Chapter Four
CHAPTER FOUR
G IDEON WAS STILL reeling from coming face-to-face with the angel that had stopped him in his tracks in the woods. Still knocked on his ass from having to face the reality of the fact that his little sister’s best friend had been the one to knock the libido back into him on a sunny day when he had not fucking asked for it , thank you very much.
And that was when his sister called. Mad.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you’re here?”
He sighed. “I needed a couple of days.”
This reminded him of the darker days, when he’d been secretive because he had to be. He’d been full of shame. He’d been hiding things on purpose. But since he’d made amends with all of that, as best he could, he didn’t believe in taking on shame he hadn’t earned.
So, he was going to be up-front about his reasoning with Lydia, even though he could hear the hurt in her voice.
“And you couldn’t tell us that you were here?”
“No. Because being back home is kind of a loaded thing for me. I know you might not get that, but it is. I’m not the same person that I was when I left.”
“I know, Gideon,” she said softly. “You haven’t been the same person for a while. I just wish you would let me...know you.”
“I’m sorry. I’m still figuring this out. I needed time. Because you know, everyone here is going to expect me to be...me. And I’m not. I needed time to be here and get my bearings before I jumped into the middle of this.”
Before he jumped into being back here as performance art, which it was bound to become.
He hadn’t been unaware of that when he’d decided to come back here.
But it had been an uneasy bargain.
It was the kind of choice you made when all your choices were dead ends and this one might, maybe, actually be something.
That moment in the woods...when he’d seen her, and she’d seen him. That had been the most pure, clear moment he’d had for a long damned time.
But it hadn’t been clear. Not really. Because she wasn’t an angel, she was Rory. And no matter how much his body might like it, he wasn’t going to get anywhere near her.
He’d ruined Cassidy’s life, but at least he hadn’t known he was a ticking time bomb—bad analogy but still—when he’d married her. He knew it now. Rory was off-limits.
“We’re your family. We’re not a town that has blown you up into this weird, out-of-proportion hero.”
He had to hand it to Lydia for getting to the heart of the matter.
The problem was there was more to this matter than just the heart of it.
His mom and Lydia hadn’t spent any time with him since the accident—by design, he hadn’t wanted to expose them to his worst, thanks. But he was different and he didn’t know if they were prepared for that or not.
You could have prepared them.
Rory had looked at him like he was a stranger.
Well. In the woods, she’d looked at him like...
No.
Back in the day she’d been a sweet kid. Chatty. Endlessly, but he’d liked it.
She’d had a crush on him, which he’d thought was cute. There had been some drama at her school about it and he’d felt like he needed to stand up for her because...she was a kid. A crush was harmless. She’d been sweet and she certainly hadn’t deserved to be treated like that.
When she’d shown up at the house, he’d been unfriendly to her and he felt bad about it, but it was like he couldn’t make his face work the way it used to. Couldn’t find it in him to smile. Not even for the girl who’d made him pie.
What a dick.
“Is there really going to be a parade?” he asked.
An egotistical thing to ask in most cases. But this was Pyrite Falls, and he was Gideon Payne. It wasn’t ego, it was just...the way it was.
“I think they were planning a small thing with a welcome-home banner. But not really a parade. But we’re a Purple Heart City because of you and...”
So. A parade.
“I know. But I don’t have to do anything, do I?”
Lydia was hesitant. “You probably need to go.”
“Right. Well, I’m not all that comfortable with things like that.”
“Gideon...”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I wanted some time to be back here on my terms because there are expectations of me. And I knew that there would be. Hell, I could’ve gone and moved to the middle of nowhere if I didn’t want any expectations on me.”
As soon as he said it, it made him feel near panic. Like he was falling into an abyss.
He didn’t have his military career. He didn’t have his marriage. He didn’t have all these things that he had defined himself by for years. If he cut ties with his hometown on top of it, with his family, he might as well...
He might as well have just died overseas.
He let himself have those thoughts now. Because he recognized that when he didn’t, they became worse. Survivor’s guilt was a real thing. Unfortunately, he hadn’t finished his counseling. He’d had a fair amount of it in the hospital, and then once he’d got home, he’d been consumed by trying to get back to where he was before.
He’d convinced himself he didn’t need therapy, he just needed to get back to normal.
So that’s what he’d done.
He’d gone home. He’d tried to be the husband he had promised to be. Tried to ignore the pain. Tried to ignore his mood swings. And when he couldn’t, he’d just medicated it. Every day demanding another pill, and another and another. Until what had started as a quest for normal got lost in the haze. Until what the pills had done was worse than the pain, worse than the mood swings.
What he’d learned was that those pills hadn’t made his pain go away. They’d deferred it.
When the world had collapsed, he’d felt it all.
The devil always came to collect.
Always.
After more than a year of denying every dark thought and ending up in hell anyway, he’d come to the conclusion that you might as well think the dark thought. It was inside you whether you gave it a voice or not. Best not to surprise yourself. Especially not when your defenses were down. Best to know, fully know, the kind of capacity for darkness that lived inside you.
“I’m sorry. But...how could we have known this would be hard for you, Gideon? You haven’t told us anything.”
