Guardian of the Heart Read online

  “Did she tell us what?” Mama Bee strolled into the kitchen and poured some coffee.

  Connie just shook her head.

  “Nothing, sorry,” Noreen went for her best innocent look.

  Mama gave them both the look that said that wasn’t going to work. She shooed a cat out of her chair and sat down at the battered old table.

  Noreen traced a finger over the old scorch mark from when she’d served her first-ever scrambled eggs to everyone by setting the hot pan of scorched eggs directly on the table. “Remember when—”

  “Not going to work with me, Noreen Wallace. Now what are you two gals up to that I’m not allowed to know about yet? This about you and that handsome young man? Was he as good to you as I’m hoping?”

  “Mama!”

  She just did her innocent shrug thing, which told Noreen exactly where she’d gotten that skill—only Mama did it more convincingly.

  Connie didn’t look up to give her any help.

  Noreen sighed, “No. He was better than that.”

  “Good,” Mama nodded as if that made everything right with the world.

  And it did, with one part of the world. But it messed up a whole other part of it. Noreen wasn’t supposed to feel this way about any man.

  “Looking mighty flustered for someone who I’m sure had herself a nice portion of some wake-up sex for breakfast. And,” Mama aimed her gaze at Connie, “don’t think that Nori’s sexual triumphs are distracting me from you not telling me something. If ever I had a white girl come out of these hips, you know I’d wish it was you. So tell me.”

  Noreen was close enough to see that Connie was blushing even though she’d shaken her shoulder-length hair forward to cover her face as she kept studying her oatmeal.

  “She can’t, Mama.” Then Noreen nudged her sister-in-law in the ribs. “Not until after she’s told John.”

  Connie’s head bolted up and Mama broke out in a peal of laughter. They were all smiling at each other when John stumbled in. He beelined for the coffee pot, apparently unaware of the three women watching him as he poured, added cream and sugar, and took his first sip before offering a deep contented sigh.

  “Johnny,” Mama Bee called out to him.

  “Uh-huh. Morning, Mama. Hey, Trouble.” He mussed Noreen’s hair and for once she let him get away with it. Then he wandered over and kissed Connie on top of the head. “Need a refresher on your coffee?”

  “Nope,” was all Connie said.

  “She really shouldn’t,” Noreen couldn’t resist, earning her Connie’s scowl. During on the helicopter flight yesterday, they’d talked about reducing caffeine—one cup and one soda per day, max.

  “Definitely not,” Mama was watching John.

  “You okay, babe?” John squatted down until he was eye level with Connie.

  She nodded, but she started crying.

  “What’s with the tears? You never cry. She never cries,” he looked around the table as if seeking confirmation. “Only time I’ve ever seen her cry was over Grumps’ passing.”

  “You going to tell him, Connie, or do I?”

  “Hush, Nori,” Mama’s voice was sharp.

  Connie tried to speak, but nothing came out. She finally just threw her arms around John’s shoulders and hung on. Her sister-in-law didn’t speak much, but she’d never had a problem before when there was something to say.

  John’s eyes were round and worried when he looked at Noreen over Connie’s shoulder.

  “What happening?” he mouthed to her.

  Taking pity on him, Noreen cradled her arms and made a rocking motion.

  John pushed Connie back enough that he could see her face. “Really?”

  Connie nodded quickly and the tears kept flowing.

  John scooped his wife up, sat in the chair himself, and cradled her in his lap. He buried his face in her hair and the two of them just sat there holding on to each other as Mama dabbed at her own tears.

  Xavier wasn’t exactly sure what he’d just walked in on. Good or bad? Ask if he could help or just hit the door at a sprint and don’t stop running until he hit the next county? He couldn’t tell.

  Connie was curled up in Big John’s lap and he was holding her like she was dead or something. Noreen’s mother was wiping at her eyes with a dishtowel. And Noreen’s eyes—not exactly dry either—looked up at him with a seriously puzzled expression. Sort of a Who the hell are you? kinda vibe.

