Return to Glory (Hqn) (9 page)

Especially since it was possible that someday, it could be Jack living alone in some dormitory with nothing but the kindness of a stranger to comfort him.

On her way out the door, she peered into the room and saw he’d downed half the bottle.

“Sweetheart?” he drawled in that way that made the endearment seem like an insult. “Don’t come back.”

She had a whole host of things she wanted to fling at him, but they all disintegrated on her tongue. Instead she closed the door quietly behind her.

CHAPTER EIGHT

W
HEN
B
ETSY ARRIVED
at Sweet Thing, she saw the lights were already on and India’s car was parked in front.

Betsy turned off the engine and swiped the tears from her face. She hadn’t even realized she was still crying. She took a few deep, shuddering breaths before pasting on her happy face and going inside the rear entrance.

“I didn’t expect to see you this early,” Betsy called out before she rounded the corner and saw that a small hurricane had exploded in her kitchen.

Various baked goods were cooling on racks, cookies, cakes, a few things she wasn’t quite sure what they were.... The sink was full of pans, mixing bowls and utensils; spills of flour dotted the floor and the stainless steel tables, and there might have been some on the ceiling.

India stood in the middle of it all, her face puffy and red, up to her arms in what looked to be a honey wheat dough while she pounded the ever-loving hell out of it.

“I’ll pay for everything,” India growled as she continued to wail on the helpless dough.

Betsy blinked. “I’m more concerned about what has you bringing about the dough-ocalypse in my shop. You only bake when you’re upset.” She glanced around. “And from the look of things, someone ran over your dog.”

“Your stupid brother.”

“Caleb ran over your dog?” Betsy asked quietly.

She punched the dough this time, not even bothering to pretend she was working it for the purposes of eating it later. “He’s a jackass.”

“The dead dog is a jackass?”

“Stop trying to make me laugh.” India smiled as she spoke. “I don’t want to laugh.” She stopped punching.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Betsy offered.

“Yes.” She flopped down on a stool. “That’s the problem. I want to talk about it, but the person I’d talk about it with is the person that’s making me crazy.” India sighed. “He changed the rules. Don’t do that crap. Don’t change the rules,” she muttered to herself.

“You know, there was many a night that you had great advice for me, so now let me return the favor. Whatever it is that you think you can’t tell my brother? That’s a bunch of crap. There is nothing he wouldn’t do for you.”

India cringed. “You don’t understand.”

“I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.” Betsy began trying to make some sense of the mess of baked goods. She wasn’t sure what they were supposed to be, but they were everywhere. “Before you decide that you can’t trust him with whatever this is, consider that he never wanted to go into the army.”

“Yes, he did,” India scoffed.

“No, he didn’t. He always wanted to be a cop, but he never wanted to leave Glory. He went for you. If there’s one thing I do know, it’s my brother. Whatever is eating you up inside, it’s devouring him, too.” She wondered what exactly this had to do with dinner the night before.

“Everything will change.”

“Everything does.”

“Aren’t I supposed to be the one handing down the sage advice?” India looked at her intently.

“It can be your turn next.” Betsy took a bite of something she thought might be a scone. She didn’t want to hand out anything she wouldn’t eat. It was ugly but surprisingly good.

“So, how did Jack screw up?” India was obviously changing the subject.

“He didn’t, I did.” She shoved another one in her mouth. If she could figure out what India put in them—

“Walnuts. Coconut sugar. Chocolate chips,” India answered her before she could ask.

“I can’t stop eating them. They’re really good.” The dissolved delicately on her tongue when she took the time to savor them. The coconut sugar was made from the sap of coconut flower buds and had a higher nutrient content. It was better processed by the body than beet or cane sugar, and it also gave baked goods a different texture. Betsy loved it.

“Because they’re good or because you don’t want to answer me about Jack?”

Betsy sagged. “Both.”

“You told me in this very kitchen that you knew it was a tough road ahead of you.” India poked at the dough ball now as if it were a dead bug.

“I know. But he’s hurting now and it’s my fault. I may have damaged him more.”

“Don’t you have more faith in him that that?”

“You didn’t see him, India. He was...” Betsy trailed off while she searched for the right words.

“He was haunted,” India supplied. “His pain is there whether you dig at it or not. It’s like a cancer. He can hide it, for brief periods he can pretend it’s not killing him, but all the while it’s devouring him from the inside out.”

