A Soldier’s Family (6 page)

“Just curious.” And concerned, because he doubted Celia was aware Javier’s friends, some of whom were girls, showed up after she left and hit the road before she got home a few hours later. Since she didn’t offer up information on where it was she went, he’d leave it be. But he felt Celia should know of Javier’s activities. Yet he didn’t want to damage the trust Javier had in him. Tough call. God would help him figure it out.

Until then, he would follow Celia because the curiosity was driving him mad and life had become way too boring the past month. He needed some excitement and adventure.

“I’m doing nothing illegal, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Manny laughed out loud. “That’s absolutely not what I was thinking.”

“Then what? You have a guilty look on your face.”

He shook his head. How could he say this without offending her or making her doubt her parenting skills, or giving up Javier’s secrets in case Celia wasn’t aware of the friends coming over?

Help, Lord?

“I just wonder if leaving him alone at night is the wisest thing right now, since he’s not always making the best decisions.”

She smacked the steering wheel. “See? There you go again, downing me as a parent. For your information, I have to work three jobs to make ends meet. And unfortunately Javier consumes food like an excavator eats dirt. He averages a box of cereal and a gallon of milk every two days.”

He held his hands palms up. “Okay.” He knew she taught at the Christian elementary school. What were her other two jobs? Maybe Javier would tell him. Manny didn’t like the idea of Celia working herself to death. Maybe he could find some way to help her and Javier.

First he’d have to do some amateur sleuthing.

“T
his thing got heat?” Manny flipped toggles and pressed buttons all over the car’s dash as they went down the road. Celia thought he looked like a pilot doing cabin preflight.

Celia twisted a vertical knob horizontal. Warm air gusted from the vents. “You don’t have a jacket?” She eyed his short-sleeved shirt and realized he probably hadn’t had time to shop.

Manny shook his head. “I haven’t had a chance to have Bits send clothes here.”

Celia wondered who Bits was. “You want to borrow a jacket? I’ve got plenty at home.”

Manny skittered his eyes over her, then the sweater that lay folded on the console. “One of my arms wouldn’t fit in your tiny jackets.”

Tiny? Okay, maybe she liked this guy, after all. She wore a ten! Okay, mostly twelves. But she’d let him stay deluded as long as possible on the matter.

His unintended compliment lifted her shoulders a notch. “Nor would red suede with silver studs suit your style. Javier has tons of those oversize hoodies.” She drew a breath. “And I admit I still have a box of Joseph’s clothes in the basement.”

Manny cast her a sidelong glance.

“He was a pretty big guy. If you don’t mind wearing a dead guy’s duds, I don’t mind loaning them to you until that Bits guy can send some of your own.”

“It won’t bother you to see Joseph’s stuff on me?” His expression softened.

Her shoulders dropped. Truthfully she didn’t know how it would affect her, but she didn’t want Manny going cold. They kept that restaurant like an ice cave. “I’ll be fine. I’m tough.” She winked at him.

“I know.” He rubbed his lip again and flashed a wry grin.

Celia rolled her eyes and turned the car around, heading back to get him a jacket.

Manny sifted through Javier’s CD collection. “By the way, Bits is a girl.”

Celia shrugged off the uncomfortable sensation his words wrought. “Oh. Interesting name.”

“Yeah. It’s short for Bitsy. She hates her long name, so the team calls her Bits.”

“The team?” Celia didn’t like that the fondness with which Manny spoke of Bits caused her discomfort. She hated more the fact that Manny seemed to pick up on it, judging by the way he hawk-eyed her now.

“Chance has a sister. She and Bits are best friends and roommates. They travel with the team wherever we end up stationed. For years they’ve helped us with laundry and stateside errands and watch over our stuff when we’re deployed.”

“You involved with her?” Celia cringed as soon as the words left her mouth. Especially when Manny grinned.

“Why? Would it bother you if I said yes?”

She feigned a scowl. “Of course not!”

His widening grin alerted her that she’d answered with more speed and vehemence than she should have.

“I’m not interested in Bits. Besides, I’m pretty sure she’s got a huge crush on Chance.”

The fact that he studied her intently after saying the words caused Celia to have to work at appearing unaffected.

She despised that his divulgence of information brought a blip of joy and a granule of relief.

Careful, Celia. Think: dude with a desk job. Dude with a desk job. A tie. Loafers. Not a human warrior in combat boots, parachute harnesses and fast ropes.

It was perfectly natural to be intrigued by Manny. After all, how often did one get to meet face-to-face, much less know, a United States Special Forces soldier? A real-life, top-notch warrior. Intrigue. That’s all it was. Had to be.

