Clear (Storm's Soldiers MC Book 3) (8 page)

The two men talked behind me and seasoned the fish. The winds shifted and brought the salty, spicy aroma straight to my nose. I forced down the hunger gushing into my mouth and sat down by the flame.

“Is that enough?” I asked. The fish had felt big in my hands, but they looked like guppies skewered up one after another on the stick.

“Just getting y’all in that war mood,” Vaughn said. “This is a far sight better than what those soldiers had to eat, union or confederate.”

“Yeah, and they didn’t have soap or toothbrushes either,” I said. “I’ll take a pass on walking in their footsteps.”

“Gotta know the past to understand the future. Didn’t you tell me that?”

Vaughn’s eyes danced with the flame between us. He’d taken me to the place his mom had died. My family had lived not too far away at one point. The gas station woman had come hobbling out at us, but the livid look on her face washed away after seeing me. She waggled her shoulders and headed on back in, but Vaughn chased after her and asked her something. She nodded and he came back slouched. Apparently his brother was coming around more than ever. This was the only bit of news he had about his family. The two men had cut him off as clean as a guillotine.

“You two can have my cut,” Darryl said. “I’m not in a sushi mood.”

“Not with that empty cabin,” Vaughn chuckled.

Darryl flicked him off, but that set Vaughn laughing even harder. “Brother, you gotta stop serving em up easy.”

Darryl’s lips fumbled with words. I threw an arm across my brother’s back. “You could have at least asked her to come.”

“It’s way too soon,” he said. “We had one good date. I don’t want to blow it by giving her cabin fever.”

“Wouldn’t be the one blowing anything,” Vaughn said.

Both of us stared death at him now. Darryl was right. His first date with Tara had gone well, but she was a traditional sort of girl, especially with a guy like Darryl. I’d cashed in so many favors to pull that one off.

“I’m glad she ain’t around to hear this nonsense,” Darryl said. “Can’t force open a girl like that.”

I moved away from him, suddenly hot with the memory of just how easily Vaughn had forced me open. Well, different strokes for different folks.

“Aubrey would be willing to go just about anywhere with you,” I offered.

“I’ll keep it in mind in case I need a rebound.”

“Just more fish for us,” Vaughn said. He took the stick off the spit, broke it in half and handed one part to me. I brushed back the burnt scales and peeled off rich, oily chunks of meat. I didn’t know what river fish this was, but we were just about at the ocean now, so it could have come upstream. The fire crackled and I savored each juicy bite. My appetite roared after the night before, but this was a good start.

Darryl ate from a sleeve of crackers. I offered him some fish but he just shook his head.

We tossed the remains near a compost heap, then washed up and refilled by the fountains.

“Good to go?” Vaughn asked, shaking off the water he’d poured over himself. I got a bit lost in the gleaming white muscles until he snapped his fingers in my face.

“I’m ready,” I said, pulling on my floppy summer hat. “But you guys can’t walk around here toplesss. There’s kids.”

Darryl and Vaughn exchanged looks. “There’s moms,” they said, and burst out laughing.

A few minutes later we set off, them in jeans and tees, and me looking posh in my blue dress and southern belle hat. The trail went off quite a ways, but first we headed through the preserved battlefield.

The mounds I’d seen from the distance were little more than rumps of earth up close. The boys looked to be barely containing the urge to make breast rubbing motions over the contours. Some of the hills had doors and some of those were open for visitation.

Vaughn and I went into one and looked over the fake confederate model huddled by toy ammunition stores and tin cans of food. The guy’s mouth hung open as if he were hearing Union shells rain down around him.

“Would this hold under a direct cannon hit?” I asked.

Vaughn prodded the cracked mud ceiling. “No, definitely not against some of the artillery the North had by the end. They had early versions of what the Prussians used against the French in Europe.

“Wow. Learned that or knew it?”

“That’s not from classes.”

“Then you should be teaching them.”

He shrugged, still exploring every inch of the little space. He’d sat in on a couple of my classes at school. I’d offered to pay for him to take them for credit, but he said I’d done enough already. Besides, training was going to interrupt anyway.

Training. It was just ten weeks, but the air felt colder thinking about how this was my last full day with him for that long.

“Why’d you think this guy held out?” I asked, eyeing the shell-shocked mannequin dozing on the straw pile. “Why wouldn’t he just run?”

Vaughn glanced back at me. “You asking me if he was a true believer?”

“I guess.”

He gave the guy a pitying shake of the head, all the much sadder given how much he looked like could be the guy’s brother. “He might be. Or he might just be stuck with people who won’t let him live without the cause. He might be too scared to run. Too scared to do anything until it’s too late and he’s canon fodder.”

I’d meant to change the topic, but fresh panic seized me. I threw my arms around Vaughn’s waist. “Promise me you’ll run,” I said. “Promise me you won’t get lost in a cause that ain’t good.”

Vaughn’s broad chest rumbled with laughter. “Jesus, Darlin. I’m joining the National Guard not the damn Navy Seals. A few laps, a few shots at a wooden board and I’ll be right back here with you. They’ve got no wars to send me to.”

I felt silly and safe at the same time. Sure, there was no war now, but there could be. That would hang over our heads, but Vaughn had insisted he serve. He wanted to be a real soldier after living under the shame of the fake name for so long. I couldn’t stop him.

“Besides,” he said. “You might recall I was all up in a lost cause until recently.”

He held me away and smiled that crooked smile down at me.

“At least it wasn’t likely to get you killed,” I said.

“No, but I would have wasted my life, and that’s even worse. Don’t worry, if they ever need to send me out, I’ll be fine. If I’m in danger, I’ll do the same thing I did before.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll remember your face and find my way back to it.”

I ran a hand along that high cheek off his. He nuzzled into it with a kiss, then bent down into me and delivered a searing one to my lips. It burned away all my fears even in this dank, dark cave.

Vaughn’s arm slid around me, and he turned me towards the entrance. “I’m done here,” he said. “You?”

Darryl waited outside for us. The blooming forest trails and the bright blue sky waited. So did the rest of our lives together, more vast and full of possibilities than the past that had brought us here.

I grinned up at him. “Let’s go.”

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