I'm Only Here for the Beard (The Dixie Wardens Rejects MC #4)(47)

I've reached an age where my mind says, "I can do that." But my body says, "Try it and die, fat girl."

-Fact of life

Naomi

"Why don't you like your name?" I asked the old man, two weeks after I'd visited my family in Kilgore.



       
         
       
        

He looked over at me where I was walking at his side and grinned.

I could tell, at one point, the man had been beautiful. Very handsome.

"I like my name," he said. "But I liked it more when my wife said it."

Sadness welled inside of me.

"Tell me how y'all met."

His smile was radiant.

"The Korean War."

I blinked.

"You met while fighting the Korean War?" I asked.

He smiled down at me.

"I met my Molly when I was twenty, and four days away from deployment," his words were whimsical, and I tried hard not to stare at him.

He was making my heart hurt with all his happiness on his face at remembering his wife, and how they met.

"I was going to a bar to meet my friends," he started. "One last hoorah before we all left."

I stepped over a dog who was a bit too overzealous with his excitement and waved at the frazzled looking girl trying to corral him. Butterfinger growled low in her throat but didn't make a move towards the other dog. I had started holding the dog's leash during our walks, so he could concentrate on walking.

She waved back, and I returned my eyes to Brady.

"I walked in that tavern that night, sixty some years ago, my eyes jumped to the bar area and I froze in the doorway."

"Why?" I smiled. "Was she sitting at the bar?"

He shook his head.

"No, she was dancing around it." His smile was so soft and sweet that my eyes smarted. "She had on this black dress. I'll never forget it. The skirt was big and it just spun around her knees and made her waist look so tiny. It was open at the neck and it seemed to wrap around her shoulders like it was hugging her. She looked so beautiful, I couldn't take my eyes off of her.

He swallowed. "And these bright red high heels."

I grinned.

"The high heels got you, didn't they?" I asked.

He laughed, his voice shaky.

"Yeah, they got me." He turned his eyes up to the sky, studying a giant buzzard that was circling over the path on long, languid sweeps of his wings. "And that smile. God, it made my chest tight to see that smile aimed in my direction."

We finally rounded the last path, and I saw my man. The one who I only recently discovered was mine.

And his back was stiff, his hands clenched at his sides.

Brady kept talking, unaware of what we were walking into.

"I spent every waking minute with my Molly for the next three days, and on the day that I deployed, she waved at me until the bus disappeared." He cleared his throat. "I came home a different man, but she helped put my broken mind back together again. We married two years after we met and had five kids together. Four of whom are now gone. One is in a nursing home not far from mine." 

I looked away from Sean. "Kind of young to be in a nursing home."

He nodded, eyes solemn.

"Heart disease runs in our family. On my Molly's side," he murmured regretfully. "All of my children suffered heart attacks. Donnie, my youngest, is the only one to survive his."

Brady's life kept getting sadder and sadder.

Jesus, I felt like shit for even bringing up how he'd met his wife.

"I … what in the world?"

I looked where he was staring, and I felt my heart get tight.

Someone was burning a flag!

And oh, God! Sean was standing there, about to lose it.

"Oh shit," I said, hurrying forward.

Brady shuffled as fast as his cane and bad leg would allow him behind me, but I didn't wait.

Instead, I ran up to Sean's side, latching onto his straining arm.

It was clear to me that he was only seconds away from blowing up, and this needed to de-escalate quickly or someone-likely Sean-would cause chaos to ensue.

"Sean," I whispered frantically. "Come with me."

He didn't budge when I tried to pull him, and I had a sinking sensation fill the pit of my belly. I knew he was closer to that line than I realized.

"Sean," I repeated.

His eyes, however, were focused on the group of what appeared to be college students and church protestors burning up a flag.

They held signs that read, 'Too late to pray' and 'You deserve those tears.'

And I realized then that this was a 'peaceful protest' of a veteran's funeral, possibly even the zealot group from Westboro Baptist Church.

There were about fifty of them, all surrounding the path of the walking trail, and trickling out into traffic.