Inseverable: A Carolina Beach Novel (22 page)

They finish the song, everyone cheering as Trin flings her arms around her family and showers them with kisses. As they calm, she says something that makes them glance in my direction. Owen’s and Landon’s grins fade.

Silvie is the only one who keeps her smile, leaning in to speak against Trin’s ear. “That’s him?” I watch her mouth.

Trin nods and herds everyone forward. She’s still smiling as her family gathers in front of me. “Everyone,” she says. “I’d like you to meet Callahan. . .” 
 

Chapter Twenty-one

Callahan

I’m not mad at Trinity. Really I’m not. The best way I can describe what I’m feeling is ill-prepared. Upon learning her folks were here, Jed offered to have his friend cover my shift.

Next thing I know, we’re having a late supper at her parents’ home.

I’m not sure how the hell I ended up here. I was lured to Kiawah by the desolate silence and peace I thought it promised, wanting nothing more than to be by myself. Instead I fell head over heels for the loudest, craziest, most in-your-face human being on this Godforsaken planet. And here I sit now with her family.
Family
. Eating pot roast, potatoes, and fried okra while she and her kin go at it to see who could out-yell the other.

Trinity wins.

Of course.

She points to her brother. “Oh. The fertility dance. Now
that
was all sorts of ego crippling. Goodness, Daddy, how did Landon not land straight into therapy after that debacle?”

Owen, her father, pretends to narrow his eyes in anger as he points at her with his fork. “Your brother was inducted into that tribe by those men. That there is an honor, and he knows it.”

Landon shakes his head. “No, he doesn’t,” he mutters.

Trinity laughs and pats my arm excitedly. “Picture my brother in a grass skirt,” she says.

Landon groans and rubs his face. “No, please don’t.”

“With a giant wooden penis strapped to the front.”

My head turns in Landon’s direction, my neck so stiff and tense from the words that just spewed out of my girl’s mouth, I swear everyone here can hear it creak. I don’t think I want to know, and I’m pretty sure Trin knows as much, but of course it doesn’t stop her from explaining.

“It’s a dance they do in this one tribe,” she begins. “A ceremony to celebrate the boys in the village becoming men by―”

“Dancing with giant dildos strapped to their fronts―yeah, yeah, he gets it, Trin,” Landon says.

Their momma, Miss Silvie, shakes her head in what I initially mistake for disapproval. “Those weren’t dildos,” she corrects. “They were wooden phalluses. Huge difference.
Huge
.”

Jesus Christ, help me.

“Did you feel more like a man after it was done?” Trin asks, unable to stop laughing.

“Bout as much as you felt like a woman after that fertility circle bullshit you took part in,” Landon says before taking a long pull of his beer.

“Watch your mouth in front of your momma, boy,” Owen says.

“Sorry, Momma,” Landon says, with a smirk.

Trin turns back to me. To her credit, she’s not any less affectionate around her folks than she is around her friends. I should be relieved that she’s not shy about showing her family who I am to her. Instead, here I am feeling ill-prepared again. She winds her puny arms around one of mine, and rests her chin on my shoulder. I glance over at her daddy and brother. They’re watching me closely. And to
their
credit no one’s reaching for a gun. Now if roles were reversed, and this was my little girl, I would’ve shot me.

She giggles as heat pricks my skin. “Did I ever tell you about the time Momma and I had to help that woman give birth in a field?” she asks me. “And Momma had to break that poor woman’s pelvis with a rock to get the baby out―”

“Yes. And please don’t remind me,” I mutter. That little story came out over a crab dinner I took her to a few weeks back. I was cracking one those little bastards open when she spilled the details like most talked about the weather. Let’s just say I couldn’t finish my meal.

To my relief, Owen and Landon groan along with me. “Yes, please don’t,” they both mumble.

“But my quick thinking saved them both,” Silvie says casually. “It was either that or cut open her belly with that hunting knife―”

“Silvie, baby, don’t,” Owen says, waving his hands in surrender. “I can’t go through that story again, sugar. I just can’t.”

“All right,” she says. “But there’s no miracle like the miracle of life.”

And there’s nothing like this family here on earth.

