One Last Call (11 page)

“You wouldn’t have hurt me.”

“Not physically. I would rather cut my arm off than hurt a woman, especially you. That wasn’t the problem. I didn’t want all that nastiness with Newman and the rest of it to rub off on you. Who knows what they’d threatened Mandy with so she’d lie for Bobby? Besides, you were gettin’ ready for college. Where was I headed? What could I offer you?”

“You have to ask?” She took a deep breath that didn’t calm her down any. She was righteously pissed off. “Joshua Logan, do you know what you could have offered me?”

“Yeah, I wanna know.” From the tone of his voice, it was clear that Josh didn’t have a clue.

Sarah shoved at his hands and twisted around to face him. “You!
You
, Josh, were all I ever wanted.”

* * * *

“Sarah.” Josh was at a loss. He rejoiced at hearing that she’d wanted him. It also tore him up thinking of what could have been if he’d stayed.

“No.” She held up a hand to cut him off. “That was a long time ago. I get it now. You had your reasons.”

“So, you understand why I had to go?”

“I understand.”

Josh let out a sigh of relief.
Finally.

“But…”

Of course, that relief was short-lived.
“But, what?”
Sarah said she understood, right?

“It took you
twelve
years to come back. Do you honestly think I put my life on pause and waited for you so we could take up where we left off? Real life doesn’t work that way. I’ve moved on. It’s too late now.”

“No, it’s not too late. As long as you’re here and there’s still breath left in my body, it’s not too late. I was a reckless, screwed-up kid. Yes, I left, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it made me a man. The Marines made me into someone I could look at in the mirror and not hate anymore. I missed you every day since I got on that bus and headed out of town.”

“You missed me? Since when? You never wrote. You never called. Hell, you never even came back until now, Josh.”

He shook his head. “No. That’s not true. I came back after my first tour in Afghanistan. I was told you’d met someone when you were gone at college. Every time I came home on leave after that, the news got worse. Then you were engaged, then you were married, and after that, Sarah, I couldn’t come back and see you as some other man’s wife. I had to stay away.”

“You left! What did you expect me to do after never hearing a word from you? Besides, my divorce was final a few years ago. You still never came back, and I’m sure your dad told you about it.”

“No, I didn’t know. That news took a while to get to me. I couldn’t get home.”

“Why not? Were you overseas again?”

He didn’t meet her gaze. “Yes and no.”

“What does that mean?”

“Yes, I was overseas, and then, no, I wasn’t.”

“Where were you?” She grabbed his arm. “Tell me, Josh.”

“I was in the hospital for a while, recoverin’ from an injury.”

“What kind of injury?”

“Blunt force trauma to the skull. An IED went off, and I got caught in the explosion.”

“You were caught in it?” She searched him over, probably for any lingering signs of damage. “Josh, you could have died, and I never would have known it. How long were you in the hospital?”

“Sarah, I think we’ve talked about it enough. You don’t need the gory details.” He still had flashes of memory. Those were bad. The nightmares were worse.

She lowered her hand to his knee. “I want to know what happened.”

Josh concentrated on that hand. He brushed his fingertips over the translucent skin, feeling the soft warmth there before resting his palm on top. “I got hit with shrapnel, flyin’ debris. I was far enough away that it only knocked me unconscious. I stayed that way for a while.”

“How long is a while?” Sarah flipped her hand over so they were palm to palm. He wrapped his fingers around hers and held on.

“I didn’t drive you out here to give you a sob story. I only wanted to explain…”

“How long?”

“Five weeks and three days, accordin’ to my charts. I woke up and couldn’t remember where I was or how I got there. At the time, I couldn’t remember a whole lot of anythin’. The doctor thought I was from Florida since I wouldn’t shut up about goin’ home to see sunshine.”

SARAH
was on the verge of bursting into tears. Her life had been suckish lately, but she couldn’t imagine what Josh must have gone through. After all that, and he’d asked for her when he woke up? She had so many questions, so many things she wanted to know now.

Josh changed the subject instead. “Hey, I wanted to tell you. Sorry about your dad. He was a good man. Sure saw through me right away.”

