Till There Was You (18 page)

“She’s my little sister, you can’t blame me for being a little protective,” Matt added, holding out his hands in mock surrender.

“It’s cool, mate. I understand you looking out for her. But you need to understand that I have no intention of hurting her.” He turned to look Matt directly in the eyes to show him he meant what he said.

“I know that. And to be honest, I haven’t seen her this happy in years. But sometimes, the best of intentions can go awry. I need to know if you’ve told her anything from your past.”

Linc looked at his glass, spinning it in a slow circle with his fingers as discomfort settled in his gut. “We agreed to leave the past where it belongs.”

“Forgive me if I think that’s a bad idea. She should know what you’ve been through. That kind of trauma leaves a mark on a man. And while everything is happy between you two right now, what’s going to happen when the honeymoon is over and things aren’t so rosy?”

Linc gritted his teeth, suppressing his annoyance before he answered. “I would never hurt her.”

“I don’t believe you would—not intentionally.”

Glaring at Matt, Linc’s eyes flashed, angry at his insinuation. “You actually think I’m dangerous for her?”

Lifting his shoulders, Matt drummed his fingers on the table. “I just think honesty is the best policy. I’ve seen your files, Linc. I know what you went through after your last tour and the loss you suffered after that. You refused the recommended treatment and came out here to lick your wounds instead. To me, this turnaround in attitude looks like a Band-Aid solution at best. And I don’t want my sister caught in the middle of it when you suddenly lose control.”

“I’m in complete control, Sarge.” Linc could feel the muscle in the side of his jaw twitching.

“That’s why I had to put you down with a Taser, because you’re in control?”

Linc released his breath. “That was an unusual situation and you know it.”

“What do you think love is?” With that, Matt stood and held out his hand. “Listen, I’m not trying to be an asshole here, I just want to be sure my sister knows exactly what she’s involved in. She’s my number one.”

At that admission, Linc felt his annoyance diffuse a little as he reached up and shook Matt’s hand in a friendly manner. “I get it. But I assure you, you’re worried about nothing.”

“I hope so. I’ll see you around, Linc.”

Nodding once, he watched as Matt left him and approached Lily at the bar. She looked toward Linc and smiled as she made some comment he couldn't hear. Matt leaned across the bar, said something close to her ear that altered her posture, then he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and left by the front door with a backwards wave. As the door swung shut, Lily found Linc’s eyes and smiled, leaving him to wonder exactly what Matt just told her.

He didn’t get long to ponder before Tim’s bent frame decided to occupy the seat Matt had vacated.

“Jesus, I’m popular tonight,” he commented as Tim settled his whiskey glass on the table, sloshing a small amount of the amber liquid on the wooden top.

“No, son, you aren’t popular at all. We all just tolerate you for Lily’s sake.”

“Then what the hell are you doing sitting across from me?”

“No other empty seats.” Tim sniffed as he brought his drink to his lips and Linc looked around the bar. Without trying, he could count at least ten, but he let the subject go.

Tim’s hand shook as he placed the empty glass back on the table and smacked his lips together. “Ahhh, that hit the spot. Time for another.” He lifted his hand to signal Bec to tend to their table.

“Drinking a bit fast tonight, aren’t you, old man?”

“This is how I always drink,” Tim grumbled. “You just don’t pay any attention.”

“Then how are you not dead yet?” Linc asked when Bec brought over two whiskeys and set them in front of Tim.

“Some days it feels like I already am,” he said.

“Well, you look about a hundred and fifty.”

“Ha!” Tim crowed. “You’re wrong. I’m one thousand and seventy-six years old.” Linc was fighting hard not to grin at that response.

“I’d say you’re more pickled than alive,” Linc replied, watching him down one of his drinks.

“I think you’re right,” Tim’s gravelly voice sounded weary.

“I’d hate to make you think you and I are friends by asking this, but are you all right?” Linc asked, detecting a note of sadness in the man’s manner. Their usual banter felt much lighter than this.

“You served, right?” He wasn’t so much asking as he was stating.

“Right.” Linc wondered if Matt had been telling his personal stories about town.

Pursing his lips, he nodded slowly. “I could tell. Military men are easy to pick out—old eyes that have seen too much.”

