A Soldier’s Family (3 page)

A scowl darkened his eyes as he darted looks out the side window where a clump of kids huddled near the curb. “Wearing seat belts isn’t cool. I’ll buckle down the road.”

“You’ll buckle up now,
hijo,
or the car’s not moving.” Javier’s father would somersault in his grave if he heard the tone Javier used with her. Celia bit back an emotional lump.

Why did Joseph have to die young and leave me alone to raise a troubled son who won’t talk to me? At what point did Javier and I lose touch, Lord? Where did I slip up?

Maybe it’s because she’d loosened up on discipline for several months after Javier’s father had been shot while on duty during a DEA drug sting. At the time, it had taken everything she’d had just to pull herself out of bed each day. She’d thought it best to go easy on Javier since he was grieving, as well. Then Javier resented her erecting those boundaries and enforcing discipline again. What could she do besides pray he’d eventually come around instead of continue his descent off the deep end?

Despite her inner turmoil, Celia put on her best “Mommy-Look” and stared Javier down through the rearview mirror.

His brows knit, but he finally shoved the metal into the clasp. He then jammed fingers through his long hair, flipping it off his forehead, revealing the only eyes she knew capable of sullen scowls comparable to her own.

Stringy strands fell back over his forehead.

Her fingers itched as she pulled into traffic. How badly she wanted to get hold of that mess with a pair of scissors. But she needed to pick her battles, and unruly hair ranked low on the totem pole these days.

“Where we going?” Javier asked, munching a bite of granola bar that Bradley had offered him.

“The hospital. Manny had a skydiving accident this morning and—”

The stricken look climbing Javier’s face caused Celia to clench tight the steering wheel.

For a brief instant she saw the vulnerable little boy he used to be. Though his skin was a darker shade of brown than hers, he paled several degrees. Celia realized he waited for her to finish. Apprehension glittered in his eyes.

Choosing her words carefully she said, “He’s alive, Javier. But he’s busted up pretty good. A few hours ago, he was coherent and talking.”

Just not to me
.

“He’s having major hip surgery. We’re going by to see if there’s anything we can do, and to support Joel and the team.”

Javier stared at her. Uncertainty replaced apprehension. For a second, she felt a connection when he held her gaze and searched her eyes for reassurance. Just like he had the day she’d had to sit him down and tell him his father wasn’t coming home.
Why, Mom? Why do these terrible things have to happen?

The same question hovered in Javier’s eyes now before he averted his gaze to the window, uneaten granola bar abandoned in his lap. The gangly teen with the monstrous appetite was gobbling her out of house and home. If he wasn’t eating, this news had really rattled him. Celia’s heart swelled with love, then compassion for her son. She hoped he’d be okay when he saw the kind of shape Manny was in.

The untouched granola bar rested in the same position on his lap fifteen minutes later when she pulled into the visitor parking at Refuge Memorial Hospital.

They stopped at the nurses’ station to have their temperatures checked. Most of the staff recognized Bradley since he’d been there so often prior to his bone-marrow transplant for leukemia, which had thankfully gone into remission.

Once at Manny’s doorway and peeking through a crack in the ugly cantaloupe curtains, Celia tried not to bite her lip. It tore at her heart to see anyone suffer.

The nurse escorted Bradley and Javier to a waiting room, and then returned to the hall outside Manny’s door.

Though Celia knew doctors rarely gave recovering alcoholics narcotics, she knew from talking to Amber that Manny was only a social drinker. His team had assured her that his behavior at the wedding reception was highly unusual and out of character for Manny. Celia didn’t know whether to buy that. Regardless, she couldn’t stand to see the big oaf hurting.

Celia put a hand on the nurse’s arm. “Can’t you give the guy something to ease the pain a little?” Manny looked beyond miserable.

The nurse eyed Manny’s door. “I’ve tried. He won’t take it. The friend with him is trying to talk him into it. Go on in, if you like.” She waved Celia in and swished on to another room.

Did Manny even want her in there? She doubted it. He’d sulked the entire time she’d been here earlier. She’d stared at water streaks on the glass and studied cars on the street below, trying to get up the nerve to apologize to him, only to have chickened out in the end.

Cluck. Cluck. Cluck. Suck it up, cupcake. Get in there and humble yourself like you know you should.

Celia’s pep talk bolstered her courage a little. She drew in a breath, squared her shoulders and went for it.

Amber stood at Joel’s side, holding one of Manny’s hands. His eyes were clenched tight and his face looked pinched all over.

“Just a little to knock the edge off,” Joel coaxed.

