Chapter 19
Bennett
I WAS FALLING for her. I’m not even sure how it happened or when it started, but I was definitely falling for her. I knew it the minute my lips touched hers and the stormy chaos in my mind stilled. She was my answer, she was my cure. And now she would be my undoing.
I dialed. It was late, but it needed to be done.
“Hello?” His voice was soft, gravelly even. Surely he hadn’t been sleeping.
“Doc? Did I wake you?” His low, rumbly chuckle brought a little spark back to the darkness inside me.
“Naw, Rosie fell asleep on my arm while we were watching reruns of M*A*S*H and I just hate to move, you know?”
I wish I knew. We chatted a few minutes, about everything and nothing, but when the silence became earsplitting, he asked.
“And the girl? Rosie will kill me if I don’t ask.” I pulled a few deep breaths.
“How did you know, Doc? When you met Rosie, how did you know?” I realized this was something I’d have asked Chance, if he were still alive.
He laughed again. “Well, I dunno if I should admit this, but when I met her, a George Jones song popped into my head. She was smooth as whiskey, sweet as wine, and warm as brandy. How could a man ask for more?”
Well, Jillian was all that and more. I told Doc everything. How we met, the tire, the volunteer work, the bet, the dinner, the kiss, and the boyfriend. “It was a pipe dream anyway. How could I expect her to love me? I’m broken. I’m not complete. That damn desert took so much from me, sometimes I wish… ”
“Ben, let me tell you something. The moon is only full and complete a few times a month, but there’ve been countless songs written about it. You are not broken, you’re normal—it’s just your new normal.”
For not being my father, or anyone’s father, really, he sure was good at it. He always gave me so much to think about. “Well, do you at least have everything you need?” I laughed. No, because everything I need hopped on a plane bound for Austin a few hours ago.
“I’m good. Go take care of Rosie and I’ll call you next week.” Setting the phone back in the cradle, I closed my eyes and tried to picture Jillian and me as an Us, but the only image I could visualize was a hunk of cement, dirty and jagged and chipped, sitting next to a sparkling diamond—colorless, flawless, priceless.
I declined the Lowe’s offer to spend the rest of the evening at their place. I wouldn’t have been good company, so I had just showered, called Doc, and crashed. I’d never begged for sleep like I did the night she left, but I did just that. My journal sat on the little built-in counter I used as a desk untouched, its pages empty. It was the perfect description of me.
There, but not. Alive, but not living.
I prayed I would fall asleep before I fell to pieces. But sleep never came, thanks to the tsunami of thoughts flooding my brain.
The simple fact was, I was in love with her.
And it had nothing to do with sex. She wasn’t just a woman to sleep with. She was a woman to wake up to for the rest of your life. What an honor that would be. It sickened me that it belonged to someone else.
When he cornered me in the dining room of the cafe on Thanksgiving morning, he was marking his territory. Jill was his and that was that. He called her ‘my friend,’ but he was wrong. Friends don’t look at each other the way she looked at me, like I was in control of her universe. Gareth Johnson told me he could offer her the world. But if love were stars, I could give her the galaxy.
But could I? Was I enough?
That roadside bomb in Iraq broke me. I completely fell apart, and no woman needs a broken man. In theory, I’d come home and just like Humpty Dumpty, I’d put myself back together again. I needed to get myself together, before I could love someone else. Only that was impossible. There were pieces missing. I’d left so much in the desert, I didn’t know how to rebuild the man I once was. But I knew I could never be enough for Jillian Walker.
I spent the rest of that restless night bouncing between worthy and worthless, but I woke up with a startling realization. I could stop loving her about as easily as I could stop my heart from beating. And I was a fighter, not a quitter. But I needed a plan. However far-fetched, I was going to fight for this. Battling for something unlikely to happen was better than giving up on everything I never knew I wanted.
With a renewed confidence, I walked to the corner store for a newspaper. But the face smiling at me from the front page was a clear indication I’d lost the war before the first shot had even been fired.