Jericho (A Redemption Novel) (21 page)

The phone rang, breaking him from his thoughts. He was glad for the interruption. He’d always been troubled by his thoughts after having left the marines. Before he got here in his life, he could turn off such thinking and focus on his job, his next mission, but since then, nothing he did seemed to stop the flood.

“Hello?”

“Captain Howard?” He heard Tobias’s unsure voice.

“I think you should call me Christian now.”

“I like calling you captain. Oh, Captain, my captain, and all that shit.”

He grinned at Tobias’s statement, glad he had called. He hadn’t realized how much he actually missed the kid. “Suit yourself. How are you?”

“I’m going crazy, sir. I hate to ask you this, but do you think you could come and get me so we could hang out? My Mama... I love her, but the woman is treating me as if I’m a baby. She even checks on me when I’m in the bathroom. I swear she would wipe my bottom if I let her.”

“I didn’t need to hear that.”

“I’m sorry,” he sighed. “I need some man time. My dad took off when I was seven, so it’s just me and my mama and my grandmama and my sister.”

He was going to ask Tobias where the friends his age were. Where were the men he served with? But he stopped himself. Nobody understood a wounded soldier like another wounded soldier. “We could go fishing. There’s a place not too far from here. We could go for a couple of days. How’s Thursday? I’ll ask the general, too.”

“Sounds awesome! I can’t wait to get out of here. I need to get out of here, sir. You don’t know how much.”

“I do, son. I’ll see you soon.”

“Thank you, sir. Good night.”

They disconnected just as Georgia walked out of the bathroom. Her hair was still damp and she had a jar of her lightly scented lotion in hand. “Who was calling?”

“Tobias.”

She sat on the side of the bed and began to lotion her limbs. He just watched her for a moment. She had never done so in front of him before. “Oh. I’m glad he called. How is his vision?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Of course you didn’t ask. You’re such men.”

“I’m going to take him fishing on Thursday for a couple of days if that’s okay with you.”

“Of course it’s okay. He looks up to you. I think it’s good that you spend time with him.”

“I like him, Georgia.” He reached for her as soon as she put the top back on her jar. “I want to help him. He says his mother is treating him like a baby. He needs his own job and his own place. He needs to learn how to live with his blindness and not have his family treat him like a victim because of it.”

“Were the men in your unit young like Tobias?”

“Some of them were.” He nodded. “The youngest was twenty. He was a computer whiz, recruited right out of high school. Four of them were under twenty-five.”

“You liked those young men the best, didn’t you? You liked to shape them. You liked to teach them how to be men.”

He didn’t answer immediately, but it was true. He liked the younger ones the best. He saw the potential in them. He saw what they could be. He wanted to make sure that none of the men in his unit were like his so-called friends. He only wanted men of character, and if they had none, he tried his hardest to build it in them. “The general looked out for me when I was young. I had nobody else.”

“I think you could still help those young men. The ones like Tobias. The ones who don’t have a place after the war. I don’t know how, but I think you could do something.”

His parents had done so much charity work when he was a child through their company. They campaigned for paying a living wage to employees, and growing food without chemicals and preservatives. But after they died, that work went away. It ended up being their legacy.

He couldn’t do what they did, but he could have his own legacy. It wouldn’t be charity. It would just be giving back to the people who gave for their country.

He just didn’t know what or how he could do it.

He kissed Georgia’s forehead and she burrowed into him, seeking warmth or comfort, he wasn’t sure which. “How are you feeling?” Her face was paler than usual. Her mouth slightly downturned. There was a slight heaviness that seemed to hang over her. “I want to talk about you.”

“Carolina thinks that Mama went to Florida to stay with her sister. I believe that she did. Mama always loved Florida. Said she wanted to move there when Daddy retired. But I’m still worried. I just can’t believe she would leave Daddy, especially now, after all this time. She called me. Did I tell you that? It happened when I was sick. But she called me to ask if I was happy.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I couldn’t say that I was. I just told her to come live with me, that I could take care of her.”

“
You
take care of
her?
She should have taken care of you. She’s your mother. She shouldn’t have let your father do that to you.”

“I know. But she’s my mother, and even though she hurt me, I still wish I could have her in my life.”

“What about your father? Could you forgive him?”

“After the rape, I told my father that I didn’t want to be around Robert anymore. I didn’t tell him what happened. I was too afraid to, but I told him that Robert bothered me. My father told me I was being foolish. He invited him over for dinner that night. He made him sit next to me in church on Sunday. He said Robert was like family, that I needed to get over our quarrel. Robert taunted me. He would look at me as if he could see through my clothes and smile at me. As if he was triumphant. I wanted to die then, Christian. I thought about dying, about ending it all, and then I found out I was pregnant.”

“Stop.” He put his fingers over her lips when she started to get upset.

“Tell me where he is, Georgia. I’ll find him for you. I’ll make him pay for what he did to you.”

“Christian...”

“Tell me where to find him. Is he still in Oakdale? I’ll go tomorrow.”

“No,” she said firmly.

“Your father, then. I’ll make him realize what he’s done.”

