Meagan's Marine (Halos & Horns) (3 page)

Chapter 4

Bartending Tricks and Feeling Like a
Dick

“Hey, beautiful! I’ve got a twenty for
you if you can show me some fancy bartender tricks.”

Meagan grinned at the cowboy who’d been
trying to get her number all night long. “Is that all it’ll take to make you
happy?”

“For now.” Mr. tall, dark, and ripped
placed his Stetson onto the bar and sat back with his arms crossed over six
pack abs his tight tee-shirt did little to hide.

More than happy to do something to cut
the monotony, Meagan pulled a quarter-full bottle of Bacardi from behind the
counter and flipped it a couple of times in one hand. The simple trick drew a
quick response as the attentive cowboy whistled in appreciation.

“You like that?” He gave her a nod then
guffawed as she flipped the bottle, end over end, over her head from one hand
to the other, then back again.  After a couple times at a single rotation,
she eased into a double rotation of the bottle. Even though she found it as
easy as walking and chewing gum at the same time, she knew how impressive it
looked to customers. She caught the bottle by its neck and threw it straight
up, bumped it with her elbow then caught it again.

Cowboy, along with a few others, broke
into applause, cheered louder when she pulled a second bottle from under the
counter. She juggled the two bottles, eliciting raucous hoots and whistles from
the growing crowd of spectators. She caught the eye of her co-worker and tossed
him one bottle. He caught it mid-air, and they spent the next minute exchanging
spinning bottles of alcohol to thunderous applause. She caught both bottles,
raised them in victory and bowed for the crowd.

“Well, hell, girl! I’m impressed—and you
earned this.” He threw a twenty on the bar.

“Thanks. We appreciate it.” Meagan
stuffed the twenty in the communal tip jar on her end of the bar and grabbed a
towel to wipe up someone’s spilled drink. That’s when she caught sight of him,
sitting alone at a corner table, his back to the wall, of course.

“Two more of these, please Meagan.”

She nodded at the request from one of
her regulars as she pulled two icy beers from the cooler and popped them open.
She added the drinks to his tab then turned to the second bartender. “Hey
Chuck, watch this end so I can go check on that guy, will
ya
?”

“You know it, Megs. I wish I could work
with you every night. I always make double in tips when you’re around. They
love watching you flip those bottles.”

 “Glad to do it! Makes the night go
by faster.” She eased her way to the corner table, relaxed and ready to face
Mitchell again.

“Hey there. You must have slipped in
while I was on break.” She pointed at his beer. “You ready for another one of
those?”

He lifted his brew, giving it a slight
shake. “
Naw
, I ain’t even halfway, yet. Better hold
off on that. Besides, I’ve got something to do tomorrow and I need to be
sharp.”

“Oh yeah? Well, okay then. Good luck
with that.” He grabbed at her hand as she turned to leave.

“I wanted to apologize to you, Meagan. I
always seem to be pissing you off for one reason or another, and I honestly
don’t mean to.”

She frowned, and gave him a curious tilt
of her head. “You don’t piss me off. What gave you that idea?”

“The fact that you haul ass and leave me
standing alone like I’ve got an infectious disease is a pretty strong
indication.”

She gave him a careless shrug. “That
doesn’t mean I’m pissed off, it just means I’m out of patience. I don’t have a
lot of free time, you know. No use wasting it on a lost cause. Give me a holler
if you need anything.”

“But—”

Meagan spun on her heels without another
word, cutting him off sharply. She’d thought the conversation had ended, so it
shocked her to turn at the bar and find him hot on her trail. “That was quick—”

“What the hell is it with you, lady? Do
you enjoy making me feel like a dick?”

****

Her mouth fell open as she blinked
several times.

“I’d like an answer, please, ma’am.”

“And I’ll give you one as soon as I
figure out how it is I make you feel like a dick.”

He released a frustrated breath. “I told
you, Meagan. Every
fu
—
flippin
’—
time
I try to talk to you, you leave me standing there feeling like a—”

“A dick. I know. You said that already.
What I don’t know is why you should feel that way when I just
told
you
the reason. I’m a busy person. I have things to do. A child, a job, a child,
classes, a child, homework, a
child
, Mitch…a fatherless
child
. I
don’t have the time or finances to visit bars and try to create small talk. I’m
sorry if you can’t see the relevance, but exactly what is it you’ve done since
you left the Corps that enables you to criticize me for not having enough hours
in my day?”

Meagan threw the dishtowel on the
counter, visibly flustered for the first time in his presence, her face lined
with stress, her eyes shadowed by dark circles. Something was off, here. Before
he could apologize, she stopped and lifted her gaze to his.