“You wait here, I’ll just be a minute,” Celia said once in her driveway.

“Um, Celia?”

One leg on the running board, half of her still on the seat, she pivoted to face him, feeling dread at his cautionary tone. “Um, yeah?”

He scratched his forehead. “Uh, I don’t know quite how to say this without embarrassing you.” His forehead wrinkled.

What on earth? “Just tell me. I can handle it.” She hadn’t meant that to come out chopped and demanding. Celia almost laughed at the amount of concentration taking over his features. His jaw worked and his mouth moved but no sound came out, as if it couldn’t formulate words.

She threw her hands up. “Just spit it out already.”

A smile played at the corner of his lips. His finger flicked something up near her rib cage. “You might want to cut that tag off from under your arm while you’re in there.”

She felt her face blanch, and for once she clamped her mouth shut. She wished the seat would gobble her up.

In pretense of a dignified huff, she left the car, heater running and took her porch stairs two at a time. She laughed out loud at herself by the top step, nearly tripping. As if the sticky tag hadn’t been bad enough. At least he’d spared her, or Javier, a more public embarrassment. The markings of a true friend. Maybe there was hope for them, after all.

Manny was right. “Those stairs are dangerous.” Truth was, she’d tried to fix them, like many other household things that had broken since Joseph died, but she must not have used the correct hardware in the rail.

Once in the house Celia hunted down a pair of scissors and mercilessly attacked the tag of betrayal. She opted to see if Javier had something Manny could fit into before trudging to the basement and opening a box of old memories.

She pushed open one side of Javier’s rolling closet door. Flipping through T-shirts where he kept his winter stuff, she decided two things. One, her kid’s closet smelled worse than a locker room. Two, the oversize gray hoodie with black dragonlike flames going up both arms would likely fit Manny. At least she wouldn’t have to venture down to the basement and—

“Ah!”

Celia tripped over fallen shoe boxes, knocking the lid off one. The bottom dropped out of her stomach as the box’s contents shifted into view.

The hoodie slipped from her arms that numbness overtook by the second. She forgot how to breathe, how to think. She loosed her fingers from pressing her temples.

“No!” Short of breath, Celia dropped to her knees and stared at the shoe opening. She snatched the box in a death grip and brought it to her nose, then dropped it as though a farm of roaches skittered out.

“No. No. No. Please don’t let that be what it looks like.”

Celia reached trembling hands to the shoe box, pulling out the glass pipe. It must have dislodged when the box fell from the closet shelf. She lifted it to her nose, sniffing to see if it smelled like—

“Oh, Javier. Not my little boy. How could you? How? Especially after…” Celia swallowed and blinked against the sting of tears behind her eyes. She sniffed a breath in and blew it out slowly, trying to slow her pounding heart. She shouldn’t jump to conclusions. There had to be an explanation for this besides what she feared.

She stood on weak legs and fumbled the lid back on the box. Should she replace it in the top of the closet to look undisturbed so she could watch Javier? Or should she leave the boxes out so Javier could see when he got home that she’d found his stash? Should she confront him outright? And if so, when?

“Oh, God, please, please don’t let this be his.”

An urge to drive through the wall of his workplace struck her. That’s where he’d met the new friends she didn’t approve of. Javier had changed since working there. Maybe she should make him quit his job. He’d resent her, but so what? It could save his life. Maybe she should storm in there, shove the pipe in his face and see his reaction. “Just let him try to deny it.”

She wished he could. She didn’t want this to be his. Celia jerked the mirrored closet door shut. It bounced back. She stomped and pulled it again. Manny waited outside so she needed to stop assaulting the door and get back.

How could Javier even think of getting involved with drugs when his own father had been killed by a dealer?

Celia’s composure went by the wayside. Knees knocking together, she stumbled through the house like a fifteenth-century zombie in twenty-first-century shock. She paused in the hall, placing her hand on the wall for balance before going outside. Did she want Manny knowing about this? He’d really think her an incompetent mother.

The very thought battered her. Never mind that. Her son was in trouble.

“Javier, how could you?” she whispered to pictures in frames that held his smiling faces from kindergarten through tenth grade. She ran her fingers over the photos with one hand.

She turned the glass object over and over in her other hand, hating it, wishing she could fling it, shatter it against the Aztec tile into a million pieces and make this all go away. Despair dashed against the shores of her mind, drowning her ability to even think straight and be rational about this.

Her son could be on drugs.

Drugs killed people at most; at least, ruined their lives. Few people escaped addiction’s talons. Maybe this was a misunderstanding. A joke. Maybe it wasn’t Javier’s pipe. Maybe it wasn’t a pipe all. Maybe she was paranoid.