“So you’re telling me to what?”

“Don’t give up on him. I’m not saying you can dig that out of him. You can’t. But you can be there for him while he does it himself.” India closed her eyes for a second before continuing. “Or if he can’t, and that’s possible, even likely...you can hold his hand until it’s done with him.”

“I feel so helpless.” She shoved another scone thing in her mouth, barely tasting it. “You know, I bet that’s how Caleb feels, too. If I can see your scars, I know he feels them. He loves you.”

“Oh hell, don’t say that.”

“Why not? He does. Always has. Always will.” Betsy didn’t bother to say that she thought Caleb more than just loved her, but that he was
in
love with her. India had a hard enough time with the softer emotions without Betsy shoving that in her face.

“I have to hit the head.” India used decidedly male slang to say she was going to the bathroom. What she really meant was that she was fleeing the conversation and putting as much distance between herself and anything feminine or soft as possible.

Betsy was ready to change the conversation anyway. “Since you’re off today,” she called after her, “do you want to go with me to the dorms at the V.A.?”

“And hand out my Frankenscones?” India answered when she came back.

Betsy grinned. “Might as well do something with them, right?”

“Yeah, okay.”

She went into the walk-in and pulled out the dough for the glazed donuts.

“Sorry I made a mess of things,” India said as she loaded the industrial dishwasher.

“Hey, if you don’t make a mess while you’re baking, it’s not going to taste good,” Betsy said, knowing that India meant more than just the kitchen.

When India saw her pull out the ingredients for the fudge she said, “Is it bad enough for the fudge?”

“I think it might be.”

“Save some for me,” they heard Caleb call.

“It’s all for us.” Betsy managed a laugh. “We have an hour before Heather gets here and can take over the counter. I’d say that’s enough time for the basics. Coffee and fudge.”

“Coffee and fudge, huh? If you’re going to the V.A., I could be bribed to help,” Caleb said as he stepped through the door.

“Don’t you people have homes?” Betsy teased.

Caleb’s eyes narrowed as they focused on Betsy’s wrists. “What exactly is that?”

“Nothing. It’s fine.” She looked down at the purpling bruises.

“The hell it is.” He slammed out the door, but Betsy grabbed his arm just outside in the parking lot.

“It’s fine. It was a nightmare.”

“I want you to stay away from him, Betsy. He’s not the—”

“So help me, if you say he’s not the same man who left... Obviously, okay? Obviously.” She nodded. “I can make my own choices. He needs his family now more than ever, and we’re all he has. Would you really turn your back on him?”

“He’s turned his back on himself.”

“Oh Caleb. If it were you, do you think there is any chance this side of hell I’d give up on you?”

“That’s different. I’d never do that to you.”

“You don’t know what you’d do. You didn’t come back broken. He didn’t mean to hurt me. He was having a nightmare. He didn’t even
know
it was me.” Part of her twinged at the lie. He knew it was her, or at least a nightmare wearing her face.

No wonder he found it so hard to look at her, because every time he did, it reminded him of what had happened to him and why he was living a life he didn’t want.

“Betsy, you’ve convinced yourself you have some guilt here, and you don’t.”

Betsy wasn’t so sure about that.

It was India who finally stayed his hand. She hadn’t been able to look at him until this moment, but she reached out and touched his arm. “Let it go, Caleb. If she needs you, she’ll ask.”

“I do need you, to help me load up the car.” Betsy tried to change the subject and hoped the matter was dead.

Caleb didn’t say anything else about Jack and did as both Betsy and India asked. Betsy’s brother was a gentle giant until it came to her or India. Then he was a cannon and they were gunners.

She knew why the bruises made him so angry, but if India didn’t think it was a big deal, then it wasn’t. India had lived with abuse, her stepfather hitting her and her mother. After she’d been taken out of their custody, a night that Caleb still wouldn’t talk about, she had no way to pay for her education. It was why she’d decided to go into the army.

Betsy sighed. She knew that a small-town veneer could hide a lot of sins. It was tempting to think that no one could be trusted, but then she saw men like Jack and Caleb. Women like India. They each had their own pain, but they were still good people.

Jack.
His name echoed in her head, rattling around until even the echo of it clanged like a bell. He’d told her not to come back.

Could she really do it? After he saved her, could she let him drown even if it was what he wanted?