“I didn’t have anything to tell. I needed to make a plan. When Cassidy left, I didn’t know what to do.”
Left. That was funny. And kind of a lie.
She’d kicked him out. But she left him emotionally, so he found that an easier way to put it. He was the one who’d physically left, but at her request.
“I’m sorry,” Lydia said, her voice acidic. “But I don’t have any sympathy for Cassidy. She abandoned you when you needed her the most.”
“I left her when she needed me most,” he said. “I didn’t call you, Lydia. I didn’t call Mom, because I was in no state to be...around people. Cass was living with me. She had to deal with the fact that I wasn’t the same person all day every day. She had to deal with my injuries, with my career ending, with uncertainty about where our money was going to come from, and I couldn’t be there to reassure her. It was all because of me, and I couldn’t... I couldn’t make it okay.”
“That is an awfully kind interpretation,” Lydia said.
“I’m not trying to be kind . But I loved her for a long time. You don’t just stop loving somebody. I still see the woman I married when I think of her. Not the end of everything.”
“Good. You see it. I’m glad you see it because I can’t especially. I can’t.”
“And this is why I needed some time. Because now you know I’m here, so here you are with your opinions. The town will be there with their welcome banners. And I just needed...”
Silence and pie.
“I’m not your enemy.”
“I know you’re not. I love you, kid. I’m here to be with you and Mom. Even though it’s hard. But be patient with me, okay?” He needed to be here. Without connections, all he had was that abyss. He couldn’t face it.
“Okay.”
“I’m officially here from tomorrow. Promise. I will go into town, and I will stand underneath the banner. Swear it.”
“Okay.”
“We’ll talk in the morning.”
“All right.”
He hung up with her, and got online, started looking at some different hiking supplies and other outdoor equipment.
He wasn’t here to try and compete with the ranchers. In the sense that he wasn’t going to get cattle, or sheep, or try to grow produce. He would probably have some animals for his own use, but what he’d decided he was going to do was put some tiny homes on the property, and offer ranch days. Complete with trail rides and other activities. The McClouds had a therapy portion of their ranch, but it wasn’t recreational. There was nothing in the immediate area like this, and he had a feeling he could make a profit at it. His dad had tried to compete with Four Corners for years. As far as Gideon was concerned, that was a losing proposition. They were too big to fail. And he had no interest in getting up in their business.
He had a plan. And he had some time to float him until he could get that plan into action.
Leading hikes and horse rides sounded like an ideal thing for him. He did great outdoors. He had infinite survival skills from his time in the military. And keeping his endurance up was good for him. Yeah, he had his injuries, but a trick hip wasn’t going to stop him from hiking up a mountain. It might keep him from being able to do everything that needed doing out in the desert, but not simple tourist hikes. And anyway, the real issue wasn’t in his body. It was his brain.
Hell of a thing.
He’d never been focused on mental kinds of things. He was physical.
Not that the blast had impacted his IQ, but he’d never fully appreciated all the things your brain was in charge of. Which sounded dumb. It was dumb. He had taken it for granted, until those shock waves had rattled his brain around in his head like ten car accidents, and years in the NFL getting tackled, giving him concussion after concussion all in one moment.
It had taken time for the medical teams he’d seen to realize that his issues were more severe than they’d first thought. That his injuries were more extensive. More internal.
Finding out what the problem was had been a relief, in part. But it hadn’t fixed it. His mood swings had been unbearable. Unpredictable.
He frowned, remembering. Yelling at Cassidy. He’d yelled at her. He’d never been like that before.
He pushed the guilt down, and got up from his computer, realizing he was hungry. And right then, there was a knock on the door.
He frowned. If it was Lydia, he would be glad to see her. If it was his mother...he’d be glad to see her, too, but he would be unprepared. Still, it was reasonable to suspect that it might be one of them.
He crossed the small kitchen and opened the door. And there was Rory.
“Hi. I brought you dinner.” She was smiling in that determined way she’d done earlier and he couldn’t figure out how to return it.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said.
“I wanted to.”
He stared at her. “My sister send you?”
“What makes you say that?”
“You didn’t deny it.”
“I did have lunch with your sister today.”
“It all becomes clear. She called me, and she was furious because she didn’t know that I was back in town.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know that they didn’t know. I wouldn’t have said anything if I did.” She looked at him. “It’s...a lot of stuff. I can bring it in.”
He snorted. “Come in.”
Rory had been fourteen when he’d left. A kid. Then, as now, she had freckles all over her face. She hadn’t grown any since then, either. She was short and petite, and with a finely pointed little face, sculpted cheekbones and a nose that turned upward. She’d been stick thin back then; he remembered that.
But now he noticed she had a petite but luscious figure, and her limbs were what could only be described as willowy. She was... For some reason, she was a certain kind of beautiful that got right under his skin in a way nothing else had for years.
She made him ache and he didn’t like it.
“I brought you a potpie,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“It’s hot. I’ll cut it for you, and then I’ll get out of your hair.”
“I know how to cut a pie.”
“Yeah, I know. You had some of my pie last night. I’ll just serve it for you because it’s a little tricky when it’s hot.”