“If he hadn’t kicked me out, I wouldn’t be married to you.”

“Exactly.”

She frowned at him. “I should thank him.” She lifted her lips to his. “I will thank him. My life is better than it ever would have been.” She shut her eyes and buried her face into his chest. He felt her gratitude again and it made him uncomfortable.

He wanted her love. He wanted to hear her say the words. He didn’t want her gratitude. He didn’t deserve it.

“Will you make love to me slowly tonight?” she asked. “Just like on our wedding night?”

“You don’t come when we have sex that way.”

“What?” She blinked at him.

He wished he hadn’t blurted out those words. But it was the truth and it had been gnawing at him for weeks. “You don’t have an orgasm when I’m inside you, when we make love like that.” He felt as though he failed to arouse her.

“Oh.” Disappointment crossed her face. “I like the kissing and the touching and the closeness. I like the other way, too, but I don’t need that tonight. I just need you to hold me.”

“We don’t have to have sex for me to do that, Georgia.” He wrapped his arms around her and held her as close as he could manage. “We can sleep tonight.” He kissed her forehead. “We can sleep just like this.”

CHAPTER 21

G
eorgia pressed a kiss to the smooth side of Christian’s face the next morning. He stirred but he didn’t open his eyes. So she kissed him again. On his other cheek. Then his chin. She moved her lips down his neck to his chest.

He hadn’t made love to her last night. It was the first time since they were married. She knew that every couple didn’t make love every night, but she had grown used to it. She had come to expect it. She missed it.

She should have kept her mouth shut. He had misunderstood what she meant. She didn’t want to just be held. She wanted the slow, detailed attention he gave to every part of her body. The deep kisses. The soft touches. He said that she didn’t come when they made love that way. That she didn’t have an orgasm when he was inside of her.

It clearly bothered him. But she wasn’t exactly sure why. He made her feel good. He excited her. He made her want more of him. Maybe the fault lay with her. Maybe she was doing something wrong. She was still so new to sex. So new to sharing her body with someone else. She had been afraid of sex for so long. Afraid of men. It was as if she was coming into herself. Every time she was with him she learned more about her body, about what she liked.

She kissed his nipple, then opened her mouth over it, licking him like he so often did to her.

“Georgia,” he groaned. He rolled her over, settling his large body on top of hers. She sighed in relief. This was what she had wanted last night. His hardness between her legs. His breath on her skin. “I thought I was dreaming about you.”

“I’m here in the flesh, sugar.”

He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, sweeping his tongue into her mouth, making the world melt away. “Good morning, beautiful.” He lifted himself off her before he got out of bed. “I’m going to head into my father’s company office today. I want to see BB before I go.”

He left her alone. In bed. Wanting him. Without even looking back.

* * *

When was the last time he had laid eyes on this building? Ten years? Twelve? Christian wondered as he sat in the car and stared up at the large building that housed Howard and Helga’s headquarters. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he had been there, but the last time he had come was without his father. Prior to that, he had never been to the office without his father. He used to drag Christian here every summer when he was a boy. To tour the plant. To visit the workers. To impart some knowledge to him about the company.

Before his parents moved South, there used to be a corporate office in Connecticut, the place his father went to daily, but he called this place the heart of the company. He had such pride in it, and after he died, Christian couldn’t bring himself to visit again.

He had come once after their deaths to settle some things with the vice president of the company. To officially turn the reins over, but he’d never made it inside the building that day. His body wouldn’t allow him to do so.

So he kept in contact over the years by phone. Contracts, documents and important papers had been mailed to him. Nearly everything that needed to be handled could be handled without him actually having to set foot in the building. But now it was time. It was past time.

It was so much harder than being in his parents’ old house. The house was just a place where his parents rested their heads, but this company was their heart.

Every flavor of ice cream made there had been created by his father; every product was named by him. Christian remembered his father coming home and talking for hours about this place, and he could never see what was so magical about it. He never understood why his father had such a love for something so trivial. And then he’d died. And then the people who worked with him came to his funeral. Hundreds of people it seemed. They had all stopped to speak to Christian. They’d all told him what his father had done to touch their lives.

Big things, like college semesters paid for and homes saved from foreclosure. And small things like corny bad jokes that brightened moods and a shoulder to lean on and a kind word when needed.

Hearing so much about his father made it real that he was gone. And Christian knew he could never replace a man who had done so much for the world. He could never leave the same impact.

Coming here, he knew he would see his father’s pictures on the walls and the pain would come back. The hole in his chest, that emptiness, would seem bigger. He knew if he walked inside it would be like losing him all over again.

A soft hand covered his, bringing him back to reality, to the present.

He looked over to Georgia, who said nothing, just lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it. She’d asked him if she could go with him this morning. If she could spend the day with him. Even after he’d failed to make love to her this morning. He had wanted to. He should have but he didn’t. Sometimes it seemed as if she only made love to him because she felt it was her duty. He wanted to show her that she didn’t always have to, that sometimes they could just sleep. But she had looked so disappointed he was worried that he had made a misstep with her. He was afraid he had no idea what to do with his wife.