“I’m sorry. I had no reason to speak to
you that way, and I’m sorry if I make you feel bad. I have…there’s a
situation…I’m just a little bugged right now, is all.”

He reached out, placed a hand over hers.
“What’s wrong? What are you keeping from me?” Mitch could see how badly she
wanted to share whatever it was with him, or with someone, anyway. Eventually,
the part of her that refused to let her shields down won out. She pulled her
hand out from under his and picked up the dishcloth again.

“It’s nothing, Mitch. School is
stressing me out, that’s all.”

“Meagan.”

She gave him a brilliant smile, without
the slightest trace of anger or attitude. “You ready for that beer, now?”

“Yeah, I’ll have another one, please.”
He settled upon the barstool in front of her, deciding to let it drop, for now.

When she grabbed her purse to leave the
bar at midnight, he met her at the end of the counter. “You’re not closing up
tonight?”

She found her car keys and looped her
purse onto her neck and shoulder. “No. Red doesn’t ask me to close during
school.”

“Can we talk, please?” He shrugged at
her curious stare. “I’d like to clear the air. Can I meet you at your place?”

Taking a few seconds to mull it over,
she gave him a quick nod and headed out the back exit.

chapter 5

Marine 1 and Marine 2

After following her home, he parked on
the street and met her just as she’d unlocked the front door.

“Have a seat,” she said, pointing to the
couch. “I’ll be right back.”

She disappeared into a room down the
hallway for several minutes. He heard soft murmurs, one voice definitely
childlike. Meagan came out of the room, rubbing her hands up and down her arms
as she approached him. Her face at least a shade paler than when she’d gone in.

He stood quickly, reaching for her.
“What is it? Is Buck sick or something?” The icy cold of her skin startled him.
“What the hell?” The look on her face had his hackles up, even in the warmth of
the small living room. “Why are you so cold?”

When a quick glance back at the hallway
elicited a violent shudder from her, he decided to check things out for
himself. 

“Mitch, no!”

She grabbed at his arm, but he was
determined. He strode down the corridor and stopped in the doorway of the
room—Buck’s room, obviously. Everything
looked
normal, from toys lined
up or stacked neatly on a shelf, to a small train and track set-up on a
child-size table. The second he stepped into the room, things changed.  

The hair on his arms stood straight up
as he encountered a wall of frigid air. Ice cold air, with no hint of a breeze
anywhere to account for the abrupt drop in temperature. He took a deep breath
and released it in a visible puff of vaporized air. He froze in place,
instantly overcome by the all too familiar smell of overheated shell casings
and gunpowder.

Mitch glanced over at the child snuggled
under the covers and suppressed the need to curse long and loud. Instead, he
took two large steps back into the hallway and turned to find Meagan’s wide-eyed
gaze on him. 

“Jesus Christ on a popsicle stick,” he
hissed. “What the hell was that?”

She shook her head, tried to turn away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He reached for her. “Hey.”

She shook off his grip and walked back
to the living room, with him following closely behind her.

“I think you need to go. I just
remembered I’ve got some studying to do.”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

“I would, but the truth is, I don’t know
how to answer that.” She walked to the front door and held it open for him.
“Good night.”

He met her at the door. “Barring what
happened in your boy’s room just now,
whatever
the hell that was or
wasn’t, we still haven’t cleared the air between us.”

Her eyelids closed as she muttered a
mild oath under her breath.

“But, I can see you’re too tired for any
of that, so I’ll leave you alone
if
you agree to reschedule our talk.”
Simply telling himself she looked tired would have been the mother of all
understatements. The girl looked as though she hadn’t slept in weeks.

“I’ve got an exam to study for and I’m
taking Buck to Lake Front Park tomorrow afternoon. Sunday is my only day off
all week.”  She lifted one brow at his grunt of disappointment. “I told
you I was busy. Now do you understand why I can’t waste time? I don’t have
any.”

“I understand,” he conceded. “What time
should I be there?”

“Where?”

“The park. You mind if I hang with y’all
a bit?”

She shrugged. “It’s a public park. You
have as much right to be there as anyone, but I value my playtime with my son.”

Mitch turned, released his breath in a
huff and headed down the steps mumbling. “Well, I’ve had about all the
rejection I can take for one night.”

“Around two!” she called after him.

He stopped and faced her again, ready to
fire off a ‘don’t do me any favors’ comment, but her angst-ridden face stopped
him. More than anything, he was thankful she’d relented. “I’ll be there.” 

