Chapter 15
Chapter 15
J ohn intended to eat the MRE rations he’d brought, and they did. But Juniper added her own special spin on things, gathering fruit and unknown things from the plants and trees around them.
“Always bring a botanist to a knife fight,” she said, dumping her bounty on the ground between them and using his knife—without asking—to peel and cut it.
John tried to ignore her by pretending to read, as if he weren’t watching every infinitesimal movement of her fingers as they peeled the fruit, every flit of her expressions as each thought changed them. Juniper was not the kind of person who masked her emotions nor kept them to herself. Her face was an open book, this morning alight with curiosity and adventure. John wanted to roll his eyes. Of course she would think traipsing through the Honduran jungle, surrounded by armed militants, was a fun escapade. Of course she wouldn’t realize how much danger they were in. It was as if she had been biologically mis-programmed to seek danger in all the worst ways, himself included.
“What are you reading?” she asked, interrupting his rage-fueled monologue. “I see you pat that book in your pocket all the time. Is it the Bible?”
“In a manner of speaking. It’s Meditations, ” he replied.
“Marcus Aurelius,” she returned, shocking him into such utter speechlessness he could only stare at her, mouth slightly agape. And then she burst into a fit of giggles he could in no way understand. Laughter wasn’t usually the response when people referenced Stoic philosophers.
“What?” he snapped, annoyed that his blasted curiosity got the better of him. But her mind was so unfathomable he couldn’t possibly guess why she laughed.
“It all makes sense now,” she said, wiping tears of amusement.
Absolutely nothing made sense, at least to John. “How so,” he pressed, annoyed that she made him draw it out of her.
“My dad made me do my senior thesis on that book.” She giggled again and pressed her palm to her mouth, trying to push it back in. “Oh, Dad.”
“Why does that make you laugh?” he asked. “It’s a great book.” It was the perfect book, the one on which he’d built the entire foundation of his life. His Uncle Bailey gave it to him as a high school graduation present. To John it had read like a life manual, teaching him how to deal with his pesky emotions, once and for all.
“It’s a very good book, but it was so random. But of course it wasn’t random at all. It was because of you.” Still smiling, she shook her head.
“You’re going to have to dumb it down for me here, Juni. What does your high school thesis have to do with me?”
She paused mid-mango and regarded him. “Everything, Bear. Everything has everything to do with you. Why else do you think my dad made me read that book, if not for you?”
“But why would he make you read it for me?” he asked. It was as if she spoke in riddles.
“It’s what I’ve been telling you,” she said.
“Juni, I haven’t understood a word that’s come out of your mouth since I stepped into your tent,” he replied.
Laughing, she set aside the fruit and faced him. “I adored you. Always. From the moment I saw you until the moment you left and every moment after. You were my hero, my ideal. My sneaky dad knew and used it against me, assigning me a book he must have known you were reading.”
“Bailey probably told him,” John mused. She resumed slicing fruit, but his gaze didn’t waver from her profile. “Why, Juni? Why waste all that time adoring a guy like me? Surely there must have been other people in your life, other boys more worthy of your attention.”
“There were other people. No one more worthy,” she said.
John huffed a sigh of frustration. “What is it with you Dunbars and your inability to see people as they are?”
“Maybe we see the potential,” she said, holding out his knife with a piece of fruit on the tip.
“Certifiable, the lot of you,” he said, but he took the fruit and downed it. “What else did your dad have you read?”
“The usual: Plato, Dante, Shakespeare,” she said, shrugging.
“By now you must have realized there was nothing usual about it,” he said.
She grinned and edged closer, plopping down beside him. “Obviously I meant the usual for the Dunbars.”
“I have to say I received a far superior education with your folks than I would have in public school,” he said. “Unconventional though it was.”
Juniper wrapped her arms around her knees, staring dreamily into the distance. “I’m going to do the same with my kids. I’m going to teach them myself, and I’m going to teach them all the most important things, the things we were taught.”
“What about your big time botany degree?” he asked, nudging her.
“Who says they’re incompatible?” she asked, nudging him in return. “I’ll bring them along on jobsites for some real world experience.”
“You’re going to have it all, huh?” he asked.
“Every last bit,” she said. She opened her arms and spread them wide. “I’m going to wring every drop of living from life, Bear.”
“And this guy you’re going to marry, he’s okay with all this? Homeschooling your kids, giving them a classical education?”