He leaned over and kissed her cheek. Glad she was there. Glad he didn’t have to walk in the building alone. “Let’s go inside.”

“I’m so glad the general and Alma could take Abby on such short notice.” She linked her fingers with his once they left the car. “The general may look like a bulldog but he really is just a teddy bear. Did you see the silly faces he was making for Abby when we were leaving? I hope one of his daughters has a baby soon, because that man was born to be a grandpa.”

He liked the sound of Georgia’s voice, the feel of her hand in his as they walked through the front doors. She made it easier for him to walk in. “Did you have a grandpa? I haven’t heard you talk much about your grandparents.”

She nodded. “My mother’s parents were missionaries in South America. I rarely saw them growing up. They passed away when I younger. I don’t remember much about them. But my father’s parents were there more. I was close to my grandfather. He was a preacher, too, but not like my father. He was so happy. Always. He was the kind of man who made everybody want to be happy. He talked to anyone and everyone. Couldn’t walk down the street without stopping four or five times. My grandmother was his opposite. She was a woman of few words. She didn’t smile very often, never hugged us. She wasn’t any of the things one would expect a grandmother to be.” She frowned thoughtfully. “I used to wonder how a man like my grandfather ended up with a woman like her, but they worked well together. And when he died, my grandmother... She just fell apart. It broke my heart.” She looked up at him, into his eyes. “She loved him so much, Christian. Even though she never said it, the love was there and it was a big love.”

He nodded, trying not to read anything into her words. He had married a woman he knew hadn’t loved him. He thought about that sometimes. A lot, actually. She was sweet and kind and loving, all the things he wanted in a wife. But he wondered how this marriage might have been different if she was in love with him.

They got into the elevator, riding up to the fourth floor, to the offices. To where his father used to spend his days.

“It was my grandmother who helped me when my father threw me out. She was living in a rest home then, and I went to her because I didn’t know where else to go. She gave me money—a thousand dollars—and the name of a woman who could house me until I figured some things out. I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t been there. I would have been lost.”

“What happened to her?” he asked her.

“She passed away. Six months ago now. I wanted to go to her funeral to pay my respects. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to face them. My family. Sometimes I think I can’t forgive myself for that.”

“You should, Georgia. After what they did to you, who could blame you?”

“I’ll forgive myself when you forgive yourself,” she said softly.

He looked down at her for a moment, amazed that she could read him so well. He should have gone to the airport that day. He should have picked up his parents. They would still be here if he had.

“Christian?” His father’s friend and VP, Cliff Chin, walked up to them as soon as they stepped out of the elevators. Cliff had known him his entire life. His family used to spend the summer with theirs. Cliff and his father were best friends. The man openly studied Christian, taking in the differences in him since the last time he saw him. His ruined face. His damaged arm. He couldn’t hide the pity in his eyes. It turned Christian’s stomach. “I guess I should call you Lieutenant Howard.”

“Captain Howard,” Georgia said. “He was promoted for bravery.”

Cliff’s eyes went to Georgia. He was surprised to see her there.

“Captain.” He extended his hand. “It’s so good to see you. I thought I never would again.”

“It’s time. This is my wife, Georgia. Georgia, this is Cliff. He runs the company.”

“It’s nice to meet you, sir.”

“Likewise. I didn’t know you had gotten married, son.”

“It just happened recently. A month ago.”

“I would have come to your wedding. I would have come to see you in the hospital. Damn it, boy! If I had known you were in South Carolina I would have been there for you.”

“I’m not a boy, Cliff.”

“You are to me. You were the last time I saw you at your parents’ funeral. We would have been there for you if you let us, but you shut us out. This company was your father’s life. We were his family, too. We would have helped you. If you hadn’t run away we would have been there.”

“I didn’t run away, and I sure as hell didn’t come here for this.”

“No. I’m sure you didn’t. But since your father isn’t here I’m the one who’s left to take the piss out of you. You were stupid and selfish.”

“I know! I know I should have picked them up from the airport.”

“No.” His eyes hardened. “Not that at all. That was an accident! You couldn’t have prevented it. You were stupid for turning your back on the people who loved you. You were selfish for taking on the pain alone. We loved you, and if you would have taken my calls or bothered to see us in the past twelve years you would have known that.”

“What is all this racket out here?” Mara Smith, his father’s longtime assistant, appeared. “Christian? Is that you?”

She rushed toward him, all five feet of her. “Get down here this minute!”

He bent, like he had ever since his height shot up. He had known her forever, too. She used to watch him when his parents were in meetings. Mara still smelled the same. Like Chanel No. 5 and peppermints. She even looked the same. It wasn’t until that very moment that he realized how much he had missed her.

She studied him, too, sadness creeping into her expression. She touched his face. His burns. His deformed ear. The chin that didn’t look like his father’s anymore. She burst out crying. “What have you done to yourself? Why did you have to go?”

The guilt came again. Maybe it had never left him, but it was a different kind of guilt. A different kind of loss.

He’d had a family this whole time and he’d thrown them away. He’d withdrawn from them because he’d thought they would hate him.