He drove to his recent rental, a
sparsely furnished two-bedroom house, still thinking about the encounter with
whatever the hell that was.

Later, he lay in bed, trying to recall
everything he’d experienced in Buck’s room. The frigid temps that turned his
breath as frosty as an Arctic front, the heaviness in the air, and above all…the
smells. The distinct odor of sand, dust, grit and grime. He hadn’t dared close
his eyes in that room, sure if he had, he’d have been transported back to the
sandbox—back into the thick of Afghanistan. Whatever went on in that place had
a negative effect on Meagan, and maybe her son, too.

He tried to sleep, but every time he
closed his eyes, he imagined the icy cold sweeping through him.

He swung his legs out of bed and pulled
on a clean pair of jeans to pace his apartment. Recognizing defeat when it
bitch-slapped him, he grabbed his wallet and keys and climbed back into his
truck. Ten minutes later found him parked in the driveway of the empty house
next to Meagan’s place, the one with the real estate agency’s FOR SALE sign
planted in the front yard.

There couldn’t have been more than
thirty feet between the two homes, and less than that from where he’d parked
his truck to what he figured was the window of Buck’s bedroom.  He turned,
stretching his legs out on the bench seat of the Chevy work truck he’d
purchased from a friend. With the passenger window down, and his back propped
up against the driver’s side door, Mitch knew he’d hear if anything went wrong
during the night. This was actually a hell of a lot more comfortable than the
hide sites he’d dug into in his earlier years with the Corp, before promotions
had him in on the planning, rather than executing, missions.

That single night of surveillance shed
some serious light on Meagan’s situation. The lamp in Buck’s room flipped on
for a short period at least three times during the night. Through the curtains,
he could see the shadowed figure of someone in the room seconds before the
light went out again.  Meagan, no doubt, up and checking on her son. No
wonder she was exhausted. Whatever was going on had totally disrupted her life.

He managed to sneak off a little before
5:00 a.m., hopefully before she saw his truck parked next door. He crawled back
into his bed for a couple hours of sleep, wondering how best to get the truth
out of her at the park later in the day.

Chapter 6

Kites and Confessions

Mitch found Meagan’s car at the park’s
entrance, near the playground. He pulled into the empty spot next to hers,
grabbed a bag from his truck seat and swung it over his shoulder.

It didn’t take long to find the two of
them, spinning on the merry go round. Meagan pushed with one leg while she held
on to Buck, tucked protectively in her arms. Judging by the huge grin on Buck’s
face, the kid was having a blast.

“Hey buddy!” Buck said, between giggles.

Mitch chuckled as he set the bag down on
the nearest table and approached them. “Hey yourself, buddy boy! Do you want to
go faster? Hang on tight, mom.”

Meagan lifted her foot and grabbed onto
the bar for security as Mitch put some muscle into his spins.

Even the near-blurred glimpses he caught
of her face revealed her exhausted state. Her eyes, shadowed by dark circles
told the tale of too damn many sleepless nights. After several high-speed
spins, he heeded her plea to slow down to a more comfortable pace. Several more
minutes passed and he slowed it down enough to jump on with them. He continued
pushing slowly as he faced Meagan and her son.

“How’s it going?”

“In circles, right now.” A tired smile
 accompanied her comment. “Buck, do you remember Mitch?”

Buck studied him before nodding. “Yeah,
but you don’t look like my daddy today.”

Mitch gave his head a slow shake as he
smiled down at the boy. “No, buddy. I’m just dressed regular today.”

Meagan put one hand to her face and released
the barest hint of a groan.

Mitch slowed the contraption until it
came to a gradual stop. “I think that’s enough merry go round for one day,
Buck. We don’t want you getting sick on us or anything.” Buck’s protest came to
an abrupt halt when Mitch added. “Then you wouldn’t be able to help me fly this
cool thing I brought with me.” He pulled out a large kite painted to look like
one of those prehistoric bird dinosaurs. He had an entire explanation at the
ready, when Buck took the wind from his sails with his reaction.

“Look, Mom, it’s a
te
-
wo
-dactyl!”

Meagan laughed as Mitch’s jaw dropped
open. “He knows what a pterodactyl is already?”

“Not only that, but wait. Buck, can you
spell pterodactyl for Mitch?”

Mitch’s mouth dropped open even further
as the toddler proceeded to spell the word out for him. Mitch nodded in
approval. “That’s close, buddy, but I’m not sure about that P at the
beginning.”

Meagan released a soft chuckle as she
nodded at her son’s questioning gaze before turning to Mitch. “There’s a P,
believe me. That boy is obsessed with dinosaurs and that’s about his favorite.
How’d you know?”

