“Mom, seriously,” Brody muttered, but his mother’s focus never left Jenny and, by the time she stood in front of them, the older woman’s face showed every bit of her delight. Shiny eyes, flushed cheeks, and a big grin that she’d clearly passed onto Brody. Dimple in her left cheek and everything.
“You’re gorgeous.” Her hands lifted to Jenny’s cheeks, which, of course, were hot and probably a not-so-attractive lobster red. “You have soulful eyes, too.”
“Um...” Brody stuttered, then waved a belated hand between them. “Mom, this is Jenny Riley. Jenn, my mom, Lena.”
“Jenny. I like that.” Lena continued to grin and Jenny’s jitters finally gave way. How could it not? His mother thought she was soulful.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Nelson. You’ve raised a wonderful son.”
Brody grunted. “You two are going to get along just fine. Probably to my detriment.”
His family erupted with laughter and, in a matter of minutes, Jenny had been hugged to death and set up with a plateful of raspberry and cream crepes and cheesy potato egg bake. Brody’s plate was stacked twice as high and, by the time they finished eating, she’d heard more stories about his childhood than she could ever remember of her own.
“I really thought he’d go pro.” His father, Brian, leaned back on the kitchen chair, his bulky arms folded behind his head. Except for his mother’s smile, Brody was his father’s clone, stature and demeanor especially. “But he came home from college that first Easter with a Marine Corps recruiter and I knew he’d already made up his mind, scholarship or not.”
“I cried. God, did I cry.” Lena’s tears sprang up all over again and her mother, Grandma Brekowski, nodded along.
“Almost lost my Robert in Vietnam. Nearly broke my heart when Brody enlisted.” She glanced at her husband and smiled softly, all pale, glossy skin and short, silvery hair.
His grandfather waved a hand. “Bunch of sallies. Men are made for war!”
Brody shifted uncomfortably in the seat next to her and, beneath the table, Jenny put her hand on his leg. It’s okay.
“I heard some of your unit joined up with the one in Broken Arrow for another deployment.” His father’s salt and pepper eyebrows drew together. “Thought you’d be first in line to go.”
Brody’s body tensed and his knee began to bounce, all the while he kept his eyes trained on his empty plate. At the juncture of his jaw, a muscle ticked fast.
She hated this for him. Hated that he felt like he’d let not only Ernie and Troy down, but his family, too. And the kicker was...they didn’t even know. She wasn’t sure they ever would either. Brody was too damn proud for his own good.
“Not this time,” he finally answered, his voice hoarse. Raw. “Three times may be all I’m capable of. Hell, I’m not even sure I’ll re-enlist next year.”
His mother gave a sigh of relief and his grandma mouthed a silent prayer at the ceiling.
“That’s probably a good decision.” His father nodded, but Jenny didn’t agree. Being a Marine was in Brody’s blood. If he went out like this, he may never find the closure he needed.
“What do you say we leave the ladies to the gossiping while us men head outside to look at that tree, threatening to drop dead on my garage?” Grandpa Brekowski got to his feet, slowly and not without difficulty, batting away his daughter when she tried to offer help. “Sit down, Lena. I’m not dead yet.”
Jenny covered a smile with the back of her hand. How many times had she heard that same statement from her own mother?
“Try not to miss me too much.” Brody snuck a kiss before he pushed away from the table and followed his dad and grandfather to the door.
A sudden, unexpected surge of lust crept up her spine as she watched him go. He didn’t look any different than he did at her house or at his. Just a guy whose t-shirt and jeans clung a little too tightly to his big body. A guy who, beneath the dark ink and badass uniform, put his family first. Always. A guy who could love her like thunder and lightning at night, but become an acquiescent rain shower who ate crepes with his grandma the very next morning.
He really was human, this man she’d fallen in love with. And she wanted him even more because of it.
***
“I think we can take care of this for you today, Bob.” Hands on his hips, his father looked up at the tree with two dead limbs looming a little too closely to the back corner of the garage. “Just need some rope and a little gas and oil for the chainsaw.”
His grandfather sat on an overturned bucket, breathing harder than usual, his nod turning into a wheeze. “Yeah, I thought so,” he coughed. “Surprised they lasted the winter, to be honest.”
“Small miracles, Gramps.” Brody ruffled the old man’s shoulder on his way to his truck. He had standard-issue ties and a safety harness in his toolbox, for instances just like this. Seemed he was the go-to guy for all things height-related since he earned half of his salary in a cherry picker.
Ten minutes later, he was strapped into the harness, with his father holding onto the rope tied to the first limb. Brody climbed toward the branch with the chainsaw in hand.
“Better move back, Gramps! Just in case!” he hollered down once he had a better view of the ground. “Dad, get ready to move fast!”
He waited until his grandfather hobbled back toward the house and his dad gave him a thumbs up before he lobbed off the branch. It crashed down in the backyard, well enough away from Granny’s flowerbeds and the sandbox he used to play in as a kid.
The second branch took a little more effort to tie because the ladder only extended so far, but he finally got it fastened and went through the same drill. “Ready, Dad?”
This time his father saluted him and he laughed, glancing back at Gramps to make sure he’d stuck close to the house.
Gramps was on the ground.
“Dad!” he hollered and his dad’s attention snapped across the yard. He dropped the rope and ran, full sprint.
Brody hurried to unfasten himself and get down, all the while glancing over his shoulder.
Gramps wasn’t moving.
“Brody, hurry!” his dad yelled and, dammit, he would if he could just get off the fucking ladder.
Feet on the ground and the straps still fastened around his thighs, he ran to his grandfather and dropped to his knees, running through the protocol he’d done hundreds of times.
“Grandpa!” He shook the old man’s shoulder, but got no response. “Call 911 and go get Mom,” he shouted to his father.
The next several minutes passed in a blur of chest compressions, mouth-to-mouth, and his mother wailing from somewhere behind him. Sirens broke through his single-minded focus and the paramedics seemed to appear out of nowhere.
He crawled back on his knees as they took over, ripping open Gramps’s shirt for the AED. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe either. The fog began to tunnel in around him, darkness coming fast.
He saw Ernie lying on the ground before him. He saw Troy and his mangled body a few feet away. One leg gone, one arm bit off at the elbow. All around him, the smoke got thicker and the fire hotter. The shouting felt like gunshots in his ears and the smell of blood—some of it his—made him sick to his stomach.
“Brody,” Jenny cried softly in his ear and somehow her arms were around him, her heat at his back. She wasn’t supposed to be there. Not in this mess. Not where he couldn’t protect her. “Stay with me, baby,” she pleaded, pressing her lips to his temple and rocking him like his mother used to when he’d have bad dreams as a kid.
Only this wasn’t a fucking dream. This was his life. One screw-up after another.
“You did what you could,” she murmured. “You tried.”
But not hard enough. Never fucking hard enough.
Chapter Eighteen