Here And Now (American Valor 2) (8 page)

When she was young, her older brothers were often left in charge while their parents were away at work. But by the time she turned ten and both of her older brothers were working part-time, it became Rachel’s job to clean the house, cook the meals, and keep an eye on her younger brother. Her mother’s moods ran hot and cold; sometimes she was a joy to be around and then there were times Rachel couldn’t wait to leave the house. For the most part things were fine, until her mother returned home from work earlier than expected one day and caught Rachel making out with an older boy on the couch. The boy, of course, rose to his feet and immediately scuttled out the front door, leaving Rachel to face her mother alone.

“Don’t believe what that boy tells you. He’s only using you for one thing,” her mother had said. “The sooner you learn that love doesn’t last, the better.”

Desperate to prove her mother wrong, Rachel ran out the door and caught up with her boyfriend. Then, at her request, he drove her out to the lake where he divested her of her virginity in the backseat of his Pontiac Sunbird. He was her first serious boyfriend and at the time she believed they’d be together forever, mostly because he told her they would be. Except he proved her mother right and broke up with her the following week.

Rachel climbed the narrow staircase to the second floor, the wood treads creaking beneath her weight. The top floor consisted of two bedrooms separated by the thinnest of walls. The ceilings sloped lower than she remembered. The bedrooms seemed smaller. Her old room was completely barren, just the way she left it the day she moved out. From there she wandered into Ethan’s room, the one he didn’t have all to himself until both of their older brothers had moved out. She sat down on the edge of one bed and looked around his mostly empty room, trying to remember how it looked the last time she was in this space. A few newspaper clippings and photos were taped to the wall, some participation medals hung from a nail.

He had always been hers to care for, to dote on. She taught him his colors and letters and how to tie his shoes. Instead of leaving like her older brothers, she applied to a nursing program at a small college thirty miles away and paid for it with grants and financial aid. When she wasn’t at school she worked part-time, if only to buy things for Ethan that her parents couldn’t afford. When he needed new cleats, she bought them for him. When he asked a girl to the prom, she rented his tuxedo and paid for his date’s corsage. She went to his football games and baseball games because their parents didn’t. She helped him with algebra and biology because they wouldn’t.

The day Ethan left for basic training at Fort Jackson was the day she moved out. Unable to afford rent on her own, she moved in with her boyfriend at the time, who shared a house with two of his friends. And so began the cycle of going from one relationship to another, always hoping the next time would be different, that this would be the time she would find her happily-ever-after.

Fifteen years had passed since that afternoon she followed her boyfriend out of the house in search of a love that would last forever, and she still hadn’t found it.

Chapter Eight

F
OR
IT BEING
the last weekend of October, the weather was surprisingly warm with no sign of autumn arriving anytime soon. Not that Rachel was complaining. Minus a few exceptions, the leaves on the trees were still green. The wildflowers were still blooming. And the migratory birds weren’t in any hurry to head south.

She wiggled her toes in her flip-flops and grabbed a second beer from the cooler as the sun rose higher in the sky, warming the morning air. “What time are we supposed to be at your dad and Brenda’s?”

“Couple hours.” Lucky stood at the edge of the pond, patiently watching the end of his fishing line. “I told him we can’t stay much later than twelve-thirty; otherwise, we won’t have enough time to sleep before work.” He reeled in the line, then cast it to another area of the pond.

Over the last several weeks, this had become their routine. On Saturday and Sunday mornings after their shifts at the hospital had ended, they’d hang out a few hours before going their separate ways to sleep. Sometimes they’d go to his house for whatever Brenda had left in his refrigerator that week and watch a movie since she still only had camping chairs for living room furniture. Sometimes, they’d come back to her place, drag those pink chairs out onto the back deck, and cook something on the grill. If the weather was nice and the winds were calm, Lucky would break out the fishing pole he’d stashed in her laundry room.

He’d been at it for over a month and still hadn’t caught a damn thing.

During the week, if he wasn’t studying for an exam and she wasn’t picking up an extra shift, they’d hang out. Sometimes she’d tag along on his workouts, other times he’d tolerate running a shorter distance than usual. They laughed a lot when they were together and sent random texts to each other when they were apart. She still found him to be attractive and was pretty sure the feeling was mutual, but for now, there were no games. They were simply friends with no pressure to become something more.

“Where did I leave off?” she asked before taking a sip of her beer.

Lucky hung his head. “Not again. It’s my birthday. I shouldn’t have to play twenty questions on my birthday.”

She laughed. “But what better way to celebrate your thirtieth?”

The man liked to pretend he was all quiet and mysterious, but truth be told, he was quite the Chatty Cathy once you got him started. Even more so if she got a drink or two in him.

“Who did you lose your virginity to?”

Lucky shook his head and reeled in his line. “I’m not answering that.”