“Thank you. My dad really did like you, you know.” He’d hated Richard. Her dad hadn’t said so outright, yet they’d never gotten past pleasantries in the entire time she and Richard had been married. Most of the time, Hal left the room if Richard entered it. Her ex-husband had a habit of making social situations awkward by taking over the conversation.

Josh smirked. “He liked me as much as he could like a randy teenager sniffin’ after his daughter. But, yeah…he didn’t judge me for where I came from.”

“That’s because there’s nothing wrong with where you came from. He liked you for who you were. It didn’t hurt that you sucked up by helping him with the yard work.”

Josh smiled at her gentle teasing. “I wanted to come to his funeral. By the time I heard about it, everythin’ was all said and done.”

“It all happened so quickly. Dad was washing the car one minute, and the next he was lying in the driveway, with the garden hose shooting water everywhere. We called the ambulance. It was already too late. He’d had a massive heart attack.”

“I’m so sorry, Sarah.”

“You know, it was over two years before Mom would drive that car again. She wouldn’t so much as look at it.”

Sarah remembered thinking how she needed to shut off the hose. It was the strangest thing. Chaos was going on around her, but her top concern had been shutting off that water. Her dad was soaked in suds from the overturned bucket and the hose was slithering around on the concrete like an angry green snake spewing out water. Her mom had been shaking her dad, screaming, “Hal, wake up!” trying to get him to open his eyes, while Sarah stood watching what was left of the water pulse out until it stopped. That image would be forever stuck in her brain.

After Hal’s death, her mom was inconsolable. Lucy simply shut down and depended on Sarah to take care of her. So she did. She’d locked up the pain of losing her dad and essentially losing her husband at the same time and took on the responsibility of keeping her mom from sliding down the rabbit hole of grief. To be fair, her sister Sophie had done all she could to help Sarah out. She took Mom grocery shopping and over to her house for a visit when the bickering got to be too much for both of them. If Sarah or Sophie hadn’t insisted, Lucy never would have left the house. Sophie’s husband Reed getting critically injured in a construction accident was what had finally shaken Lucy out of her grief. After that, she joined the world again.

Sarah had always known Josh was out there somewhere, presumably living a happy life. Instead, he’d been deployed to Afghanistan which wasn’t exactly a vacation spot. She’d read about the abysmal living conditions of the soldiers over there. They were all in constant danger, every minute.

The notion of Josh wanting her when he was in the hospital squeezed at her heart. Josh could have been killed serving his country, and Sarah had no idea he’d been injured, much less in a coma. Imagining him in a hospital bed, asking for her, especially after all these years, was almost too much to take in.

She’d been going on with her day-to-day routine, hating her ex-husband, vaguely still angry at Josh, and not thrilled with men in general. All that time, she’d wished for a different life. At least she’d been safe and healthy.

“Sarah. Come on, sugar, don’t cry.”

She hadn’t even realized that she’d been crying. Josh patted her shoulder and drew her head down to his chest.
Damn, that feels so good.
The steady thump of his heart and the crisp smell of his shirt were such a welcome comfort to her. Sarah couldn’t remember the last time she cried on someone’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Josh. I don’t normally cry like this. I didn’t know about your accident. Believe it or not, no one ever said anything about it to me.” She sniffled. “Are you still in pain? Is that why you carry around the pain reliever?”

“I’m all right. Back in the hospital, they had me on Percocet, and after a while, I noticed that I was likin’ those a little too much, so I dialed it down to over the counter stuff before I ended up with more problems.” He stared out the window without really seeing anything. “A twinge or two is no big deal. There’s over a month of my life missing but I recovered. The other guys…yeah…at least I made it back.”

“Were you hurt anywhere else?”

“We all have scars, Sarah. Wanna see mine?”

Sarah wanted to see everything of Josh’s. Now didn’t seem like a good time to tell him that.

“Another time, then.” Josh’s huffed-out sigh made her cheek rise and fall with the movement of his chest. “It was life changin’, Sarah. That IED put me to sleep. It also woke me up. I had plenty of time to think while I was recoverin’. I thought about the past and I thought about the future. A career in the military didn’t appeal to me anymore. I was tired of only havin’ temporary places to stay. We went wheels up at any time, and I didn’t want to go away anymore.”

