Return to Glory (Hqn) (7 page)

“Yeah, I did.”

He’d had enough of this. “It’s not the same thing, and you know it.”

“Isn’t it? I feel like there’s a part of me missing, Jack. I’ve had to start over. Aren’t we in the same place?”

Her face, her innocent determination, it was all just too much. “Only you, Bets, would equate moving back to Glory with fighting a war.”

“That’s a mean thing to say. You know that’s not what I meant.” She bristled and straightened her spine, obviously gearing up for a fight.

“Isn’t it?” He laughed, but the sound was cold and empty. “I feel as if there’s
not
a piece of me missing. In fact, it still feels like it’s on fire. So you should really know what you’re talking about before you make that comparison.”

“You know, Jack, you’re not the only person who’s ever suffered. Your pain isn’t so much bigger and worse than everyone else’s. You’ve got it worse than some, but better than others.”

“Really? Who do I have it better than?”

“The ones who didn’t come home.”

“If I could trade with any one of them, I would.” Jack watched as Betsy deflated. All the fight seemed to just wilt out of her, faded away with an exhaled breath.

“I wonder if they’d say the same, if they could speak.” Betsy turned and went back into the house, carefully pulling the door closed behind her.

CHAPTER SIX

T
HE BRIEF GLIMPSE
of the old Jack was gone and in its place was this hard, angry man who’d come home in his stead. Maybe Betsy shouldn’t have been so hard on him, but she couldn’t stand to see him like this. Their conversation earlier had felt as if she was being cruel, but he needed someone to tell him these things. Didn’t he? She wished she could just take away his pain, Betsy thought as they ate dinner.

His gaze met hers over the mashed potatoes, and she was surprised to see how unguarded his expression was. His eyes were pools of sorrow, and they were so clear she could see all the way to the bottom.

She wondered again if maybe she was pushing too hard and too fast.

Betsy had to look away first and she cast a glance over at India, who was drawn and pale. Her brother’s mouth was set in a grim line and his jaw was clenched.

Lula Lewis, who’d slaved in the kitchen all morning for the family Sunday meal, wasn’t the kind to let that go unremarked upon. “Is there something wrong with the chicken?” She arched a perfectly groomed brow and inclined her recently colored, curled and coiffed dark head.

“No, Ma.” Caleb shoveled another bite of potato into his mouth.

“The potatoes?” she continued.

“Everything tastes great,” India said flatly.

“Well, something’s wrong because no one seems happy to be here.” She put her fork down, which in the Lewis household meant things were about to get dicey. “I haven’t had all of my kids at my table in years.” She focused on Jack. “And yes, Jack and India are both mine, too. So I want some happiness to see each other and I want it right now.” Her tones were dulcet, but Lula obviously meant business.

Jack was always the best at talking them out of trouble with Lula, but he didn’t say anything. It was India who jumped to their rescue. “We’re all too busy eating this chicken.”

“I call bullshit.” She eyed each of them in turn. “But I’ll let it slide for now.” Lula took a bite of her corn on the cob and after chewing said, “So, Jack, what are your plans now that you’re home? Have you considered joining Caleb and India as one of Glory’s finest?”

Betsy was on tenterhooks waiting to see what he would say. She hoped he wouldn’t be as angry with her mother as he was with everyone else. The old Jack never would be, but he’d made it clear he wasn’t the old Jack.

“No, ma’am. I hadn’t given it much thought. I really didn’t plan on staying in town very long.”

Betsy noticed he didn’t say
home.
He wasn’t planning on staying in town, not home. Glory wasn’t home to him anymore.

“We’re glad you’re home no matter how long you stay, right, Betsy?”

Betsy looked up at her mother and at the quiet understanding on her face. “Yes, Mama.” She looked back to Jack meaningfully. “We are.”

He didn’t say anything but took another bite.

“There was some mention of buttermilk chess pie?” India said in a perky voice, but Betsy could tell the question was forced and hollow. Caleb made it a point not to even look at her. His eyes were focused on his plate as if it were the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.

Betsy wondered what had happened between them and if it had to do with what had happened to India while she was in Afghanistan.

“I’ll get it.” Betsy offered to retrieve the pie.

“No, I think India should go get it,” Lula said. “And since she can’t be trusted with it alone, Caleb should help her.”

Caleb grunted and put down his fork, a solemn expression on his face, and dutifully followed India into the kitchen.

“Okay, so what’s going on with them? This is ridiculous,” Lula said.