She tried to put it out of her head, but when they arrived at the V.A., all she could think about was how most of these guys in the dorms didn’t have anyone.

The dormitory functioned much like a halfway house. There were curfews and check-ins. She donated her day-old donuts and spent the morning talking with them. It wasn’t much, but it was what she had to give.

She studied the institutional walls as she made her way to the dayroom and that was when she saw it. A green flyer taped to the wall. PTSD Support Group, it read.

That was so simple, why hadn’t she thought of that? A support group. Therapy. Maybe talking to other people who’d seen the same things he had would help him deal with the nightmares.

She wanted to call him, but Betsy knew he was still raw and probably wouldn’t answer a call from her anyway. She could be patient and give him some time.

But there was no way she was giving up on him or leaving him to stew in his own misery, even if that’s what he wanted.

Betsy snatched the flyer off the wall and folded it into a neat square before tucking it into her purse.

CHAPTER NINE

“P
UT ON YOUR
sparring gear and meet me outside,” Caleb said from outside the screen door, a grim look on his face.

Jack had been expecting a visit from Caleb on Wednesday afternoon. He was surprised it had taken him two days to decide to call him out for what happened with Betsy. When they were kids and they’d argue, rather than let it fester, Caleb’s dad had taken them to the backyard, handed them sparring gear and told them to work it out.

There was nothing that a few minutes of sparring couldn’t resolve.
Except this.

“We don’t need to spar. I’ve got it coming.” Jack opened the door. “Take your shot.”

“Get. The. Gear.” Caleb’s words were like gristle through a meat grinder. “I’ll be in the back.”

Jack sighed and knew that whether he wanted to do this or not, it was going to happen. So he might as well go out there and get it over with, but he didn’t bother with the gear.

In the days since the incident with Betsy, he’d wondered if he’d be able to taste even his own blood without her. He hadn’t wanted to tell her to go, but he’d hurt her. He hadn’t known reality from the nightmare. What would happen next time he didn’t know where he was? Betsy was too kind and giving for her own good. She didn’t know when to give up, and for a moment, he’d started to believe all the castles she’d painted in the sky.

Caleb took off his duty belt, rolled up his sleeves. “Where’s the gear?”

“I told you, I don’t need it.” He deserved whatever contrition Caleb wanted to dole out for his sins.

“Fine. You know what’s coming.”

Caleb’s knuckles connected with his face and sent him reeling. He stumbled and tripped, fell backward and crashed into the ground. Caleb leaped on him like a great cat taking down his prey, his fists continued to bash into his face.

Jack felt nothing after the first bloom of sensation through his nose, shooting up into his forehead, his eyes—then it was simply the absence of any stimulation at all. Good, bad...not even that throbbing numbness that dulls the pain after that initial connection of violence to the face.

Nothing at all.

His friend’s face was twisted with all the pain and sorrow Jack wished he could express.

“Fight back, damn it.” The punches kept coming. “You did not fucking die over there, Jack.” The words were ripped out of him.

He had. He’d died in the sand under a scorching sun, but his body refused to lie down and stay dead.

It seemed that Caleb could read that in his eyes, he paused, bloody knuckles half-cocked for another round. “You shouldn’t have come back. She wanted you, not a ghost, and now you’re trying to drag her down to hell with you. Stay away from her.” He spat and scrambled away from him, disgust on his face. Jack knew him well enough to know that the disgust wasn’t only for Jack, but for Caleb himself and what he’d done. Misguided as it was, he probably thought it would rattle something loose in Jack’s brain, fix him.

Everyone wanted to fix him, but he just wasn’t fixable.

Sudden pain erupted hot and volcanic in his chest, but it wasn’t from the fight. It was the thought of never seeing Betsy again. He knew he couldn’t see her, couldn’t touch her, but the idea that Caleb could somehow make that choice, take her away from him—

A roar bellowed out from deep in his throat, an inhuman battle cry. Somehow he wasn’t simply standing; Jack was flying. He didn’t know how he’d done it. It was as if he were outside his body and watching from afar as he launched himself at Caleb.

He charged him like an angry bull, rabbit-punching him in the kidneys as he took him down. Caleb rolled when they hit the ground, still striking at Jack’s face.

Luckily for Jack, he was still numb. He was numb everywhere but that secret place deep inside that wouldn’t allow anyone else to take Betsy from him, to shut off the light and tell him he could never have it again.

Not even Caleb.

