CHAPTER EIGHT
The thud of a boot on the front porch of Boomer’s cabin woke him seconds before someone pounded their fist on the door.
“Hey, Boomer, you want to go for a ride?” said a female voice from the other side.
“Jenna?” Boomer leaped over Sidney and balanced on one foot in the darkness of the room as he reached over and grabbed blindly for his crutch resting near the foot of the bed.
The door latch turned, but the chair he’d jammed under the door handle the night before held. He really needed to put a deadbolt on that door. Sidney scrambled out of the bed behind him, her fiery locks sticking up at all angles.
Making his way to the door, Jenna pounded again.
“The door’s stuck. I can’t get in.”
Boomer glanced behind him. Sidney sat at the table and waved at him to open the door. He flicked on the lights and squinted at the sudden brightness.
Jenna knocked again. “Boom. I know you’re not asleep. You never sleep this late.”
The sun hadn’t even come up yet, but that didn’t make Jenna wrong. He’d been awake, and normally he’d have been out of bed already, but he’d had one warm, sexy reason to stay put.
Boomer removed the chair and opened the door. Jenna swept in, her energy wafting off her in waves.
She turned to him, “Dude, what’s with the ch—”
Jenna glanced around the room, her eyes landing on Sidney first, then his unmade bed and the made bed across the room. Then she turned and smiled at him, big and bright and completely off base.
“It’s not what you’re thinking,” Boomer muttered.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I have a pretty good imagination. But hey, no judgment here.”
Heat crept up the back of Boomer’s neck. This was not the conversation he wanted to have with Hank’s nineteen-year-old daughter. Even if there wasn’t anything to talk about.
Sidney ran her hands through her hair to tame her bedhead, but the effort was wasted. “I should leave.”
“Stay,” he told her. To Jenna he said, “This is our new horse trainer, Sidney. Sidney, Hank’s daughter, Jenna.”
They shook hands.
“Nice to meet you,” Sidney said, without the expected awkwardness.
“What are you doing here?” Boomer hopped back over to the bed and started the process of putting on his leg.
“Quinn’s driving up and dropping his motorcycle off for Mac to keep while he’s deployed. He leaves next week, and this was the only way I could get to see him before he left.”
“Already?”
“It’s almost been two years,” Jenna said. “Time flies.”
Boomer shook his head in disbelief. Quinn had done so much in those couple years: become a Marine, gone through flight training, helicopter training. What had he done? Ended his marriage…and somehow managed to not pickle his liver. Yet.
“Anyway, he’s not due until this evening, so I thought you and I could ride for the day, air Angel out for ten or twenty miles.”
“Er…Jenna…”
“Sidney is welcome to come too.” Jenna waggled her brows at him and gave him a cheeky smile. She wore a pair of jeans, her boots, an old USMC T-shirt of Mac’s, and a black cowboy hat that was dirt-stained and felt-worn, with her brown hair tied back in a low ponytail.
“It’s not that,” he said. “Jenna…”
When he waffled, the smile dropped from her lips. “What is it, Boom.”
“You haven’t talked to your dad, have you?”
“I drove through the night. He and Mac didn’t even know I was coming.”
Jenna glanced from Boomer to Sidney and back again, picking up on his tension. “What is it?”
“Look…” He couldn’t figure out a good way to tell her that her champion barrel racer was stolen. Christ, he didn’t want to be the one to have to tell her, but it wasn’t anyone else’s responsibility to do his dirty work. “Angel’s gone.”
She laughed, and her eyes sparkled with incredulity. Then her face fell. “Wait, you’re serious.”
He nodded. Sidney came over and sat beside him on the bed, placing a hand on his shoulder for support, he supposed. He appreciated the thought, but telling Jenna was going to hurt worse than digging shrapnel out without morphine. He cursed the bastards for taking his flask along with the horses. He could have used a stiff drink about now.
Mentally, he bit down on a strap of leather and said, “Sidney and I were out for a ride yesterday afternoon. We came across some men and…and Angel and Sidney’s horse, Eli, were taken.”
Jenna’s face went white, and Boomer jumped off the bed and sat her in the chair before she fell. “Look at me,” he said.
