Forever Promised (20 page)

Drew was outside, leaning against the railing that wrapped around the porch. The dog was on the ground, chasing after his favorite toy, the tennis ball on the rope. Deacon knew the drill: Mumford would run the ball down, possibly flip ass over toes when he found it, and then prance around the lawn area with his tail up in the air, waving the unlikely fringe like a flag of victory. Then he’d curl his paws around it, gnaw on it, slobber on it, swallow some of the tennis ball, and
then
he’d return it to the person who had the honor of chucking that thing across the yard again.

“You know what we should get?” Drew said after watching the dog maul his toy with affection and drool.

“A Chihuahua?” Deacon asked, eyeballing the dog again. If possible, the damned thing had
grown
in the past year.

“Only if you’re serving it to Mumford as dessert,” Drew said, grinning. “No—one of those lever things that pitches a tennis ball. We get one of those things, pitch the ball halfway to Shane’s, and by the time the damned dog got back here with it, he’d be too tired to drool.”

“Good idea,” Deacon said, smiling. “Next time I’m at the store—”

“No worries.” Drew turned so his back was to the yard. “I’ll have Benny pick one up. We told Parry she could have a kitten in the new house—Shane’s got one ready.”

Deacon smiled. “We’ve been thinking about doing that for a while—good for you!”

Drew showed his teeth a little, but he kept his eyes on Deacon’s boots. “Well, it’s good to have something to bring to the table, you know?”

Deacon groaned. “Drew, I don’t know what to—”

Drew held up a hand, and Deacon knew that once again, this was going to be a time when the most important gift he could give was his attention.

“I’m not complaining,” Drew said, looking him square in the eye. “You’ve been a stand-up boss—a stand-up friend—for the past six years. You’ve given me something I never thought I’d have after I left home—a family that just… just got me. That accepted me. That stood up for me. I’m not complaining, Deacon. I’m just saying, you’re a hard act to follow.”

Deacon opened his mouth to say he was flawed, to deny that he did, or had done, anything out of the ordinary, but Drew shook his head again.

“I love you like a brother,” Drew said, “but I’ve got to thank you for letting her go. For letting
them
go. I don’t think I could have forgiven you if you hadn’t let her make things right.”

Deacon sighed. “She didn’t have to, you know that, right?”

“Oh yes she did. We both did.” Drew palmed his head with his hand and wiped his forehead on his T-shirt. The last week of August, and dangerously hot, even now, so close to the delta—the breezes just were not doing it.

All of this honesty, Deacon thought miserably. He moved forward to lean and look out over the stupid dog, who was still drooling on his toy.

“Well,” he said after a moment, “I’m grateful. I’m indebted. I don’t know if you know what you’ve given us yet.”

Drew turned around and looked out over the porch with him. You could see the barn from here, and six of the twelve divided fields, all of them faintly green, that the horses ran in. You could see the dirt practice ring where Crick had first shown up, a lanky, awkward nine-year-old, in awe, loving the horses so much Deacon could feel his yearning from where he’d stood on the rails of the ring. You could see the worn horse path to the rest of the property, most of it brown grass, but mown and maintained. If you followed that path beyond the rise the house and barn sat on, you could see the oak trees that marked Promise Rock. Of course, you could see the gravel road and the driveway too, but those things and where they took you had never been a part of Deacon’s heart.

Drew leaned in and bumped him with a broad shoulder. “I know,” he said quietly. “Don’t think I don’t know what this means to you. If it didn’t mean so much, we wouldn’t bother.”

Deacon nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “Just… thank you.”

“Backatcha, boss. I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t said yes. It was the only way we knew of to eventually let this all go.”

“But not right now,” Deacon said, feeling pitiful.

Again, that comfortable shoulder bump. “We’ve got a few years, Deacon. Don’t worry. We’re not going to all run away at once.”

“Thank God.”

He said it with feeling, meaning every breath. The hope of the baby was wonderful, but it was just that: a hope. The certainty of things changing, of friends and family leaving—as they should—that was more real than the hope, for the moment, anyway.