Manny shook his head emphatically, veins in his forehead and neck popping out. “No, dude. I don’t want any narcotics. You know why I have a thing about taking drugs.” Manny opened his eyes, then clamped them shut.

“His wife OD’d,” Nolan whispered behind Celia. She nearly jumped out of her skin. How could these big, bulky guys move around so silently? Nolan must have read the curiosity in her face and felt the need to explain.

Celia removed her hand from her throat. “Pshew! You startled me. Were you lurking back there in the ugly curtains or what?” she whispered. But Nolan eyed Manny.

“Thanks for airing my dirty laundry, Briggs.” Manny shot Nolan a heated glare then flicked an unfriendly glance Celia’s way. She didn’t know what to make of it. Pain could turn a person into a madman. Or it could simply be that he resented her being here. Maybe even hated her. And rightfully so. Who wouldn’t, with all her shortcomings like a short fuse of a temper and an acid-spewing mouth she couldn’t seem to control no matter how hard she tried? She hated herself, too, sometimes.

That verse about always doing what you don’t want to do and not doing the things you know you should, yeah, that defined her. Where her mouth was concerned anyway. Half her sin would cease if she’d keep it shut.

It amazed her that Manny heard from across the spacious private room. Another thing that enthralled her about these Special Forces dudes. And no matter how hard she tried not to be intrigued, she was. By Manny especially. Maybe because they shared ethnicity. Or could be because those dark and probing eyes didn’t miss a flip. He seemed to see all, hear all, feel all and know all.

By the narrowed assessing gaze crossing Manny’s features now as he zeroed in on her, he sensed all, too. At least her thoughts. Her cheeks heated, and she rarely blushed.

Could he sense only what she wanted him to see?

Or what she desperately didn’t?

“N
arcotics make me have nightmares I can’t wake up from,” Manny whispered to Joel so Celia wouldn’t hear. He couldn’t explain why he cared so much what she thought. He felt vulnerable enough without her seeing him in this state. Yet he’d experienced pleasant surprise that she’d returned to the hospital at all.

Under different circumstances, he’d appreciate her attempt to be humane. But in this much pain, he couldn’t get a hold of himself. He hurt so bad, his personality was uncontrollably altered. His leg felt like an Abrams tank had rolled over it.

Twice.

His entire body burned as though an RPG sheared the skin right off his bones.

As if sensing his self-consciousness, she stepped out. Funny thing. He felt her absence immediately.

And didn’t like it.

Celia was the kind of girl who changed the room when she walked in. Or, rather, bounced in. Always upbeat, feet moving, face nearly always grinning, bright teeth, big smile, just the kind he liked. Thick curls dancing around her overly expressive, ever-laughing face. Everything about her blared drama, and he usually loved it. Any day but today.

He wished they could bury the hatchet and become friends. He needed the cheering up that the sound of her laugh could accomplish.

Like at the rehearsal dinner the night before Joel and Amber’s wedding. He’d been the best man and Celia the maid of honor. He’d shown up in a horrid mood because he hated weddings since his own marriage had failed. Within minutes she’d had him laughing until tears rolled down his cheeks. Her sarcasm. Her cheeky humor. Her spit-fire comments and street-smart wit. As though she’d sensed his struggle to be happy for Joel more than sad for himself. The icing on the cake had been getting to know Javier, who’d hovered like his shadow. He really liked that kid.

Manny was happy for Joel, he really was—he just wished he had a relationship like that. God had entrusted him with one family and he’d dropped the ball in a big way. No matter how hard he ached for another family, he didn’t deserve it.

He hadn’t taken care of the first one.

Only with God’s help could he ever forgive himself. Or deal with this outlandish pain that challenged his control and his sanity and his hospitality to visitors and his…everything—just everything.

God, it hurts. I can’t do this by myself. Not another minute.
The urge to screech out like a jungle animal bit at him, clawed at his mind. He seethed wet air through his teeth instead. Changing positions did. Not. Help.

How could something
possibly
hurt this bad?

Seven hours of torturous pain with not one second of relief and now he teetered on the brink of insanity. He should take the pain meds. No. He’d rather hurl off the edge of a mental cliff than have the nightmares. His team seeing him in this shape didn’t bother him so much, but pretty Celia? His male ego hated it. He didn’t expect her to understand, didn’t want her to know what a failure he’d been in his life, the horrible things he was responsible for. No one except his team knew how his past haunted him. For years they’d tried to convince him to run clear and free of cumbersome guilt.

He couldn’t.

Why should he? His mistake had cut his son’s life short. Manny should suffer.

Usually he could wake himself from the dreams. The one time he couldn’t was the last time he’d taken something for pain after a botched root canal. Images from the drug-induced dreams had stayed with him and refused to fade.