When she finally did, her eyes were glassy and she was blinking furiously to keep the tears from falling. It squeezed his heart. Jenna wasn’t a crier.
“I’m going to get him back. I promise,” Bryan said.
“W-what…how…”
Boomer grabbed the other chair, turned it around, and sat down. He crossed his arms over the back and told her the truth. When he’d finished, she remained quiet, as if she were still processing all that he’d said. Then her color went from Wicked-Witch-white to ruby-red. If she hadn’t been so young, Boomer might have thought she was stroking out. Jenna stood abruptly and strode to the door.
“Jenna. Jenna!”
She stopped with her hand on the door latch, but she didn’t turn back.
“Where are you going?”
“To find my horse.”
* * * *
Everyone had saddled up for the search. Alby and Santos, Hank and Mac, Dale and Lottie, and of course Jenna and Sidney. With so much ground to cover, they would have to split up to search effectively with their time constraints.
The Lazy S was a working ranch, and even though the horses were valuable, there was too much work to do to waste valuable man hours for a couple thousand pounds of horse flesh. As it was, Alby and Santos were working on their one full day off for the week. They weren’t required to come, but they had, and Boomer owed them one for that.
At the stock pond, where the horses had been stolen, it had been easy to pick up the trail. Then, sometime after noon, the hoofprints disappeared at a river crossing. It was rocky on the far side, and even though they rode up and down the river, they couldn’t find where they’d come out.
They dismounted by the river to water the horses and eat lunch. The sun was high, and sweat ran down Boomer’s back in rivulets. As he came out of the saddle, he landed hard on his prosthetic, jamming it into the end of his stump. Damn. His vision blurred. He grabbed on to the saddlebags to keep the pain from driving him to his knees and concentrated on the simple task of unpacking his lunch. At the bottom of his saddlebag he found his painkillers and tossed one between his molars and chomped down.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to chew them like candy.”
Boomer jumped. He hadn’t heard Sidney walk up behind him. “Hasn’t killed me yet.”
He’d meant it as a joke, but Sidney wasn’t laughing. Or smiling. Or looking amused in any way. In fact, by the way the pulse kicked in her neck, he guessed she was on a fast slide from frustration to seriously pissed. Well, she wasn’t his keeper. Or his wife, or even his girlfriend, so he tried not to let it bother him. Even though it gnawed at his belly that it did.
“Something you needed?” he asked. He pulled a swallow of water from his canteen and washed down the bitter taste of the pill—and the sour taste of his harsh tone—from his mouth.
“No. I was…”
He raised an impatient brow at her.
“No,” she amended simply, then turned on her heel and walked back to the others.
Fucking smooth, man. She hadn’t deserved that.
Boomer sat on a large rock a few yards away from the others to eat his beef sandwich while he waited for the painkiller to kick in and level out his pain and his mood.
“So, what now?” Jenna asked around a bite of apple.
“We split up,” Mac and Boomer said in unison.
They smiled at each other. Boomer liked being back in sync with Mac. A strand of their old bond grew stronger. Boomer looked down at the ground, a little embarrassed by how good that felt.
Mac said, “Hank, Jenna, and I will head south and follow the river. Dale and Lottie can follow the river north.”
“Santos,” Boomer chimed in, “you and Alby head northwest toward the box canyon. Sidney and I will head southwest toward Dead Man’s Pass, where Bill saw riders the other day.”
Sidney frowned. “I thought I’d go with Alby and Santos.”
“You’re with me,” Boomer said, short and clipped. The issue wasn’t up for discussion. Technically, he was still her boss, and he wanted her with him. If she went with one of the others and something happened to her, he’d never be able to forgive them, or himself.
Sidney’s frown deepened and she cut him a look that slashed at his authority the way a machete slices through the brush, but she kept her opinions to herself. Smart girl.
“Lotta ground,” Dale said.
Hank gathered up his trash and combined it with Mac’s. “And daylight’s wastin’.”
“Everyone check their radios and their weapons,” Mac said.
“Lock and load, people,” Boomer piped in, giving Mac a fist bump. “And keep an eye on your six.”
