Authors: Mary Margret Daughtridge

SEALed with a Ring (32 page)

THE SMOKY, VINEGARY AROMA COMING FROM THE TAKE out bag of barbecue JJ had picked up on the way home was making her mouth water and her stomach growl. JJ shifted the barbecue to her other hand while she felt for her cottage key. She really should have a motion-sensor light installed for moments like this. By five-thirty these December evenings, full dark had arrived.

Finally she found the key and inserted it into the lock. For once, they didn't have anywhere they had to be. A whole evening alone. With her husband. The thought was almost as yummy as the barbeque.

Warm air and silence greeted her once she had the door open. The only light in the great room came from the hood over the cooktop. Making as little sound as possible—though she wasn't sure why—JJ put her bags and purse on the kitchen counter. She switched on a couple of lamps in the great room.

The door to the master bedroom was open. A quick glance told her David wasn't in there. Still not sure why she was being so quiet, JJ went down the hall.

David and Brinkley were stretched out on the bed in the guest room. This wasn't the first time she had found David doing what he called "napping," but this time she was sure he wasn't asleep. He was lying in exactly the too-still way Brinkley had when he had been in severe pain.

Brinkley raised his head when he saw her. He lifted his nose, caught a whiff of the barbeque, and jumped off the bed.

David opened his eyes. "Oh, hey. I must have nod ded off.

JJ sat in the place Brinkley had vacated. "Are you sick?" She reached for his forehead.

He jerked his head away. "No, I'm fine. Fell asleep, that's all." He sat up.

"You ran today, didn't you? Don't give me that inno cent look. You've got a headache again. You're always worse when you run. Maybe you're trying to do too much too soon."

David patted her hip with the back of his hand. When she moved out of his way, he stood, his back to her. "Running doesn't cause the headaches. I get them even if I don't run."

"Running makes them worse. You are not okay. You shouldn't be running."

"You don't understand. I have to be able to run 1.5 miles in seven minutes."

"But surely they don't expect a man who has just come back from sick leave to be able to do that? Surely they have trainers, or whatever you call them, who will help."

He ignored that as he did most of her suggestions. "I'm going to get better. The docs have told me I've just got to give it time. That's all." He walked out of the bedroom.

JJ followed him into the great room, aware she was arguing with someone who had turned his back on her. She ought to shut up, but she couldn't stand to see him putting himself through this day after day.

"You're not improving, from what I can tell. I'm not real impressed with Navy doctors right this minute—if this is the best they can do for you. Let me make an ap pointment with a doctor in town. If we don't like their answers, we'll go somewhere else. We'll find out who Bronwyn says is the best and go there."

"It won't matter what doctor I go to. They will say the same thing."

"And what will that be?"

David hesitated. Suddenly all the clues, the bits and pieces JJ couldn't quite make sense of, came together.

"You didn't tell the doctor the symptoms you were having, did you?"

"We discussed it, sure."

JJ had learned to recognize the answer that sounded like information but wasn't. "Did you tell him at all?" Her eyes narrowed. "
You didn't
. You lied. You told him you were fine."

"I am."

She disregarded that. "And he didn't believe you, did he? You didn't fool him." She was on a roll now. His face was stony, giving nothing away, but she didn't need him to admit it. She knew she was right. "You knew you couldn't even do limited duty—not if it meant you had to run. You wouldn't have taken personal leave oth erwise. You'd just had thirty days. You wouldn't have returned to North Carolina."

JJ sank down on the sofa before her legs gave way. More to herself than him, she murmured, "I saw what I wanted to see. I believed you were so besotted that you chose to be with me." She had thought he chose to use his leave because he wanted the time, as she did, to grow closer, to establish a real foundation for a real marriage.

The irony that she was upset that she had gotten the marriage she bargained for, and no longer wanted, wasn't lost on her, but it did nothing for the squeezing pain that threatened to cut off her air. Not only was she second choice, he didn't want to share the most fundamental things about himself, the things that mattered most.