“He’ll have to be, won’t he? No compromise, not when it comes to my children.”
“Maybe I should write him a warning letter, inform him what he’s in for,” he said.
“If he doesn’t know by now, it’s too late for him,” she said.
“I suppose he got the idea the first time he met your people. There’s nothing quite like the full Dunbar effect,” he said.
“You survived it,” she said.
“Barely,” he said, smiling when she rolled her eyes. Not for the first time he had the uncomfortable realization that he owed her family more than he could currently repay. He may not have fit the Dunbar mold—affectionate, easy with his words and emotions—but he had received six years of solid education and financial support. That counted for something; in fact it counted for everything. He shuddered to think where he might have ended up, if not for them and his Uncle Bailey. With the baggage he’d been hauling, it was likely he would have turned to a life of crime. Instead he was given a first rate education, one that propelled him to the top of his class at West Point, no easy feat for a group of determined and ambitious soldiers.
“I don’t know about this boy of yours, Juni. What kind of man lets his fiancée go off to the jungles of Honduras?”
“It’s cute how you think he let me,” she replied.
“What about your parents? Free spirited as they are, I also know they’re cognizant of world events. Surely they must have had some reservations about this little venture, given the current climate.”
“My parents have always wanted me to follow my dreams, no matter where they might lead.”
He had no argument for that because it was probably true. The Dunbars were good about that sort of thing, about enabling their children to follow their respective passions. With sudden clarity he remembered the day he told her father he wanted to go to West Point. Sounds like a fine tradition to carry on, John. I’m sure your Uncle Bailey will be proud. You’ll make an amazing soldier, one I’ll be proud to say I know. John hadn’t responded with more than a nod, but those words had made a little buzz of warm pride in his midsection. Even though Dustin Dunbar hadn’t been his father, his opinion had meant a tremendous amount to John. He hadn’t agreed with his warm and fuzzy methods, but he’d realized the older man was wise and good, two things his own father had never been.
He realized Juniper stared at him and probably had been for some time. “What?” Of course it wasn’t possible that she could read his sentimental thoughts, but he felt embarrassed over them regardless. Sentimentality was one of the soft and useless emotions he thought he’d weeded out long ago. And now it was once again rearing its ugly head. He began to see the appeal of scourges. If he had one now, he’d flail himself into compliance.
“No one is as still as you, as silent. I thought I’d imagined it, the way you become like a statue. But it’s even more pronounced than in my memory. You must be terrifying to anyone insane enough to go against you.”
Of course Juniper always said the thing he expected least. She was all warm softness. She should hate the cold, dead parts of him. Instead her tone rang with approval.
“I’ve killed more men than you could imagine. Hordes of them, sometimes with a gun or knife. But mostly with my hands.” He held his hands up for her inspection. By all rights they should be dripping with blood.
“You’re a soldier,” she said.
Once again her words had the opposite effect. They should have eased him, but they didn’t. “It’s not that simple,” he said.
“Simplify it for me,” she commanded.
He took a breath and held it as he tried to figure out how best to proceed. “A lot of men are soldiers. None of the others are like me.”
“You mean they’re not as good as you,” she said.
“It’s not about good or bad. It’s about,” he made a fist and thumped it over his heart.
She blinked at him, for the first time looking disturbed. He should be relieved that she was finally starting to understand, but instead he felt disappointed and apprehensive. At long last she would see the truth of what he did, of who he was. And her opinion of him would change. It should. It needed to. It was beyond time for her to grow up and get over the fantasy she’d held that he was some kind of hero. But now, faced with the imminent prospect, he suddenly wanted to go back, to be the kind of man she looked up to.
“You must be joking,” she said.
He shook his head.
She huffed an annoyed little puff.
While he was on this path, he might as well get it all out in the open. He took another breath and made himself say the words. “The shrinks say I’m a sociopath.”
She did the shocked blink thing again and then, in true Juniper fashion, let out a burble of laughter that sounded like pure delight. “Stop it.” She gave his arm a little shove.
“Once again I do not understand your laughter,” he informed her.
“You are not a sociopath. My lands. Who are they letting be psychologists these days? Idiots. Morons, all of them.” She dabbed at her wet eyes and snorted another laugh.
“Juniper, they’re not wrong,” he exclaimed, scowling.
She set her hands on her hips and tried to mimic his stern expression, “Bear, yes they are.”
