Chapter 21

Chanel

I stayed late in the mess hall after everyone left. Ryan went back to his office because he had too much to handle after what’d happened with Whitmore and Timothy. I didn’t want to hassle him, and the fluorescents in the officer’s mess hall put me at ease.

It was likely because they reminded me of the first house we stayed in. Well, the first stable one. A clapboard home in Ohio, with a butter yellow kitchen too small to cook in, but big enough for homework at the pine table.

Mom did her best. Dad was home when he could be. Those were good times for me.

I shifted my empty tray to one side and focused on the laptop in front of me. I tapped on the keys, and pulled an image onto the slide. I’d created a presentation of mood boards, taken pictures of what the base looked like now, then put up the comparison of what I planned to do afterward.

Simple changes, not too costly, but ones that would make the world of difference for the soldiers here.

I picked up my coffee, slurped down some of the good stuff, then put it down again. Gosh, it wasn’t even that late. Seven pm if the clock on my desktop was to be trusted, but I could barely keep my eyes open.

Luckily, the creepy feeling in my gut had subsided. Whitmore wasn’t out there somewhere, he was under watch close by. He couldn’t hurt Timothy or anyone else, and all of this would be resolved in no time.

Everything would be just fine. I stifled a yawn. Shit, I’d have to call it a night and head back to my room for some sleep. I’d done an admirable job of resisting my baser urge to jump Ryan during lunch this afternoon, but a little fantasizing before bed wasn’t uncalled for.

I closed the lid of my laptop and got up.

Two soldiers appeared in the doorway, Jack Whitmore between them.

“Well, hello,” Whitmore said, and smiled at me. “Fancy meeting you here.”

I picked up my laptop, tucked it under one arm, then piled my coffee cup onto my tray and carried it to the front of the cafeteria, where the sliding glass counters waited.

“What, you’re too good for me now, Chanel?” he taunted. “You weren’t too good to talk to me before.”

“That was before you beat my friend’s face to pulp,” I snapped. I wasn’t able to keep it in. “You’re sick, you know that?”

“Oh honey, you have no idea,” he said, behind me.

“Quiet.” That was from one of his escorts.

“Touchy, touchy. I’m only kidding around. I didn’t beat him up, anyway, Chanel.”

I didn’t dare turn and look him in the eye. I didn’t have Ryan’s self-control. I couldn’t shove my emotions to one side and ignore the fact that he literally ruined a man’s life.

I trembled and hugged my laptop to my chest to guard it, and to keep my hands busy.

“You don’t have to believe me, but it’s true. I didn’t beat Timothy.”

“I don’t believe you at all. So save your breath.”

“It was Ryan. He got drunk, you see,” Whitmore continued and met me at the front counter. “He was really angry when he saw that kid there. Mentioned that he’d hit on you while you were in Ryan’s car.”

I gulped and made for the exit. I couldn’t listen to another second of it or I’d spew my dinner – greens and roast chicken – all over the tired gray tiles.

“He saw Timothy and he went nuts. He followed him outside. I tried to stop him but Ryan was possessed. I’ve never seen him that angry. He beat that kid into the ground. He beat him until he couldn’t move anymore.”

I’d already entered the hall, but Whitmore’s words pursued me. They tickled the tiny kernel of doubt that I didn’t know was lodged in the back of my mind. What if it was Ryan? After all, how could Whitmore possibly know about Timothy?

“Stop,” I whispered, and hurried back to my bedroom. I entered it and swung the door shut, cutting out the imaginary cackle that had followed me all the way there. Of course, Whitmore’s laugh couldn’t have chased me to my quarters. Of course, Ryan didn’t beat Timothy to within an inch of his life. Of course not.

“So stop being ridiculous and focus on now, here,” I said. I locked my bedroom door.

The first few nights, I’d left it unlocked in case Ryan decided to sneak in and pay me a ‘conjugal’ visit. Suddenly, I wasn’t in the mood for anything like that.

“Stop,” I repeated. But Whitmore had planted a horrible, thorny seed.

How well did I really know Ryan? He was a closed book. He hadn’t let me in at all, other than to enter me and fulfill my soul with his passionate lovemaking. But in between? He was nothing but confusion.

And didn’t Whitmore say that Ryan changed after he’d been deployed? That he came back a different man because he’d lost men.

This wasn’t fair to Ryan. He hadn’t done anything to hurt me or anyone else to my knowledge. And I couldn’t believe that I was falling for – oh God, yes, I had fallen for him – a man who’d actually accost someone who’d done nothing to deserve it.