Owen, Landon, and I stand when Miss Silvie and Trin rise from their chairs and start to reach for our empty plates. She bats her hands when we try to help. “Now, you boys stop that. Trinity, help me get dessert together. It’ll give your Daddy and brother time with Callahan.”

Time to shoot him between the eyes.

“Yes, ma’am,” Trin says, pulling the plate from my grip with a grin.

We lower ourselves back to our chairs, none of us saying anything even after Trin and her mama disappear into the kitchen. I can hear banging, the occasional word, and some giggling, but not much more than that as they skitter around cleaning up and preparing for dessert.

I wait quietly for her father and brother to speak. Turns out, I don’t have to wait that long.

“So you work at Your Mother’s?” Landon asks, making it damn clear he doesn’t approve.

“Yes, sir.” I call him “sir” even though he’s probably my age. But that’s what we do here in the south.

He watches me as he plays with the beer bottle in his hands. “You doing anything else?”

Do I have a decent job is what he means. “I’m fixing up my uncle’s old place. I’m about halfway done.” This time, it’s my turn to take a swig.

“What happens after you’re done with your uncle’s place?”

“Don’t know,” I tell him truthfully. Before Trin, I couldn’t think past the next day. Now? Hell, can I really blame the scrutiny crinkling the edges of her daddy’s and brother’s jagged stares? They don’t know me. They only know I’m with their precious little girl.

Landon’s focus wanders to Owen, pegging him with a look that clearly tells him it’s his turn. I brace myself for the hard hand only fathers know how to wield, with their words or with their fists. I don’t impress either of them. Not by a long shot.

I lift my beer to take another swig when Owen motions to the tattoo on my right arm, the one of the solider. “How long did you serve?”

The bottle doesn’t quite reach my lips before I place it back on the table. “Eight years, sir.”

Despite that I wasn’t trying to hide my ink, and that I was sure Landon saw it, Owen was the one to ask about it. But there’s something in my tone that appears to catch his interest. “Did you go in straight out of high school?”

I answer with a slight tilt of my chin. “I graduated, but missed the ceremony to get on the bus to boot camp.”

“How many tours did you do?” Landon asks.

By now, Landon’s tenor lacks the warmth it carried in his sister’s presence. I don’t know if he’s in the process of judging me, or already has. This man―boy really―doesn’t think I’m good enough for sister.

And maybe he’s right.

The blood pumps hard in my ears when I meet him square in the eye. “Four,” I respond.

His eyes widen slightly. “Shit,” he says, drawing out the word.

There’re lots of words for it. And that’s one of them.

“Iraq?”

“Yes,
sir
,” I answer Landon.

I wait for Owen to speak. For a long while his words don’t come. And even though I steel myself for what he may ask, I know then I’ll never be ready for all he has to say.

“Were you in Special Forces?”

He’s been watching me closely. I felt the weight of his stare drilling into my skull throughout my interaction with his son. He didn’t blink when he asked, and he doesn’t blink as he continues. “I doubt that tattoo’s just for show, boy.”

I straighten a little more. “No, sir. It’s not for show,” I tell him.

I don’t see Trin, or her Momma. But I feel my girl standing behind me. In their silence, I know they’ve heard our exchange.

As close as Trin and me have been, and after all that we’ve done, I’ve barely said a word about my time in Iraq. But here I am, telling the two most important men in her life more than I’ve dared to tell her.

‘Cept there’s no stopping now is there? The murderer is out of the bag.

“Were you a SEAL?” Owen asks.

“No. Ranger.”

I know what he’s doing . . .what they’re both doing. They’re trying to gauge just how dangerous I am. So I wait, unsure how much more they’ll tolerate before I’m asked to leave and not come back.

Her daddy hasn’t moved, and his expression is as hard and cool as cracked granite. “What was your specialty, boy?”

This time, it’s my turn not to blink. “Sniper.”

Silvie’s sharp intake of breath robs the room of all sound, and twists the knife already lodged deep in my gut.

“How many confirmed kills?”

It’s Landon who asks, but my focus stays on Owen. “A hundred and seven.”

“All your own?” Owen asks, his face unyielding.

“Yes, sir,” I say.

The quiet that follows lasts more like hours than minutes. My tightening muscles are screaming and threatening to tear clear from my frame. But it’s when the air thickening the space between me and Owen, appears to freeze and lower the temperature around us, that I’m certain judgment’s been passed, and that I’m no longer welcomed.

