Broken Barriers (Barriers Series Book 4) (16 page)

“Hey, Everett!” I hollered. “Perhaps Marty over here wants to hear all about your pink bowtie and glittery boxers, too? Yes?” Everett’s slack jaw as he filled a pint of beer told me he certainly didn’t give away all the night’s events to Marty.

Marty sighed heavily. “What on earth is the Corps teaching you boys these days? I’ve got this one over here in bowties and glitter, and you, I only just met you, and already I don’t like you. You want to know why?” Marty attempted to refrain from cracking a smile, but even with a full beard, I still saw the upward turn of his lips. I’d continue to play along with it for the sake of finding out why. I casually leaned my elbow onto the bar and urged him to continue with a simple wave of my hand. “Cole. Now I know it’s not my place to say anything, but she’s like a daughter to me and has been nothing but generous since my dear wife passed away. And I know your type. How do you think I landed my wife back before I served?” He pointed a stern finger at me. “I know you just got back from overseas and have more shit going on up there in that head of yours than I could ever imagine, but,” he waved his finger at me, “I’ve seen just as much shit as you in my day.”

His words settled me. Vietnam was nothing like Afghanistan, and yet it was everything like it at the same time. I knew without a doubt that Marty had been through hell. He’d seen some pretty fucked-up shit, as had I, but he was sitting here now alive and well.

We chatted about our experiences during two different wars in completely different eras. He told me back then the unit was just as much a brotherhood as it was now, but the men serving these days had it easy. The issued gear was so far advanced than what he ever had. He laughed when he explained that Vietnam would have taken half the time to fight had they been given the shit we had now.

Beers continued to flow between fellow Marines and Marty, the Army soldier. Everett joined in our conversation as he recounted more stories about his time in Iraq. I thought Afghanistan was bad, but it was a cakewalk compared to what Everett’s unit dealt with. His two tours brought him within inches of his own life. His first tour in Iraq in 2004 led him right through some of the bloodiest days in the country. He told the story of how the Marines began their operation in Fallujah during some of the most hostile days in Iraq. IEDs were everywhere, making land travel even more treacherous than anything I had ever experienced.

They didn’t have the armored Hummers we had now. They were vulnerable to almost everything. It wasn’t until his second tour that things improved. They were able to run convoys between bases without the constant fear of attack.

Everett’s stories allowed me to see him in a different light. His tours weren’t easy. In fact, they might have been worse than mine. He lost a lot of men in his unit during a battle on the Syrian border, but here he was standing alive and well, and even though his love life was a disaster, at least his shit was in order. I truly believed I could overcome everything and put that next foot in front of the other.

I watched their faces as I relayed my own personal experiences of the final convoy I did with my unit. I was the lead vehicle. I was responsible for the men in that MRAP. Just because the vehicle was mine-resistant against IEDs and ambushes didn’t mean we were protected against all injuries. Against my own better judgment, I let my guard down. My mind ran in every other direction except for the place it should have been—focused on the men at my side instead of thinking about Courtney or getting distracted by music. I fucked up and fortunately the men in my vehicle walked away with only a few minor injuries. I took the brunt of the explosion. My hearing and shoulder would never be the same, but better me than my guys in the end to have paid the price.

“Is this the first time you’ve spoken about these events?” Marty asked before looking at Everett. I simply nodded and released a dejected sigh through my barely parted lips. My shoulders sank with the admittance of my own failures finally being said to someone who related.

With a simple nod and two finger taps onto the bar, two shot glasses appeared before us. “Pick your poison, Son. This one is on me,” Marty said as I eyed Everett, who was already pulling the tequila from the shelf. My head hung low as my hands clasped together on my knees. A heavy hand rested upon my shoulder. “Son, listen to me.” I raised my laden eyes to look at the stern wrinkled face staring back at me.

