Chapter 3
Chapter 3
“ I s she gone, sir?” his sergeant greeted him when he returned to camp.
“She’s…preparing her things.” He brushed by the sergeant and strode into his tent, sinking wearily into his chair. John hated liars, and now he had become one. Because of Juniper Dunbar.
He wanted to be angry, to rail at all the trouble she was causing him, but he couldn’t. The shock was too great. Juniper Dunbar, here, in the middle of Honduras. What were the chances?
“There must be some logical explanation.” He said the words out loud. They made him feel better. Unconsciously, he patted the book in his pocket, the one he always kept on him. It was the foundation on which he’d built his life: logic, sweet, unadulterated logic. It never failed him, never led him astray. Unlike those pesky emotions and fate , as Juniper had termed it. Yuck, no thank you. John was nobody’s fool. He knew better than to build his life on such insubstantial nonsense. People who did that were no better than… He pushed the thought away, refusing to remember his mother.
He would have to go back, to tell her once again and in no uncertain terms that she had to go. It was a directive, straight from the top. All civilians had to evacuate the area. The decree made no exceptions for cute scientists. John made no exception to the rules, ever. Rules were life; they kept the world sane, his world especially. He was certain that if he once again explained the situation to Juniper and told her to go, he would succeed. After all, she was now part of his mission, and John had never failed at a mission before. The ripe age of thirty two was no time to begin. And thirty two is not old, he silently assured himself. He was in better shape than most of the boys who came from basic, could outrun, outmaneuver, outlast any of them. And he had, many times. Until someone better came along and knocked him off his throne, Major John Caruthers was in charge, in all the ways. The sooner Juniper Dunbar learned that, the better. Now, away from her influence, he could see all the ways she’d befuddled him. The coffee, the food, the blinding turns in conversation. Tomorrow he’d be the one in charge like usual, he was certain.
Thus decided, he reached for a map and returned his attention once again to work. The army always made sense; studying tactic brought him a dose of much needed security. She's only one girl. How much more trouble could she cause?
His mind began to unsettle again. He forced it to the map and to sweet, blessed work.
“ J ohn, how delightful to see you.”
He stopped short in the entry of her tent, momentarily thrown off kilter. People were never delighted to see him. They were shocked, terrified, and universally filled with dread. His eyes narrowed suspiciously on her, bedecked today in some native-looking dress, her hair already tumbling free of its confinement. Her nose wrinkled, but not in distaste. Instead it was some practiced move to push up her glasses without using her hands. “Juniper,” he began, tone stern, but she interrupted him.
“I feel I owe you an apology,” she said, all humble meekness.
“You…you do?”
She nodded. “Our first meeting in fourteen years, and I didn’t even hug you.” She propelled herself at him and he caught her by instinct because that was what you did when threatening objects hurled toward your body. You put your hands up, trying to deflect. There was no deflecting Juniper, however. She tossed herself at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck, dangling. He was taller, so she hung off him like a human clothes hanger. He attempted to set her away; she refused to be put down. He sat, hoping that would break her hold. It didn’t. Her body folded into his, sliding comfortably onto his lap like the toddler she’d once been. Her head rested on his shoulder.
“You’re not hugging me in return,” she noted.
“No,” he agreed.
She pulled away, tipping her face as she made her inspection. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how. I’m certain my family tried to teach you.”
That was undoubtedly true. The Dunbars were huggers, all of them. They had lavished hugs on him every day of the six years he’d lived in their house, never caring they weren’t returned. John had stood stock still, arms at his sides, tolerating the affection in discomfort. Except with Juniper, of course. It would have been odd not to hug a baby, and she’d been a baby then. Now, however…
It was still odd not to reciprocate. So, despite his best efforts not to, he found his arms curving around her, drawing her slightly closer. Sighing happily now, she settled back against him, resting her head on his shoulder.
“Juniper,” he began, aiming for sternness again. If he’d succeeded in finding it, it would have been a feat, indeed, cuddled together as they now were. But before he could try, she preempted him again.
“Also, I forgot to thank you.”
“Thank…me?” It was as if he’d forgotten how to speak to humans and had to learn all over again, he realized, which was partly true. There weren’t a lot of women in his world, and the ones who were found him too terrifying to do more than drop their eyes and scurry away. Those were the smart ones, he thought. Not like Juniper who seemed to be lacking self-preservation completely.
She pulled away, beaming as she regarded him. “It’s because of you I became a botanist.”
“Me?” he repeated.
She nodded. “All those walks we took in the woods, remember? You taught me so many things, about how to listen, how to appreciate, how to be still.”