* * * *
Late that evening, on a log across Boomer’s fire from the others, Sidney sat in utter disbelief. Nine people searching all day, and besides some hoofprints, they’d found…nothing. Up the river, down the river, up to the pass, and down to the box canyon, what they’d found was exactly the same.
Big.
Fat.
Nothing.
It was as if the horses had evaporated off the face off the earth. The day had been hot, but not that hot. Her jeans were still damp with sweat, though her T-shirt hung on her shoulders, dry and stiff.
The temperature had dropped with the sun and she needed the heat from the fire to keep her warm, though the flames did nothing to warm the spot in her chest where hope lay dying and cold revenge threatened to crystalize the blood in her veins. If she ever got her hands on the men who stole Eli she’d…
She didn’t know what she’d do. Hopefully, Bryan would be there with her to make it slow and extra painful. A shame that vigilante hangings were frowned upon these days.
That’s if the bodies are found.
Ugh. She needed to get some sleep if thoughts of torture and murder were sounding like viable options. But she didn’t want to go to her room and be alone, and she wasn’t really in a mood suitable for company either. So she stayed in her spot, downwind of the fire, the breeze sending the smoke around her.
She caught motion out of the corner of her eye and refocused her attention from the dance of the blue-orange flames to Bryan as he braved the chasm between them and held out a beer.
“I’ve had one, thanks.”
He plopped down beside her and put the beer in her hand. “Drink.”
“It’s not going to bring Eli back.”
“No. It’s not,” he said evenly. “But it makes it not hurt so bad. At least for a while.”
“The hurt, the worry, the missing him…it sucks big bad donkey balls, but as horrible as it is…” She popped the top, aware of the irony of what she was about to say along with opening that beer. Then she looked him square in the eye and said, “Feeling is part of being human. Feeling is what makes you know you’re alive. Feeling isn’t something you should have to hide from.”
Like the feelings you have for Bryan? Should you hide from that? From him? She mentally slapped at Practical Sidney to shut her up.
“No, it isn’t,” he agreed, his voice level, more reasonable than expected, then he leaned in toward her like he had classified military intel to sell. She smelled the hops on his breath and the dust and smoke in his hair. “But sometimes, I’m all too human and a little too alive.”
He was sitting close. So close that his thigh rested against hers even though there was more than enough room on the log for two or three other people. His body heat seeped through her jeans, reminding her how having him at her back the night before, surrounding her with his heat and strength, had brought her some much-needed comfort.
While Practical Sidney tried to convince herself of all the reasons she should build a taller, wider, more impenetrable wall, Impractical Sidney wanted to slap a muzzle on her sister and throw her to the wolves.
He slid his hand over hers, intertwined their fingers, and rested them on her thigh. “I have my faults, Sidney. And Mac would be ecstatic to give you the extensive list if you ask her, but giving up, giving in, admitting defeat, isn’t one of them. We didn’t find the horses today, but that doesn’t mean we won’t find them the next time we go out, or the time after that, or the time after that. You can count on me. I owe you that much.”
“You don’t owe me anything.” She squeezed his hand. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I’m also stubborn, and like to argue like a lawyer, so we can, A, sit here and argue the intricacies of fault all night, or, B, we can relax and enjoy our beer and the fire and the stars and our friends. Up to you.”
“I’ll take option C.” Funny how Impractical Sidney sometimes sounded a whole lot like Regular Sidney.
He smiled. It was as warm as the fire and sweet as molasses. “A woman with a plan. Tell me about it.”
“It’s better if I show you.”
Sidney glanced across the fire at the others. No one paid them any attention so she leaned in and laid her lips on his.
He pulled their linked hands to his chest, drawing her closer. Over the crackling of the fire and the murmur of voices, she didn’t hear him groan, but she felt the rumble against the back of her hand. It radiated up her arm and hijacked the express train to her girlie bits. Her nipples puckered and her panties got damp.
Trouble, trouble! Alert, alert!
Practical Sidney wanted to slap the panic button and order Sulu to throw up the defensive shields; Impractical Sidney wanted to whack that donkey on the ass and hold on for the ride.
Before she made any decision, Bryan broke the kiss and rested his forehead on hers. “Sweet Jesus, you make it hard to be chivalrous.”
“I don’t remember asking.”
