Chapter 13
Chapter 13
J ohn bent and retrieved her discarded wrapper. He uncrumpled it, flattening it before folding it nicely and neatly into thirds. Then he stuffed it into his pack and forced himself to take five deep breaths.
He did not like to be yelled at.
He did not like to be called an idiot.
He did not like having to explain himself to an insubordinate, civilian or otherwise.
And he especially did not like being painfully pelted in the face by a balled up foil wrapper.
“Excuse me?” he said, his silky tone a warning sign of his repressed anger.
“You heard me,” she said, hands on hips now. “What kind of foolhardy notion has taken hold of your senses? And how many times do I have to beat you in the head to get it back out?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he assured her.
“No, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” she argued.
“You’re only twenty two,” he said, tone dismissive.
She jutted a finger in his face. “So help you if you tell me my age one more time. I may be a decade behind you in age, but I am leaps and bounds ahead of you in people skills and intuition.”
That was probably true, and John hated it. He prided himself in being the smartest person in the room, always, but his people skills were lacking, his intuition nonexistent. “Juni,” he started, but she interrupted.
“Don’t you Juni me, Bear. I was there, remember? I was there for all of it. Do you know my first memory, the first one in my whole life, is the day you showed up on our doorstep? So big and gruff and silent. And I thought you were an overgrown teddy bear, sent there expressly for me. And I was right because, exasperated as you sometimes were with me, you were nothing but patient and gentle, kind and attentive. Do you think my parents didn’t know what they were doing when they paired me with you? Do you think they had some sort of monumental lapse in judgment when they sent their youngest off with the new kid? Or do you think they realized you had a special way with me, that in a large family it’s easy to get overlooked and sidetracked and…” her voice broke and she took a breath before continuing, “and you never sidetracked me. You always made time for me, always talked to me, cared for me, spent time with me, played with me, taught me.”
“First of all I had no choice,” he tried, but she interrupted him again.
“Really? Because I don’t seem to recall anything else they were able to make you do that you didn’t want to.”
He blinked in surprise. That part was true. He had been a proud, stubborn teenager and nothing, absolutely nothing, had been able to make him do what he hadn’t already intended to do. “But I was a glorified babysitter. Someone had to make sure you didn’t die.”
“Yes, and that someone was you. Face it, John, you were my person. And what’s more, I was yours. And if that’s not love, what is? So don’t sit there and tell me you are incapable of love because I know firsthand it’s not true. You can lie to everyone else in your life, you can lie to yourself, but do not lie to me.”
She said the last five words loudly and deliberately, as if they were each set off by exclamation points. Do! Not! Lie! To! Me! and John had that feeling again, the one he couldn’t put a name to. It made him squeamish to be around Juniper now and maybe, maybe, the feeling was fear. Maybe John didn’t recognize it at first because he wasn’t afraid of anything else. But why would he be afraid of Juniper, a slip of a girl he’d known forever?
She remained staring at him, chest puffing in and out, cheeks flushed, dimple flashing dangerously. The strange feelings inside of John turned from a simmer to a rapid boil and he was as fascinated by them as he was leery. Why did he want to haul her close and, at the same time, shove her far away and run? And why did he get the sense that, in their new dynamic, Juniper was the one with all the power? She seemed to know something in this scenario he didn’t, as if they were in a play where he hadn’t yet received the lines, but she had. And she knew them all by heart. The way she looked at him, the way she studied him when she thought he wasn’t looking, it wasn’t like she tried to figure him out. It was like she already had him figured out and was instead attempting to find the softest way to break it to him, the news of who he was.
Worse, he had absolutely no idea what to say or do next. The army was his comfort zone. He was in uniform and on the job, but never before had it involved a woman in this way, and certainly never a woman like Juniper.
He could feel all the feelings building inside him, searching for release. As he saw it, he had three options: 1. Yell at her. Tell her where to get off and why. Tell her to stop rooting around in his life, trying to upset the balance. 2. Kiss her. That one was way more shocking and even more intriguing. 3. Regain his lost control, fall back on his good friend, Reason.
He closed his eyes, took a breath, and patted his pocket. When he opened his eyes, Juniper looked at him like maybe he’d lost his mind. He’d come close, too close. But he was much too disciplined to toss in the towel and have an emotional outburst now. “If you’re finished with your food, I brought your toothbrush.” He fished in his pack and presented her with her toothbrush and toothpaste.
She glanced from the proffered items, to him, and back to the items again before bursting into loud tears and tossing herself into his embrace with a weepy, “ Oh, Bear. ”
He caught her, as was apparently their custom now, and wrapped her in a tight hug, his hand smoothing over her tangled hair. Somehow that action felt less clumsy than it had before, both more practiced and more natural. Perhaps practice was the key to learning how to be around other humans, except he didn’t want to practice on anyone. Well, no one besides Juniper, he amended.
“I don’t know why you’re crying,” he said when it seemed like her tears might never end. Was she angry? Hurt? Happy? He had no idea.
“Me neither,” she said, laughing a little. She pulled away to regard him and he found himself using his thumbs to wipe her tears, an action he didn’t realize he knew how to do. Maybe it was instinct or maybe he had learned long ago how best to soothe her, when she was a child, and some part of him remembered.
“I don’t know, Bear. I just don’t know.”
“What don’t you know?” he asked, taken aback by the soft tenderness in his tone. Before these last few days with Juniper, he had no idea his voice could sound like that, had no idea gentleness was a hidden part of his being. And, if he were being honest, he kind of liked it.