As if it was all the tension between India and Caleb and had nothing to do with Jack’s silence or hard manner.

“I don’t know, but we should leave it alone. They’ll work it out,” Betsy advised. She hoped her mother would take the hint. She didn’t want any help with her interactions with Jack. Betsy had screwed things up enough on her own.

“They always do,” Jack added. He seemed more at ease talking when the subject wasn’t himself.

“Hmm. We’ll see.”

India came back a few minutes later carrying the pie. A piece was already missing and she had crumbs on her mouth. Caleb was right behind her.

“India! You cheat,” Betsy teased.

Only India looked a little dumbstruck and Betsy couldn’t be sure, but Caleb might have had crumbs on his mouth, too.

“I need to go,” India blurted.

“I’ll take you home,” Caleb offered.

“No!” India cried. She straightened herself and pulled on a casual mask. “I mean, I’ve got some other errands to run. Thank you for dinner, Miss Lula.”

“Of course, honey. I hope we’ll see you next Sunday.” Lula watched her go and Caleb didn’t even excuse himself; he just followed her out. She looked at Jack and Betsy. “She does know it’s Sunday, right? Glory rolls up the sidewalks at five.”

Betsy got up and began gathering the plates.

“Aren’t you going to have pie?” Lula asked her.

“No, but let me cut Jack a piece.” She didn’t wait for him to agree; she just handed it to him. “Best pie ever.” Betsy smiled at him.

And Jack, he accepted the pie, but he watched her with every bite. There was nothing salacious about his regard, but Betsy still felt naked and vulnerable.

“I’ll do the dishes. You kids let your food settle.” Lula stood.

“Actually, Miss Lula, I need to be going, as well. Thank you for dinner.” He carried his own plate into the kitchen and headed toward the door.

A panic gripped Betsy. She had a sinking feeling that if she let him walk away without saying anything, she’d never see him again.

She intercepted him. “Did you forget that you wanted me to go home with you?”

“I thought you might have come to your senses.” Maybe that was what he thought, but his eyes roved her body, and her breath caught in her throat. His body had other ideas, and so did hers.

“I gave my word, Jack. You better not go back on yours.”

“I’ve kept every promise I ever made to you,” he growled.

That was the source of a lot of his pain. Everything he’d endured just to keep his promise. Just to come back to her. She softened. “I know. You’re the only one who has.”

“Stop it,” he hissed.

“Stop what?” She didn’t know what she was doing that was so wrong.

“Painting me like some hero.”

“Stop acting like you’re not,” she tossed back as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “And stop telling me what to do, what to think, or assuming you know what I want.”

“I do know what you want and it’s always been so much more than me.”

“This pity-me song is already old. Sing something else.” She hated that he felt that way. On the one hand, it was a wonderful balm for all of her old hurts that he thought he wasn’t good enough for her. Marcel had only ever thought she wasn’t good enough for him. Jack was twice the man Marcel was.

He took a deep breath, as if steeling himself for something. “Why do you think I was always at your house on the weekends?”

Her heart ached for him, but she couldn’t let that change what she said to him. He needed tough love, and Betsy hoped she was strong enough to do this. “I know why you were at our house. Your father was always drunk.” She reached out to cup his cheek to soften the blow of what she said next. “You’re starting to act just like him.”

Betsy didn’t want to wound him, but she wanted him to know that she saw him. Really saw him, not the painted facsimile the rest of the town saw, but the man underneath. They were so close to the same person. On the face that Jack tried to hide was the one that adopted everyone’s sins as his own.

Rather than get angry, Jack said, “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“No. We make our own decisions about who we are. You choose to pick up the bottle, you choose to drink from it and you choose when you put it down.”

“I choose to pick it up,” he repeated. “I choose
not
to put it down until the screaming in my head stops and the nerve endings of a leg I don’t have stop burning.”

“Okay.” She exhaled heavily. “It’s your time at night and if that’s how you want to spend it, then that’s what we’ll do. Let me tell Mom I’m leaving. I’ll drive. You can get your car tomorrow.”

“Damn it, Betsy.”

“Add to that list to stop trying to scare me off. It’s not going to work.” She leaned in and kissed him again, savoring the freedom she had now to do it as she wished. “You know why? Because you’re still trying to do what you think is best for me, no matter how you feel about it. I will never give up on you and there is nothing you can do that will make me.”

“Is that a challenge?” His eyes narrowed and he was suddenly focused on an escape hatch.

“No. A challenge implies that it’s something defeatable. In this case, I am the immovable object
and
the unstoppable force.”