“Christ,” he muttered as he caught her bottom lip with his teeth and nibbled his way to her chin.
Something rumbled in her chest, and it grew until it rang in her ears and her body practically vibrated.
Jenna squealed and ran up the road. “Quinn!”
“Saved by the Harley,” Bryan told her with a grin. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”
They walked up the road with the rest of the gang to meet Quinn up by the big house. Dressed in all black, the bike’s headlight cast Quinn in the shadows. Black leather pants, black leather jacket, matte black helmet. Even the bike was black.
Quinn killed the engine and the rumble in Sidney’s chest subsided. He pulled off his helmet, revealing his buzz cut. He looked like he should be the high school quarterback, not a helicopter pilot about to head off for his first deployment.
Jenna didn’t wait for Quinn to climb off the bike before running into his arms. She hit him hard. Hank reacted fast, grabbing the handlebars to keep Jenna from knocking Quinn and the bike to the ground.
“Hey, baby,” Quinn said with a laugh. “Happy to see me?”
Jenna hugged him tighter.
Quinn managed to put his kickstand down and drag his leg over the seat without dislodging Jenna. He kissed her on the cheek then held out a hand to Hank. He made his way around the semicircle of people.
There were handshakes and manly hugs and lots of hard back slaps. Lottie wiped the tears from her eyes more than once and after saying her hello, Mac couldn’t keep her eyes off the bike.
The bike was old. Sidney didn’t know how old. Prehistoric or sand scrolls or Mayan hieroglyphs old.
Bryan wrapped Quinn in a one-arm hug. It was then that Sidney realized it was because his other hand was still holding hers. It had felt so natural she hadn’t even noticed.
She released Bryan’s hand to shake Quinn’s after Bryan made the introductions. Quinn refused her hand pulled her into a hug instead. He was tall, but lacked Hank’s height and Bryan’s bulk.
“You miss her, boss?” Alby asked Mac, who looked at the Harley the open, greedy way some women looked at diamonds.
Mac shrugged, but slid her fingers over the handlebars, a reverent, soft caress.
“An old friend?” Sidney asked.
Mac nodded and smiled in a way that somehow looked happy and sad. “My grandfather’s bike. I gave it to Quinn a couple years ago, after spending a year of my life on the road.”
Sidney gulped. “A year?”
Mac nodded again. “Probably goes down as the single worst and best year of my life.”
“Hop on,” Hank said. “See how she feels.”
Mac didn’t hesitate. She swung her leg over and settled into the seat. She closed her eyes and sighed the way a person does when they slip on a favorite pair of jeans that hugged every inch of them like an old lover.
“Hey, Mac,” Quinn called out. “Catch.”
Quinn tossed her his helmet and she caught it and tugged it on. She flipped the visor up, the interior padding tight against her cheeks.
“Hey, cowboy,” Mac said to Hank. “Wanna ride?” Her words came out in a low, throaty, suggestive purr.
Sidney choked on air. Alby let out a sharp bark of laughter he couldn’t hide behind a fake cough.
Hank’s grin slid across his face and his teeth flashed in the shine form the headlight. “Oh, hell yeah.”
Mac straightened the bike and jumped on the kick-starter. The engine roared to deafening life as she blipped the throttle and gave it some gas. Hank grabbed the extra helmet off the frame, strapped it on, and hopped on behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist.
“Back in a bit,” Mac said. With a whoop they sped off, leaving a choking cloud of exhaust and dust that tickled the back of Sidney’s throat and burned her eyes.
Sidney coughed and fanned her hand to dissipate the smoke. Everyone was chatting and heading back to the fire. Her eyes were scratchy, and she wasn’t sure the moisture in them was all from the irritating dust. Her heart ached, her body ached, and by the way her thoughts had easily drifted to murder and mayhem, her brain was little more than mush.
She headed toward the barn. Crashing on her soft bed suddenly sounded indulgent and decadent. Her feet needed air and a massage. When Impractical Sidney pointed out there were other body parts Bryan would excel at massaging, she almost asked Bryan back to her room, but it showed how tired she was, because Practical Sidney barely had to fight for her to say, “I think I’ll head back to my room. Tell everyone I said good night.”
Bryan snagged her hand. “One more beer?”