“You won’t take her,” he snarled.

“If you cared about her at all—” Caleb spat blood “—you’d leave.” He wrestled him onto his back. “You’d let her mourn you so she can live her life.”

Jack punched him in the kidney again and they rolled. “Guess I’m not part of your family anymore.”

“You did it yourself when you laid hands on her, bastard.”

“Stop it!” India cried from the narrow alley behind the yard.

“This doesn’t concern—” Jack’s fist connected with Caleb’s face.

Fifty thousand volts of electricity blasted through their bodies and they both stiffened, their muscles convulsing and twitching.

“Actually it does,” their tormentor said, each hand wrapped around a Taser. “Mrs. Church called the police. So, when you two are done acting like you’re five, we’ll take this inside.”

“I can’t believe you Tased me,” Caleb said when he could talk. “I was winning.”

“I’ll Tase you again. If you can talk, you can walk. Inside, Lewis. Right now.”

Jack struggled to get up, and India held out her hand to him. He flashed back to that first night when Betsy had demanded he ask for help. It had felt like begging, but all he had to do was ask. India didn’t even want him to ask; she just offered it.

He searched her face, looking for the pity there, but there was only disgust. “It’s not going to bite you. Or Tase you. Unless you don’t move double time.”

Jack took her hand and allowed her to help him up and he wandered into the house behind her.

“Wipe your face.” She handed him a dishrag from the drawer by the sink.

Jack accepted it and when he pulled the cloth back, he saw the cloth soaked in blood. His mouth was full of it as well and he spat into the sink. He had an answer to that question. No, he couldn’t taste his own blood.

“Now, what exactly is your problem? What had you two fighting like a couple of kids in the backyard? And so help me, the Tasers are out of juice, but I have handcuffs,” she threatened.

“I had it coming.” Jack was the first to speak.

“I told him to get the gear. Not my fault he didn’t.”

“No, it’s your fault that you charged over here like a rabid bull. Betsy told you it was fine.
I
told you it was fine.”

“It’s not fine,” Jack interrupted.

“I wasn’t talking to you yet.” She turned her attention back to Caleb. “You could get fired for this. You’re on duty. How could you do something so stupid?”

“Because it had to be done,” he answered.

“Betsy is an adult capable of making her own decisions. Something that
both
of you have forgotten. No one gets to make her choices for her. Not you. Not Jack. Not me. Not even Lula. You both are so wrapped up in your hero complexes that you forgot Betsy is a person with her own feelings who doesn’t need to be saved.”

“But she does, India. She doesn’t know when to quit, and it’s time,” Jack managed as his face started to swell.

“If you had this beating coming, why did you fight back?”

Shame washed over him.

“That’s what I thought. It’s all well and fine to tell her to go, but the thought of someone trying to keep her from you? You wanted to kill him, didn’t you? He’s your best friend.” She smacked Jack on the back of the head, but then her demeanor softened. “Caleb, go in the front room for a minute. I have to talk to Jack alone.”

“Like hell.” His fists were tight, his body strung like a bow ready to unleash the arrows of hell.

“Caleb!”

“Fine.” Caleb, whose face had also started to swell, went toward the front room.

She studied him for a minute before speaking, as if measuring her words. “So, you and me? We’re two of a kind. Things happened and they were bad. They were really bad, but you know what? They’re not bad here. You’re home. This is your family.”

“That’s why I had to make her go, India. I hurt her.”

“That’s what happens in families. We hurt each other because no one can see our pain as starkly as someone who loves us. And it’s ugly to have that thrown back in our faces. I know.” She nodded. “You only grabbed her wrist a little too hard during a nightmare. When we were thirteen and went on that camping trip to Yosemite, I knocked out Caleb’s last milk tooth because of a nightmare about bears.”

“You weren’t in danger of killing him.”

“And neither are you, Jack. If you think you are, why aren’t you getting some help?”

“Because I’m sick of help. I’m sick of being told how wonderful it is to be here. It’s not. I want it to be over.”

“Then stop dragging it out.”

His eyes widened.

“I love you. You’re one of my closest friends, but rather than rot from the inside out, if you’re really done,
be done.
And don’t be messy about it, because leaving that for us to clean up is selfish.”

Leave it to India to put all the cards on the table.

“But you should think about what it would do to Betsy. I’m not saying you should live for her, because that’s a tough thing to put on any one person. She loves you, so don’t you think there’s got to be something worth loving in you? If it’s worth loving, it’s worth living.”

