted, beaming, it’s-a-wonderful-world sort of way. Like me these last couple weeks.”

He nuzzled her hair in acknowledgment but didn’t stray from the subject. “Didn’t she feel at least a little guilt?”

“Maybe. I don’t know, Doc. I was ten years old, and all I saw was a beautiful woman and a handsome man who were totally smitten with each other.”

“Smitten,” he repeated, thinking of Sara’s use of the word
whoopee
. “Who uses
smitten
these days?”

“I do,” she replied haughtily. “It’s a lovely word that says it all perfectly.”

After a moment, she went on. “I’m sure she felt guilty, Ben. She loved you guys. Part of her still loved your father. Take it from me: A person can feel guilty as hell without anyone knowing it. I’m sure Patricia wished she felt that sort of passion for your father. She didn’t want to break up her family, to give up having you and your sisters in her life. But what she felt for George, what he felt for her…It was beautiful. And complicated.”

He and Avi were complicated, too. He didn’t want to be. He wanted everything simple and straightforward: fall in love, get married, make a home, raise a family, live a long happy life. But what kind of life would he have if he got everything he wanted?

A perfect one, at the moment.

He stroked her stomach where his fingers rested, the skin soft and smooth and warm and, after their day at the lake, a deep caramelly gold. “What do you feel guilty about, gorgeous?”

She was still a long time, her breathing steady but shallow. He was starting to think he’d asked one too many personal questions when she spoke. “I don’t think it’s possible to be in a combat zone when someone gets killed and not feel guilty. It’s just all so random. Five vehicles pass on a road, and the sixth gets blown up by an IED. A couple of people are walking across the base, and a sniper kills one of them. A mortar blows up this tent, not that one. Someone takes his buddy’s place on patrol, and he’s the only one who dies, when he shouldn’t have even been there. It’s hard not to think
Why them? Why not me? Why did I survive when the person twenty-five feet away died?”

Ben couldn’t offer any answers to her questions. He couldn’t say it was because she was special; every casualty’s family thought the same thing. He couldn’t say she was spared because she had things to accomplish, gifts to offer; so did everyone who died. He couldn’t say she survived because she was lucky, because it wasn’t her time. Even if it was true, an answer that simple wouldn’t offer any comfort.

All he could do was hold her a little tighter, maybe make her feel a little more secure, and know he didn’t give a damn why she survived. He was just glad she did.

Thursday morning, after her parents had left for work, Avi changed into running clothes, hooked up Sundance’s leash, and headed out for a jog. Theoretically, for her, Labor Day had always meant the change from summer to fall; the weather cooled, school started, football games were on the schedule; thoughts of wiener roasts tempted, with fat, charred marshmallows slowly melting off their sticks; she began anticipating Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas.

Three days post Labor Day, if it was cooler, she couldn’t tell. So even though she’d planned a run, she was happy to keep her pace to the quickest walk Sundance would allow. Given that the puppy felt the need to sniff every tree, street sign, and fence that might conceal a dog, it was more of a snail’s crawl.

As they approached Patricia’s house, Avi’s steps slowed. Parked in the driveway was a vehicle she’d never actually seen in person but had seen plenty of pictures of. George’s ’65 Mustang had been meticulously restored, down to the Rangoon Red paint job. It was the only car he had ever owned, purchased used the day he’d turned sixteen. It was his baby, and a real beauty.

“Hey, sweet girl.” Patricia came down the porch steps, purse strap over one shoulder. “I was about to come by your house and bring you back here, and there you are. How lucky can I get?”

Avi let Sundance pull her off the sidewalk and across the grass. She looked a mess next to her friend. Patricia wore pale lavender pants and a perfectly matched striped blouse, with her hair styled and her makeup expertly applied. She believed in always looking her best, for herself, for George, for any soul who happened to see her.

Avi, on the other hand, wore ratty clothes, sloppy hair, and only hoped her socks and shoes matched, and she hadn’t seen the point of putting on makeup to go for a run.

“You could have called, and I would have walked over. What’s up?”

Patricia dug through her purse, then offered a leather key chain. The brown leather was embossed with a rearing mustang, and two keys dangled from it. “Welcome home. Merry Christmas. Happy birthday.”

Avi accepted the keys with a frown. “I don’t…”

Patricia pulled her to the Mustang. “I was there, remember, when George told you he wanted you to have the car when he was gone. I wanted to get it tuned up, checked out, washed, and waxed before I gave it to you. But here it is, in A-one condition and with a full tank of gas.”

Avi stared at the immaculate interior, soft black leather and carpet, and her fingers curled over the keys as her eyes grew damp. “Oh, Patricia, I can’t. You should give it to one of your own kids.”

“I have three. They’d fight over it. Besides, they weren’t George’s kids.” Patricia gently wiped away a tear sliding down Avi’s cheeks. “You were the closest he ever got to a daughter, Avi. He loved you, honey, you know that. He wanted you to have it, and so do I.”

Only vaguely aware that she was rubbing her fingers across the leather of the driver’s seat, Avi still protested. “This car is a classic, Patricia. It’s got to be worth a nice bit of money.”

“I don’t care about the money. I care about knowing that George’s wish was carried out. Please take it, Avi, and enjoy it the way he wanted you to.” A cajoling tone came into her voice. “C’mon, it’s make-a-widow-happy day.”

The voice saying no inside her shushed as Avi hugged Patricia tightly. “I’m honored to have it. Thank you.”

Patricia patted her back. “He was honored to be part of your life, honey.”

Avi surreptitiously wiped her eyes, then asked, “Can you come and take a ride with me?”

“I’d love to, but I can’t. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment.”

Concern rippled through Avi. “Are you okay?”

“I couldn’t be better. You met Fia Monday, didn’t you?” She waited for Avi’s nod. “It’s actually her appointment. Her health has been declining since early this year, and she can’t get a straight answer from the doctors, so Jessy and I are going with her today. Fia’s so sweet and timid and exhausted these days. They find it easy to brush her off. But I’m a colonel’s wife, and I don’t take brush-offs well, and Jessy’s a steel magnolia who will get answers if she has to go to the very top of the chain of command—and, yes, I mean the Chief of Staff of the United States Army himself.”