“That one apparently didn’t take,” he noted dryly. Juniper was the same live wire she had always been, an unstoppable force of energy, movement in every molecule of her being, sharp contrast to John’s unending stillness. The youngest child in a family of animated extroverts, she had almost been too much for even them to handle. They had seemed all too happy to foist her on John, not that Juniper had given anyone any choice in the matter. She had attached herself to him that first day and never let go, practically becoming his shadow the remaining six years he lived with her family. Where John went, Juniper was there. When it became clear she couldn’t keep up, he carried her. They had been inseparable, and yet he had left when he was eighteen and never looked back, secure in the knowledge that Juniper was too little to have any lasting memory of him, secure in the fact she wouldn’t miss him. But if the way she now clung to him like a koala was any indication, perhaps she had. For the first time in a long time, maybe decades, he began to feel something he thought he would never feel again—empathy. It must have hurt her when he went away and didn’t return. For that he was sorry, but he didn’t want to be sorry; he didn’t want to be anything. He had spent every day since he was twelve trying to cut emotion from his life with surgical precision. And he had succeeded admirably. Absolutely no one who met him would ever accuse him of being sentimental, of being a softy. Yet here he sat in a tent in the middle of the jungle, a stubborn little botanist planted firmly in his grasp.
He stood so abruptly Juniper tumbled to the ground in an untidy heap. “You have to go,” he declared.
“But it’s my tent,” she said, blinking up at him in amused dismay.
“No, you know what I mean. You have to leave, to evacuate. Now. Today.”
“That’s really not possible,” she said, and then she smiled. For a moment, he got caught up staring at her dimple. He had seen that dimple more times than he could count, had never paid special attention to it before. But now… He felt the sudden and unbidden need to touch his finger to it, to measure its depth against his knuckle. His fingers flexed, itching. He curled them into fists and took a step away. He raised his finger, pointing it accusingly at her.
“Last warning, Juniper. You have to go.”
“I don’t think so, Bear.”
There were times, like now, when he became so angry he saw everything through a hazy red filter. Usually it worked like some sort of danger signal to the person in his path, a warning to back off. Juniper, of course, had never properly understood nor heeded danger. It had complicated John’s life as a child, trying hard to keep her alive when she seemed bent on destruction. At age four she did a cannonball into a gator-infested river, forcing him to dive in after her. Never in his wildest imagination did he dream he would continue his crusade as an adult.
“Juniper, you can’t imagine what you’re doing.” His tone had turned soft and silky. To anyone who knew him, it was a red flag. The quieter he became, the deadlier he was about to be.
“You look exactly the same,” Juniper said, eyes big behind her glasses as she studied him. “I thought I imagined you bigger, stronger, more powerful, but no. If anything, I underestimated. A soldier. I’m so proud of you.”
He blinked, the red haze fading to a rosy shade of pink. “Thank you. I mean, no. I mean, stop changing the subject.”
“I wasn’t trying to. It’s just that we have so much to catch up on. Fourteen years is a long time to be away from home, John.”
He pressed his thumb into his thigh, trying to focus all his aggravation on that spot instead of the girl in front of him. “That’s not my home, Juniper. This is my home.” Belatedly he realized he made the motion around her tent. Juniper grinned up at him, delighted.
“Of course it is. Wherever I am is home to you, always. And vice versa.”
He shook his head like he was trying to clear his inner ear after a dive gone wrong. “No, that’s not…The army is my home. Not Alabama. Not with you.”
“Your accent is making a return,” she uttered in a conspiratorial whisper.
“No, it’s not,” he drawled and pressed his lips together to hide his annoyance. He had taken great pains to lose his accent at West Point. Southerners were seen as kindly, warm, gentle. John hadn’t wanted any part of those descriptors. Accurate, precise, deadly. That was what he was, a robot without a past, without a history. Except now his history had caught up and now laughed up at him from her perch on the floor.
“You’re so handsome,” she added cheerfully.
“And you are…” he pointed a finger, ready to blast her, but he couldn’t figure out how best to do it. Juniper had always been impossible to repel. It was how they’d ended up spending so much time together when he was a kid. He would push her away and she would bounce right back, again and again until she eventually wore him down and he gave up. In all his life she was the only person who had ever beaten his will, had worn him to a nub so acquiescence became the easier and more preferred route. And she was doing it again now. “You’re a child,” he declared.
She sprang up and dusted her behind. “I’m a college graduate.”
“You’re twenty two. I have socks older than that.”
She wrinkled her nose. “The army should really think about paying you better if you’ve felt the need to hold on to socks for two decades.”
“That’s not…I don’t…Juniper!”
