One and Only(45)

He kept his head tilted back and spoke on an exhale, as if he were trying to exorcise the sentiments he was voicing. “Also I didn’t stop.”

“What do you mean, you didn’t stop?”

“I got him off her, but then…I kept hitting him. I broke his jaw. It was like all the months of accumulated bullshit she’d taken from him—that we’d all taken from him—ignited inside me somehow.” He scrubbed his hand against his own stubbly jaw. “There were witnesses—our scuffle drew the attention of some others in our unit—which is probably the only reason Biggs faced any consequences at all.”

“But also the reason you got kicked out,” she said with a sigh.

He finally righted his head and his eyes found hers. “I deserved to get kicked out. I don’t regret what I did, but I should have stopped when I’d diffused the situation. I lost control. You can’t have the army full of guys who can’t control themselves.”

“Unlike Biggs,” she retorted. She didn’t know why she was arguing with him. It wasn’t like it was going to change anything. But it all seemed so unfair.

He shrugged. “Anyway, my sob story is not the point; it’s just the context. The point is, that incident was nothing compared to the last one—the one I told you about from my first tour, when the suicide bomber hit. The head shrinkers did their voodoo on me after that tour, and eventually, I was mostly fine. Yeah, the thing with Becky on this latest tour got my adrenaline going for a while there, but it was nothing like the previous incident. So what the hell is my problem now?” He gestured angrily at himself. “I’m at a wedding at a fucking lavender farm, and I’m totally losing my shit?”

“I’m no expert, but I’d say that the thing with Becky and Biggs was as traumatic as the suicide bombing. It may not have been as horrific in the moment, but it had huge personal consequences for you. It ruined your career.”

“I ruined my career,” he corrected.

She chose to ignore that claim. It wasn’t true, but she didn’t want to argue with him. “Anyway, I don’t think it works like that,” she said. “I mean, I’m not a doctor, but it’s probably not a linear thing, where a certain input leads to a certain output, you know? There’s probably some kind of complicated soup of memories and experiences in your head, and maybe this latest thing magnified your first experience, and then being out here kind of ignited the whole thing.”

He sighed and slung an arm around her, his whole body deflating. But it didn’t seem like a sad, defeated deflating, more like relief you get after the cessation of effort. “How did you get so wise, Jane Denning?”

She performed a comically exaggerated shrug, wanting more than anything to see him smile. “I read a lot of long-form magazine articles?”

It worked. He laughed out loud and pulled her tighter to him in a sideways half hug.

“What can I do to help?” she asked.

“Be with me. Stay with me,” he said. “Remind me that I’m here, not there.”

Be with me. Stay with me.

She wanted to ask him what he meant, exactly, by that, but now was not the time.

She could do what he asked, though, as long as she took care to protect her heart. It would be hard to spend time with him, but she would have to be a monster to turn him away. “Hey! I have an idea!” She jumped to her feet and tugged him to stand beside her. “If we hurry, we might get back before Gia leaves, and we can take over her assignment!”

“And why would we want to do that?”

“Because then we can drive to the nearest town and buy a boatload of sunglasses. Can you imagine? Three hundred pairs of crappy sunglasses in the back of your Corvette? I bet that won’t remind you of the Middle East!”

He grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

“Then maybe we can figure out what the highest point in Prince Edward County is. There’s got to be some glorified hill around here somewhere.”

He smiled—and didn’t let go of her hand as they walked back.





Cameron shoved the plate of French fries toward Jane.

She shoved it back. “You don’t seem to understand what I’m saying. My. Dress. Is. Not. Going. To. Zip. Up.”

Undaunted, he passed it back to her. “You don’t seem to understand what I’m saying. You. Are. Hot. Exactly. The. Way. You. Are.” The pile of iceberg lettuce and carrot shavings that passed for a “salad” in the small-town diner they were in made him angry in principle. She had to have worked up an appetite, because in addition to hitting two Walmarts and three dollar stores, they had trekked up a hill in nearby Picton, from which they’d had a great view of Lake Ontario.

