Chapter 1
I saw you have tattoos and a real job, excuse me while I take off my clothes.
-E-card
Jane
Shaking like a leaf, I dropped the car down into drive and pressed my foot down on the accelerator. The car propelled forward, narrowly missing the parked car that was illegally parked behind me.
My mind kept replaying what the man said.
“Get out now. Don’t stop. Go straight to this address and look for him.”
As I stopped at the next traffic light, my eyes trailed down to the picture. It was of a man in jeans, a red t-shirt, and a red bandana covering his inky black hair. He had a tool in his hand, connected to an air hose, and he was leaning over into the depths of a pickup truck.
His arms were buried under the hood, but his face was looking straight at the camera. Almost as if he knew his picture was being taken.
Something about the man made the depths of my mind start to swirl. Memories that I hadn’t had in over seven years flashed through my head, but none stayed long enough to let me remember.
I just knew the instant that the old biker handed me the picture that this was going to be a turning point in my life.
I was scared shitless but something about the picture kept pushing me forward.
Towards him. Something huge. Something that was about to blow me away. Make me remember. Change my life.
***
Two days later
I was parked two blocks down from my favorite place ever.
Free was a motorcycle shop that resembled a secure military base. Although about five men, and tons of women, frequented the place, only one kept my attention.
I could see him, but not very well. I slid down low into the seat of my Chevy Cobalt; so low that I could barely see over the side of the passenger side window. To make matters worse, I pulled out my next-door neighbor’s Dora the Explorer binoculars and placed them up to my eyes. Lucky for me that the kid left them in my car. Apparently, it was a shitty gift for a ten year old. Who knew?
I spotted him instantly. Although these binoculars were the cheapest things I’d ever paid forty dollars for, they worked exactly how I wanted them to at that moment.
That exceedingly beautiful man. He was magnificent. He was all sinew grace, and long limbs. His fist had to be the size of half my face. A large, well-defined chest, and probably a six pack on top of that, if the ripples at the front of his shirt were anything to go by. His arms were quite large. So large that they probably were the size of one of my legs. Well, maybe not that big, but still.
Today, he was wearing black jeans that fit him to perfection. A dark grey sweatshirt pulled up to his elbows, and black motorcycle boots. A red bandana covered his hair, but what hair I could see was black and silky.
I’d been torturing myself for two full days trying to figure out who he was, but I just couldn’t get my brain to work right. I knew something drew me to him, but I didn’t know what. Something so strong and magnetic emanated from him that I just knew he was someone special to me.
When I had my accident just before my first semester of college, there was nobody. I was alone in a small town in the Texas Panhandle. No one knew who I was, only that I’d been found on the side of Route 66, seconds away from death. A sheriff’s deputy had stopped to move what he thought was a dead animal off the side of the road. Motorists had complained of buzzards flying low at the one sixty-one mile marker. What he’d found was anything but a dead animal.
I was airlifted from the right shoulder of Route 66. According to the town, they stopped traffic in both directions and loaded me in to the helicopter, then took off as if our tail was on fire. Apparently, I was coding at that moment in time, and it was a struggle to keep me alive long enough for the two hour trip to the closest trauma center. They’d bypassed the local hospital due to the extensive damage to my face.
It took months and months of reconstructive surgery, but, finally, they were able to repair most of the damage to the fractured bones. The plastic surgeon who worked on me made sure that everything was as close to perfect as it could be. Yet, that didn’t bring back the memory that I’d prayed for every night for the last seven years.
I’d made the time to thank the cop who found me, as well as the Medevac pilots. Their heroism was what inspired me to be a paramedic. I’d stayed in Shamrock for seven years. Throughout all that time, I’d never found out one thing about myself. I’d poured through every single newspaper within five hundred miles of where I was dumped, but I came up completely empty.
Either the family I had in my previous life didn’t want me back, or I was further from home than my instincts told me I was. The one piece of information I did have was a tattoo that spanned my left side. It was the one place on my body that wasn’t messed up in my accident.
The tattoo, itself, spanned from my armpit to my hip. It was a dream catcher that was covered in frost. Pieces of the winter snow froze it in its place, forming icicles in certain places. It was frozen in motion, almost as if a swift winter storm permanently altered the dream catcher’s structure. Underneath the dream catcher, there were initials. J and W. The initials intertwined with the dream catcher’s frozen feathers.
My doctor’s had used the initials on my hip for my made up name. No one knew what it was, so they called me Jane Wind. Where they came up with Wind, I don’t know. Maybe they just went by the Native American tattoo I was sporting, but I went with it because I didn’t have any better ideas. Despite the fact that it never felt right.
It was about six months ago that I started to dream. At first, they were nothing more than snippets, but they turned into full on dreams. It was as if I was watching a movie starring myself. However, when I woke up, they’d disappear as if I’d never even watched them.
The only thing I ever remembered was a man, a dream catcher, and what I thought to be a motorcycle, but could never be sure.
A slap on the hood of my car startled me so bad that I threw the binoculars at the window and screamed like a banshee. The disturbingly large figure in black fatigue pants and a black polo that read KPD yanked my door open and hauled me out of my car with unparalleled strength.
