Page 86 of Battle Scars

Eli had known that Macy had cancer. We talked at chow and when on patrol; there’s not much else to do in the desert. He said afterward that I needed to get home to her alive, not in a pine box. We were bonded from then on out.

When I got home from the next deployment, Macy had taken a turn for the worse. My enlistment contract was up, so I left the marines and we moved to a horse farm back in Ransom Falls, where Macy could spend the rest of her days in peace with our families nearby.

She spent the next two years slowly withering away until one day she was just gone. By October, we’d buried her in the cemetery of the small church we were married in. It seemed fitting. She said our wedding day was the happiest of her life, and I couldn’t have agreed more. In fact, I couldn’t fathom ever being happy again when she no longer walked this earth.

Over that time, I had been taking security jobs here and there. I was good at it, and I knew it. The skills the marines taught me only made me better.

Stonegate Security was born, but I might as well have been laid in the grave next to Macy.

A decade later, Manny got a phone call from the one and only Adrian Malone.

Manny loves racing. It’s one of the few sports we watch all the time. Malone was a hero of his from when we were kids, and Manny jumped at the chance to work for him. The hope of pushing me out of my comfort zone so that I would come back to the land of the living was just an added bonus.

So against my will and Malone’s demands, I took my best guys back to California to work a job for him. I was going to post Eli and Manny on his daughter until the criminal was caught. I read the letters the creep had been sending and was pissed. No woman deserves to feel that kind of shit from any man.

When Adrienne walked into the room, it was like I was struck by lightning. My heart skipped a beat, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. And for the first time in ten years, my dick was getting hard. To say I was unhappy would be putting it mildly. I hated her. I didn’t want to want her. I didn’t want to be stuck protecting her—the spoiled brat who’d had everything she ever wanted handed to her on a silver platter.

Why should she get to have everything, when my Macy didn’t even get to live?

But that was all wrong.

Slowly, I saw glimpses of who Adrienne really was, and I liked it. I wanted it for myself, to own it and possess it, to just be with her in her light.

The first time I fucked her, I was pissed. It was phenomenal. How could she be the best I ever had, when I loved my wife more than anyone on Earth? The truth was, Macy and I were fumbling teenagers. Looking back, she was always a little fragile.

Adrienne has always been hale and hearty. She gave me the opportunity that I had never allowed myself to have, certain appetites and desires, and that only made me angrier, because she was here, and Macy was not.

And now I’ve come to care for her.

I wouldn’t say I love her, but I would happily carry on our affair for as long as it plays out. But when she let it slip that she loves me, I lost it.

How can she love me? I already told her that I died when my wife did. No one gets to love like that twice in their lives, do they? But now that I think about it, if I let myself really be honest, I fell in love with Adrienne months ago. I have been hurting her for weeks, months even, by carrying on an affair that I kept throwing the finality of in her face.

And still, she loves me anyway.

“I’ve fucked it all up. What am I going to do, Macy?” I ask. I used to talk to her all the time. I used to feel her near me, but now, it’s rare. “I’ve really made a mess of things. Can I move on, or do I let her go?”

When I get no answer, I just keep driving for a while. Eventually, I ask, “Would you be okay if I loved her too? I’ll always love you, you know that, but you’re gone, and I’m here. Can I love her too?”

I don’t know why I expect an answer or a sign—something that’ll tell me it’s all right to move on. I feel silly for even asking, and then just as suddenly as it started, the rain stops.

“Thank you, honey,” I tell her with tears in my eyes. “I will always love you.”

I started my adult life with a brilliant love, and if I’m lucky, I’ll end my life with one too. It isn’t the same, and it never will be. The women are about as different as their hair color, but it will be no less beautiful.

I make a U-turn at the first available spot and head back to the hotel. I park and take the elevator, but it feels like it moves at a snail’s pace. I need to get to Adrienne and apologize.

I need to tell her that I know I was an ass, and if she’ll forgive me, I’ll love her until the day I die. And I’ll spend every day until then making it up to her.

THIRTY-TWO

WHAT MORE COULD HAPPEN?

Adrienne

Idon’t know how long I sat here before the tears came, but come, they did. It was like a torrential downpour; once it started, I couldn’t stop it. I just crumpled. I covered my face with my hands as the first sob bubbled up from my chest.

And then another.