Maybe she could ‘denial’ her son right into the grave, too.

“Lord, please give me wisdom and discretion how to deal with this devastating sign that my son is already off the deep and flailing blind for his life.” Tears dripped to the floor as the prayer poured from trembling lips.

She stopped in the bathroom to fix her raccoon eyes, which weren’t too bad thanks to waterproof mascara, yet for once in her life not really caring what she looked like.

Celia clicked off the bathroom light and approached the front door. She lifted her shoulders before opening it.

Maybe Manny wouldn’t pick up on her dismay and worry.

“W
hat’s wrong, Celia?” Manny tugged the sweatshirt hoodie over his T-shirt.

Silence greeted his question. The car tires crunched over gravel as she backed out of the driveway. Though she shuttered her expression, her knuckles blanched white from gripping the steering wheel.

He couldn’t believe the hoodie fit. While Javier was taller than Celia by about a foot, he wasn’t that filled out yet. He wondered how teens today kept baggy clothes from falling off. Three of Javier could have fit in this thing and still have room to rap. He appreciated the hoodie. The wind had grown chilly outside. So had the air inside the car, even with the heater full blast. “Celia?”

“Nothing.”

He studied her as she drove. Tense lines drew her face taut and she’d straightened her spine. Too straight. Her demeanor had altered from how it was when she went inside.

Manny buckled his seat belt. “I don’t believe you about nothing being wrong. You can tell me.”

Rigidity lined her face, her mouth compressed. “The cat chewed up my duck slippers that Javier got me.”

Her voice cracked on her son’s name. Interesting. “Right.”

The entire drive to the business district, silence reigned in the car. What troubled her?

Him? No, Manny didn’t get that sense. Something else. Celia was too quiet. That in and of itself provided a major clue since quiet didn’t exactly define her nature.

Manny shifted to face her. “Something upsetting happened in the house? Am I on target?”

For a second, surprise blinked across her eyes. Her fingers relaxed on the steering wheel, then she nodded. “Like a heat-seeking missile.”

His insides melted when her lips quivered and a tear glittered in her eye. Seconds ticked by.

“Cool beans.” He figured she stalled to gather the gall to dump whatever troubled her on him. He hoped she would. Manny couldn’t explain why it mattered so much that Celia could feel safe talking to him, but it did. Maybe because he had sisters her age.

“Actually, hot beans. Their green chili is wicked.” Celia pulled into the restaurant’s back lot, then shoved the gearshift into Park. Glaring at the orange cinder-block building, she jerked up a water bottle from the cup holder. She twisted and squeezed it. Crinkling sounds echoed off the upholstery.

Manny clicked his seat belt loose. “You’re nervous. Or upset, one of the two.”

“What makes you say that?”

Manny fought the urge to grab the bottle. “You gesture like a crazed music conductor when you get nervous or angry or afraid. If the space you’re in won’t allow your arms the freedom to go airborne, you compulsively fidget.”

The crinkling stopped. “I do not.”

A low, dull thudding started where crinkling left off. Vibrations traveled across his side of the floorboard. The seat bounced lightly from the downward pressure of her heel tapping out a rhythm on the foot mat. He decided not to bring it to her attention but it confirmed his suspicions. Something in the house had taken a nasty bite out of her. What?

If there was a puzzle to solve, Manny had to be in the middle of it. “Was it something I said or did? The tag maybe?”

She shook her head.

He didn’t think so. He’d seen her laugh up the stairs. Heard it actually. And admittedly the sound had bypassed his ears and wafted straight to his heart.

“Did you go through your late husband’s clothes?” That could have renewed powerful waves of grief. He could certainly understand and relate to that.

“No.” She stared out the driver’s-side window, her only movement a discreet hand coming up to brush her cheeks. When her fingers came away glistening, his heart melted further. He resisted the compulsion to reach for her. He couldn’t help it. The way he was raised, where there were tears, hugs were sure to follow.

A soft sound, close to a sob, escaped her though he could tell by her pursed lips she tried to stifle it.

He shoved both hands far beneath his thighs to keep from reaching for her in what could be taken the wrong way, even though he’d mean it as pure comfort. His arms ached to hold her. Growing up with sisters had made him a secret softie.

“I’m here when you’re ready to talk about what’s bothering you, Celia.” He didn’t push, though perplexing questions toyed with his mind as to what went on behind those wide, arresting eyes. Then they sought him out across the expanse of the car.

The space between them shrunk. She drew a big breath and held it. “I need to ask you something.”

“Anything.” He propped his elbow on the knee of his good leg, pivoting at an angle to show her he was open to listening.