  He went to back away as Larry shoved him from behind.

  “What in the world?” Paps came in behind Larry and the three of them were now lined up looking at the crying scene going on in the kitchen.

  “Got me,” Xavier whispered it softly.

  Noreen was still looking at him like he really had just beamed down from another planet.

  “What?” he mouthed at her.

  She just shook her head.

  No longer than a shower ago they’d been going at each other like they’d invented sex themselves. And now it’s like he was…a total stranger.

  Well he didn’t need that kind of shit. He knew women who got all weird about the morning after. Great sex, honey. But my family needs to still think I’m a virgin. Or some such crap.

  Larry and Paps moved further into the room.

  Xavier wasn’t dumb enough to follow. He turned and went through the front room and out the front door. He ignored the burst of noise and shouts from behind him.

  It was harder to ignore the sound of running feet, especially because he was out in the middle of fucking nowhere. The field past the equipment barn stretched on forever with waist-high wheat.

  Out of options, he planted his feet on the tire-chewed earth that separated yard from field.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere,” and wasn’t that an ugly truth.

  “What do you have against babies?”

  “I’ve got a problem with women who— Wait! What? How did babies get in the middle of this?” He turned to look down at Noreen. She was standing fist on hips in shorts, a light t-shirt, and sneakers. Knowing now exactly what hid under even those scanty clothes made him hungry for more. Looking at her expression said it wasn’t gonna be happening anytime soon. Shit!

  “You heard me,” her voice still grated with fury. It definitely had a military snap to it.

  “Babies?”

  “Yes. Connie is going to have one. You’ve heard of them, haven’t you? Little beings who grow up into bigger ones?”

  “Connie? Seriously? John’s kid?”

  “If it’s someone else’s, I’ll kick her ass. You ask that question around anyone else in the family, I’ll kick yours. And don’t smirk, I can take your ass down anytime I want. In or out of a sling.”

  “Babies,” he repeated to buy himself a little time. Noreen wasn’t the sort of person to underestimate. “She happy about it?”

  “What do you think? They’re all in there celebrating and I’m out here with you because—I don’t know why. What the hell is your problem, Jones?” It was his first view of Noreen the angry woman. She was always so positive, such a cheery determined force in any group and on any flight, that the contrast was shocking. Not the nasty bitch kind of angry, but more F5-tornado-ready-to-kick-your-ass-but-good.

  “What the hell do you want from me?”

  All she did was glare at him.

  “You wanta know what I think about babies? Fine! Where I came from, babies are bad news. The whores had to scrape up the cash for an abortion if they wanted to keep working, but after four or five times it gets risky as hell. Women wanting a sugar daddy would get pregnant any way they could. I always used my own condoms so that the women couldn’t pinprick ’em and set me up. Babies are a goddamn trap.”

  Noreen just gaped at him. Then she spun on her heel and walked away.

  Xavier had never felt so helpless in his life. He wanted her like he’d never wanted a woman. She was confusing the crap out of him.

  But she didn’t go back to the house or over to
the barn. She just walked away, giving him a fine view of her exceptional ass and long legs. Don’t be thinking ’bout that, dude. It was tricky. Women were always one thing, but—

  Noreen turned and walked back toward him offering him another fine view, though she continued to scowl at the ground as she moved. When she reached him, she didn’t look up…might have run right into him if he hadn’t stepped aside. She headed off along the churned track where the dirt was chewed up by turning tractor tires.

  Like that time atop the wall at Balad, he followed because he didn’t know what else to do. The land was flatter than a Balad Air Base runway. Soon they were walking between sorghum so tall he couldn’t see a thing to one side and still-green wheat so expansive that there was no horizon in the other, just mesmerizing ripples as the wind waved through the field.

  Around the end of the sorghum field he stumbled to a halt.

  A patch of magnolia trees in bloom was such a shocking contrast in color that it felt like a pink-and-red slap. The ground was covered in the blooms. The air was so thick with the trees’ perfume that he almost felt drunk. He wandered into the middle of the grove and slowly turned around and around. A gentle morning breeze slipped one petal and then another off their branches to flutter down to the pink carpet that covered the ground.