“Oh, come on. Tell me.”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because I’d find it hard to believe that you didn’t lose your virginity to someone we went to school with. And I’m dying to know who it was!”

“Still not answering.”

“Come on. Give me something.”

“Okay. I’ll tell you this much. It wasn’t someone we graduated with.”

“Oooh . . .” Rachel rubbed her hands together, excited to make some progress. “Was it someone older than us? Was she a virgin, too, or did she show you the ropes?”

“As a matter of fact . . .” He smiled when his phone buzzed in his pocket. “Saved by the bell. Sorry, but I have to take this.”

“You’re not getting off that easy!”

He laughed, handing her the fishing pole before heading down a narrow path worn in the grass that followed the edge of the pond. When he was almost out of earshot she heard him say, “Hi, Mom,” and nearly choked on a swallow of beer.

Not once in the past six weeks had he ever mentioned his mother. There were plenty of pictures of him and Duke on display around the house, but she couldn’t recall seeing any photos with someone who could be his mother.

And now, the curiosity was killing her.

She watched as he stood at the water’s edge, and as far as she could tell, he wasn’t doing much talking. Occasionally, he’d lean down to pick up a rock or stick and chuck it into the water until he finally said goodbye about ten minutes later and ended the call.

“My mom,” he said, shoving his phone back into his pocket.

“So I heard.”

He plopped down onto the blanket next to her as if nothing unusual had just happened.

“And what did
Mom
have to say?”

“Happy Birthday, of course, and talked about how busy she was with the kids and stuff.”

“Kids?”

“Yeah.”

He laid back on the blanket and closed his eyes as if he were going to take a nap, his legs crossed at the ankles, his arms crossed over his chest. But no way in hell was she going to let him just drop a bomb like that and not say anything more. The fact that out there somewhere, Lucky James had a mother and siblings and hadn’t once mentioned them? Crazy. Especially since she’d always assumed his mother was dead.

“Come on. This conversation is like pulling teeth. Spill,” she ordered, giving his shoulder a little shove. “Or no cupcakes for you.”

He turned his head toward her, one brow raising above the frame of his sunglasses. “Are cupcakes a euphemism for something else?”

“No.”

Lucky shrugged his shoulders. “No sweat off my brow. I’m sure Brenda will make me all the birthday cupcakes I want.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Fine. But I’m gonna need another beer for this.” He sat up and reached into the cooler, grabbing a bottle from where it was buried in ice. He popped the top off his longneck and took a long pull before he began.

Like a kindergartner at story time, she sat crisscross applesauce on the blanket and waited for his story to begin.

“My mom is eleven years younger than my dad. She worked at a little convenience store in McAlester. At the time my dad was working on a road construction crew and he and a couple other guys would stop in almost every day for lunch. He asked her out and she said yes. She was only eighteen when she got pregnant and they got married. By the time she turned twenty-five, she was tired of being both a wife and mother.”

“Just like that?”

“Yeah. She wanted to go see the world, not be stuck in Oklahoma her whole life. So she left. She lives in California now.”

“Because that’s not cliché or anything.” She snorted. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Why? It’s the truth.”

“I do have to say while it’s shitty that your mother abandoned you, it was pretty brave for her to pack her things and move across the country all by herself. To start all over in a new place. I don’t think I could do it. Did she ever remarry?”

“Her husband is a golf pro, has a couple of kids from another marriage. But he and my mom have two boys who are thirteen and eleven.”

“And I thought the twelve-year age gap between Adam and Ethan was wide. You’re practically old enough to be their dad.”

“I try not to think about that.”

He took another long pull from his beer while she picked at the label of hers. “Do you get to see them much?”

Lucky shook his head. “After I joined regiment, she started emailing me a lot, especially when I was deployed overseas. That’s actually when we communicated the most. I guess that’s when she worried about me the most. And she’d always say how much she missed me and how much she wanted to see me, so I decided to go visit her one leave. I flew out to San Jose, rented a car, and drove south to Monterey. When I got to my hotel I called her to let her know I’d arrived. That’s when she got all weird, saying the boys were sick and then her husband was sick and that I shouldn’t come to their house because she didn’t want me to get sick on my vacation. We met for lunch the next day and that was it.”

“What do you mean that’s it?”

“That’s it. It was awkward and uncomfortable. I think we both realized our relationship worked better on a pen pal kind of level. So I changed my flight and went home two days early. She calls on my birthday, I call on hers. She sends a card at Christmas, but that’s it. We’ve never discussed seeing each other again.”

“What did your dad say?”

“We don’t talk about it much. He blames himself for her leaving, but all he ever did was love her. A lot of people kept telling him to file for divorce, to move on with his life and find someone else. But he held out hope she’d change her mind and come back home one day. By the time they actually divorced, they’d officially been married sixteen years even though she’d been gone for almost a decade.”

“Wow. And I thought my family was screwed up.”

He held the neck of his bottle out toward hers. “To family.”