She cracked a smile. “I appreciate that. I really do. But listen to me. You can pin a dress that’s too big and make it look halfway decent. But you can’t do anything for a dress that’s too small. I’m not making a big antifeminist statement here. I mean, I’ve learned my lesson: I should have ordered the twelve. But if my dress doesn’t zip up on Saturday, not only is Elise’s head going to start spinning around a la the Exorcist, but I’m going to be humiliated.”

He pulled the fries back to his side of the booth, feeling the sharp sting of humiliation as if it were happening to him. God, he was an ass. He’d just wanted to please her. To do anything to make her happy. To lay the world at her feet, basically, even though it would never be sufficient to thank her for what she’d done for him today. So he settled for, “I’m sorry,” hoping she would hear the sincerity in his voice.

“It’s okay,” she said, halfheartedly spearing a piece of limp lettuce. “You can take me out for the biggest, greasiest plate of fries on Sunday.” Then she looked up, her eyes wide and borderline panicked. “I mean, not really. You’ll be on your way…somewhere, I’m sure. After the wedding, I mean.”

He hated how quickly she corrected herself, rushing to assure him that she had no expectations of him. But she had always been smart, his Jane. She knew the score.

He could fall for her. He had fallen for her, if he was being honest with himself. But damned if he was going to let her fall for him.

But he could certainly stick around long enough to buy her some post-wedding fries, so he said, “Sunday morning. Fries. It’s a date.”





Chapter Twenty



It’s a date.

As she skipped up the stairs to her room after the sunglasses mission, the phrase ricocheted around in her head. She hadn’t had a date since Felix. And they never would have gone to a diner for fries. He was more of a sushi-and-the-symphony type.

Not that it was a real date. And she and Cameron had hung out a lot already, without the “date” label.

So why was she so giddy over the idea?

Ducking into her room to stash her purse, she stopped to check herself in the mirror. She was grinning like an idiot. She looked…pretty. Her cheeks were rosy, and she might even say there was a twinkle in her eye. What was next? Was she going to burst into song as birds and woodland creatures helped her do her chores?

Trying to rein in her out-of-proportion enthusiasm, she ran down the stairs and out the door to one of the meeting rooms—the farm hosted corporate events, too—that she’d commandeered for the hat project. She’d left Cameron after showing him how to thread lavender into the hats, promising to be back momentarily. Bedecking the hats was no longer on the job list, since Elise had moved on to sunglasses, but Jane had the feeling that giving Cameron something mindless to do indoors would be good for him. She wasn’t sure what the actual solution to his PTSD was. He needed a doctor for that, but first he needed to get through the rest of the week. And she planned to help him do exactly that.

Because she had a date on Sunday, and, against her better judgment, she was counting the minutes.





“What are you guys doing?” Elise popped her head into the room. Cam looked at Jane because he wasn’t actually sure how to describe what they were doing. Something with lavender and hats.

“Oh, we were kind of at loose ends, so I thought maybe we’d finish the hats anyway. Even if you only want them for the photo booth.” Jane smiled brightly at Elise in a way that seemed a touch false to Cam.

“That’s a great idea!” Elise exclaimed. “I was looking for both you guys because we’re all going to take a hike. Apparently if you cut through the fields, you can connect up with a provincial park that has some great trails.”

“Oh, I don’t think I should do that,” said Jane, sniffing a little. “My allergies have really been acting up. It’s part of why I moved this project inside.”

“You have allergies?”

“I guess so!” Jane said—a little too enthusiastically. “Maybe they’re dormant in the big city!” She coughed. “Anyway, didn’t Lacy say you could lay the place cards anytime? Why don’t we do that after we finish these hats?”

“Well, there’s a very specific order, as you know,” Elise said, looking uncertain.

“I do know!” Jane chirped. “You have a map, don’t you? Give it to me, and I’ll set out the cards. Then you can inspect and see how it feels in the actual space. It might be good to live with it for a bit, see if you want to change anything up.”