Once Her Man, Always Her Man(10)

“I told Dad I wanted to apply and he drove me down to the recruiter. I talked to the guy for an hour and then I signed the papers. I applied for my GED the same day. I wanted to talk to you about it, but I thought it wasn’t fair to you to put that decision on your plate. I didn’t think it was right that I was taking your last year of high school down the drain with mine. I couldn’t protect Mom or Brianna, but I could protect you.”

He dared to look at her and the haughty distance in her expression melted. “You didn’t have to protect me….”

“The hell I didn’t. You were putting everything on hold to look after us. You were at the house every night, cooking dinner, sitting with Dad. Hell, you were even doing the laundry. You were my sanctuary and I wanted to lose myself with you, but if I’d told you I was going, you would have supported it, packed me up and waited. Sat here, waiting for me.” He dared her to disagree with him. But the mutinous expression answered without words. Yes, she would have waited, and he wouldn’t have stopped thinking about her.

“But babe, before you start hating me for not wanting you to wait for me, that wasn’t it…that wasn’t it at all. I wanted to marry you, I wanted to fill you with babies, but I was an eighteen- year old kid with a GED and a hate on for Al Qaida, heading off to the Marines where I was pretty sure I was going to get myself busted up. I wanted more for you than that.”

“You are such an idiot.” She flung her shoes down and he counted himself lucky she didn’t throw them at him. He took a step forward, edging back into her space.

“Yes, I was. But I was a kid. A kid who was stupid in love. A kid who would have been stupid if all I ever thought about was you. If you were here, I didn’t think I could leave you. Making you hate me was the coward’s way out, but I thought you would be better off, you could meet a guy, marry him, have a dozen babies.” Bile crawled up his throat at the idea of some other guy touching her, holding her, loving her. Worse, the sourness at the idea that she might love this faceless, nameless bastard that Luke would have throttled.

“So it was easier to just dump me? To walk away? To say nothing?”

“Yeah. After, I couldn’t take it back. Then your letters came.”

Her sharp, indrawn breath stabbed him in the gut. “You got them.”

“I have every single one that you wrote.” The first one arrived while at basic—the flowing script cutting him. He’d worn away the return address on the first one, stroking a thumb over it. “But I couldn’t open them. I had to make the break clean.”

“Why? Why would it have been so awful to know I was here for you? That I would wait, support you in any way I could? Why wouldn’t you let me be there for you?” She took a step toward him.

“Because I was scared, Becca. Scared that I’d get out there and the only thing I would do is think about you, get killed, and leave you grieving. At least, I told myself, if I did buy it over there, you wouldn’t be mourning me. You’d have a great life and it was all I had to give then.”

If he could go back to his eighteen-year-old self, he’d thump him hard. His dad even agreed with his decision, but in retrospect, his father didn’t see much point to civilian life and love anymore. He turned all Marine, all the time, after their loss.

“But I kept the letters. When I deployed, my base commander kept them and shipped them over in bulk. They went everywhere with me. I promised myself when I came home for good, I’d read them then. I’d read them and see the life you’d built for yourself.”

“And have you?” She stood directly in front of him then, staring up at him, tears shimmering in her eyes.

“Nope. I wanted to, but I had the idea for Mike’s Place and I guess I came back here because I wanted to be close to you. Told myself I’d get Mike’s Place started and then I’d read them.”

“You were never going to read them, Luke Dexter.” Exasperated amusement, not censure, filtered through her words.

“I’m an ass, Becca. I’m an ass who loved you too much to hold onto you. But I’m not ass enough to walk away this time. I’m right here. I’ll do whatever penance you want, I’ll get on my knees if you need me too, and I’ll crawl the rest of my life if that’s what it takes to prove it to you.” The text-messaged words echoed in his mind. They were the right words. “Life doesn’t always offer second chances and I sure as sh—heck don’t deserve one, but….”

He hesitated. He wasn’t pleading his case really well. Hell, he didn’t even know if she had some jackass in her life. He considered the way she’d crawled into his lap and the lack of ring on her finger and he’d bet he could push the imaginary boyfriend out without a hell of a lot of effort.