But he was so jealous in the car. He drove off. I didn’t realized it at the time, but he seethed about it and now –

My phone rang and sliced the horrible train of thought down the middle. Thank God for that. I brought it out of my jacket pocket, then swiped my thumb across the screen. “Hello?” I walked the laptop over to my desk and set it down.

“Chanel.” My mother’s voice always sent a chill down my spine.

Once upon a time, it made me happy. Oh how times changed. Or was it people? “Hi, mom. What can I do for you?”

“What you can do for me is get your butt back to Meek Springs,” she said. Whoa, not pulling any punches today, apparently.

“Uh, what?”

“Timothy Meller is in hospital!”

“I know,” I said.

“He’s in a coma because – what did you say?”

“I know,” I repeated. “I know he’s in hospital. I heard about it firsthand when they brought in the man who did it.”

“That Baker fellow did it,” mom snapped.

“No, he didn’t. A man named Jack Whitmore did it, and –”

“That’s garbage in a handbag and you know it. You’re defending them instead of the people who really matter. The people down here in Meek Springs,” she replied. “Everyone’s talking about this, Chanel. Everyone knows that you’re up there with them. With him.”

“Mom, he didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Are you sleeping with him?”

“Jesus!”

“Language!”

The conversation lulled for all of a second.

“I won’t let my daughter become a hussy on my watch. And I won’t let her bring down our family name.”

This was ridiculous. “Mom, you’re jumping to conclusions, okay? I’m up here working. I’ve got that big presentation coming up and once I nail it I’ll have a huge customer on our list.”

‘Forget about customers,” she said, “if you don’t get back down here soon I’m going to close Scott’s Interiors. I only opened the damn place to give you something to do. I don’t need the money. I’ve got enough saved up for retirement.”

“Close the store? But you love that store.” This couldn’t be happening. “You have to understand that this is huge for us. It’s huge. Mom, you have to see reason in this.”

“All I see is you colluding with murderers and freaks. Everyone knows they’re doing something shady up there and now you’re part of it.”

I bit my lip to keep from screaming at her. “Mother, there is nothing strange going on up here. You of all people should know that, since your husband was a military man,” I said, in a measured tone. It still quavered but it was better than the alternative.

“Timothy is almost dead and those men are to blame for it. I know it was that Lieutenant Commander. He was here on the day it happened. On the afternoon of the protests. He probably saw Timothy out there with them and decided to get rid of him.”

“Stop it,” I said, and my voice rose at last. “Would you just stop! You’re being ridiculous. You have to stop blowing everything out of proportion! I’m fine, everything’s fine, just get a grip.”

“Young lady, don’t take that tone with me. Now, I want you back down here by tomorrow, understand? Back down here or I’m closing the store.”

“Mom, please, you have to give me more time than that. Give me a week, okay? A week to prove that everything I’m doing up here is totally innocent. I’ll get the contract and then you’ll see.”

My mother harrumphed, which was better than an outright ‘no’ but not by much. “I’ll check in with you tomorrow.” She hung up without a goodbye or an ‘I love you’ like a normal mother would.

I didn’t have anything normal anymore. I was out here on this damn base with a psycho who beat the crap out of one of the folks in Meek Springs, and with an equally crazy mother waiting for me at home. It was the definition of a rock and a hard place and the only saving grace in this whole thing was Ryan.

And my brain wouldn’t let me trust him, now.

My cellphone binged with a text message and I lifted it again.

Everyone’s really pissed, Channy. I’m scared. They’re talking about a petition or getting rid of the base. I think it’s serious this time. That from Paula’s cell phone.

I couldn’t muster up the energy to type out a reply. Christ, all I wanted was a chance to prove myself away from home, and maybe to be a little closer to the handsome and ever mysterious Ryan Baker, but everything had gotten muddled up along the way.

The enticement of creating something tangible for the men and women here to appreciate was worn away by the circumstances. The color in my life had gone as gray as the walls in this place.

I put the cell down on top of the laptop, then flopped down on the bed, exhaling the pressure, but failing to lift it.

“You can do this,” I whispered. “You can make it through this.” Dad would’ve believed in me. He would’ve encouraged me to carry on, to stay the course as he’d have put it. He’d tell me that there wasn’t an obstacle I couldn’t move or clamber over.

The scary thing was I was starting to doubt that it was true, and I’d never doubted a single word my father had uttered.

Tears came again and I plugged them with the heels of my palms.

“You can do this. You can.”