Chapter 2
Kurt passed his first twenty-four hours in Fort Leonard Wood without placing the call he most needed to make. Finally, knowing he’d put off the inevitable reunion long enough, he borrowed Thomas’s cell phone and arranged to meet his grandfather.
It wasn’t so much that he dreaded reconnecting with the stalwart man who’d raised him.
The problem was that seeing him would make it impossible to deny that his grandmother—Nana—was gone.
Forever. His grandfather had been an upstanding, stern, and dedicated parent figure.
Nana, on the other hand, had been comfort, love, and understanding.
William Crawford nodded his way, squinting in the bright afternoon sun. He hardly looked a year older than he had when Kurt enlisted, certainly not eight years older. They exchanged handshakes rather than hugs and headed inside, taking seats at the bar.
Kurt found himself blinking at the familiarity of the place as they settled into awkward conversation highlighted by more silence than words.
He shifted on his stool and swigged from his longneck beer.
It felt like a lifetime since he’d been at Tilly’s.
Nothing here had changed, not even the glowing Miller Lite sign whose M flickered sporadically or the chipped pool table at the back of the bar.
Kurt felt eons older than the twenty-year-old he’d been when he enlisted. But here time had stood still.
Beside him, his grandfather lifted his glass of bourbon to give it a swirl.
Kurt couldn’t remember a night the man went without one.
When he was little, he’d watched him pop open a Coke along with the Maker’s Mark, watched the careful way he mixed and stirred.
For the last fifteen or so years, William Crawford had drunk it straight.
Kurt had never seen his grandfather drunk. One glass, sipped slowly, deliberately. Without variation.
He knew from the set of his jaw that his grandfather was still pissed.
Kurt didn’t blame him. His grandmother had given Kurt everything, and he hadn’t made it to her funeral.
Kurt tossed around the idea of telling his grandfather why, but he’d probably have more luck composing a sentence in broken French than he would telling his grandfather something with such heavy underlying emotion.
The truth was, Kurt didn’t have a good reason, other than that he hadn’t been ready to accept her death.
You slip. You fall. You hit your head. That wasn’t reason enough for a life to end. Especially not hers.
And besides, his grandfather wasn’t the type to let anyone talk him out of his anger until he was good and ready to let it go. Kurt would have to wait him out.
“You eating okay? Without her?” he asked instead.
“Well enough.” William sipped his bourbon, then added, “Been eating out mostly and having eggs when I don’t. Not in a hurry to get my cholesterol checked.”
If his grandfather had been eating poorly, it didn’t show.
For someone who’d recently turned seventy, William could still claim the fitness of a much younger man.
He was just shy of six feet and lean. He wore his salt-and-pepper hair as short as when he’d been on active duty, and perhaps out of pure stubbornness, he’d made it all his years without as much as a pair of reading glasses.
“I miss her tortillas,” Kurt said, thinking how different a pair they’d been.
His grandfather met his nana when he was on leave and partying down in Mexico.
She was from a proud, wealthy family who traced their ancestors back to early eighteenth-century Spain and had turned silver mining in Guanajuato into a fortune that had lasted for generations.
Her decision to elope with an American army brat with no connections had led to her being ostracized by her family, though in all the years Kurt knew her, he’d never heard her complain about it.
“When she made them fresh. The way they melted in your mouth. I’d have dreams about them back in Afghanistan. ”
This brought a smile to William’s face. “Bet that was a sorry disappointment when you woke up to base slop.”
“It was.”
“Military food didn’t stunt your journey into manhood, at least. You’ve muscled up a fair bit from the scrawny kid who left.”
Kurt noted the compliment, something his grandfather rarely handed out.
After a few minutes of quiet, William pointed to the flat-screen TV in the corner. “You been following this story? It’s gotten more airtime than that attack in Baghdad. Old Rob’s getting his fifteen minutes, that’s for sure.”
Kurt glanced at the screen. He blinked in surprise at the familiar face being interviewed.
He’d first met Rob Bornello when he was six or seven.
Back then, Rob worked on the base. He was the best K-9 trainer around, and Kurt made it his business to learn as much from him as he could.
Rob left years ago to train dogs in the private sector, though Kurt continued to shadow him every so often until he enlisted.