I start to rise, but Owen’s words cement me in place. “I was a Green Beret. Got sent to Somalia on special tour to find some rebels.” His voice grows distant. “Lost count after I fired those first thirty-five shots.”

I’m hovering mere centimeters from my chair. Somehow, I find my way back down. Owen’s cold exterior remains. Only his eyes are different. They’re those same vacant, dead eyes soldiers get after serving too many tours, and the same eyes that stare back at me each time I dare to look in the mirror. But he continues, although he doesn’t seem to be breathing, not anymore.

“We spent close to three months rounding them up,” he says. “Some were just children, really. Children bred and trained to take lives. But that didn’t make a difference.” He looks at me then, the torment deadening his stare as palpable as his daughter’s presence beside me. “We had a job to do. Didn’t we, boy?”

My fists clench and I swallow the lump that’s building. “Yes, sir,” I say.

Chapter Twenty-two

Callahan

I don’t think this is Trin, or her brother’s first time learning their father was a Green Beret. And based on the heaviness in the room, I don’t think it’s the first time learning the extent of his sins. We eat a homemade sweet potato pie in silence, with nothing more than the clinking sound of forks against the plates to break the quiet.

The minute we’re done, Landon excuses himself to make a call.

I thank Silvie for dinner and help Trin gather the plates, my hands not quite steady as I load the dishwasher. She tries to catch my stare more than once, but each time I deny her the reassurance she seeks.

She wants, okay, maybe not wants―she
needs
to know I’m okay. That we’re okay. But I’m not sure if we are. Not after learning I killed a hundred and seven people all on my own. Those same fingers that sweep over her body, pulled the trigger that abruptly ended a shitload of futures. And those hands that give her pleasure, caused a hell of a lot more pain.

Trin knows what I am now, knows what I did. I can’t take it back, but then I never could.

The plate, the one I think I used, doesn’t quite fit along with the rest. But I need it to.

I place my plate on the counter. Compulsively, erratically, I start rearranging the dishes. I move the pie dish, a lid, and a flat pan her momma used to fry okra. My hands move fast, snatching up her daddy’s plate, her mother’s, and everything else in between.

And it’s still not enough. There’s no room for me among the rest.

It
. I mean
it
not
me
.

I take a deep breath, and release it slowly, knowing I’m seconds away from breaking every damn dish in this piece of shit appliance. That rage, the kind I’ve beaten down more times than I can count, hovers close to the surface. I can taste the adrenaline it stirs in the back of my throat and sense the fury of the beast I’ve become.

I need to get out, need to leave fast before I lose myself to that darkness―the one where the bodies of those I failed lie bloody and still.

“Here, baby,” Trin says. “Let me.”

Her voice is soft, patient. I stare at her outstretched hand for several painful heartbeats before I surrender my plate. She removes a lid from the rack and replaces it with the soiled dish I held for too long.

As easily as that, she makes a place for me.

I can’t do much more than breathe, and even that much hurts. But her gesture is effortless. Her solution simple. Her voice relaxed. She’s . . .
Trin
. Fixing everything as naturally as she fixes everyone with her smile.

That doesn’t stop me from moving stoically away.

Landon’s returned. Whoever he called, and whatever he or she had to say, pissed him off. But I don’t ask why. Instead I shake the hand he offers, and thank Miss Silvie again for the meal and the hospitality.

There is though, one person I need to see before I can leave. And while I’ve only just met him, it’s his words I won’t forget.

Trin’s daddy stands alone out on the terrace. Miss Silvie stops me with a gentle clasp to my arm. She flashes that small smile all southern ladies somehow manage, even when they’re hurting for those they most love.

“Mr. Owen needs a moment,” she says. “You’ll excuse him if he doesn’t pay his respects, won’t you, son?”

I nod, although the motion barely registers. “Yes, ma’am. Please tell him I said thank you, and good night.”

“I will, son,” she answers.

The wrinkles along the corners of her eyes soften as her hand slowly slips away. She steps out onto the terrace, where her husband is leaning against the stacked stone railing and staring out into the darkness. He’s likely searching for the peace I’ve often sought, and I hope he finds it.