Sidney’s chest tightened. If he’d asked any other way, she would have had a hard time refusing. He wanted her to stay, to spend more time with him and the group of people swiftly becoming her extended family instead of bosses and peers, but the way he’d phrased it was a bright, neon red sign flashing Danger! Danger! Danger!
Bryan had a problem only he could fix.
A problem he was willing to live with.
A problem she wasn’t.
* * * *
Mac and Hank came back from their short motorcycle ride not long after Boomer had returned to the fire. He popped a pain pill into the back of his throat and swallowed it down with the last swallow of his beer. He crumpled the can and tossed it into his open cooler.
Hank and Mac sat down on a log beside Jenna and Quinn.
“So, Dad…” Jenna started.
Hank chuckled, wrapped an arm around Mac’s shoulder, and whispered loudly, “This can’t be good.”
“No, hear me out.”
He groaned and Alby said, “Should we leave? I’d hate to see a grown man cry.”
“Or I could shoot you now, amigo,” Santos piped in. “May be less painful.”
Jenna gave Santos a playful whack on the arm. “Hush. You two aren’t helping.”
“Maybe she wants the keys to your truck,” Mac added helpfully.
“Or to drop out of college and join the nunnery.” Boomer laughed.
Jenna stilled and turned as pale as a nun’s habit.
Hank stiffened and cut his eyes to his daughter. “Jenna.” It was a question, statement, and warning all neatly packaged into one tight little word. “What’s going on?”
Jenna stared into the fire, unable, or unwilling, to look her father in the eye. “It’s what Boomer said.” Her voice was so quiet, Boomer barely hear her.
“Madre de Dios. You want to be a nun?”
“Don’t you have to be a vir—” One look from Mac and the rest of the word wedged in Alby’s throat.
Jenna pulled a face.
Hank looked murderous.
Alby coughed. “Sorry,” he muttered.
Lottie stood up. “Maybe we should take this inside.”
Meaning a family conversation. Boomer couldn’t fault her for that. Even if Jenna was like a niece to him, it wasn’t like he was really family.
“No, wait,” Jenna said. “This involves everyone, so everyone stays.”
“Spit it out, baby girl,” Dale said.
Jenna opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
With his arm around her waist, Quinn tugged her against his side. “You can tell us.”
“Boomer was partly right. Not the nun part,” Jenna was quick to add, with a shy smile for Quinn. Hank looked like he’d swallowed antifreeze. “The college part.”
The fire flickered and dimmed, as if the collective breath everyone held had sucked the oxygen from the state.
Hank shook his head. “No.” The word was simple and flat and emphatic and brokered no argument.
In the military that would have been that, but as Boomer stretched out his prosthetic and crossed his legs at the ankles, he was well aware this wasn’t the military.
“Hank—” Jenna started.
“So, now I’m Hank? What happened to Dad?” He didn’t raise his voice. He even had a bit of a smile on his face, but it was tight and controlled, and only a fool would think he was in any way amused.
“Let her talk,” Mac said.
Hank put his hands up, then crossed them over his chest. “Fine. Talk.” By the way he said it, he might as well have said, “Better make it good.”
“So, Dad,” Jenna started again. Hank chuckled and shook his head but didn’t interrupt. “I went to college to be a social worker because I wanted to help people. There’s something missing, and I think I figured out what it is.”
She paused, but Hank motioned her to continue. His face was still hard, but he’d uncrossed his arms from his chest and leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees.
“I want to drop out of social work and become an equine therapist.”
“A horse shrink?” Alby’s voice rose.
“No, it’s—”
“Someone who uses horses to help people with physical problems,” Mac said.
“And mental,” Jenna added, her eyes cutting between Mac and Boomer. “Specifically, I want to help veterans. I want to help improve their lives, physically, emotionally, spiritually. I want to do that, and I want to do that here.”
“Here?” Dale asked.
“Here.” Jenna stood and stepped in front of the fire and turned toward the group. “What better place than this valley, these mountains? I’ve seen firsthand how this place, the horses, can help people.”
Mac held her gaze and nodded once, then shot a quick glance at Boomer. He and Mac went way back. Of all the people around the fire, even with her husband there, Boomer ventured he alone knew the kind of transformation Mac had gone through at the ranch.
