Her Survivor: A Black Eagle Ops Novel (5 page)

Junebug must have captivated JJ’s heart. Dustin never imagined the quiet, solemn man could be as open and easygoing as he was with this older woman.

A smile deepened the wrinkles of her cheeks and she fiddled with the button on her cotton blouse. “See how they spoil me? Austin, that’s my late husband, and I tried for years to have a baby until, finally, we’d given up. Then one morning I got sick”—her blue eyes glistened with joy—“and I just knew we were finally getting our miracle.”

ZQ set the pie, a large knife, and dessert plates in front of her. “I had the best parents in the world, Dust. Growing up on this ranch, even with all the work, was a charmed life with my folks.

“That’s why when Zane retired and came home to help with the ranch, we couldn’t understand his behavior.” She picked up the knife with the wide blade, gently cutting the air with it as she talked. “I’d heard of men coming home with PTSD, but I thought that mainly centered around nightmares or fear of leaving the house or something.

“Austin and I would hear Zane cry out in the middle of the night as if he were fighting the devil himself.” She cut the pie in half, then stopped, and stared at Dustin. “We began to notice small things set him off and he’d go into a rage. It upset his daddy so, when his son would get like that. I worried it would wear down Austin’s resistance to the cancer even more.” She finished cutting the pie and placed pieces on the plates.

ZQ handed them around. “Keep on with your story. You’ve already told JJ and curious Dust, here, will soon notice the hole anyway. This kid never misses a trick.”

She chuckled and winked at Dustin. “I’ll remember that. How’s the pie, darlin’?”

Dustin had never tasted anything like it. An explosion on his tongue—sweet, tart, and cinnamon-spiced, all at the same time. “Junebug, it’s fabulous.” His gaze settled on the empty pie pan. “Did you only make one?”

She threw her head back and laughed. “Raising this human garbage disposal, do you think I ever make just one of anything?”

Dustin leaned toward her. “Now, what’s this big story you were going to tell me?”

Junebug nodded as she chewed and swallowed. “Supper was about ready one day. Austin was sitting where Zane is now.” She motioned with her fork. “I called for Zane, but he was staring at the television set. The news was on and a clip was being shown about that awful ISIS blowing up a village and killing children. I called him again, but it was like he was in a trance.” She took another bite.

Dustin glanced at ZQ, saw the sweat bead on his forehead, and knew he dreaded hearing what his mother was about to say. Yet, he’d told her to tell the story. Ah, he was punishing himself, just like Dustin relived the explosion that had killed Wysocki. Every time he did, he asked himself if there’d been something he’d done wrong. What clue had he missed?

“When Zane finally stormed into the kitchen, he was in a frenzy, ranting about how if he’d trained his team better he wouldn’t have lost so many men. His mission wouldn’t have gone to hell and back. I tried to calm him down, but he had me rattled. I’d never seen him like that! Thank goodness Austin’s back was toward us because my son raised his fist to me. That’s when I grabbed a frying pan and threatened to whoop his sorry behind. I said some things. He did, too.”

She exhaled a long sigh. “My big mouth kicked into Texan-high-gear, and I started laying a guilt trip on him about upsetting his daddy when he was sick with cancer. Well, fudge and buttermilk, next thing I knew Zane was beating up my new refrigerator, screaming, and saying things that didn’t make a lick of sense. I just backed away in tears.” She sipped at her coffee and wiped moisture from her eyes.

Then she made a large arc with her hands. “All at once, this loud
ka-bloom
liked to deafen us both! Austin had reached for his granddad’s shotgun he kept in the corner over there, for emergencies. He fired toward the ceiling.” She pointed upward to a large hole Dustin hadn’t noticed. “Well, we both swiveled to see him on the chair, ceiling dust and chunks of plaster over his head and shoulders.” She leaned toward Dustin and snorted. “Hell, he looked right comical.” She covered her mouth with her wrinkled hand and giggled a little. “Austin was a gentle soul, until you got him riled.” She sipped more coffee and smiled. “God, he was a
good
man.”

Dustin quickly tore his attention from the hole above him, his hands fisted on his thighs and his breathing rapid. Sweat poured down his back. There’d been so many houses in the Middle East with similar holes in their walls. He forced his concentration on Junebug as she continued with her story. He could
not
have a flashback now.