He had hurt her. She wasn't crying, but JJ didn't cry much. The main way he could tell was the bleak look in her eyes, the fragile way she had lowered herself to the sofa. He hadn't meant to. He would cut off his arm before hurting her. "Come on, JJ. You're bound to know by now I want to be with you."

"Oh, I don't doubt that you enjoy being around me, and you love the sex. I know you believe in fidelity, so if you were going to be on leave, of course you came here. I just thought, I hoped, when you came back, it meant there was something more."

More? It had been more in every way. Both easier and harder than he had had any idea. Easier because just being in the same room with her was satisfying and the sex was off the charts. In bed they had a flawless com munication like he'd never before experienced.

But it was harder, too. He could feel her frustration when he couldn't tell her what was going on with him, couldn't explain why her suggestions wouldn't work. He hated what he was doing to her.

Now that she knew he might not ever be a SEAL again, he wondered how long it would be before she thought he was too much trouble—especially with all her other responsibilities. If she knew the full extent of his problems, she might even want to send him to a hospital for trauma cases. Some place that would straighten him out or at least take the burden of his care away.

He would take himself away before that happened. He'd go away now, but she needed a "visible" husband, and right now it was the one thing he could do for her. Every time he made love to her, he tried to show her how he felt.

"JJ—"

She waved him away. "Don't worry. You haven't done anything wrong. It was my mistake. I'll get over it. I think I'll change clothes."

In the bedroom, she pulled on loose jeans and an old sweatshirt. Back in the living room, she went to the box where they stored walking shoes so that they didn't track so much sand into the house.

David watched her impassively, his fists on his hips. "What are you doing?"

"I think I'll go for a walk."

"Alone?"

"Alone."

"It's dark. It's too dangerous."

"I'll take Brinkley."

"I know he would try, but he's not a trained guard dog." David pulled his much larger shoes from the box. "Okay, I'll go with you."

JJ swallowed a lump in her throat, trying to be as low-key as he was. "I'd rather you didn't. I really need to be alone."

"No problem. I'll walk protection detail. I'll be be hind you. If you want me to, I'll make sure you don't see me. You won't know I'm there."

"You would walk behind so I could be alone and be protected at the same time?"

He gave her a patient look and went back to tying his shoes.

"But we just argued. Or at least, I did. Aren't you pissed? Happy to have me out of your sight for a few minutes?"

"It doesn't matter how I feel."

The statement hung in the air. He had just stated a pro found truth about himself. It wasn't that he didn't feel, didn't want to feel, or was afraid to feel. It was that, as far as he was concerned, his feelings were beside the point.

The clear brown depths of his eyes lit with the dry, understated humor she had come to love. It was so much a part of who he was. "I've protected people I like a whole lot less than you."

No matter how hurt she was that he wouldn't share what he was going through, JJ couldn't deliberately hold him at a distance. She chuckled. "I do need a walk. Why don't you come with me?"

The ocean was calm. Small, wide-spaced breakers made leisurely trips to deposit their cream on the shore. The tide was going out. They walked on the wet sand just beyond the pale glow of scallops of foam left by departing waves.

They walked the beach silently. JJ was still dealing with the newly revealed facts of her marriage.

After she thought about it for a while, she realized

no adjustment was necessary. She felt the same way she had felt for a long time. It distressed her that he closed off part of himself from her, but she didn't have less than she'd had before she married him. She had more. In every way. Which reminded her that she needed to talk to him about his brothers and sister—hers too, now.

"Lucas stopped by Caruthers today." He had taken to doing that again. Dropping in for just a minute. The staff enjoyed his visits. He was careful not to stay too long or get in the way. "I think I've got the Riley problem solved. Lucas wants to invite your brothers and sister to stay at his house over Christmas."

"You don't have to do this, you know. I'll pick up Riley and take him to Charlottesville."

David's objection was immediate and no surprise. However, JJ was ready for him.

"Sorry, no deal. You made me Riley's guardian."

"If anything happens to me."

"Well, as far as I'm concerned, it has."

"You think I'm incapacitated, don't you?"

