Full Circle (11 page)

"When I came back to Rawlings, I was on medical leave, and I was trying to decide if I was going to re-up or be discharged. I made my decision after we reconnected. I put the paperwork into the Navy to leave the service. Officially it had been stamped approved but it hadn't gone through all the sign-off channels yet.

"When my unit was activated, I was ordered to report for duty. They needed me, but I was neither cleared medically for duty or technically still in the Navy as my request had been approved but not processed yet. I was in a sort of limbo status. But the Navy needed my expertise and my command skills." Jack laughed and shook his head. "It got messy, and trust me, the Navy does not like things to be messy. The result is that I am now officially discharged from the Navy with a full twenty-year retirement. It's been signed, sealed and delivered. They got what they wanted, and I got what I'd already earned several times over."

"I didn't doubt the need for your mission, Jack," Josie complained. "But I've got a major problem with your communication skills. You tore out of here without even saying goodbye. Your Grandfather dying wasn't classified information!"

Jack nodded. "You're right. When I got the phone call about Amos, I was—hell, I don't know what I felt. I couldn't believe it was true. Amos sold his soul to the devil a long time ago, and I guess I thought he was too evil to die. I didn't even see him put in the ground before I was called back to duty."

"Amos was a famous television evangelist," Josie protested. "People loved him."

"Only the idiots that bought into his lies and filled his greedy pockets with donations," Jack admitted. "Anyone that knew the real man had little choice but to despise him. He may have been my grandfather, but there was no love lost between us. He tortured my father, but my father wasn't strong enough to stand up to him. My father was gay, Josie."

"What?" Josie started to sit up, but hissed as her tender backside rubbed against the sheets, and she quickly changed her mind. She yanked the bedspread over to cover her nakedness. "Big Cal was not gay. He was married; he had you. After your mother died, he dated a lot of women—big, sexy women. He liked women, everybody knew he did."

"He pretended to like sexy women. I wasn't blind. I saw the kind of women he ran around with, big tits, brassy hair, and fawning all over him. Hell, he might have liked them, for all I know, but most of it was a sham," Jack said, shaking his head. "My father, Calvin Rawlings, was gay. His marriage and later his charade of loving women was all a hoax—invented and orchestrated by Amos Rawlings to protect his reputation and moneymaking schemes. Amos couldn't stand on a pulpit denouncing homosexuality and let it be known that his son was gay. My poor mother was trapped between Amos and Calvin's manipulations to hide my father's homosexuality. I don't believe she knew the truth until after she'd been married several years."

"It was a different time," she said quietly. "A lot of men were in the closet and denied their sexuality until recently."

"I'm not ashamed that my father was gay, Josie," Jack said. "I was ashamed that he put up this huge facade of a life because he wouldn't stand up against Amos. My father died, never being the man he was meant to be. He allowed Amos to make him ashamed of what and who he was as a human being. He also made my mother's life miserable because he wouldn't give her a divorce even after she knew the truth. He used me as a bargaining chip to make her stay. That was some heavy crap for a kid to try to understand. After my mother died, I despised both Calvin and Amos. I never settled those accounts with my father. Ironically, it appears I did settle accounts with Amos."

"What do you mean?"

Jack barked out a laugh that was without humor. "Amos left everything to me. The old SOB had rewritten his will to spite my father when I was about ten. I guess the old devil thought he was going to live forever, and he never got around to changing it. I signed all of it over to organizations Amos would have hated, organizations supporting gay rights and hospices for victims of AIDs. His empire will be dismantled and whatever is left over beyond the legal fees will be turned over to more charities."

Josie laid her head on Jack's shoulder. "Why do families have to be so complicated? That's not my idea of what a family is supposed to be like. I liked your father, I liked your grandfather."

"I liked my father, too," Jack admitted. "I couldn't stand that he was living a life of lies and he wouldn't stand up to Amos. Amos is another story altogether."

"Were you hurt in that rescue mission against the Somali pirates?"

Jack tilted his head. "No, I wasn't hurt. You copped to that?"

"I'm not stupid," Josie complained, smacking him hard on the chest. "It still doesn't excuse you for not contacting me!"

"The mission was classified," Jack said, shaking his head. "It was my job, Josie. I was needed and I did my job. At least I proved to myself I could handle a mission again. I had my doubts after the last one. We went in, did what we needed to do and got the hostages out alive."

"I thought you were gone again," Josie complained.

"I was always coming back. But it took a while to clear the decks, to get back here. I'm a civilian now, as weird as that seems to me," Jack admitted. "I'm back. I'm yours, and I'm here to stay. Are you going to stay mad at me?"

"Two months, Jack," she mumbled with a catch in her voice. "Two, long, long, months. You deserve to suffer. I cooked up some really hideous plans for revenge if you ever showed your ugly mug around here again."

Jack grinned. "Are you going to try to execute them? If I remember correctly, your revenge plans were never very successful."

"I've gotten better at overall planning and execution," Josie promised with a stubborn glint in her eye.