She stuck her face in her suitcase that he’d finally decided had to be a purse. She plunged both hands in and dug around. He didn’t know how she found anything in it.

Trembling fists surfaced, clutching something. “I need to know if this is what I think it is before I rush in there and decapitate my son with my bare hands for trampling on his father’s grave with a betrayal like this.” She opened her hands.

His heart gave a thud of dread at the sight of the pot pipe. He reached for it, careful not to brush her hand, though his fingers longed to impart strength and reassurance. “Where’d you find it?”

“It fell out of a shoe box in his closet.” Her voice quivered.

He turned the pipe over. “What else did you find?”

Her shoulders slumped. “I didn’t look. I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly when I found it.”

“I understand.” Manny did a gentle bounce with his hand, weighing the object and its implications.

Celia squared her shoulders. “You think it’s a meth pipe?”

“Nope. Purely for marijuana.”
Boy, how could you put your mother through this heartache? How’d you get mixed up with this crowd? Especially after one of them murdered your father?

Unless…

Something hit Manny. He didn’t like the direction of his thoughts. Surely Javier would be smart enough not to try to exact revenge on those responsible for his father’s death.

Wouldn’t he?

Either way, this pipe signaled impending trouble.

Celia’s head snapped up and a gasp escaped her.

Manny tracked her gaze to the restaurant’s back exit. Javier and two other apron-clad employees filed out the door and huddled near a Dumpster. A flicker of a lighter, then a red spark trailed to one kid’s mouth. He handed the cigarette to Javier, who held it between his thumb and forefinger instead of his two first fingers. The three passed the cigarette between them, holding the exhale too long for it to be a typical cigarette.

“I’m going to throttle him, then filet his friends.” Celia jerked the car door but Manny grabbed her wrist, prohibiting her from leaping out and barreling over there.

“Let. Me. Go!” Her eyes went ablaze with anger and she tried repeatedly to jerk her hand free. The increasing pressure he exerted left a pink tinge to her skin, but Manny refused to let her go like this. “Wait. Let’s be rational about this.”

Manny had the same urge to jump from the car and put a choke hold on the kid who’d decided to share his goods with the others. “Let’s pray.” Though he wasn’t exactly a pro at it, it seemed like the thing to do. It’s what Joel would do in this sort of situation. It surprised Manny that the thought to pray entered his mind now where it never did before.

“God, please help me not kill my son’s friends in cold blood.” Celia glared at the huddle of kids through her front windshield, all the while working to free her hand.

Manny didn’t laugh because she sounded serious. “Father, help us deal with this, using divine wisdom and discretion.”

Her head swerved right to peer at him when he said the word
us.
Manny noticed because he prayed with his eyes open.

“Let’s go.” Manny released her hand and extracted himself from the car. They were halfway to the threesome before the boys noticed their approach. Javier’s eyes widened and he said something to the tall one. The short kid dropped the joint to the earth and put his foot over it.

“Hey, Mom. Whatcha doin’ here?” Javier shuffled dirt with his shoe and avoided Manny’s pointed gaze. Nervous didn’t even begin to describe Javier’s body language. Quaking in fear for his life came close.

Celia plowed past the first kid and backed her son up against the Dumpster using both hands on his chest. “How dare you? And you!” Celia glared past him where the other two had started to scramble their way up the steps leading inside the establishment. “Where do you two think you’re going? You’re gonna stay here and listen to what I have to say.”

Manny stood back, watching. Javier looked straight-up scared, and ashamed, which meant there was hope. The short kid looked even more scared. The tall kid looked lethal mad with no sign of remorse. Something unsettling filtered through Manny at the kid’s calm.

Like a calm before a devastating storm.

He needed to stress to Javier that this kid was bad news and try to get Javier out from under his sphere of influence.

“I should turn you in. All of you.” She shot Javier a pointed glare. “What would your father say if he could see you?”

Her words caused Javier’s eyes to flutter and his breathing to increase.

Celia took one step back from Javier and turned fiery eyes on the ringleader. “You stay away from my son, or you’ll be sorry. I could wring your neck right here and now, and not think twice about it. Neither would the cops.” For every menacing step she took toward him, the kid actually scrambled back.

“Your mom’s psycho.” He must have taken Celia at her word because his hands tugged his collar lapels closer around his neck.

“I make my own decisions,” Javier told her, glancing at the other two guys. When he glanced at Manny, his steps faltered and the hard planes of his face softened a moment. Then he stormed into the restaurant, followed by the other two, one of whom smirked all the way up the stairs.

The door slammed, echoing into the staunch evening that seemed to darken with each passing second.