“Betsy—”

India held up her hand to cut him off. “No, not this again. If you value her, if you love her at all, then you have to trust her. Which means trusting the choices you don’t like, too. She’s not a child. Think about it, Jack. Think about that really hard. Then make your choice and follow through, whatever it is. Commit yourself to it wholly.”

Betsy had said the same thing to him about committing himself wholly.

“Now, I’m going to go in there and deal with man-baby number two. Give me five minutes and then come in and kiss and make up. Or I’m really going to lose my temper.”

Jack had a hard time processing what she’d said. He hadn’t really given much thought to how his slow rot would affect the people around him. How it would taint them, too. Maybe he shouldn’t have come home even for a short time.

He thought about all the men who desperately wished they were in his place, who wished they
could
come home. Those who’d only touched the soil of their country again when they were lowered six feet down into it.

Jack thought about the men he’d met at the Center for the Intrepid in Texas where he’d done his rehab. He’d powered through that because there was nothing else to do. He’d still been in the navy, still following orders.

They ordered him to get the implant, to rehab, to walk again, to get well enough to go home, so he’d done it all without thinking what it meant or what it would mean for him. He’d done it all thinking he still had a home in the navy. A desk job, or teaching at the Naval Academy. But he couldn’t teach, he didn’t want to be behind a desk. He wanted to be in theater, that was what he’d trained for, what he’d been told all he was good for. Now, he had no idea what he was supposed to do.

A rush of noise and memory swirled in his head. So many sounds clanged in his ears and he couldn’t tell what was memory and what was real. He wanted—no, he needed—to block it out. To find some quiet, some peace. No matter what senses he dulled, always there was something blaring in his head. Something he couldn’t forget, couldn’t process, that bubbled up and boiled over.

Jack tried to focus on the things in the room, something to anchor him to the real. The small sugar bowl that sat in the window above the sink, with the enamel strawberry on the lid. Except it reminded him of Betsy. She’d loved that bright red strawberry against the creamy porcelain, always rubbing her fingers over it. As a little girl, when she’d follow Caleb all over, his mother had given it to her to play with. He always thought someday she’d break it, but she never did.

He focused on the clock on the wall. Jack remembered when his parents brought it back from their anniversary trip to Germany. His father had grudgingly hung it on the wall, complaining about the sound of the cuckoo, but his mother had loved it. She sighed every time she heard it, and just the song would calm her tears, cool her anger and make her forgive whatever it was his father had done. Even when he’d taken out its guts and hidden a bottle of vodka behind the panels. The clock was still and silent, even now. Though its presence spoke of more than its voice ever could.

Which brought him to his friends sitting in his front room. People who loved him. People it hurt to see him like this. Caleb, who’d bloodied his face.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he entered the room.

“You can still fight.” Caleb nodded.

“And...” India prompted, overexaggerating her pronunciation.

“And your work here is done. This is between us now.”

“No, I’m supposed to take you back to the station. You’re in deep, buddy.”

“After I talk to Jack. Alone.”

“If you think I’m leaving you two alone after you basically assaulted and battered him—”

“He won’t be pressing charges, will you?” Caleb gave him a lopsided, swollen grin.

“No, man.”

“Caleb, you owe me dinner for this. Something nice. Steak.” India sniffed. She looked over her shoulder on the way out the door. “You guys really okay?”

“Yeah.” Caleb nodded.

When she was gone, Jack spoke. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

“I know. I shouldn’t have... I really thought that you’d...” He couldn’t seem to finish a sentence. “I can’t say I’m sorry, because I’m not. I don’t know what else to do.”

“There’s nothing you can do. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you
and
Bets. I told her to stay away, okay?”

“She’ll do that as soon as mud pies taste like peanut butter.”

“I think she will this time. She was afraid of me.” Jack remembered the look on her face. It was just as well she hadn’t come back, especially while he was at war with himself. She made him forget how things had to be and made him believe in something else. If only belief in a thing could make it real.

“No, she was afraid
for
you.”

“Is that what she said?”

“No, it’s what I know. Betsy has absolute faith in you. She always has, she always will.”

“I don’t deserve it.” He didn’t mention that he didn’t want it. Once upon a time, he would’ve done anything to keep it. Now it just needed to die a quiet death so all of these memories could, too.