“That would be a paradox.”

“Wouldn’t it just?” She wasn’t going to argue with that. It would be a paradox, but Betsy would let nothing, not even the laws of physics, get in her way.

“Betsy,” her mother called from the dining room.

“One moment, Mama.”

“No, no. Just remember what I said.
Country club,
” her mother reminded her.

Betsy flushed, remembering exactly what her mother had said about making her a grandma and asking if she wanted her wedding reception at the country club. She’d been telling her that since she was sixteen.

“Go on, then. Good night, Jack.” Her mother said with a purposeful drawl.

“Good night, Miss Lula,” he called back, and then dropped his voice to a whisper. “What’s she talking about country clubs?”

“Nothing. She’s senile,” Betsy hissed.

“I heard that, and I am
not,
” Lula’s voice echoed through to the foyer.

She opened the door and pushed Jack outside in the hopes that her mother wouldn’t decide confession was good for the soul and come spill everything about their earlier discussion.

“Does she know you’re coming to my place?” Jack asked hesitantly halfway down the stairs.

“It’s not that hard to figure out.”

For a moment, Jack wore a stricken expression.

“She never did ground me for stealing that cordial.” As if that made it okay.

“You said you had it with her permission.” His mouth curved into a sly grin.

“And you said I was horrible liar.” Warmth filled her at the memory. She’d replayed it in her head so many times, but with a much different outcome.

“You are.”

There was something in his voice, something soft, tender. Something he’d been hiding from her.

“Did you ever wonder what would’ve happened if you’d said yes?” The words escaped before she could think better of them and then she blushed. “I mean, beyond the obvious.”

He opened her car door for her. “Beyond the obvious? Did
you?
Before you made your declaration, did you stop to wonder what would happen if you got pregnant?”

She studied him hard as visions of every possible outcome blared through her mind like a siren. All the talk of babies forced her to imagine what it would be like to have a child with him. “I don’t imagine my life would be much different than it is now.” Only then she’d have a piece of him that belonged wholly to her. A piece that she could keep safe and— God, what was she thinking?

Only what any woman would think when looking at Jack McConnell. Even as damaged as he was, Jack was still what dreams were made of. At least, her dreams.

“That look on your face is terrifying, Betsy,” he whispered.

She started the car without looking at him. “What do you mean?”

“It’s that hero worship again. When I was a kid, I loved that you looked at me like that. I would have done anything to keep that, but now I’m just waiting for you to realize I’m not who you think. When that goes away, I’m never going to have that look again.”

Then it all made sense. Why he pushed her away so hard, why he kept telling her she didn’t want him. He wanted to be the one to decide it for them both so it didn’t hurt him.

The realization only strengthened her resolve.

“Jack—” she turned in her seat to face him “—I don’t expect you to be anyone but who you are. We did have sex, but that doesn’t mean I’m assuming we’re in a relationship. You just got home and you’ve had trauma. I get that. The only thing I expect from you is to stick to the parameters of our deal. Give living a chance before you decide that you’re dead. That’s it. Just a chance. I don’t need you to promise me shining armor, or white horses, or some castle in the clouds.”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” he confessed.

“What do you
want
to do?”

“You keep asking me what I want.”

“Well, yeah. Haven’t you thought about it?”

“No, not really. It’s never been about what I want. It’s been about what I’m supposed to do.”

Betsy knew exactly how he felt. “Your obligations here are only to yourself. That’s something you should think about. Didn’t you ever wonder what you’d be if you weren’t a SEAL?”

“No.”

“You can be anything you want when you grow up.”

“I wanted to be a SEAL.”

“You were, but now that’s passed. It’s time for something new.”

He seemed to be thinking over her words, and she thought it was a good sign that he hadn’t snapped at her. He was angry, and Betsy understood that. She knew he had to mourn the part of himself that was gone—both the physical and the mental.

“See you at the house.” He closed her door and went to his car.

Betsy tried not to focus too hard on the flame of hope that burned in her chest as she drove the short distance across town to his house.

She parked on the street and couldn’t stifle a yawn when they met again on his porch.

“I’ve exhausted you already?”

Betsy tried not to think about the ways she still wanted him to exhaust her when she answered, “I keep early hours. I have to be at the shop by four so I can get things ready for the morning rush at six.”

Most of the shops downtown didn’t open until eight or nine, but Betsy wanted the breakfast crowd. It was where she made the majority of her income, aside from wedding cakes and parties. In fact, it was what kept the business afloat when things got tight.