“What?” She blinked up at him with feigned innocence. They were toe to toe now and he felt…he wasn’t certain what he felt, nor why he felt so much to begin with. His heart was usually closed off, inaccessible to everyone, himself included. He didn’t like that Juniper had so easily wormed her way in, if only to make him feel annoyed. Major John Caruthers didn’t get annoyed, and certainly not with a tiny slip of a girl, a scientist, no less. He pressed his hand to his chest and took a breath. His hand rested reassuringly on his book, like a touchstone. Outside problems were merely that, outside. They could only trouble him as much as he let them. Therefore, he wouldn’t let them.
“Juniper.”
“Bear.”
“I know you think you have some kind of misplaced crush on me,” he began reasonably, but was once again interrupted by her.
“No, I don’t.”
He blinked at her. “What?”
“Not that you bothered to ask after my wellbeing, but I’m engaged.”
“To a man?”
“I tried getting engaged to a lizard, but it was highly frowned upon,” she said.
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I’m working. Surely you of all people can understand the importance of work.” She tipped her head. “Don’t tell me you won’t let your wife work.”
“You know I’m not married,” he said.
“But when you get married, you plan to keep her under lock and key.”
“I plan to never get married.”
“Why?” she said, sounding wounded.
“Lots of reasons. The important thing is…” What was the important thing? He couldn’t remember. What had they been discussing? “When is the wedding?”
“When I get back,” she said, turning to the side. When she faced him again, it was to stuff something between his lips, some kind of sweet bread that tasted like coconut. He chewed thoughtfully, swallowing as if by rote.
“What kind of man is he?”
“A biochemist.”
“That tells me what he does, not what sort of man he is.”
“What would tell you that?” she asked.
“Would he give his life for you?”
She blinked at him. “I suppose I never thought about it.”
“Juniper, think about it.” He tried to say it sternly, but she stuffed another bite of cake in his mouth. It was hard to be stern and eat cake.
“I’m pretty good at taking care of myself, Bear. Not often in need of rescue.”
“Don’t be one of those women,” he said.
“I thought you said I was a girl,” she reminded him.
“Don’t be one of those girls.”
“What girls?” she asked.
“The kind who is so independent you won’t listen to reason or be taken care of,” he said.
“I suppose I’d like to believe relationships are a mutual taking care of each other. Hasn’t that been your experience?”
He didn’t tell her it hadn’t been his experience because he had never been in a relationship, would never be in a relationship. She stuffed another bite of cake into his mouth. He waited to chew and swallow to speak. “How would he feel knowing you’re standing in a tent in Honduras, feeding cake to me?”
“He’d be delighted,” she said.
“He would?”
She nodded. “I told him all about you, of course. He’d be thrilled I finally found you.”
“Somehow I doubt it,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I’m the kind of guy they send in when they need to make certain a job gets done. People like me, we’re not well liked. We don’t have friends.”
“I like you. We’re friends.” She fed him the last of the cake and looked about for a place to wipe her fingers. In every memory he had of her, she was always sticky with something—syrup, jam, candy. He had spent half his life wiping her face and hands and now was no exception. He reached for the basin of water, wet a cloth, and wiped her fingers. “Thank you.”
“I could see you gearing up to wipe your hand on my shirt,” he said.
She bit her lip, repressing her grin. “You’re so ever-loving tidy, Bear. It makes me want to tousle you.”
She was perpetually tousled, then, still, and she never seemed to mind. As he stared at her, one of her curls popped free of its clasp and landed on her eyelid. Juniper appeared not to notice. John let go of one of her hands and pushed the curl, holding the hair aloft off her face. “How can you stand that?”
They were still toe to toe, her hand in his, his free hand pushing the hair out of her eyes. When he finally zeroed in on her expression, it was so intense, so pained he inhaled a sharp breath, bringing the scent of her deep into his lungs. “You used to call me Juni,” she whispered.
“That was a long time ago,” he whispered, his thumb smoothing along her brow.
“I went to West Point,” she declared.
“What?”
“I called them, wrote to them. They wouldn’t answer. I thought if I could see them in person they might tell me where you went.”
“Most of where I’ve been is classified,” he said. Why were they whispering? He had no idea. “Why were you trying to find me so bad?”
“Because I needed you.”
He almost smiled. He somehow should have guessed Juniper would wind up being one of those women given to high romance and drama. The wild exuberance of her childhood had apparently found an outlet in fantasy, one where she set him up as the dashing romantic lead, at least until her chemist came along. “I don’t think you demanded the sort of rescue I would have provided,” he said.
“It’s been fourteen years. You don’t know what I needed.” This time she was the one to step away, again and again until she bumped the canvas wall of the tent, her eyes remaining locked on him. “Goodbye, John. Take care.”
He needed to tell her to go, to leave, to clear out. But there was something so wounded and vulnerable in her expression, he held his tongue. Next time, he would make her understand. She closed her eyes and inhaled. When she opened them again, he was gone.