Would that change? With enough peace, enough joy, would hope stop being the traitor at Deacon’s table? Someday, maybe. Someday, maybe hope would be his friend.

Right now he eyed it, an old adversary, and begged his hope to stay loyal. So many people were counting on it, maybe just this once it could stand up for them. Just this once, it could serve them well.

Jeff
:
Favor for a Friend

W
HEN
Jeff had first seen Shane, the big hairy Hoover, breaking his heart over Mikhail almost exactly five years ago, he’d been pretty sure no man was worth all that pain.

And then he’d met the little Ruskie diva bitch, and he’d been reluctantly impressed.

Mikhail wasn’t a “nice guy.” He was a
guy,
but nice was not in his makeup. He was blunt, sarcastic, superior, and often rude.

But once he considered you a friend, he was a mountain lion in a short man’s clothing, and he would draw blood without remorse in order to protect you and the friendship. Jeff and Collin had seen it firsthand—and they’d come to treasure it.

But it was disconcerting to have that fierceness turned
on
you, instead of fighting
for
you.

“So Kimmy doesn’t know I’m coming,” Jeff said again, just to make sure.

“No. Nyet. Nein. Would you like me to say it in another language?” Mikhail snapped, looking uneasily toward the house. They were parked in front of Promise House, and Jeff couldn’t figure out exactly why.

“Look, little man, you’re the one who told me I had to take a day off—”

“Yes, yes, I made you take a day off. We will go for ice cream and knitting afterwards. Will that make you less obnoxious about doing this favor for me?”

Jeff was about to answer, but Mikhail was staring at the front door as though
willing
it to open, and muttering to himself.

“C’mon, Kimberly, c’mon. You are not a coward, I believe this, come
on
!”

“Well, since I’m driving, can I at least ask where I’m driving us all?”

Mikhail looked at him and grimaced, some of the iron in his spine melting in the early September heat. “Yes,” he muttered. “The woman’s doctor Bernice uses, you know where it is?”

Jeff widened his eyes. “You want me to take Kimmy to her
gynecology
appointment?” he squeaked.

“And me!” Mikhail turned a fierce gaze on Jeff, and Jeff was actually reassured. However bad this was, Jeff would not suffer alone.

“But why me?”

Mikhail let out a breath and then opened his mouth and startled Jeff badly by yelling. “Kimberly, you coward, get your cow-sized ass out here, we will be late!”

A pretty girl, African-American with exotic almond-shaped eyes, stuck her head out instead. “She says she’s coming, and don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

Interesting, Jeff thought. You very rarely saw Mikhail’s expression get that soft.

“Tell her I will bunch my panties however I wish, and that she has three minutes before I go in there and throw her over my shoulder.”

And the young woman standing half inside the air-conditioned house had the nerve to smirk.

Mikhail sniffed. “You laugh. We do this several times a weekend, every weekend in the fall. Where do you think we go, and why do you think I come back so weary? Tell her that, and see if she does not move faster, yes, Sweetie?”

Jeff had to take several deep breaths to realize Sweetie was the girl’s name, because the thought of Mikhail actually using an endearment turned the world on its end like a dizzy rooster.

And then he remembered where he’d heard that name before.

“Sweetie?” he asked. “Is that the girl Martin was crushing on?”

Mikhail looked startled and then pleased. “Oh was he?”

Jeff shrugged. “He talked about her a lot. Said she was pretty, said she was smart. I guess he got to know her when she worked her rotation at the garage.”

Mikhail’s tense expression eased up for a moment. “I knew he was a young man of worth. Will he write her, do you think?”

Jeff opened his mouth and closed it. “I… I have no idea….”

Mikhail looked at him with obvious impatience. “Well, does he write
you
?”

“Well
yes,
but that’s e-mails on the computer!”