“Woman, you’re on my last nerve. I am telling you there is something fundamentally wrong with me and you’re laughing about it.”
“Because there may be a few things wrong with you, but a lack of conscience isn’t one of them,” she said.
“You have no idea. No idea, ” he said. His hand waved in her general direction. “Girl, you frustrate me.”
She laughed harder. “And that, you daft boy, is exactly why you’re not a sociopath. Do you think I would annoy a sociopath?”
“I think you would annoy Mother Theresa. You could annoy the paint off the side of a barn. You’re so annoying, mosquitoes fly away from you in search of less aggravating blood. You’re so annoying…”
He never got to finish his list because she pounced, knocking him to the ground. “Ha, pinned ya!”
“I let ya, you infernal brat. I swear, Juniper.”
She wove her fingers through his, pressing his palms into the soft flora beneath him. “What do you swear, Major Caruthers? That you are so woefully complex?” She leaned closer. “Shut down?” She leaned closer, bringing her face into sharp relief with his. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Dangerous?”
“Yes.” His voice remained even but he swallowed hard, Adam’s apple bobbing pathetically.
“John.”
“What?”
“I have a secret.”
“What?”
“I’m the one who’s dangerous, and you’re nothing but a big ball of fluff,” she whispered.
“Juniper, be serious,” he said, a tall order since she barely knew how.
“I’m serious as a heart attack. You, Mr. Big and Mighty Major, are lacking key knowledge regarding our current scenario.”
“And what knowledge might that be, Miss Dunbar?”
She edged impossibly closer, lips almost brushing his. “Baby, that’s for me to know. And you to find out.”
One of his hands shook free and cupped her jaw. “You think you’re pretty cute, don’t you?”
She shrugged one shoulder.
“It so happens you’re correct,” he said, thumb smoothing along her lip. “You’re pretty cute.”
“For a kid, you mean,” she said.
“I’m not old,” he said.
“Prove it,” she replied and wagged her brows.
He laughed, a rusty ill-used sound that was probably more terrifying than pleasant. “I swear your parents did not spank you enough.”
“They didn’t spank me at all,” she reminded him.
“It shows. Now back to the other thing.” He wrapped both arms around her, ratcheting her up so they were eye to eye, body to body. “You’re very cute, as you know, clever and charming and tempting in all the ways. But you are off limits in every possible way.”
“Because you’re so old?” she guessed.
“No, you insufferable little runt.”
“Because I’m engaged to another man?”
“No, but it’s good to hear you remember that little fact when you’re flouncing yourself at me,” he said.
“Because you…” she tried again, but he pressed his thumb to her mouth, shushing her.
“Why don’t you stop tossing out reasons and let me tell you? You are off limits because of me. Because I’m a soldier, always a soldier, only a soldier. And that’s never going to change, not for you, not for anybody. I don’t know how many times or in how many ways I can say it until you understand.”
“I’ll never understand because it’s not possible that a man such as you, with so much to give, would live half a life because he’s too afraid to live the other.”
“Juniper.” He wriggled from beneath her and sat up, putting his hand to his head. “You don’t understand. You couldn’t possibly.”
“Then explain it to me again,” she said, sitting up beside him, crisscross applesauce.
“I know the safe, sheltered world you sprang from,” he said, making the statement an accusation.
“Yes, it’s the same place you sprang from,” she reminded him.
“But it’s not, Juni. It’s not . I was already broken beyond repair by the time I reached you. Do you not get that? I feel like the man standing on deck of the Titanic, warning of the iceberg. And instead of heeding that warning you’re gearing up to jump overboard and swim toward it.”
“No, that’s not what you are. You’re the captain who feels like he has to go down with the ship, who drowns needlessly out of misplaced duty.”
He shook his head.
She sat up on her knees and gripped his biceps. “Listen to me. You feel like your father ruined you because of what he did. But I happen to know what my father did, and that’s in there, too. Those six years of being fathered by Dustin Dunbar were not a waste, John. They’re part of you, too.”
“Maybe, but which part? The bigger part, the part that can kill and destroy without remorse, that’s the part that always wins.”
“ No. Don’t say that because I know it’s not true. If not me, then find someone else, some other super human woman to love and care for.”
His hand reached up and caressed her face. Funny how easy that action was becoming for him. “Don’t you get it, Juni? If not you, then who? If I can’t make it work with someone I’ve known and cared for forever, someone who knows the truth of why I am the way I am, then what hope do I have with anyone else? I can’t, nor do I want to.”
