Rumor(47)

As expected, Beck came at Josh full speed and rammed his shoulder into Josh’s chest, rocketing him back against the building. Before Josh had time to suck air, Beck flattened his hand against Josh’s chest and raised his fist.

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t fuckin’ beat the shit out of you right now.”

Josh looked Beck directly in the eye. “I’ll give you two—one, Grace divorced you three goddamned years ago. She’s not your wife, she’s your ex-wife, and she has the right to see anyone she pleases, the way you’ve seen a dozen different women since then. And two, think about what happened the last time you tried to beat the shit out of me.”

Beck’s lips thinned. The memory of ending up stuck in the infirmary side by side for three days after they’d gotten in a stupid-ass brawl over an op gone bad flashed in Beck’s eyes. He growled and shoved Josh against the building again, but then backed off, pacing in the night.

Josh took a breath, then let all his anger toward the man pour out. “If you cared about Grace the way you just claimed to care, you wouldn’t have married her in the first place.” He pushed off the wall. “You wouldn’t have volunteered for all those extra assignments that kept you overseas.” He started a slow progression toward Beck as he spoke. “You would have come home when you could have and given Grace the family she’s always wanted. You would have fucking helped her with the expenses of keeping her mother in an Alzheimer’s facility when she told you her mother was sick.”

Beck stopped pacing, turned on Josh, and yelled, “She didn’t want help. I did offer. She kept turning me down.”

“That’s a fucking copout. That’s like saying bin Laden wouldn’t come out of hiding, so we just stop trying to find him. Grace was your wife. You know she’s stubborn and independent. They’re two of the things you loved most about her. And they’re the very reason you two stayed married as long as you did. A weaker woman would have bailed on your ass the first time you extended your tour instead of coming home—and she’d have been justified. If you really cared about Grace, you would have pushed through her resistance. You would have found a way to help.

“Because the truth is, she’s working at this strip club because you didn’t step up, shithead. She’s doing what she needs to do to pay the crazy bills, because this is her mother we’re talking about. A mother who has always treated you like her own son. A mother who’s treated you better than your own fucking mother—”

“Okay,” Beck yelled, throwing his arms out and pacing again. “Jesus, dude, the horse is fucking dead already.”

Josh shut up. Watching Beck pace as he absorbed everything he’d denied until now but had to accept. And in the silence, Josh had to find his own resolution to the realization that Grace had been right all along—love alone wasn’t enough. They also needed trust. And not only hadn’t she trusted Josh’s commitment to her, but she’d tried to keep Beck’s visit a secret.

Now, Josh had to accept the fact that Grace might not be 150 percent committed to their relationship. And without that, Josh couldn’t envision how they could make things work between them.

“Do you love her?” Beck’s question yanked Josh back from the painful realization. “I mean really love her.”

That was an ironic question coming from the self-centered Beck. Then Grace’s words came back to him. “In his own way, he did his best.” And despite the discrepancies between Grace’s and Beck’s reality, Josh believed that, in his own way, Beck had truly loved Grace.

“Yes,” he said for the second time in two days. “I really love her. But even if things don’t work out with us, you have to let go, dude. Let her find someone who can really give her what she wants and needs.”

All the confrontation drained from Beck’s muscles. With his gaze locked on the asphalt, he nodded. “Yeah…” he said, his voice dripping with resignation. “Man… This fuckin’ blows.”

That was a mild way to put it, but Josh was suddenly experiencing the same sense of loss.

“All right.” Beck straightened and pulled himself together the way Josh had seen him do hundreds of times in the field. “There’s only one thing left to do, I guess.”

Josh wished he knew what to do at this point. He was fucking lost and felt like he was bleeding out.

“Incoming.”

Beck’s strange warning drew Josh’s gaze from the ground a split second before Beck’s fist slammed into Josh’s face. His head jerked to the side, the pain following as he stumbled and hit a nearby Dumpster. Pain blasted through his head, burning across his skin and cutting into his eye. Josh braced himself for a second attack.