She smiled, tapped the neck of her bottle to his before they each took a drink.

And in that moment they were more than coworkers or friends. Instead, they were more like kindred spirits.

I
F GIVE
N THE
choice, he’d rather spend the remainder of his birthday just hanging out with Rachel, even if it meant more prying questions regarding his mother or the loss of his virginity. But Brenda and his dad really wanted to have him over for his birthday, and to make sure he didn’t have a reason to refuse, Brenda invited Rachel as well. Not that he minded at all.

When they pulled into the driveway, his father was standing in the middle of their large yard, an ax in one hand, the handle resting on his shoulder.

“What is he doing with the ax?” Rachel whispered.

“You really don’t want to know.”

Duke waved hello and made his way across the grass to them. “How’s my birthday boy?” he asked, one arm stretched out wide to embrace him.

“I’d be doing a lot better if you put the ax down.”

Duke chuckled as he placed the ax on the ground. “I can do that.” Not one to settle for a polite, manly handshake, Duke wrapped his arms around Lucky and gave a few hearty thwacks to the middle of his back before letting him go. “So tell me, how does thirty feel?”

“It feels a lot like twenty-nine to tell you the truth.”

His father then made his way to a smiling Rachel, greeting her with a kiss on the cheek. “Rachel, it’s good to see you again.”

“Same here.” She held up the covered Tupperware bowl in her hands. “Is Brenda inside?”

“She sure is. Just head on in there. You know the way.”

Lucky watched as she made her way up the front walk until she disappeared around the corner. Only then did he realize his father had been watching him watch her.

“You two seem to be spending a lot of time together.”

“A product of circumstances, I guess,” he said with a shrug. “It’s not like there’s an abundance of people our age to hang out with.”

“Mmm-hmm . . .” His father looked skeptical, but wandered back onto the lawn anyway, the ax once again resting on his shoulder, his eyes scanning the grass in front of him for any movement.

Lucky followed. “Got moles again?”

“Brenda came out this morning and noticed a bunch of her annuals were sitting all cockeyed. Little sucker ran a tunnel from the tree to right underneath them last night.”

Since his father moved in, he’d become the mole hunter. Having tried traps, poisons, and just about everything else out there on the internet, he decided to try something a little more low-tech. Armed with a shovel and an ax, he’d spend a few minutes tromping down the tunnels the moles had made and the next few hours watching the grass, waiting for it to shiver. Then he’d start chopping away at the soil in the hopes of getting his mole.

At first, he thought his old man was nuts. Come to find out, he’d been pretty successful.

“So you two aren’t dating or hooking up or whatever you kids call it these days?”

Lucky shoved his hands into his pockets and shook his head. “Jesus, Dad.”

“I’m just looking out for you. I really like Rachel, but the girl has spent her whole life in this town.”

“And?”

“For most people that wouldn’t be a problem. But you’re like your mother, not that it’s a bad thing. You’re smart and adventurous. Definitely just as pretty.”

“Will you stop with that?”

“Every time after we see you, Brenda is always going on about those long, dark lashes of yours. How it’s a crying shame that God gave a man such eyelashes.” His dad laughed and smacked the middle of Lucky’s back.

“Jesus. I can’t take anymore.”

He was on the verge of heading inside and hanging with the womenfolk. Anything to get away from this conversation.

“Now hang on. Before you run off, listen to me for a second because this is important. Like I said, you’re just like your mother. You’re willing to go wherever the wind blows you and if the wind doesn’t blow hard enough, you’ll get there on your own. But Rachel, her roots are dug deep and I doubt she’s going anywhere.”

“We’re strictly friends. Neither of us are looking for a relationship because we both have other things going on at the moment.”

“I hear ya. But I also know that things change sometimes. Especially when you’re a . . . what did you call it? A product of circumstances.”

Lucky nodded, knowing his dad was right. As attracted to Rachel as he was, as much as they enjoyed spending time with one another, what chance could they really have? His plan was to go on to medical school. After that, could he see himself coming back to Durant to practice medicine? Not really. Only hours earlier, when they were talking about his mother, Rachel said she couldn’t see herself starting over someplace new.

Just like his mom and dad, he and Rachel were on the same path for now, but it was only a matter of time before they would be headed in opposite directions.

“H
ANG ON A
minute. I have one more thing for you.” In a flash she was slamming the passenger door shut and bounding up the front steps to her trailer.

To ensure he didn’t stay too long, he left the engine running. Otherwise, ten minutes would turn into an hour and one hour would easily become two before he headed home. That’s just how it was when he spent time with Rachel. He never wanted to leave her.

Lucky got out of his car when the storm door flew open and she ran down the stairs with a big smile on her face. Rachel handed him a striped gift bag with red tissue paper poking out of the top, practically giddy with anticipation. A sure sign she was not to be trusted.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “You shouldn’t have.”