“But it won’t work without Mac and Boomer.”
The beer and the pills and the physical exhaustion had settled hard in Boomer. He startled out of his half daze. “Me? I don’t know anything about any of that.”
“You know horses. More importantly, you and Mac, you two know soldiers. You’ve been in combat. You understand what it was like over there. You know what it’s like to shoot and be shot at. The horses, the physical therapy, the peace they bring help to a point. You two,” Jenna looked between Mac and Boomer again, “you two can give them someone to talk to, someone who can understand what they’re going through. That’s something I could never give them.”
“I’m no shrink,” Mac said.
“You don’t have to be. You just be you. What do you say?”
For the longest time, no one spoke as they absorbed her words and the ramifications to the Lazy S and the people they might help.
Then it was like a collective gag had been ripped away and they all spoke at once.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Mac said.
“I’m proud of you,” Hank added.
“I’m nobody’s role model,” Boomer grumbled. “Hell, I’m the one you want to steer them away from.”
Jenna smiled at her father, and the worry lines on her forehead eased. “You mean it?”
He stood and pulled her into his arms and hugged her tight. “Yeah, baby, I mean it.” His voice was gruff, but he got all the words out clear enough.
Boomer looked away. His chest tightened and he couldn’t exactly say why. Was he touched by the moment? Or by the fact that it had been a really, really, really long time since anyone had said they were proud of him?
More importantly, even longer since he’d been proud of himself.
* * * *
The moon shone high and the fire burned low, and after a long back-and-forth about Jenna’s ideas for the therapy program and how it would fit into the workings of the rest of the ranch, everyone had grown silent.
Then Quinn took Jenna’s hand, stood, and pulled her to her feet. He glanced around at everyone, never quite meeting anyone’s gaze. He shifted from foot to foot and said, “I have to leave in the morning, and I wanted to say to everyone how much Jenna means to me. I know you haven’t always approved,” he said to Hank, “but I think even then you knew I had Jenna’s best interest at heart. That I love her.”
Jenna backed a step away, but Quinn kept a tight grip on her hand. “Quinn,” Jenna’s voice dropped to a stage whisper. “What are you doing?”
“What I should have done a long time ago.” Quinn dug into the front pocket of his motorcycle pants and pulled out a tiny box. Then he got down on one knee.
“Oh, my gosh.” Lottie covered her mouth and Dale tucked her under his arm.
“Quinn.” Jenna’s voice hardly carried, but the warning in her tone was undeniable. The way she shook her head didn’t look like someone who couldn’t believe what was happening. At least, not in a good way.
Boomer had been there and knew the signs. Quinn had stars in his eyes, love in his heart, and a long deployment weighing heavy on his mind.
Quinn opened the ring box and held it out to Jenna.
“It—it’s beautiful.”
“Jenna, I have loved you since before it was proper.” He sneaked a look at Hank. “Or safe. You’re an incredible woman that I want in my life. I want you with me for now and for always. Will you marry me?”
“You’re leaving for Okinawa. Tomorrow.”
“Come with me.”
Hank harrumphed.
“When the semester is done,” Quinn wisely added. “Come to Japan, be my wife.”
Jenna pulled her hand from his. “Japan?”
Quinn’s smile faltered around the edges.
“You were sitting right here. Right next to me. The therapy program is my dream, here, at this ranch. This is how I can make a difference. Did you not hear what I said? What I wanted?”
“I thought what you wanted was for us to be together.”
“I do, but—”
“But not if it’s not exactly how you want it. Not if it isn’t on your terms.” Quinn paced toward the fire then back again, a hand on his hip and a finger pointed at his chest. “Do you have any idea what I’ve sacrificed, what I gave up for this assignment? What I did so I could be with you, take you with me?”
“I never asked you to—”
Quinn snorted out a bitter, cold laugh and held up a hand. “Don’t finish that sentence.” He snapped the ring box closed and set it in her palm.
“I can’t accept this.”
“I bought it for you. Keep it, sell it. I don’t care. I never want to see it again.”