Even now. Images of his toddler son floating face up, eyes frozen in death and fear. Mouth open from screams that had pulled water into his lungs instead of alerting his mom and dad for help.

All unnoticed by the two people who should have been watching over him instead of arguing. Oblivious that on the other side of the glass, mere feet away, the child they’d made in happier days had found a way outside and was drowning in the family pool.

Once they’d noticed Seth wasn’t in his toddler bed, they scoured the house and yard and found him. Manny had performed CPR but it had been too late. He’d wanted them to pull together to get through it but their marriage had melted under the heat of bitter, burning accusations. It hadn’t made a difference in Theresa’s mind that Manny had just come off a several-month-long mission and had no way of knowing the yard gate had broken or that Seth knew how to unlock a dead bolt.

Then his wife had died shortly after divorcing him the same year. Authorities had never determined whether her overdose had been intentional or accidental. Regardless, it haunted Manny to this day that he hadn’t prevented it.

He’d failed—as a father, as a Christian. As a husband.

This morning he’d failed as a PJ. He hadn’t gauged the wind right when he’d flared his canopy. The jump before, Manny had a tandem diver strapped to him. The person could have died, leaving Manny responsible for yet another person’s death.

At the hospital, he’d failed Joel as a friend by not trying harder to get along with his wife’s best friend. Everyone sensed the tension. Joel and Amber should be spending their time delirious in love, not playing referee between him and Celia. They should at least try to be civil.

Seemed every time they came in contact with one another, it was like a match strike to gasoline-soaked flint. Anger flared. It had to stop. Surely they could learn to be mature about this for Joel and Amber, because like it or not, he and Celia would be in each other’s lives from now on.

He was willing to try. Was Celia? Would he get a second chance to forge a friendship? Or at the very least, put on a pretense of tolerating one another for their friends’ sake? Maybe with God’s help and his newfound faith, he and Celia could truly get past their personality issues.

Please don’t let me fail again
.

Whether she responded maturely or repelled his efforts was up to her. He’d throw the ball. What she did with it, he couldn’t be responsible for. For Joel and Amber’s sakes, he hoped she’d play like a good sport.

Celia paced the hall outside Manny’s door, breathing in the antiseptic smells. What should she do? Go wait with Javier and Bradley? Take them home? She certainly couldn’t go back inside that room, knowing how much she’d obviously added to Manny’s discomfort.

No one wanted to be hovered over or seen at their worst. She of all people knew that.

She regretted traipsing in there in the first place.

Then Nolan, oh, man, she could just shake him. How could he betray Manny’s confidence like that? Okay, so she’d give the guy a break. Obviously it had just been nervous chatter. She’d picked up that Nolan was the tenderhearted one on the team. He’d been worried close to physically sick about Manny. He obviously wasn’t thinking clearly when he’d mindlessly blabbed.

“Miss Munez?” A nurse stepped from the room, followed by Joel and Amber.

Celia whirled, noting immediately the peculiar expressions coating Amber and Joel’s faces. Celia cleared her throat and faced the nurse. “Yes?”

“Mr. Péna would like a word with you.”

“Excuse me?” Celia craned her neck at the woman and pushed curls behind her ear. She couldn’t possibly have heard right.

“Mr. Péna?” The nurse hiked a thumb at his door. “Would like. To speak. With you.” She pointed a finger at Celia as if Celia didn’t know who or what “you” meant.

Celia scowled and fought the urge to mimic the nurse’s slowly enunciated speech pattern. Like she couldn’t understand English or something. The kind of technique she and Amber used when teaching letter blends and phonics to students. Celia had a masters in English, for crying out loud.

Though it practically killed her to be humble, Celia nodded and folded her hands in a gesture of gratitude.
“Gracias.”
Okay, so she still had a little mean streak.

Headed for Manny’s door, Celia slanted her eyes at two newlywed grins on smug faces as she passed by on her way to—what?

World War Three?

Or a peace talk?

Doom music sounded in Celia’s mind while she shuffled one foot in front of the other, as if headed for the guillotine. She drew in a fortifying breath, hopefully not her last, and pushed open Manny’s door.

Ready or not, here it comes.

“Hey.” He shot her a sheepish grin above covers that went nearly to his scraped chin.

“Hay? That’s the first stage of horse poop,” she countered.

By the confusion sifting across his face, Celia wondered if he’d taken a pain shot, after all. Then his expression righted itself. An uncomfortable tension drew the walls too close together, causing the air to get stuffy. She guessed the guy wasn’t one for jokes.