Pure terror coursed through my body. I wasn’t paying attention to the cop car that was parked behind my car. I also wasn’t paying attention to the badge that was attached to the front of his belt. Otherwise, I might not have freaked out quite so badly.
However, I didn’t see the badge, only the huge ass man that was holding me and not letting me go. My mind went to the worst possible place in that moment, and I lost it.
“Jackopa!” I screamed, terror evident in my voice.
***
Jack
“Luke’s here.” Elliott said from beside me.
I ignored him and continued replacing the gauges on the newest bike we were building.
“Looks like he’s getting that chick with the binoculars. Sam must’ve gotten fed up.” He observed.
I grunted, but didn’t say anything.
I knew she was watching me, but I didn’t know why. I figured that I’d give her another week or so to come to me, and then I’d go to her. I didn’t know who she was, and the name Jane Wind didn’t ring any bells. The plates told me she was living six hours from here, and they told me she wasn’t wanted for anything; that’s why I wasn’t worried. She was harmless. Let her look.
I’d just tightened the nuts that held the tank in place when a scream that haunts my dreams cracked through the afternoon air like a whip.
“Jackopa!”
Instincts drove me.
I dropped what I was doing and sprinted through the parking lot of Free. My legs propelled me towards the terror-filled scream until I came upon Luke and a woman struggling. Throwing an adrenaline fueled punch, I ripped Luke’s arm away from the woman in the next instant, and crushed her into my body.
My arms wrapped around her tight, caging her in with my arms. Pulling her in so tight to my body that I was afraid I’d hurt her; yet I couldn’t make myself let go even if a freight train was barreling towards me.
Her piercing scream stopped the instant my arms went around her body.
I buried my nose into Winter’s hair. Hair that was mine; hair that belonged to me. Hair that I hadn’t smelled in seven years. Hair that I thought was fucking dead. Yet, she was here, very much alive. How the hell did I not know that the woman watching me was her? What the fuck was going on? I looked up to see blood streaming from Luke’s nose, yet I didn’t feel any remorse. In fact, I could probably hit him again for scaring Winter the way he had.
“Jesus Christ, did you have to manhandle her?” I seethed.
If I had been thinking more clearly, I would have known better than that; but I wasn’t.
He held up one hand in a placating gesture while the other tried to stem the flow of blood. “I didn’t, man. All I did was help her out of the car. When I put my hand on her, it was like a switch was flipped and she went nuts.”
Winter still had her face buried in the crook of my neck, and her arms wrapped tightly around my chest. “Baby, what’s going on? How are you here? Jesus Christ, I must be fucking dreaming. This isn’t possible. I’m not that lucky. Somebody fucking wake me up. This isn’t funny.” I said, but I wasn’t aware that I was sounding crazy. Hell, I probably was crazy.
I had a riot of emotions pouring through me and I didn’t know what the hell to do. It’d been seven years since I’d seen her last. Seven years since I felt the soft curves of her hips. Smelled the unique smell that was her. Sweet pea and chocolate. I’d teased her mercilessly about how she mixed two lotions together, but somehow it worked for her.
“I don’t know!” She moaned into my shirt. “I don’t know what the heck is going on. Why do I know your name? Why do you smell so familiar? Why can’t I keep my freakin’ eyes off you? Why am I not still screaming? Why are you pulling my hair out of its ponytail?”
Ice started coursing through my veins, and I froze mid motion as I was pulling the band out of her hair. Leaning back, I regarded her questioningly. “What do you mean?” I asked, genuinely confused now.
She didn’t remember me?
Tears filled her grey eyes. “You’re calling me Winter. Is that my name?”
Now that I was looking more closely, things started to stand out. Like the thin scar that ran the length of her hairline. The scar along the outside of both arms that denoted surgery. They didn’t miss the vertical cuts that ran along the main artery on her forearm, either.
“Let’s go to my place. We’re going to talk.” I said, as I grabbed her hand and pulled her along beside me.
We were alone on the sidewalk now. Sam, Luke, and Elliott stood just outside the garage’s bay door talking in a huddled whisper that cut off as soon as we came within hearing distance.
“Y’all can quit whispering about me like little girls on a playground. I’ll be back later,” I said, as I pulled her through the garage and out the back door. We walked to the very end of duplexes until we came to mine. Winter looked around with wide, confused eyes, but I suppressed the desire to pull her into the hug I so desperately wanted and kept walking. I unlocked the front door, held it open for her to pass me, and closed it behind us.
While my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I hit the lights with my free hand and dragged her to the couch. Kicking her shoes off, she sat and dragged her feet up to her chest, curling into herself. The sight of that action brought back the memory of every time she used to do that very action, seven years ago.
Winter used to curl into a ball every single time she sat down, laid down, or was just sitting in the kitchen. She didn’t like it when her feet touched the floor, and kept them off the floor at all times. Hell, we could have been eating out at an expensive restaurant and she’d still have her feet curled underneath her.
“God, you still haven’t stopped sitting like that?” I mused.
“Ahh, no. It’s more comfortable,” she said, sounding confused. Her forehead was wrinkled adorably.