“
ʻ
Everyone sit the hell down at this table,’ Austin bellowed.
ʻ
The three of us are gonna hold hands—in love,
dammit
—and talk!’ ” She lowered her voice in what Dustin assumed was her imitation of her husband laying down the law. “Our confrontation opened the channels of communication about our boy’s emotional and mental state. We learned a lot about what he was dealing with and what PTSD could really do to a person. As a result, the three of us grew closer.” She reached for her son’s hand. “Change didn’t happen overnight, that’s for sure, but I’ve got my boy back.”

Dustin went over it all in his head. The admirals talking to ZQ at the hospital, as if he were on their level. ZQ’s harsh training he put the team through before their mission. His increased insistence on following the rules. One by one, things clicked. “You came back after you lost your foot because you knew the team was being sent to Syria on that mission to fight ISIS and train local militia. That’s why you pushed yourself when you already had enough years in to retire. You didn’t want us to face them without you.”

His officer in charge turned his woebegone gaze on him. “Yes. And I still let the team down. How many men did I lose? How many got hurt? Ashley got abducted.” He ran a hand over his face and heaved a sigh. “ISIS is one hell of an advisory. They have no compunction about killing civilians, even babies. They are sick sonsabitches.”

Dustin clamped his hand around ZQ’s forearm. “You’ll get no argument from me, Commander. What I do take issue with is your thinking you let us down in any way.”

“That’s what the admirals said after they debriefed me. It was damned hard to believe them when all I could focus on was my team and the hell we’d fought through.” ZQ shook his head once, his shoulders slumped. “First time I ever felt like a failure.”

JJ pounded his index finger on the tabletop. “You had us trained into one hell of a sharp team. Why is it you think they asked us to go? Because of how you pushed us to our limits every damn day. How you had us believing in the mantra, the more you train in peace, the less you bleed in war. Hell, you had us thinking alike so we could damn near read each other’s minds. No one could have done that but you, ZQ. You! Brother, you’ve got to let that shit go. Bad enough we’ve got the real motherfucking memories to live with, don’t heap needless guilt on top of all that shit. You’re better than that. We
all
are. We’re SEALs.”

Dustin stared at JJ. “Hell, man, I didn’t know you could talk that much, but I gotta admit I agree with everything you just said.”

JJ smiled and shot a glance at Junebug. “Well, you have this lady to thank for that. She reminds me of my late grandma Ophelia, whose passing left a gaping hole in my life. She’d raised me. Lost, I joined the Navy a week after her funeral. Now I have Junebug who’s been a big help just being herself, making me talk, and pulling me out of my dark place.”

“You all have me.” She held up the coffeepot. “Anyone want a refill?” All three men extended their mugs.

Once they’d helped her clean the kitchen, and the dishwasher was swishing away, ZQ built a fire in the fire pit. Junebug claimed she’d spend her evening on her recliner, reading the book for Wanda’s book club.

JJ emptied all the cubes from the ice maker into a cooler and shoved as many beers into it as he could. It didn’t take long for the three men to start reliving times past, laughing at all the dumb stuff they and other members of their team had done over the years.

At one point, the screen door slammed shut. ZQ leaned forward. “Incoming firestorm.”

Junebug stomped down the steps and tossed her book into the fire. “Fudge and buttermilk, I
refuse
to read any more of these crappy books. Zane, I don’t care how much you fuss at me that I need to get out more. Do you know what that book was about?” She pointed to the orange and blue flame.

“No, ma’am.” He wiped his hand across his mouth as if to block the smile curling at the corners.

“The lives of two homosexual horses. Homosexual horses! Have you ever heard of such a thing? Two stallions who couldn’t keep their…their…” Her wrinkled hands fisted on her hips. “
Who
in their right mind would write such a book? And why on God’s green earth would Wanda pick it for us to read? I refuse to sit in a roomful of women all dolled up in their Sunday-go-to-meeting finery to talk about two horses sticking their dongs into each other.” A gnarled finger rose and shook at her son. “Not that I have anything against homosexuals. Clarice and Suzanne have lived together for years and years. I love them both, dearly. Gays and lesbians are one thing, but homosexual horses are just too much to comprehend.” She whirled around and stormed for the house. Halfway across the back porch, she hollered over her shoulder, “I don’t want to hear another word on the subject! I’m having a shot of whiskey and going to bed.”