“Before, everything was so clear. And now you’re here. And I just…don’t know.” More tears leaked out of her eyes, but he wiped them away before they could make landfall.
“Nothing has changed, Juni.”
“Everything has changed, Bear.”
He squinted. “How has it changed?”
“Because I found you. Or you found me. Maybe we found each other. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“You’ve had a long, difficult day. You’re tired, and now you’re getting all worked up over nothing. Lots of people have this sort of delayed reaction to an adrenaline rush.”
“You?” she asked, her dimple making a return with the hint of a smile.
“All the time. They call me the weeping major.”
She stared at his chest, thinking. “So we’re clear, you don’t find anything…cosmic…about our sudden reappearance in each other’s lives?”
He snugged her slightly closer. “Juni, I don’t find anything cosmic in anything. Life happens and then you die.”
“Really?” She stared up at him, lashes dewy, pretty face tear-streaked, puffy lips still slightly trembly, and something in his chest kicked hard.
“Really,” he said, a choked whisper because, all of a sudden he wasn’t certain he believed himself. “Why does it matter to you so much?”
“Because what if I’m making a terrible decision marrying another man when you’re my destiny?”
“Whether or not you’re making a terrible decision only you can answer, but I am not your destiny, Juniper.”
“But how do you know?” she asked.
“Because I don’t believe in destiny. I believe in facts and logic, in rational decision making.”
“And yet here we sit, two Alabama kids, in the middle of the jungle in Honduras.”
“Only one of us is a kid,” he reminded her.
“I graduated college,” she said, peeved.
“So did I, a decade ago.”
“Fine, you’re too old for me, too emotionally unavailable for me, too dedicated to your career for me. Now go away. Oh, wait, you can’t. Because we’re stuck together in the jungle in Honduras.”
He grinned, smoothing his hand over her wayward hair. “I shouldn’t like it so much when you act like that.”
“But you do,” she prompted.
“But I do,” he agreed. “Everything you said is true, though. I am too old for you, too emotionally unavailable for you, too dedicated to my career for you.”
“And what am I too much of for you?” she asked.
“I don’t take your meaning,” he said. His eyes were drawn to her lips as if magnetized. Every time he thought he had a handle on it, they’d stray there again. He watched them as they spoke, wondering if they were as soft and full as they looked.
“You’ve got it all figured out why you’re wrong for me. Why am I wrong for you? Too emotional? Too immature? You don’t like smart girls with glasses?”
“I like your glasses and I love your smarts,” he declared, the impassioned statement taking them both by surprise.
“You find me unattractive in other ways?” she prompted. Her dimple sprang to life, giving away her amusement at his expense.
“You know that’s not it,” he said, exasperated.
“Do I? How do I know? You haven’t said one word to suggest otherwise.”
“Pretty girls always know they’re pretty,” he groused.
“Do handsome men always know they’re handsome?” she returned, poking him.
“I don’t…that’s not…” he swiped a mosquito from the back of his neck. “You think I’m handsome?”
“Do you think I’m pretty?”
“Are you going to make me say it? Are you so insecure you need the words that badly?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” she said, nodding.
“You’re very attractive.”
Her nose wrinkled in distaste. “You remember when the Plainfields got that fancy new Buick? My daddy said the same thing about that. It’s a very attractive car. Is that what you think, John? Am I am Buick to you?”
“Of course not, Juniper,” he said, fairly certain he blushed.
Her eyebrows rose. “I don’t even rate as high as a Buick? Am I at least a Pinto?”
“You’re not a Pinto,” he exclaimed.
She gasped in mock affront, pressing her hand to her heart, affecting a wounded expression. “Not even a Pinto?”
“You’re beautiful,” he bellowed. “Is that what you want to hear? You’re so beautiful it hurts to look at you. Even puffy and bruised you’re the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.” His fingers reached out, tentative and gentle, to touch her split lip.
“Well, that was worth the pains it took to get there,” she said softly, and now she was the one who blushed, a pleasant flush that only worked to increase her prettiness. It was so potent now he almost groaned with the effort it took not to reach for her. “And for what it’s worth, Bear, all those girls were right to have a crush on you. If they could see you now.” She shook her head. “Wow, just wow.”
He’d never been anybody’s “wow” before, nor had he wanted to be. He had never understood the give and take between men and women, never understood the fascination or the draw. Obviously he saw the appeal in sex, but for most of his men the desire to be with a woman went beyond that, and he had judged them as being too soft, too weak to know what was good for them. But now he almost sort of understood. Being with Juniper was a different sort of challenge, a new kind of one upmanship than sparring with an opponent. And somehow he felt the stakes were even higher than life and death.
“We should get some sleep,” he whispered, his fingers still making a slow trail around her mouth.
“Really? Shouldn’t we be back at camp by now?” she whispered, leaning in to his touch, leaning in to him . No one had ever done that before. People usually leaned away.
“We’re not going back to camp,” he muttered, not paying attention to her reaction at first. Would it be so bad to kiss her? One little kiss, for the sake of their long friendship? It could be a hello kiss, they’d never had one of those. Or a nice-to-see-you-again greeting. That was a thing people did, right?
“What did you say?” she demanded, moving away from his touch.
With effort, he paused and reviewed the conversation in his head. Unable to figure it out, he blundered ahead. “We’re not going back to camp. I’m taking you to the base so you can get a flight out.”