Her eyes darted around the room frantically, taking in the sparsely decorated area. The only thing that ornamented the wall was one lone picture, and she hadn’t noticed it yet. The rest of the room was bare. I never used this room, so it didn’t have much more than a couch, a Lazy-Z-Boy and a coffee table. The kitchen was the same. There was one pot, one pan, one plate, one cup, one knife, one spoon, and one fork.
Her eyes finally came to rest on the picture, and she froze. Every muscle in her body became tight and rigid, and then she bounded from the couch to stand directly in front of the picture.
“Oh my God! Look how good my ass looks in those shorts!” She exclaimed.
I chuckled. That would be her first observation. Yet, the two wedding rings, and the wedding date underneath it doesn’t affect her in the slightest. The picture was of the both of us on my bike the day before I left for Afghanistan for deployment.
She was wearing short blue jean shorts and her Chucks, straddling my bike backwards. Her thighs are draped over my thighs, and my hand is running up the back of her shorts. Her sister, Stormy, took that picture, and Winter sent it to me. It was the first and last piece of mail I’d ever received from her.
Winter’s hand lifted to the glass, and her fingers ran over the dream catcher tattoo I had on my right forearm. Then they went to her side as she ran her fingers lightly over her side. I watched her making a connection in her brain, finally, and then she turned to me with wide scared eyes.
“We’re married?” She whispered with tears in her brown eyes.
***
Seven years prior
I’d been living in a state of happiness since I was married. Not even the roadside bomb that was found during the sweep of the South quarter put a dent in it.
“Where you goin’, Stoker?” Justin said from beside me.
I turned and gave him a grin. He knew exactly where I was going. To the tent that the computers were set up in. It being the ass crack of dawn meant that the computers would be free. Not many got up earlier than they had to; I was an exception to the rule though. If I wanted to talk to Winter, that was the time to do it and have some time without being rushed.
I sat down at the computer that was furthest away from the tent flap and turned my chair and the monitor of the computer as added security. I didn’t want anyone to see what was mine. In addition, it gave her a little security if she decided to show me anything more than her pretty face.
Skype was my poison of choice. There weren’t many options when it came to this, and unless I wanted to just email, which sucked when you couldn’t see your loved one’s face, that was my only option.
When I got online, I saw that she wasn’t there. We’d set up a recurring Skype appointment once a week. It wasn’t like her to miss, so I sat there and waited. When the sun finally made its appearance in the sky, I realized that it’d been over an hour, and still no Winter.
My gut started to churn, but I held my emotions in check. I’d email her, and then Adam, just in case she was sick and needed someone to check on her. Seeing that I had over five emails from Adam, I quickly sent him one, and then Winter. Just as I was about to open up Adam’s first email, the siren wailed alerting us to enemy forces being spotted.
Emails forgotten, I hauled ass back to my bunk and got dressed. The faded beige shirt I slipped on felt gritty against my skin. Smelling myself, I grimaced. Sweating like a bitch in heat wasn’t all that awesome. Especially in the lovely deserts of Afghanistan. Not being able to wash my freaking clothes was even worse.
Twelve grueling hours later, I made my way back to the computer. Today didn’t reward much time to try and check in with the computer. The Taliban didn’t really care if you were worried about your wife.
Just as I was about to enter the tent, I heard my name called.
“Stoker! My office.” My CO, Layne Cooper, yelled.
“Fuck me.” I muttered under my breath.
Just what I needed. To hear about breaking the rules today. It wasn’t my fucking fault that those pesky little bastards tried to shoot a hole through my forehead. Yet, I was supposed to ask if I could shoot them beforehand? I think not.
Clenching my hands into fists, I opened Layne’s door and closed it quietly behind me. “Sir.”
“Have a seat.” He said.
Something in his voice put me on alert. Something bad. Something that had more to do than what happened during patrol today.
I sat without comment and waited. Ideas started pouring through my head. Was it my dad? My brother? My dad was getting along in age, and having to work the bar by himself probably wasn’t the easiest thing to do. My brother, on the other hand, was a big failure in life.
He better not have done anymore drugs. The last time I’d caught him doing them I’d beat the holy hell out of him. Then again, he was only sixteen at the time, and it was easier to do than it would be now.
“Jack,” Layne said tightly. “I was contacted by someone today regarding your wife. The police officer I spoke with informed me that they couldn’t find your wife. There were signs of struggle; blood was found at the scene. This happened over a week ago. I’m sorry to tell you this but, today, they found her body.”
That day was the worst day of my life. The absolute worst. No words could explain the pain. The horror. The absolute helplessness.
It was over two weeks before I was able to make it home. Stepping off the plane, I saw Adam, Tai, and my father waiting for me. They all wore expressions of despair. None of them were as bad as mine though.
I was engulfed in hugs, and I broke. Utterly broke. My wife. The woman I loved with all my heart was gone. What the hell would I do now? One thing I was sure of, though, was that I would never love another. She deserved that from me. I would be true to our pledge of forever. No matter what.
I had a week to bury my wife and get back to base. A week to try to find some answers.