“Yes, Mother.” The screen door slammed again, and all of them started laughing. “I’ve been expecting that explosion all night. I read enough of the book in Kelcee’s store to know the gist of the subject matter and I know the hotspur that just threw a little hissy fit just now. As Pop would say, ‘She’s a pistol.’ ”

The talk and laughter about the good old days continued, and Dustin grew weary. He bid the guys good night and trudged for his quarters. Once he’d shed his clothes and prosthesis, he did stretching exercises, sit-ups, and push-ups. There was a pull-up bar across the entrance to his bathroom. He did a few of those, too. A hot shower, and he crawled beneath the covers.

The exercises and medications should have put him to sleep, yet he tossed and turned for a while. Green eyes and a sexy voice occupied his thoughts. He reached for his cell and dialed, hoping Kelcee would still be awake. A deep need he couldn’t explain twisted within his gut to talk to her.

“Hello?”

Christ, what am I doing? I’ve already called her once today. I don’t want her to think I’m some kind of needy stalker.

“This is Dustin, Kelcee. Please tell me I didn’t waken you.”

“No.” Bedclothes rustled.

He had to think of some kind of rational excuse for calling a woman he’d just met twice in one day. What a moron! “Look, I called to make sure I didn’t say anything inappropriate the first time I called you. I’d just taken a double dose of pain medicine and was more than a little loopy. If I said anything out of line, I apologize.” Boy, was he glad she couldn’t see his face. She was probably the type who could tell if a man was lying.

“Well…I did find it odd that you proposed.”

“Pr-proposed?”
What the hell is she talking about? I did no such thing.

“And I
was
a little put off at your insistence on eight kids, but when you promised to have my name tattooed over your heart, in cursive, with a ring of barbed-wire intermingled with roses around it, I knew it was true love.”

“You’re playing me, aren’t you?” Hell, for a minute she had him so confused he thought he
had
said some stupid shit like that.

She was giggling so hard she couldn’t speak. The word “sorry” finally squeaked out. Oh, she had some payback coming.

He drummed his fingers over his pecs until she got herself under control. “Is this how you show respect to a serviceman? By teasing him into a heart attack? I’ve already got a tattoo, Kelcee. A tribal on my shoulder and bicep.”

“I’ve got a butterfly, but I won’t tell you where.”

His cock stirred at all the possibilities. “I hope I didn’t call you at a bad time.” Had he said that already? Hell, she had him so perplexed, he couldn’t remember.

“Nope. I’m just reading before I turn out the light for the night.” Her voice was sinfully breathy as she whispered into the phone. God, he could listen to her all night.

He chuckled, lowering his voice in kind. “I hope you’re not reading the book for Wanda’s book club. Junebug threw hers in the fire already.”

There was more swishing of bedclothes. “She did? Why?”

He told Kelcee the entire story of Junebug’s hissy fit. They both laughed over the elderly woman’s behavior. Kelcee quipped a joke and Dustin made one, trying to top hers. She fired back another. So did he. Before long, the two were in hysterics. He hadn’t laughed with a woman like this before, and it felt so damn good.

“It’s getting late, Kelcee. I’d love to talk longer, but I don’t want to keep you up past your bedtime.”

“I don’t mind. We could chat for another ten minutes or so.”

He smiled and rolled onto his side. “Tell me about this Wanda. What is she like?”

“Ugh. The bitch is the bane of my existence. She hated that her dad hired me. I was new in town and she didn’t trust me. But his health was declining, he needed help with the store. She complained about everything I did when she took the time to stop by to see her dad.”

Thirty minutes later, they said “good night.” Dustin drifted off to sleep, his cheek muscles aching from all the smiling he’d done during their conversation. A woman like Kelcee Todd could brighten a man’s world.

After breakfast the next morning, ZQ handed Dustin a box of architectural drawing supplies. “Here’s a present. Mom’s gone to visit a sick friend. Clarice, whom she mentioned last night, just got home from the hospital a couple days ago. You’ll have the kitchen to yourself. JJ and I are riding out to check the fence along the west side of the range. My foreman, Elroy, and ranch hand, Alonzo, will check the east side. Bill and Cookie are checking on the steers, taking some bales of hay out to them.

“We’ll be back around fourteen hundred hours before the heat of the day does us in. Gina’s scheduled to come by to do your evaluation around seventeen hundred hours, when she’s through with her round of patients. Until then, help yourself to whatever you want to eat, except for that apple pie sitting over there.” ZQ pointed to the second pie Junebug had baked yesterday.

“Can I ask a question that’s been bugging me?”