  “It’s like magic.”

  There was no reply.

  He turned and looked once more. He was alone. No sign of Noreen. Somehow, between one moment and the next she’d disappeared. As if she’d evaporated into thin air.

  Looking up, he spotted her watching him from high in the limbs of the next tree over. No way he’d be climbing up after her, even if both of his arms were working.

  He sat, placing his back against the nearest tree, and just let the beauty of the occasional falling petal fill the time. One thing Xavier had learned flying CSAR was patience. Even while others fought, it was his job to simply wait and be ready. If Noreen thought she could outwait him, she had another think coming.

  One moment she was in the tree, the next she was standing not a pace beyond his stretched-out feet—one of her acrobatic moves. Even with a broken tush, her every move called to him. But she didn’t speak. And that was a waiting game he expected he was going to lose, so he didn’t bother trying.

  “You’re gonna tell me all the wonders of babies. You’re going to be an aunt. Well just remember, Connie and John gave up flying for the Night Stalkers to have a kid. And what happens to her career when she’s got one, or two? I don’t see how a kid is a good thing.”

  And then Noreen had that breakfast-table look again. Like he was the alien here.

  “Do you want babies, Noreen? Not gonna be doing your CSAR Parkour shit with an eight-month bulge. You ever think about that?”

  “But it doesn’t mean I don’t want them,” her voice was as soft as the falling blooms.

  “Welcome to them.”

  “But not you,” she didn’t make it a question. And that look solidified into something hard and he knew what it meant this time: he was the outsider here.

  He was sick of not belonging.

  Working at the chop shop in Prichard had fit—at least until the recruiter fished him out.

  He’d belonged in the Army and then the Night Stalkers.

  Xavier knew who he was in those places.

  But his parents’ home?

  This place?

  “I shouldn’t even be here,” he thumped his head back against the tree, feeling the rough bark on his shaved scalp. He closed his eyes to block out Noreen’s baleful stare.

  By the time he opened them, he was alone.

  Chapter 9

  “She’s gone to a friend’s.”

  Yeah, Xavier knew what that shit meant. Until he was out of the way, Noreen wasn’t going to come home to her family.

  He packed his duffel and slung it over his good shoulder. He tried to think of some note to leave on her pillow.

  Good luck with the kids?

  You were the best fuck of my life?

  I’m gonna think of you every—he really had to get out of here.

  Back downstairs, he found John by himself in the kitchen.

  “Can I get a lift out of here?”

  “Sure, where you going?” John blinked at him in surprise. Then scowled when he spotted Xavier’s duffel.

  “How the hell would I know? Bus station? Airport? Somewhere not here.”

  “You don’t want to be doing that,” John rose to his feet looking massive and some kind of pissed.

  “You’re right. I don’t. But your little sister has different ideas on that. I just got my walking papers.”

  “She—”

  “Look,” Xavier was trying to do the right thing. “She wants me gone. Record long relationship, lasted a night and part of a morning too. Best that ever happened to a shit like me. Now it’s done. You gonna help me clear out or do I start walkin’ before she comes after me with a squirrel gun?”

  “I’ve seen the way she looks at you.”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “Connie walked out of here because she thought she shouldn’t be here. It almost killed me.”

  “Well, this time’s different. I’d be staying if it was up to me. Your sister gave me my DD Form 214 Report of Separation. Court martial. Dishonorable. The whole nine yards. Loathing doesn’t begin to cover it.”

  John finally sighed, grabbed a set of keys by the kitchen door, and held the door for Xavier.

  The entire drive to the Muskogee bus station passed in silence.

  When Xavier started to climb down, John stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  “You sure about this?”

  Xavier didn’t even try to speak past the knot in his gut. He managed a nod.

  “Bus will see you up to Tulsa International. Can go where you please from there,” John held out a hand.

  After a long moment’s consideration, Xavier shook it, then turned for the ticket window.