He gripped my shoulder a little tighter, garnering my attention. “Nothing…and I mean nothing you did or didn’t do could have prevented what happened. One man cannot bear the burden for an entire unit. You did your job, Marine, and at the end of the day, all of them came home safe. That alone means more to those families than you will ever know.” Marty grabbed my shot glass and handed it to me. I took the glass and suddenly felt overwhelmed, but it wasn’t a bad feeling or an elated feeling. It was a feeling as though this moment among three men…no…three veterans should be remembered forever.

I raised my clear shot glass to Marty’s dark amber filled glass and clinked it. “To never keeping shit bottled up,” Marty toasted. Amen to that statement. Our heads tilted back as the glasses emptied with one swift fluid movement. I slid my empty glass back at Everett. He grabbed it and tossed it into the dishwasher before taking Marty’s glass and doing the same.

Everett gave me a quick fist bump just as the front door flew open. Our heads snapped in that direction as Morgan stormed in with fire in her eyes. Everett muttered some profanity and dove out of view to the back room just before Morgan was standing beside me. She quickly gave Marty a gentle hug. “Good to see you again, Mr. Cook. I think Cocoa is getting lonely out there in your truck.” Her demeanor suddenly switched to very sweet and soft-spoken. Marty tossed a twenty onto the bar and stood.

With a firm hand, he grasped my own. “Permission to speak freely, Sergeant?” Marty played up the old Army soldier in him. I simply nodded, allowing him to continue. “War is war. It’s never pretty, and it plays tricks on our minds and our heart. At the end of the day, you have to decide which one wins out. My suggestion is to listen to your heart and tell whatever your mind says to go fuck off.” I chuckled a bit, but Marty’s face was unmoved. “You laugh now, but in five years if that shit is still bottled up in that head of yours, it may be too late for your heart to catch back up. I spent over forty years with the love of my life because I didn’t let what went on up here,” he pointed his index finger at his head, “affect what went on in here.” Marty pointed the same finger at my chest right over heart.

With one look, he made sure I understood, and I did. My only issue was that my heart had no clue at the moment what it wanted.

“Nice to see you again, Morgan.” Marty kissed Morgan on the cheek before waving good-bye and telling me that the door to his boat was always open if I needed to talk. After that, I really believed that he might be better than any professional therapist. If he was willing to listen to me, I’d be forever grateful.

Morgan tapped her wedge sandals against the wooden floor. Her smug look and annoyed stare had me wondering if she wanted something. Everett had left me to deal with the devil. I knew she was still upset with me over the other night at the bonfire, but honestly, that had nothing to do with me. She just assumed I was at fault because of Cole rushing off in tears.

The longer Morgan waited, the more I noticed her blood boiling. I saw her chest rising and falling heavily. I didn’t want to ask, but I knew I was never getting out of the bar without dealing with whatever she was here to confront me about. I was trapped, and as much as I’d like to have avoided the issue after having such a great talk with Marty, she wanted something.

With a slight roll of my neck, I looked her dead in the eyes and said with gentle annoyance, “Hi, Morgan.” I smiled brightly, adding more fuel to her fire. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

Her foot stopped tapping. Her arms unfolded from her chest as she moved her hands to rest with fury on her hips. “Drew Daley, what is this I hear about you going over to Cole’s place tomorrow night?”

I erupted with a single gut-bursting laugh. “Seriously? That’s what’s got you all worked up right now? Me cooking dinner for Cole at her house?”

“You don’t get it, do you? All of you horny assholes come up here for vacations and think she’s something you can just use one night and toss in the trash the next. I’ll warn you right this very minute. If you so much as hurt her, I will find you in your sleep. I will castrate you with a butter knife, and I will shove your balls down your throat until you choke to death. Do I make myself clear?”

I raised a single eyebrow and ran my hand over the back of my neck as I tried to stifle another laugh that would most certainly aggravate her even further. To avoid any extra threatening situations that involved more than just my balls, I decided to just appease the situation. “You have nothing to worry about, Morgan. Honest!” I held my hands flat in the air as if surrendering. “I have no other intentions other than to just get to know her and have dinner and watch a movie. There’s no harm in being friends, right?”

She pointed her blazing red manicured finger at me. “You try anything...
anything
…I will find out, and you will pay. But she seems to enjoy your company since she can’t stop talking about you, so I’m going against my better judgment and allowing whatever you two have planned to happen.”