ZQ had just lifted his cowboy hat off one of the hooks beside the back door. He stopped and turned, a grin pulling at the corners of his lips. “Dust, I haven’t known a time when you didn’t have a question niggling at your gut. Spit it out.”

Dustin pointed at the hole in the ceiling. “I see where someone put plywood down to cover the other side of the opening. Why haven’t you fixed it entirely, so the eyesore is gone?”

“Oh, I wanted to, believe me. It’s a constant reminder of a bad time in my life, but Mom says it stays for just that reason. Claims that shotgun blast started to bring the real me back to her and Pop. This kitchen is her domain. Whatever Mom says goes.” ZQ jerked his head toward the drawing supplies. “Have a good day working. Later, brother.”

Dustin removed the diagramming and sketching items from the box, spread Kelcee’s drawing over the table, and studied it…and studied it…and studied…His mind wandered. He linked his fingers behind his neck and leaned back, focusing on the large hole in the ceiling from ZQ’s dad’s gun.

Objects blurred. The acrid smell of smoke overwhelmed his senses as did the booms of explosions, the repeating
pop-pop-pop
of gunfire, and endless screaming. He braced his trembling hands over his ears, but the origin of everything disturbing him was the slew of memories stored in his head. His personal hell would not be silenced, nor erased. He clamped his hands on his thighs, hoping the tremors overtaking his body would stop and the sweat pouring from his face would ebb.

The tablet Kelcee had given him was turned over on the table, her phone number and flowery doodads around it became a focal point, a grounding spot for his battle-suffering mind. Slowly, heartbeat by heartbeat, jagged breath by jagged breath, the flashback faded and the present brightened once again. Dustin sat in the midst of a homey kitchen, drawing supplies spread across the table, and a glass of lemonade at his elbow, its ice cubes melting.

He focused on Kelcee’s floor plan once more and an idea struck him. He snatched his cell from the table and called her. She’d mentioned some of his ideas as being “pricey.” Evidently her funds were limited.

“Bookstore by the Falls. How can I help you? There’s a serviceman’s special on books about homosexual horses. One day only. For a dollar more, I’ll throw in a book about sex-addicted steers, too.”

The sound of her voice loosened the gripping tightness in his chest. The tautness he’d lived with since parts of Wysocki landed on Dustin’s arms and chest, in that house with holes blasted through the walls, slowly lessened.

His mouth opened and closed a couple of times. He took a sip of his lemonade.

“Hello? Dustin, are you there?”

“Yes,” he finally forced out, “how busy are you?” He sipped more of his drink. “Do…do you have a few minutes to answer a couple questions for me? I’m working on your plans.” He flipped her notepad in front of him. “And don’t think that remark about the horses went unnoticed.” She was pulling him out of his flashback.

“When you didn’t answer right away, I got a sick feeling maybe Junebug was using your phone for some reason. You have questions to ask about the plans you’re drawing? How exciting. Ask away.” Her voice lowered. “I’ve only got one customer right now and he gives me the creeps. Crap, forget I said that. I haven’t had a chance to eat yet today. I’m hungry and grumpy.” She sighed. “All I’ve had is a pot of coffee, and I’m running on jitters.”

Dustin’s gaze drifted to the black-cat kitchen clock with the tail that constantly swung back and forth. It was nearing one o’clock.
Christ, I lost over an hour in my mental fog.
He shook his head and tried to jiggle everything into focus. Just who was this man who gave her the creeps? “Could you give me a listing of the types of books you typically stock a lot of? Ah…like children’s, historical, mysteries. That kind of thing?”

“Sure.” She gave him a rough inventory, and with a shaky hand, he took notes of what she said, the breathy sound of her voice relaxing him.

“l’ve got this idea of identifying each shelving area with different-colored paint. I wanted to see what you thought of it.”

“Go ahead. I’m all ears.” He could almost hear the smile of excitement in her voice. She really did love her little bookstore. Doing what he could to make the establishment prettier and more efficient for her suddenly became very important. And he’d damn well do it for his sweet new friend, too.

Male laughter drifted into Dustin’s cell, followed by, “You’re all boobs, Kelcee. Pure tits and ass.”

“Look, frog face, you don’t get to walk into my store and talk to me like that. Not on a day when I’m running on pure caffeine. Show some respect or get out!”

What the hell? Some man had just pissed Kelcee off, and by the sound of her voice, she was a little leery of the son of a bitch, too. Dustin nearly crushed the cell in his angry grip.