He lowered his chin until it rested against the top of her head. “I wanted a home, roots. You know, family. Tennessee wasn’t home anymore. Mom still lives there, but she has her own life. Strange as it sounds, when I thought of comin’ home, home was right here in Madison Falls. When it was time to re-up my enlistment, I took the honorable discharge instead.”

“Did you tell Kenny you were coming home?”

“He knew my plans.”

“It was nice of your dad to give you a job when you got out. It must have been a big change to become a civilian again.”

“In most ways, it’s easier than I thought it would be. Other ways, not so much.” Josh didn’t elaborate any more on what the other ways were. “You’re wrong about one thing. I’m not workin’ for my dad.”

“Then why are you driving the tow truck and doing oil changes at the garage? It looks like you’re working for him to me. Doesn’t he pay you?” Sarah didn’t think that was fair, not with all the work Josh did. “Maybe we could find you a job doing what you used to do in the Marines. I could help you with that if you’d tell me…”

“Whoa! Hold up now before you become my talent agent. I did the same job then as what I do now. I worked on Jeeps, trucks, you name it. Anythin’ with an engine. The only difference is, I did it in the sandbox while tryin’ not to get killed. I was a Marine first, and then a mechanic. I guess you could say I held a toolbox in one hand and a rifle in the other.”

“Do you miss holding a rifle?”

“No.” The answer was swift and clipped out.

“So, why are you doing mechanical work with your dad if he doesn’t pay you?”

“I never said he didn’t pay me. You came up with that one on your own. He doesn’t have to pay me. I’m his business partner.”

“You own half the garage?”

“Yeah.” Josh stroked his fingers over her ponytail. Sarah stayed cuddled to his chest. She was going to enjoy it as long as possible. “We planned it out before I was discharged. I bought him out of half the shop. I pay myself now.”

“So, you’re going to stay in Madison Falls for now?”

“I told you. I’m not goin’ anywhere. Soon as I find somethin’ I like, I’m buyin’ a house and settlin’ in. If I can’t find one, I’ll have one built. Didn’t you always want a home with a wraparound porch?”

Sarah couldn’t believe Josh remembered her dream house. There was a time she’d had high hopes of having her own house and went on and on to Josh about what it would be like. The one she bought with Richard had been more contemporary, better suited to his tastes. Her mom’s house was precisely that,
her
house. Sarah lived there and helped pay the bills, but it wasn’t her house. The only thing she had that was all hers was her business. She still had a feeling Richard was trying to get a part of that too.

After everything Josh had gone through, he deserved to be happy. How rotten of her to be envious that he was going to get something she’d always wanted. Shame bore down on her and the tears returned.

Josh soothed her with nonsense and the strength of his arms around her. “Come on, sunshine. It’s all gonna be all right. If all that hell wouldn’t have happened, I wouldn’t be here right now, sittin’ smack in the middle of heaven, holdin’ you.”

* * * *

Josh felt Sarah stiffen at the reminder of their new position. The front of his shirt was damp from her tears. Warm puffs of her breath drifted over the wet cotton. He tightened the band of his arms around her before letting them go slack. He didn’t want Sarah to move but left the choice up to her.

She placed a hand on his chest and levered herself up enough to look him in the eye. Sarah was the only woman he knew who made crying look good. She probably wouldn’t agree with him. Her nose was pink at the tip and her eyes sparkled from her tears. Somehow, her irises looked a lighter shade of green, from jade to emerald.

She was stunning. It still broke his heart to see her cry.

Josh cupped her cheek and wiped a tear away with his thumb. Sarah didn’t flinch away. Instead, she closed her eyes and leaned into the support of his palm. She kept her lids closed when she whispered, “I missed you, Josh.”

“Sarah, I missed you too. So much…”

He didn’t finish his sentence. Sarah cut him off by pressing her lips to his. They were soft, and hot and salty from her tears. His heart started hammering. The moment was so sweet, it felt like they were having their first kiss all over again. He didn’t know where to put his hands, and he was afraid to move in case it made her stop.

Sarah leaned in and framed his face with her fingers, keeping him in place. He sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere. She tipped her head to the other side to get a better angle, and Josh gave in and rested his hands on her hips. Kissing Sarah was like coming home, only home was even better than he remembered. Everything was sweeter, hotter, and more intense than the watered-down memories of a dozen years.