“You served?”

Tim nodded. “A lifetime ago now, but sometimes it seems like it was yesterday. Those nights out in the field, they aren’t something you forget too easily. Sends many a man crazy when they get back sometimes, but even the strong don’t really survive it. We’re all scarred inside, torn apart by visions no man was ever born to see.” A vacant stare came to Tim’s eyes as he drained the last glass.

Disquiet fell over Linc’s heart. If memories of battle still affected a man as old as Tim, what hope did he really have? Maybe Matt was right.

“You’re out of the service now?” Tim asked, holding his hand out to signal Bec again.

When she brought the drinks over, she leaned in to Linc. “Can you keep an eye on him, please?”

Linc nodded. “Of course.”

“I’m old, not deaf,” Tim grumbled, practically pouting as he stared into his whiskey.

Linc ignored his protest and went right back to their conversation. “Yeah. I’m out—kind of.”

“You AWOL, son?”

“Sort of,” he said, refusing to look at Tim. Leaving without consent wasn’t exactly something you bragged about.

“Well, you picked a great place to hide out here. No one has found me in the last seventy years.” His revelation surprised Linc.

“You left, too?”

“Couldn’t take anymore. I’d lost so many friends in the war, been forced to do so many things in the name of survival. In the end, animals were the only thing I could trust.”

“That’s why you became a vet?”

“Yep, back then, it was easier to disappear and become someone else.”

“Was it worth it?”

He nodded. “I’ve been happy here. I married. Betty was her name. We didn’t have kids—couldn’t. But we were happy together. She understood me.”

“I’m glad,” Linc said, not sure what else to say under these circumstances.

“You know, they say we’re the lucky ones because we made it back in one piece. But I think, are we, did we? Sometimes I figure
they
were the lucky ones—the fallen. They didn’t have to come back and pretend to be human again. It was okay for a time when my Betty was still alive, but these last five years since she passed have been...well, let’s say she was my reason to smile. Now I don’t have much of one.”

“I’m sorry,” Linc whispered, a somber mood falling over them as he realized how lucky he was to get a second chance.

“Ah, don’t be. They were good years. I’m just getting restless wanting to join her. Do me a favor, son, and keep this conversation between us. No one else around here knows the truth about my past. I’d like it to stay that way.”

“Then why did you tell me?”

“I could tell you would get it, and it was good to talk.” Downing the last of his drink, Tim stood and wavered a little on his feet.

“Whoa there, old timer. Perhaps you should take a load off for a few more minutes.”

“I’m going home.” He stuck out his chin and moved for the door, only to stumble and be forced to grip the next chair along.

“I’ll go with you.”

“I’m fine on my own,” he argued, swatting Linc away when he stood and tried to help him.

“No. You’re not. Quit arguing and just let me help you.” Linc steadied the old man, then indicated to Lily he was going to help him home. When she nodded her head in understanding, Linc took Tim out into the fresh night air and began to walk in the direction of the veterinary clinic.

“My car’s over there.” Tim’s arm flailed in the general direction of an old sedan still in pristine condition.

“You drove here and drank that much?” Linc demanded, shaking his head. “You could have killed someone trying to drive home in your state.”

“I’m not driving,” he grouched. “You are.”

“I don’t drive, old man.”

“Sure you do.” Tim shoved the keys against Linc’s chest.

“No. I’ll walk you.”

Ignoring him, Tim broke free and clambered into the passenger side of his car, waving his arm and telling Linc to hurry up and get in.

“For a man who moves so slow, you sure are in a hurry all the time.”

“It’s not like I’m going to live forever and have time to wait for you to be a pussy about getting behind the wheel. You insisted on seeing me home, this is how you do it.” He slammed the door, leaving Linc little choice but to suck it up and drive him.

Sliding in behind the wheel, Linc wiped at his brow before he inserted the key into the ignition. He had not driven since before the accident, and the prospect of driving again had him breaking out in a cold sweat.

“We all have to overcome our fears at some point, son. Sometimes, you just have to let go and do what needs to be done.”

Glancing at Tim, Linc noted the man seemed stone cold sober as he dropped that pearl of wisdom in his lap. And Linc knew he was right. Avoiding it wasn’t going to change what happened. His lack of self-control had been his downfall that fateful night. He hadn’t even been behind the wheel, but still, he didn’t trust himself anymore and it was time he started.