"I think you're making poor decisions. There
are
other doctors. Other places you can go. But I'm not going to go around again with you. In the last couple of weeks, I've gotten much better at telling when someone is willing to listen. It won't matter what I say… you're not listening to me. Riley and Elle and Harris are com ing here for Christmas. Deal with it."

"Does Lucas know what he's letting himself in for? Riley has a longer vacation than the twins do."

"He likes Riley. They get along. When he's had all he can stand of Riley going on and on about one of his enthusiasms, he just nods off. And Lucas has wanted a bigger family for years. I think he's delighted to have some honorary grandchildren."

"How do you feel about it?" That was another thing. He might disregard his feelings, but David had no dif ficulty understanding her feelings or listening to them. In fact, he understood her remarkably well.

"I think it will work. Esperanza will love having guests to do for. We can go over there for dinner, and they can come here. You can take them around while I'm at work."

They talked over plans. After a while, David said. "It's going to be hard for them. Their first Christmas without their mother."

JJ didn't point out that it was his first Christmas with out his mother, too. He'd have some reason that that was beside the point.

Chapter 49

JJ SURVEYED THE ENTRYWAY AT LUCAS'S HOUSE, TRYING to decide what to do about Christmas decorations. She had done nothing last year until she'd felt so guilty she'd called a florist and had them deliver a door wreath and dec orated tree for Esperanza to put wherever she wanted to.

Her grandmother had always transformed the house into a Christmas extravaganza, an exuberant over abundance of arrangements of holly, ivy, nandina, and magnolia in every room, boxwood garlands up the bal ustrade, spruce wreaths on every outside door, red velvet bows on
everything
, including the grandfather clock JJ was looking at right now. The plethora of red and green was so unlike her grandmother's usual understated el egance that the house had felt as if some excess of emo tion within her grandmother had finally exploded.

After listening to her grandfather's story at breakfast the other morning, JJ thought maybe something
had
, and, instead of being so restrained, her grandmother would have been better off to find a balance between self-control and self-expression all year long.

JJ was finally learning that lesson herself.

Ham materialized beside her. He followed the direc tion of her gaze. "Me and Miz Beth, we always strung garlands up the stairs."

"I know. Unfortunately, what goes up must come down. It will make a lot of extra work for you and Esperanza."

"How 'bout I make some of those greenery arrange ments? I know how. Miz Beth and me, we'd work on 'em together."

In the past, JJ would have told Ham not to bother; she'd order something from the florist. Now she said, "If you feel like it, that would be lovely."

"How many?"

"You know which vases she used. Make as many ar rangements as you like."

The jerky little nod of his head was Ham's only sign of assent, but that was Ham. Ham didn't waste words. He also didn't walk away, so she knew he had another talking point on his agenda.

"Your man. He's got shell shock, don't he?"

"Shell shock?"

"That's what they used to call it. Guy had been in battle, shells exploding all around him. Sometimes there wouldn't be a mark on him. Afterwards he was a little strange—sometimes a lot strange. He couldn't sleep. Stared at nothing. Shook.

"In Vietnam, they told us won't no such thing as shell shock. It was 'combat fatigue.' 'Course, soldiers kept getting it, so then, they called it Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

"Guy feels out of it. Disconnected. He don't know who he
is,
but he's not himself. Can't focus. Can't make plans. Doesn't always remember what he did yesterday. Family can't put their finger on it, but they know he don't behave like he used to. Don't live up to his responsibilities. His wife leaves him. His folks, they try, but they don't know what to do. After a while, he figures they're better off without him. He's a grown man—they're not supposed to be looking after him. He doesn't make sense to anyone, least of all to himself."

"Ham, you're talking about yourself, aren't you? Do you think traumatic brain injury is why you drank?"

"I reckon why a man's a drunk don't make no never mind."

JJ saw that he wasn't going to answer. She didn't want to make him uncomfortable by probing further. Still, his nonanswer was an answer of sorts. His reaction to being asked to discuss his own experience and draw inferences from it was similar to David's. The fear that David didn't want her to know about his problems lessened.

"Watch out for your man, JJ," Ham told her. "He don't know how to ask for what he needs."

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