"Have you?" Jack laughed. "I have a better plan."

"What would that be?"

Jack lowered his head and kissed her. "Make-up sex instead of revenge, anything your heart desires," he offered.

"Yeah," Josie whispered. "I don't think you're man enough to make up for two whole months."

"Want to bet?" He lowered his head to her breasts as he brushed his tongue over her nipples making her shiver. "When I have a job to do, I become very single-minded and do whatever it takes to complete my mission."

"Yeah?" was her sultry shaky moan.

"Yeah. I have a target in mind I'm working on right now," Jack said, trailing kisses down her belly and parting her legs to reach his goal.

"Two months' worth, Jack," Josie reminded him breathlessly. "Two, long, long, months!"

"Come on," Josie complained, as she gave the sheet a tug. "You're no good to me now, anyway."

"I'm half dead, woman," Jack said cheerfully. "You've worn me out."

"Like I said, all talk and no action," Josie taunted.

Jack caught her and dragged her back onto the bed. "I'm human, and I'm only temporarily out of commission. I need a little time to recoup. Make-up sex isn't over yet."

Josie laughed. "It is for now. I have a junior league baseball game to go to, and later we have pizza with twenty-five little boys."

Jack groaned. "My plans have been foiled, so you can't blame me. I'm up for pizza though."

"You're not
up
for anything," Josie chided, laughing. "Game first, pizza is later. By the way, Alex has asked about you a couple of times, so you might get an attitude from him. He thinks you deserted me."

"What did you tell him?" Jack asked, rolling out of bed and heading for the shower.

"That you were on a mission, and it was probably classified," Josie admitted.

"I'll talk to him," Jack promised. "We got along pretty well before."

"I hope you do get along with him," Josie said. "He's important to me."

"I know."

"You can't stay here, Jack," Josie warned. "Rawlings is a small town. It's not backward, but still, I can't have you living here. Not while I'm waiting for the court's decision about Alex."

Jack looked disappointed. "We do need to talk about some things, but I'm okay with that for the short term. I'll see if the motel still has room; it's not like Rawlings is a huge tourist destination."

Alex's eyes lit up when he was up to bat, and he spotted Josie and Jack sitting together in the stands, but he gave a nonchalant wave and ignored them for the rest of his game.

"It's all about the game and his friends," Josie whispered. "It's not cool to be excited to see a parent here."

"I vaguely remember that," Jack said with a smile, jumping to his feet and cheering as Alex hit a line drive and made it to first base.

"Suck up!" Josie chided.

Jack laughed. "Twelve is tough," he remembered. "That's when you start growing hair in places where you didn't know hair was supposed to grow."

Josie snorted derisively. "Boys are wimps! Try growing boobs."

"I didn't start appreciating boobs until I was at least thirteen!" Jack whispered. "There were wet dreams. I'm still having them about someone."

"Eyes front, Jackass," Josie whispered back rolling her eyes. "This is little league, not the porno league."

"Yeah!" Jack went to his feet again applauding a hit to the left field that brought two players to home plate. When he sat back down on the bleachers, he leaned over and whispered into Josie's ear. "I'm not thinking porn exactly, but I still owe you a lot more make-up sex. Also, if you call me a jackass one more time, foreplay is going to include spanking!"

Josie blushed, but she also threw him a confused look before focusing her attention back on the game.

"It's a five-week baseball camp," Alex said, pushing the pamphlet across the kitchen island toward Josie. "Coach says it would help me get on the team in middle school."

Jack intercepted the pamphlet, unfolded it and looked it over while Josie was sliding leftover pizza onto paper plates at the kitchen bar. He looked it over and pushed the pamphlet in her direction.

"I'd have to talk to Coach Hamilton first and checkout the camp," she said, taking her turn reading the pamphlet. "Even if I agree, Child Protective Services has to approve it, too."

"Okay," the boy grumbled. "It's not like I was counting on going."

"I didn't say you couldn't go," Josie said gently. "I'll check it out. I can't promise anything until I do. For all you know, it could be a horrible place that sends out great brochures."

"Denny Conroy's brother went there a couple of years ago," Alex offered. "You could check with his parents."

"I will," Josie promised as she looked around for the ringing home phone, but no one had brought it back to its base, so she wandered off to find it.

The boy turned his attention to Jack. "How come you're back?"

"I've come back to live in Rawlings permanently," Jack said.

"Yeah, but you left," Alex snarled. "Josie was in a lousy mood so I figured you'd either ticked her off or dumped her."

"I made her mad, but I didn't dump her," Jack denied. "I was still in the Navy and was called back to duty. I had to go on a mission, but I'm back now."

"For how long?" the boy asked.

"For good," Jack said firmly. "I'm not in the Navy anymore."

"Yeah," Alex questioned. "What are you going to do now? If you're not in the Navy, you've got to find a job."

"I haven't figured out that part yet," Jack admitted. "I'm thinking of opening up a business, but I may have to take some college courses before I can set that into motion."