Turning the key in the ignition, he listened as the car roared to life, his heart beating a little faster against his chest as he put the car into gear.

“There you go. You’re doing it like a pro,” Tim said as Linc pulled out onto the street.

“I never said I couldn’t drive, just that I didn’t like to.”

“Well, that just makes you an even bigger sissy than I thought.” Gone was his understanding and kind words; Tim returned quickly to his usual gritty self.

“And that comment just makes you more of a cantankerous asshole than I thought.”

Tim chuckled. “I like you, Linc. I wish we’d met sooner.”

Glancing over at him, Linc wondered what had happened that had him so sentimental tonight. When he got him home and into bed, he found out why.

“She would have been ninety today,” Tim said, reaching over to his nightstand to lift a photo frame. In it was an image of a young, dark-haired woman leaning up against the very car Linc just drove with a broad smile on her face.

“This is Betty?” Linc asked, taking the photo from Tim’s hand and setting it back where he could see it.

Tim nodded. “A beauty, wasn’t she? Don’t know what she saw in me, but it was better than anything I ever saw.”

Linc thought about Lily and how she basically saw the same. He’d gone out of his way to keep her out of his life until one day, he couldn’t stop wanting her.

“She sounds like she was a wonderful woman,” Linc said, leaning down and removing the old man’s shoes so he could pull the blankets over him.

“She was. She was...how I miss her.” He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, they were glassy. “Look after Lily for me, son. She’s a good girl and deserves a good man.”

“Stop talking shit, old man. You still have plenty of fight in you.”

“No, Linc. I don’t. And I’m tired. I’m
so
tired.” He reached a frail hand out toward the photo of Betty. “Give it to me, please.”

Linc did as he asked and Tim clutched the photo to his chest, closing his eyes as his breathing deepened. “Thank you, Linc. Thank you for making an old man feel at peace.”

Linc didn’t think he’d done anything particularly special. Most of the time, the two of them fought, but they did have a genuine affection for each other. Tonight, he’d simply listened to him when he needed to talk. As far as Linc was concerned, that was something any person with a heart would do.

As Tim drifted off to sleep, Linc sat by the bed for a while, feeling a little worried after the finality in the old man’s words. When Tim started snoring rhythmically, Linc smiled to himself and got up to let Tim get some rest.

“Everything okay?” Lily asked when he called her from outside. He could hear the busy chatter going on in the bar in the background.

“Yeah. He’s home and in bed, snoring his head off. I thought I might come check on him in the morning.”

“Really? Something must have you worried,” she pointed out, somehow always so perceptive of his moods.

Linc released a sigh. “Just the way he was talking...”

“What about it?”

“He was...he was nice to me.”

Chuckling down the line, Lily had to agree that was strange. “Perhaps we can check on him after I close up tonight. You’re coming back here, right?”

“I, ah...I actually thought I might head home tonight. But I’ll meet you for breakfast in the morning.”

“Oh, sure,” Lily said. Linc felt awful when he heard the disappointment in her voice, but after his conversation with Tim, he felt the stirrings of his past pulling him down and he needed to be alone to put those spirits to rest.

“Thanks for understanding.”

“Of course. Well, I’ll still check in on Tim. I’ll message you to let you know he’s safe.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“Linc,” she asked after a moment, “is everything okay?”

“It will be, Lily. I’ll see you in the morning. Sweet dreams.”

––––––––

W
hile Tim was still content and snoring when Lily checked on him that night, he wasn’t in the same state when Linc found him the next morning. Lily thought the old man’s passing hit him harder than expected, and at the funeral, he shed more than a few tears while Lily clutched him tight and sobbed. Tim had been a big part of her life, and burying him was like burying yet another member of her family.

Her eyes still watery the next morning, Lily rolled over to snuggle against Linc’s broad back, her hand resting on his naked thigh as she took comfort in his warmth. Although they’d spent the night together, their usual passion was muted by the loss of a dear friend. Their lovemaking had been slower, more sensual, taking the time to really connect and enjoy each other and understand the importance of the life they were building together.