  Somewhere behind him John’s voice said, “Sorry, man.”

  Yeah, that pretty much covered it.

  Noreen didn’t know what she was feeling when she got back to the house that night. Numb? Lost? Wrung out? That last one she was used to after the brutal workouts and trials necessary to make it into Special Operations. But this was different. All she’d done was sit with her sister Janice and talk. Even playing with her young niece and nephew hadn’t cheered her up the way it usually did. Somehow it had made her feel worse.

  The porch light was off and everyone was in bed by the time she crawled out of Mama’s car.

  “You’re out late,” Connie’s voice sounded from the darkness over by the porch swing.

  “Is there a curfew now? Why aren’t you up with your husband celebrating being parents?” Noreen sat on Mama’s rocker, only wincing a little at the pain, and could just barely make out Connie in the darkness. The moon was up and bright, but it came from the other side of the house, lighting the yard but casting the deep porch in impenetrable shadow. No owl to cheer up the evening. No crickets. Like the world had crawled into some dark hole.

  “I’m here so that John isn’t the one waiting for you.”

  “I wish he’d stop treating me like I was twelve.”

  “Never going to happen, Noreen. You know that. He loves you too much.”

  She figured that was a truth. John would always be overprotective and a part of her would always appreciate it.

  “Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be chewing you out at the top of his lungs at the moment.”

  “Say what?”

  “Why did you boot Xavier down the road? I think that’s the real question.”

  “I didn’t do that. He just doesn’t understand about…” Her throat went dry. “Down the road? What do you mean down the road?” She couldn’t stop the note of hysteria she could feel climbing out of her own throat.

  Connie’s sigh spoke volumes, then she muttered a soft curse. Connie never cursed. This was bad.

 
“What do you mean—” she couldn’t finish it.

  Years ago Connie had insisted on leaving against John’s wishes. And Noreen had been the one to drive her to town. It had ripped out her heart, but saying “no” to Connie hadn’t been an option.

  “But you knew,” Noreen railed at her. “From the time it was you leaving. How could you let him go?”

  “John drove him to town—”

  “I’m gonna kill him,” Noreen jolted her feet.

  “—because Xavier said you wouldn’t come home until he was gone. He told John that he wanted to stay, but you’d told him to go.”

  “I never said that.”

  “John said he used the word ‘loathing,’ and that you issued him a DD Form 214.”

  “I—” she sank back into her mother’s chair. “Did I?”

  Connie waited in the darkness that swirled around Noreen until she felt seasick.

  “No. He was the one who got all strange. You saw him. He just walked out when you said you were going to have a baby.” Or had he been in the room for that? No, he’d stared at her not Connie, looking at her like she herself had…slapped him?

  “I was focusing on other things,” Connie was still back in some earlier part of the conversation.

  “Well, he did,” and that made more sense than anything else she could think of. “And when I confronted him on it, everything got all confused. He tossed in my face that having babies and working CSAR didn’t go together. Then I asked if he wanted kids. You know what he said? He said he shouldn’t even be here.”

  Again Connie did one of her silence things.

  Noreen had learned to give Connie room to order her thoughts and kept her mouth shut. How could Xavier be gone? One minute she’d been sitting at the kitchen table, imagining what it would be like to hold his child, their child—Connie wasn’t the only one having a life-changing moment this morning. The next he was chucking the fighting woman’s dilemma of career versus family in her face as if it was her fault or as if she had all the answers.

  “You can’t imagine what you have here, Noreen.”

  “Here?”

  “This farm. This family. Don’t forget, I came into this family as an orphan; it sounds as if Xavier might as well be. You can’t imagine how strange all this is to people like us. Even if you could imagine yourself without any family or relations, you still wouldn’t get how it feels. Family—any family, never mind one like yours—is a shining light that you’ve never seen before, blinding you worse than rocket flare in night vision. There’s no way you can belong to that light, ever. As an orphan, as an outsider, you know this for a fact. I knew it, right down to my bones.”