Chapter 18
Chapter 18
B y the next morning he’d regained his equilibrium and felt determined not to let Juniper get to him again. He squatted at the edge of the campsite, downing his portion of the remaining MRE in suspicious silence.
“Why you looking at me like that?” she asked, popping a piece of mango she’d located and cut for them.
“Like what?” he asked.
“Like you’re plotting your counter attack.”
Since that was exactly what he was doing, he made no reply.
“I am not your enemy, Bear,” she informed him.
“Then what are you? Because I can’t seem to figure it out,” he replied.
“Maybe I’m your next objective,” she said, tossing another piece of fruit into her mouth. Did she do that on purpose to draw his attention to her lips? If so, she was a tactical genius because it was working beautifully. If he kissed her now, she would taste like mango.
“No.” Not brilliant, but it was all that came to is mind while it was filled with thoughts of mango-lush lips.
She gave a little shrug, thrilled she was so obviously getting to him.
He sighed.
She laughed.
He smiled, and the tension dispelled completely as she leaned forward to feed him a piece of mango, the last.
“I love the taste of mango,” she said, now staring at his lips.
“Yep,” he agreed, darting to his feet. “Ready? We’ll arrive at the base today, if all goes well.”
She squinted up at him. He scowled down at her. “No sabotage,” he warned.
“It’s uncanny how well you know me,” she said. “Fine.” She stood, tossed the mango pit into the trees, and dusted her hands. John rolled the hammock and packed his bag. From waking to walking, they were ready in three minutes.
“You amaze me, Juni. You look like the kind of woman who would be fussy and high maintenance, but here you are three days without a bath, hardly any food, traipsing through the jungle, and not a word of complaint.” He shook his head in wonder.
“Some might say I’m the ideal woman for a rugged soldier such as yourself,” she said.
“Who exactly might say that?” he asked.
“It might interest you to know people back home said it all the time. Hardly a day went by that someone didn’t say, ‘Boy, when that John Caruthers comes home from the army, he’s going to have himself mighty fine girl in you, Juniper Dunbar.’”
John knew the town too well to doubt it was true. “And how long did it take them to stop saying that?”
“They said it until…” She gazed into the distance and gave a little shudder she tried to pass off as a shrug. “Until everyone realized you weren’t coming home, I suppose. Took a long time. For all of us.”
They walked in silence a few minutes.
“Bear.” She reached out and clasped his hand, holding it in a companionable gesture similar to when they were kids. Juniper used to love to let their arms swing between them, the higher the better. “Didn’t you think about us at all these many years? Didn’t you think about me ?”
“I know you want the answer to be yes, Juni. I know you want me to say I thought about you Dunbars all the time and stayed away for some odd reason you couldn’t understand. But the truth is that I didn’t. Not once, not at all.”
“Oh.” A few seconds later she withdrew her hand. He stopped short and turned her to face him, resting his hands on her shoulders.
“Not because I didn’t care. More because I did. I had to cut things and people out of my life or else I wouldn’t have survived the separation. Do you understand?”
She reached out and began to toy with a button on his chest, staring at it. “Did you think about anyone? Did anyone make the cut? Was anyone allowed to stay in your life, in your heart?”
“Ben and I still keep in touch, but it’s sporadic. He’s a soldier, too. He understands how it is. We see each other when we see each other and talk when we can talk. Otherwise no. I’m all alone in the world, and that’s how I like it. I don’t have anyone to miss and no one will miss me when I’m gone.”
Her eyes flew to his and she pressed her palms on his chest. “Maybe that’s still true for your part, John, but not for mine. I would miss you. If you died, a part of me would die with you.”
“Don’t say that, Juniper. I don’t like it.”
“Not liking it doesn’t make it not true. You are a part of me, indelibly and forever. The connections you make when you’re a child are the ones that last. Maybe that’s not true for you, but it’s true for me.”
“You have so much better in your life than me. Why would you want to hang on to a battle-scarred soldier like me?” he asked. He honestly couldn’t fathom the draw on her part. Surrounded by her loving, affectionate, boisterous family, why would she glom onto him, of all people? It was irrational, almost bizarre.
“I know exactly who and what you are, John Caruthers. And that’s exactly why I’ll never let go. Not ever. Not in a million years. There’s nothing you can do to shake me, to push me away, to snuff out my affection.”
He scowled at her, almost panicked by her words. If he could, he would run away, he who never ran away from anything. He had spent his entire career running toward gunfire, toward bombs, toward enemy combatants and almost certain death. What was it about this wisp of a girl with curly blond hair, a too-deep dimple, and intelligent hazel eyes who made him want to dodge into the jungle and take cover?
“And what about this boy you’re set to marry? How does he figure into the equation?”
“Regardless of what you believe, I’m a realist. I understand the chances here aren’t great. I want to be a wife and mother. Gabe is the best I’ve found, present company excluded. He’s a good man, honest and upright. If I marry him, you’ll move to that part of my heart reserved for family. Because you’re also that. You’re my past and…and I want you to be my future. But if you won’t give me that, you still won’t go away. I’ll still hound you, still send you Christmas cards, still try to be with you on holidays. The point I’m trying to make is that I’m never going away, Bear. Never, ever. It’s up to you in what capacity we co-exist from this point forward.”
He cupped her face in his hands. “You talk like a scientist.”
“That’s because I am,” she said, tipping forward on her toes to lean into his touch.
“No. You’re far too adorable to be anything but Juniper Dunbar. You have been and will always be that little girl with the wild curls, holding on to my shirttail, urging me to pick her up, to go faster, to climb higher, to swim deeper.”
Instead of heartening her, his words seemed to wound. He saw it reflected in eyes that rounded with pain. “Is that what this is about? You really still see me as a girl? You can’t see me as a woman?”
“If you could see yourself through my eyes, you would understand once and forever the problem does not lie with you.” He kissed her forehead.
“You vex me.”
“Welcome to the club.” He reached for his shirt and began to take it off. She stuttered and stared.
“Uh, what club exactly?”
“The jungle is thinning, meaning visibility is better, meaning I’m an easier target. Time to change out of my fatigues so it appears we’re a honeymoon couple or some such.”
“My lands,” she said as he peeled off his shirt and reached into his bag for another.
“You quit thinking what you’re thinking,” he said. He wasn’t modest. Living among so many men for the past decade had erased any chance of that. Group latrines and showers were a foregone conclusion in most cases. But no one had ever looked at him the way Juniper was now looking at him. It was enough to make him blush.
“How do you know what I’m thinking?” she asked, eyes riveted on his rippled abs.
“I can’t say for sure, but I know it’s enough to have your brain washed out with soap,” he said.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m a proper lady.” He tugged the shirt down and she gave him a round of applause. “Encore.”
“You quit that,” he said, tossing his dirty shirt at her. She caught it and brought it to her nose, inhaling deeply.
“What on earth has got into you? There can’t be anything pleasant about that stinky, sweaty shirt.”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” she said. “But this,” she waved toward his body, “is fact. You look like you’ve been chiseled from granite, Bear. What on earth do they do to you to make you look like that?”
“My lands, woman. Get yourself together.” He heard the overt accent in his voice and couldn’t seem to care. With Juniper, he didn’t have to hide his past, his upbringing, his shameful history. There was more freedom in that than he realized there would be. “Let’s head out.”
They stepped into the clearing and stopped short again, unable to believe the sight that greeted them.