She licked her lips and crawled closer, bringing them chest-to-chest, face to face. “Then make it work with me.”
“And what about that other boy, that fiancé?” he asked.
“He’s not you,” she said simply.
He placed a solemn kiss on her forehead. “No.”
She frowned, a Juniper expression of outrage that made him smile. “How am I going to change your mind?” she muttered to herself.
“You’re not,” he answered, even though the question hadn’t been directed to him. “Give up. Go back to the boy or find someone else.” Even as he said the words they left a sickly taste in his mouth. But better to have her taken care of than pining alone forever. Juniper alone and unloved was unthinkable. Unlike him she was made for the give and take of a romantic relationship.
“You must have forgotten everything if you believe that’s going to happen. I won’t stop until I change your mind.”
“And you must have forgotten everything if you believe I ever change my mind, once it’s made up. This is my life. I decided long ago, long before I ever entered the army, that it would be a solitary one. I won’t inflict myself on someone else the way my father did.”
“You are not your father. Are you forgetting you had a mother too? What about her part in all this? By all accounts she was wonderful, loving and affectionate.”
“And weak. So weak for letting him do what he did to her,” he said. Even after all these years he could feel the visceral bitterness and resentment. “If she hadn’t loved him like she did, we could have moved on. She might still be alive.”
“You think love is what killed her?” she asked.
“I know it,” he answered, tone harsh.
“Did you also consider that the same love you try to disparage is what saved your life that night? Despite being terrorized by your father, your mother made her way to you and put you out of that house. It was love that gave her the courage to do that. Why do you only see the weakness of the emotion and not the bravery?”
He opened his mouth to answer and found that he couldn’t because she was right—he had never once thought of it that way. He knew his mother loved him, of course. She had always showered him with love, always took good care of him, shielded him, protected him. But he had spent so much of his life resenting her for capitulating to his father that he never once stopped to realize how much courage she also possessed. During the rare times his father turned his wrath on John, it had been his mother to intervene and put a halt to it, despite knowing she would then take the beating herself. My mother was some kind of soldier, he thought, the realization so startling he almost toppled over.
Juniper, pressing her advantage when she had him on the ropes, continued her advance. “Our lives are more than one thing, Bear. They’re a tapestry. Your father is a part of that tapestry, but so is my father. So is your mother. So is my mother. And so am I. You and I, we are connected by too many threads to pull asunder.” She wove her fingers together, holding them up as demonstration.
John was confused, and he didn’t like it. Confusion and uncertainty made him angry. “This was all settled long ago, long before you came back around,” he huffed.
Juniper beamed and grasped his shirtfront, giving it a tug. She knew she was knocking him off kilter, drat her and her ways. “All I’m saying is think about it a bit. Because I think you and I could make some beautiful babies, Major Caruthers.”
His jaw dropped and his cheeks flushed. “Juniper Dunbar. I ought to wash your mouth out with soap. My lands, putting those thoughts out there. It’s indecent. And you’re too young.”
“Did I offend the innocent Major’s sensibilities?” she mused. “Apparently the army has only prepared you for killing, but not for loving.”
“That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you,” he said, exasperated.
“No, I do not, and I will not accept it. There is more to you than soldiering. I’m going to make you see. This is my solemn vow.”
“Your solemn vow is a fruitless fool’s pursuit,” he said.
“Odd, that’s what I said about your solemn vow,” she returned.
“What did I used to do to shut you up, back in the day? I can’t remember,” he said.
“A sucker usually worked,” she reminded him.
“I’m fresh out,” he said.
“Guess you’ll have to find something else then,” she said, tipping her face toward his.
He was tempted, so tempted to give in and kiss her. But for both their sakes he couldn’t. He hadn’t spent the past decade maintaining perfect control over himself, only to lose it now when it counted most. She could easily kiss him, but she wouldn’t. They both knew he would have to be the one to break first. And he wouldn’t, couldn’t. He shook his head slowly back and forth.
Juniper emitted a puff of annoyance but soon found her smile. “We still have plenty of time left.”
“You underestimate my self-control.”
“You underestimate my determination,” she returned.
“You always have to have the last word.”
“You do remember.” She chucked him under the chin, stood, and put down a hand to help him up. He folded the hammock, packed his bag, and they set off through the jungle, hand in hand once again.