He stared at her. She didn’t have a very nurturing or mothering sort of energy, but she was sure as hell giving it a try. A testament, he thought, to the friendship that she had with his sister.
“So, what have you been up to, Rory?”
What he wanted to do, the only thing he really wanted to do, was haul her into his arms and see if she was as soft as she looked. But he couldn’t do that. So he decided to play small-talk games. To see if he could.
It was so hard for him now. He wasn’t that interested in people anymore. He didn’t know what that was a side effect of. His brain injury, or just generally being in kind of a shitty place in life.
Either way, he didn’t care. But he was supposed to go to town tomorrow, and there was going to be a banner. And he had decided to move back here, and that meant he had to get better at playing this game. He had to try and find it in himself to do this sort of thing. So why not practice on Rory?
She’d been easy to talk to back when she was a kid. Or she’d done a lot of talking at him. Either way, she seemed like an easy port in his mental storm.
“Oh. Well. I haven’t done much. I mean, the property management, yes, and we opened the farm store. But I...” She scrunched her nose up. “I didn’t go to school.” For some reason, he felt like that was an incomplete comment, but he didn’t press her on it.
“I didn’t go to school and I am leaving here at the end of the month.”
“Leaving?”
“Yeah. I’m moving to Boston.”
“That’s a long way. You have a...a boyfriend or...” Was this how small talk worked? He hated it.
“No. I have a job. And a place to live. I’ll be managing an old apartment building. It’s a little bit different from what I’ve been doing here, but I’m sure that I can do it. And I’m looking forward to it.”
“That’s a big change.”
“It is,” she said hurriedly. “It is. But I’m more than ready. It’s been a long time coming. But anyway, yeah. That’s... I’m leaving. And you’re back.”
“Yeah. I am.”
“You’re going into town tomorrow for...”
“The parade that isn’t a parade?”
Rory looked concerned. “I don’t know that it isn’t a parade.”
“My sister said it isn’t.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t think it is. I’m just saying I’m not entirely convinced that it isn’t. That’s all.”
“Why is that?”
“You know how people get. They’re very zealous about you.”
He didn’t know how to respond to that. That had been true once. And he’d taken it as his due. But he didn’t deserve all that. Not now.
If they knew the real story. That he wasn’t one of the strong ones.
“I don’t want that,” he said. “I didn’t come here for that.”
“Isn’t it nice? That people are happy to see you?”
She took a knife out of the drawer, and cut into the potpie. Then with a big scoop, she got the crust and all the filling out onto a plate.
“Who are they happy to see?” he asked, a strange, bitter feeling churning in his gut. “Me, or this weird fantasy they have of me from when I was a high school football star?”
She handed him the plate, and the fork, her eyes meeting his, something lost and helpless there, and he didn’t do anything to make her feel better.
“Thank you,” he said, taking the plate.
He said it with a finality he hoped might see her out the door.
But she just stared at him. “What’s the issue, you don’t want attention or...?”
“No,” he bit out. “I don’t. I didn’t save anyone, I’m not a hero. I got injured in a bomb blast, there’s no act of heroism there.”
“You survived,” she pointed out.
Part of him had.
And right then it was like something snapped inside him. All the angry and ugly flooded him. Poured out. “Let me tell you something. While people sit around and barbecue and sing ‘God Bless America,’ young men and women are out there dying. There is nothing... aspirational or uplifting about it. There isn’t a music montage. It’s not a damned parade. Not a day of it. It’s a convoy through hell. And everyone wants their heroes to come back as shiny as when they left but...”
She reached out and touched him. Put her fingers on his wrist.
The touch was like getting burned and he jerked his hand away.
Her face went pink, her eyes glittering. “I think... I think people are just happy to see you, Gideon. No one needs you to be something you’re not.”
That fire in his gut turned on the wind, rage transforming into something more dangerous.
Damn he was such a mess.
Letting his rage spill over onto Rory before taking the time to lust after her was evidence enough.
“Don’t pity me, Rory. I mean it. You don’t need to take care of me, and I’m not fragile.” He moved away from her, and took a bite of the pie. “Thank you. For dinner. I’ll see you around.”
He wanted her out of his house. He didn’t like the way she made him feel. He didn’t like that tightness in his gut. He didn’t like that attraction, the beginnings of arousal that he felt.
That was far too strong a reaction to any woman, much less his little sister’s best friend. Much less a girl he’d last seen when she was fourteen, and who even now looked far too freckled and fresh-faced and young.
He didn’t want to feel this angry. He didn’t want to be home.
He was afraid to be anywhere else.
“Oh. Okay. I...”
She looked wounded. It was probably for the best.
“I’ll see you later, kid.”
Because whether he wanted to or not, he would. He was here now. Back in his hometown. Where everyone thought they knew him.
The worst part was...there was an ache in his chest when he thought of that parade. A deep impossible need. He wanted to be their hero again.
Life had been so much better when he was the hero.
Everyone thought he was a hero because he’d been a soldier.
Because he’d played a good game of football. But they didn’t know him.
Sometimes he worried that he wasn’t the good guy anymore.
Sometimes he thought he might be the bad guy.