Mikhail’s lips twitched in what Jeff knew to be his second-widest smile. “Then it is good. She asked for an hour’s worth of computer time and an e-mail account for part of her privileges. There was no reason to do that. Her people have no computers. It was for him.”

Jeff couldn’t stop a cackle. “Why Mikhail, you old softie, you! It’s like there’s a closet romantic in the crusty Russian heart after all.”

Ah, yes, there was that lip curl of disdain. “Fuck you. Fuck your cats. Fuck your supposed sense of humor, but don’t fuck your husband, because he is a nice boy and deserves better.
Kimberly!
I
will
drag you out here by the hair, cow-woman, so get your ass in
gear!
”

“Jesus, Mikhail, don’t twist your panties in a fuckin’ knot!” Kimmy came out of the house like a barrel through a gate, and Jeff—who admitted he could sometimes joke his way out of all sensitivity whatsoever—got his first real inkling something was wrong.

Kimmy’s eyes were red, her complexion was bad, and she’d lost weight—or so he assumed, because she was wearing some hideous red elastic jeans that looked like they could have fit her brother if he ever wanted to masquerade as a middle-aged woman from Florida. She stopped at the threshold and turned around to talk to someone inside, and Jeff muttered, “Hey, Mikhail—how long’s she been like this?”

Mikhail sighed. “She’s not using, if that’s what you are thinking. But she
is
very sad, and that is why you’re coming with us.”

Jeff grimaced. “Which leads me back to my question.
Why
am I going again?” He still couldn’t believe this was the reason Mikhail had called him up and insisted he take time off work. If Jeff hadn’t loved Mikhail like a brother, he would have refused.

“To see if you’ve actually grown a uterus,” Mikhail said without blinking, leaving Jeff to sputter, but not for long because Kimmy was walking down the stairs.

“W
HY
is he here again?” Kimmy asked, and Jeff met Mikhail’s eyes in the rearview mirror of his Mini Cooper.

“See! That was
my
question too!”

Kimmy looked over her shoulder at Mikhail, and Jeff could only imagine the little man’s contemptuous shrug.

“Someone will be needed,” he said unflappably. “We will need a person who can translate medical speak into real speak. I know how these places are. When my mother was sick, she translated, and it worked well. But it is you, and the one medical person I know is Jeff, and since he’s seen you at your worst, I took liberties. Sue me.”

“God,” Kimmy said with wonder, “how can he sound so bitchy when he’s the one who’s—”

Jeff gasped and caught Mikhail’s steely, unrepentant glare in the rearview. “Don’t say it, Kimmy-love,” he murmured. “Don’t say it. We’ll just let him pretend his dick’s bigger, and do what he says. It will make this whole thing less painful.”

Mikhail rolled his eyes in the rearview and then looked away, his jaw clenched, and Jeff ignored him for the time being. “So,” he said, forcing some cheer through the undercurrents of the car, “why are we going to the doctor’s?”

In spite of the heat, Kimmy had brought her knitting, and she pulled out a sock in some sort of corn/bamboo fiber and began working, her movements nervous and twitchy at first and easing into grace after a mile. Jeff waited for her to answer. He was used to people finding their feet when they were dealing with medical problems. There was always that careful social boundary between a little information and totally TMI.

As they cleared Levee Oaks and turned right on Watt toward the freeway, Mikhail cleared his throat.

“You need to answer him, Kimberly.” His voice had an odd pitch, a special note of tenderness that Jeff had only heard directed at Shane, and his carefully developed chest muscle squeezed.

“Please, hon? You’re sort of scaring me.”

“It’s nothing life threatening,” she said, but her throat was rough and she’d started out barely audible until she cleared out all of the overthinking that was blocking her wind.

“So….” Jebus! Kimmy was usually not this reticent about
anything.
Of course, the first time Jeff had met Kimmy, she’d been sitting on her lawn, surrounded by all her possessions, trying to breathe through the nose full of cocaine her ex-fucker had shoved in her face. Jeff figured once you pulled your shit together through
that
, you assumed shame was for pussies and got on with your life.