Kurt wished the TV wasn’t muted. “No, what happened?”
“A fighting ring was exposed up in St. Louis. A big one. At least a dozen different dog men were involved. Rob came out of the woods to organize the rescue.”
“Shame about the dogs,” Kurt said, suspecting the sad story would set his restless mind afire. “That Rob. I wondered what had happened to him the last several years.”
“He shows up at the post once or twice a year, and from what I know, he never gave any of it up. Heard he was calling around yesterday looking for dog handlers who might be able to help him out. Asked about you specifically. I got a call from Ham.”
Kurt felt a rush of pride. It’d been eight years since he’d seen the man who’d been his mentor. “I take it as a compliment that he thought of me, but that’s a mess I’m not interested in.”
William raised a meticulously trimmed eyebrow. “That’s a relief. Most of us have to grow up sometime. Not everyone can make an honest living playing with dogs.”
Kurt’s teeth ground together. It wasn’t an argument worth having. He’d decided of his own volition that he was done working with dogs. His grandfather’s long-held prejudices over which careers accounted for an honest living wouldn’t change and shouldn’t bother him.
But he could feel the retort, cynical and accusing, building in the pit of his stomach. Right before it reached his throat, soft, thin fingers clamped over his eyes, and a body, a distinctly feminine one, pressed against his back and hips.
“Kurtis Crawford, if I hadn’t missed you so much, I’d be reading you the riot act for waiting so long to come home.”
The muscles from the base of his skull to the back of his calves went rigid.
Instinct at being caught off guard—honed over eight years of service—and not having heard her over the Johnny Cash pouring out the speakers, urged him to react, to throw her off him.
But a secondary reaction pulsed a split second behind and kept his hands locked around his beer.
He was stateside and in a friendly bar. And besides, he’d have recognized her if she’d caught him off guard the same way in the middle of a desert camp.
The softness of her fingers pressing unwanted against his eyelids.
The smell of her freshly applied Cashmere perfume.
The touch of a southern drawl she’d most likely perfected to drive men crazy.
“It’s just Kurt,” he said, twisting to slip from her grasp. “Says so on my birth certificate.” He shot a glance his grandfather’s way. As always around her, William’s look was a touch disapproving, but he didn’t seem surprised that she’d shown up either.
So his grandfather had told her of their plans to meet here. What was wrong with facing only one of them at a time?
“And you really shouldn’t sneak up behind someone who’s fresh off a tour,” Kurt added. “Though we all know you know that.”
He swiveled to face her but kept seated on his stool.
Maybe it was in the water. Maybe it was genetic.
Maybe it was dumping every spare dollar she earned on beauty products.
But she wasn’t aging. She wore her long, raven-black hair full and free.
The blue eyes she’d gotten from her father sparkled in a way that was distinctly hers.
It was a cool September night, but she was still wearing cutoff jean shorts and a flowing shirt shoestringed together in the center, plunging low, highlighting her full chest.
“Look at you,” she raved. “God, you’re handsome.” He was enveloped in a bear hug before he could stop her. “Like a damn bottle of Grey Goose to sit on a shelf and look at but not drink.”
Kurt felt the heat rising up his neck, burning his jawline. He allowed his hands to close loosely over her shoulder blades. It hit him how petite she was. “Hey,” he said, tiring of the confining hug well before she was ready to let go, “seriously.”
She finally took a step back. “How about you scoot over, Kurtis, so I can have a seat smack-dab between the two most important men in my universe.”
William cleared his throat or outright scoffed. Kurt couldn’t tell over the music. His grandfather’s face, as usual, was poker perfect.
Kurt slid over without complaint, having no desire to be locked in between the two of them.
Then he waved at the bartender, knowing he’d need another beer to get through the next hour.
Hell, who was he kidding? He’d need another two or three.
A fresh wave of fatigue swept over him, reminding him why it’d been easier to extend his tour than to finally come home.
But he’d been away long enough. The truth was, he’d shut them out long enough. Nana had once phrased it perfectly. Though he could no longer remember her exact words, he remembered the gist. Living, ostracized, dead, or embraced, your family was still your family.
“Mom,” he said, “what is it you’re drinking nowadays?”
* * *