Her shoulders stiffened under his scrutiny. “So…”

“So. Why don’t you have a seat?” Manny gestured to the chair. Not the farthest chair from him, but not the closest, either. Okay. This was progress, right?

Meeting in the middle. Coming to a compromise.

Mechanical creaks sounded as he raised the head of his bed by pushing a button on the rail before looking back at her. “I wrote you a letter. I must not have got the right address because it came back to me.”

She dipped her head. “Uh, no. Actually, I sent it back.”

He nodded as if he already knew. “I wanted you to read it.” He stared intently at her. Dark, searching eyes. Ones she wouldn’t want to mess with in a deserted alley in a dangerous neighborhood. Like the one she’d grown up in.

She flipped curls behind her ear. “Yeah, well, I didn’t.”

This conversation was going nowhere.

Why did he stare at her all serious like that? Did the doctor find a tumor in his MRI or something? The guy wasn’t cracking a smile for nothing.

“I wrote another letter. Joel has it.”

“And you want me to read it.”

“It explains a lot.”

“Like why you pawed me at the wedding?” She flashed a cheeky grin, but he didn’t laugh.

Manny spread dark hands over the white blanket. “Look, no matter how we feel about each other, we have to put Joel’s and Amber’s feelings above our own.” His dark face set in consternation with the words. Like he’d rehearsed them almost.

Wait. What had he said?

No matter how we feel?
Then that meant he still couldn’t stand her, right? He hadn’t respected her at the wedding. Thought she was easy. Well, fine. That worked both ways.

Or could he just be feeling her out? Seeing if she could be someone he could thaw to and build a friendship with?

He braced one hand on the side rail; with the other he adjusted a lumpy pillow behind his back. Wishing to spare his independence and dignity, she fought the urge to assist him. He finally managed.

The pillow made a shushing sound when he leaned back against it. “So, let’s try to get along. At least
pretend
to when they’re around if we can’t manage it.”

Pretend? Who’s pretending? Now, that ticked her off. “Fine.”

But it wasn’t. Why did his words crush her so? Somehow she’d let herself hope friendship with Manny could be real and that she could mean something to him. Something more than a frivolous ending to a drunken evening. Someone he didn’t have to work so hard to try and be civil to. Absolutely no respect.

Zero.

Why had she hoped there would be? Because she’d grown to respect him through Joel’s stories. Admiration had grown through what contact they’d had since that day at the school year before last. The team had shown up to surprise leukemia-laden Bradley, who’d wished to meet a real Special Forces soldier face-to-face.

Now one of them had become his dad, making Manny like an uncle to Bradley and a brother-in-law to her best friend, Amber. Joel’s team had a brotherly bond she’d never seen before. It was special and unbreachable, yet the entire team had pulled her and Amber into the circle with open arms and hearts.

Except she and Manny had ruined that, strained the camaraderie by acting like a couple of junior-high kids at what was supposed to be a joyous celebration of Joel and Amber’s life together. It had jarred Celia’s confidence when Manny had shattered her hope of being his friend by suggesting she leave with him to his hotel—alone. Clearly, a friend is not how he saw her. How cheap that had made her feel.

It stung worse than he could ever know.

“I’d like to know what you’re thinking,” he surprised her by asking. She surprised herself by stepping backward, running into the chair she’d never sat in. It screeched just like her nerves at how he didn’t take his eyes off her, and seemed to notice every microscopic move. Manny eyed the displaced chair, then her. Those eyes. Like they saw right through her.

And maybe cared about the turmoil? Her throat tightened.

No. He wouldn’t like to know what she was thinking. Celia took another step back. And another, clutching her handbag against her stomach to stop the quiver.

In fact, she didn’t want to know what she was thinking, either.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Manny glanced at the chair in the middle again. “You’re making me nervous.”

Him? She was making herself nervous.

Rather than flee and make a fool of herself, she promptly sat. She was not good in this type of situation. Her mouth got her in trouble so often she was afraid to open it in front of Manny and lose her footing with this friendship.
If
it could be salvaged. This was important to Amber, so Celia would push through it. Speaking of…

She eyed the door, where Joel and Amber’s mingled voices and conjoined laughter bounced off corridor walls.

Manny must have heard it, too. He smiled. “I think we’ve been sabotaged.”

For the first time since walking in, she grinned and it felt genuine. “I think so.”

Manny targeted his gaze at her black eye, which she knew makeup did little to hide. “You look awful.”

Celia grinned. “Thanks. So you do you.”

He tilted his head and pinched the corners of his eyes a little. “What happened?”

She lowered her face at his soft, interested tone. “I had a scuffle with the lawn mower and lost.” She didn’t want anyone knowing about that. So why’d she just blab to Manny?