Morgan was about to step away as her phone lit up in her hand, but I grabbed her attention to clarify something she had said. “Wait a minute. What do you mean, she can’t stop talking about me?” She silenced her ringing phone and dropped it back into her purse on her shoulder. I could tell she didn’t want to reveal something to me about Cole. “Morgan? Has Cole said something to you about me?” I gazed at her face, trying to see any kind of reaction that could give me a clue. Her delayed response clearly offered me an answer.

As I was about to turn away, she cleared her throat. “Listen, Drew. She’s been through enough.”

“I keep hearing that, but nobody wants to tell me
what
she’s been through…”

“Let me finish. Cole is a special type of woman. She’s strong, successful, and extremely independent, but at twenty-eight, she’s been hurt before too many times. The most recent one that broke her took nearly a year for her to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Everett, Marty, and myself included all put in a year of blood, sweat, and tears just to see her smile and laugh again. You—“ Morgan bit her lip as she choked back tears forming in her glassy eyes. “You are the first guy she’s talked about after all this time. So, if she sees something in you and whatever it is you two have going isn’t really real, then please, I’m begging you to just be honest with her before you break her heart.”

Morgan caught sight of Everett and walked away from me without even so much as another warning. “Everett Smith!” she shouted. “You get back here, you big ape.” I chuckled as Everett tried to retreat again to safety. No use, he was stuck.

My mind tried to process all that Morgan told me. My chest tightened with each breath. Why did Cole think anything of me? I was just an average guy trying to get his life in order. I didn’t have a job, and I had no idea what I wanted to do. But, the one thing we both shared in common was our hearts had both been broken for one reason or another.

Looking at Cole, I could never tell she was but a shell of a person as Morgan said. She had such a presence when she was in a room with others. She was passionate about things she loved. Her smile was contagious in a good way. She was kind and appeared to be well liked in this small community. I couldn’t understand who would ever want to hurt her or use her in a way that would leave her hurt and needing support.

I replayed the scene from the bonfire in my head—what that one thing was that triggered her emotions to change—and then Marty’s comment not long ago crossed my mind.
All you Marines are the same
. A fellow Marine must have hurt her. If not one of these guys, then who? Why was I so focused on solving this mystery? I’d only just met Cole. I’d never purposely hurt her. If anything, I owed her so much as it was. She’d been kind to me even before she knew me. She helped me find someone here who was a true veteran and one that understood as well as any of them just what I needed to get my head straight again.

I needed to make tomorrow night special. I wasn’t talking about making a simple dinner at her house. Any moron could do that. No, I had to do better than simple.

I hopped off the barstool and tossed a ten onto the bar under my empty bottle for Everett. I waved to him while he chatted with Morgan as she leaned over the bar, propping her tits up in her V-neck shirt. She twisted her shoulder-length blonde hair around her finger. She then pulled her finger from her hair, slowly tracing a path down to her rounded breasts as she flaunted them at Everett.

I stifled a laugh, thinking one minute she played this demanding and protective mamma bear and the next she was this shy and innocent Barbie doll looking for a hook up. Good luck to Everett. He was dealt that card before, but from the look in his eyes, I had a feeling he was willing to give up his cards if it meant scoring with Morgan.

As I pushed through the doors into the parking lot, the humid summer air hit me head-on. The sun broke through the clouds, and the pavement steamed as the moisture rose off the ground. I pulled my shades from my front pocket and pushed them over my eyes. My hand reached into my other pocket to pull out my phone and car keys. Searching through my contact list as I headed toward my car, I found the name I was looking for and hit
Dial
. My thumb hit the unlock button on my key fob, and I hopped into my car as the phone rang.

“Whatever you are calling for better be good, Drew. You totally owe me for this ‘boobie’ thing. Dean will not stop saying it,” Sam whined through the speakerphone as I placed the phone onto the dash and fished around the car for a pen and paper. I found a pen but no paper. A fast-food napkin would have to do for the time being.