The “or you” seemed implied as he snagged his leather jacket off the log and walked away into the darkness, but then again, Quinn was a proud Marine who’d had his heart handed to him in front of God and everyone.
No one spoke. Even Alby, and he always had something to say.
“Dad…I…” Jenna folded the ring box against her chest as Hank stood and pulled her into him. Boomer lowered his gaze and damned that his flask had been swiped, the rotten bastards. He rooted around in his cooler, but came up with empties.
A pebble hit him in the hand and he glanced over at Mac. She tossed her head in the direction Quinn had taken off.
He mouthed, “Why me?”
She rolled her eyes like the answer was obvious. Maybe to her it was, but Boomer got up anyway and headed up after Quinn.
“Boom.” Hank tossed him a set of keys. “He’s gonna need a ride to his parents’ house.”
Lottie and Dale were up and giving Jenna hugs. Alby and Santos had magically vanished into thin air.
On his way past Mac, Boomer quietly said, “I’m not the guy for this.”
She gave him a light shove. “You’re the only guy for this.”
Boomer wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that, but he guessed it didn’t really matter. Quinn had already disappeared from view. Boomer jogged to catch up. His stride was off since he didn’t have his running leg on, and the socket jarred the end of his stump despite the extra padding.
Then he saw a faint shadow up ahead and hollered out, “Wait the hell up, man.”
Quinn didn’t stop, his steps didn’t even slow or falter. Boomer jogged faster, the stutter in his step more pronounced the faster he went.
When he finally caught up to Quinn, Boomer lengthened his usual walking stride to keep up with him. Being a Marine, Boomer recognized the stride and the carriage of a man on a mission.
Even if that mission was getting the hell out of Dodge.
“Come on,” Boomer said. “I’ll give you a ride home.”
Quinn kept walking. Like he hadn’t heard him, like Boomer wasn’t even there.
Boomer clasped a hand on Quinn’s shoulder and stopped him short. Quinn knocked Boomer’s hand free, shoved him back, then got in his face. “Outta my way, Boom.”
Instead of backing down, Boomer bumped Quinn in the chest with his own. “You wanna fight, big man? Show me what you got?”
“What I want—” Quinn shouted, spitting saliva with the words. Quinn glanced behind them to where they’d come from, and Boomer understood.
What a man wanted and what a man could have sometimes weren’t even in the same solar system.
Boomer knew that better than most.
Quinn sagged as the fight left his system.
“Let me drive you home.”
Quinn didn’t argue. He didn’t do much of anything until Boomer steered him toward Hank’s Ford.
The drive over to Quinn’s parents’ house felt longer than the ten miles it was. The road was winding and Quinn hadn’t said one word since they’d gotten in. When Boomer pulled up in front of the modest ranch house, he cut the engine and the headlights.
Quinn didn’t get out as soon as Boomer threw the lever in to park, so he assumed Quinn had something he wanted to say. Lord knew Boomer didn’t know what to say. What kind of life-altering advice could he give a man? His wife had left him. And Sidney? Well, Sidney might want him, but not as the man that he was. She wanted the cleaned-up, Boy Scout version she had of him in her mind. The real him? The one full of warts and war wounds and bad booze? Not so much.
Quinn stared out the windshield and laughed, but it was full of derision, not humor. “I thought that was what she wanted, I thought—”
“What she wanted? Or what you wanted?”
“I thought they were the same. Isn’t being together what matters?”
Boomer was at a loss for words, except for a few expletives for Mac for getting him into this in the first place. He could try to placate Quinn with meaningless words, but they would be just that—meaningless. Quinn didn’t deserve that. What he deserved was the truth, at least as much of the truth as Boomer understood himself.
“I’m not gonna sit here and blow sunshine up your ass, man,” Boomer started. “I don’t have any answers for you. Wish I did, but I don’t. All I know is, if you love her like you say you do, then some way, somehow, the two of you will make it work.”
Quinn did look at him then. “You saying I should give up my flying, my career, to stay in some Podunk—”
“I didn’t say that. But that’s what you’re asking Jenna to do. Give up what she loves, what she’s passionate about.”
“I thought all the experts said love is enough.”
Boomer was quiet while he processed the truth in that. Or, should he say, the mistruth. “In my experience, love alone is never enough.”