Mitch shrugged. “I didn’t. It was
between that or a bat, or a pink princess. The choice was obvious.” He leaned
in closer. “Are you positive about that P?”

She put her head back and laughed. “Let
it go, Marine. There’s a P, I promise.”

With the brisk October breeze blowing,
the kite was soaring high in the air in a matter of a few short minutes. Mitch
lifted Buck to his shoulders and gave him the reel with the string on it while
he held tightly to the boy.

He pointed to the bag on the table. “I
have another surprise in there if you want to go take a look. I didn’t want to
break it out before getting your approval, Meagan.”

Her eyes lit up as she pulled out packages
of cotton candy. “Oh I love this stuff.” She held up the two bags, one pink and
one blue. “Buck, look what Mitch brought us.”

“Oh, can I have some, Mom? Please?”

“Do you promise to eat all your veggies
during supper?”

“I will, I promise. Except not spinach.”

“Even in a salad?”

Mitch could tell by the boy’s movements
that he was nodding.

“It’s a deal,” she said, tearing into
the bag of pink stuff.

“I don’t want the pink, Mom. I want
blue.”

“There’s no difference. It tastes
exactly the same.”

“I’m a boy, I want the blue stuff.”

“Yeah, pink is for girls,” Mitch agreed.
“And we’re boys.”

Meagan shrugged. “Fine by me, that means
I don’t have to share with either of you. I get a bag all to myself.”

The kite lasted another hour before a
nose-dive to the ground snapped its spine. As they stood around examining the
toy, Buck asked Mitch if he could fix it.

“Not without some spare parts, buddy.
I’m sorry.”

Buck reached out for it. “Can I
hab
-bit, mama?”

“
May
I
have
it?” she reminded
him as she ruffled his hair. He nodded. “I’d say you need to ask Mitch.”

The boy turned large blue eyes toward
Mitch, his voice pleading. “May I have it, Mitch?”

“Sure you can. You want to try and fix
it?”

“No, I just
wanna
habbit
. Thank you.” He grabbed the kite and took off
running, making a squawking sound, with it raised high in his arms.

Meagan stared up at Mitch. “You didn’t
have to do any of this, you know, but it was a nice gesture.”

“I loved flying a kite as a kid. I
figured he would too.”

“Well, you did well with the one you
chose, that’s for sure. He’s a dinosaur freak, just like his daddy was. Chris
had dozens of books on dinosaurs. Loved reading all about them.”

“Books are always a good legacy,
something to bring him and his father together when he reads them.”

She nodded, slowly. “It would be if I
had them, but they all stayed in Texas at his folk’s place. Our
parents…they…when we left home together, they refused to give us anything that
we could have remotely considered help, or even a comfort. Their collaborative
goal was to have us crawl home, penniless, disillusioned with life, and each
other, so they could continue to mold us into whatever they wanted. It irked
them that we actually made a go of it.”

The back of her hand plastered to her
forehead, Meagan performed a typically dramatic rendition of Scarlett O’Hara.
“We were a shameful reminder of their ‘failure’ as parents.”

Mitch grinned, filling in as the
cultured southern gentleman. “Why, Miss Meagan, you surely do make a lovely
southern belle.”

 Her low chuckle reverberated as
she seated herself in one of the swings. “Our parents are all friends, upper
echelon members of this huge non-denominational church in the next town over.
You know the kind, where the preacher judges you on how much you contribute to
his bank account? His ‘services’ are so staged, set-up, to play on the emotions
of everyone in there…it’s ridiculous…but they never saw it that way.”

She shook her head. “The preacher and
his wife drive fancy cars and live in a
flippin
’
mansion, while his ‘flock’ has to tithe outrageous amounts and barely keep
their heads above water. Makes you wonder what God thinks of people like that.”

Mitch grunted his disapproval. “
Hm
, giving to the church is fine, but what’s that old saying
about charity beginning at home?”

 Meagan nodded her head vigorously.
“Exactly, but it turned out all four of them were good at the same thing.
Holding grudges and belittling their children.”

“That seems kind of harsh. Were you
already pregnant when you and Chris left town?”

“Nope.”

“So, what’d the two of you do? Elope?
Get married without their knowledge?”

“No. Chris and I never married.”

“Oh, sorry. I guess I just assumed you
had.”

“He tried to talk me into it. Especially
the last time I saw him, for his pre-deployment leave.”

“You should have married him Meg. You
and Buck would have been taken care of.”

“Hindsight’s twenty-twenty. At the time,
I didn’t want to get married without our parents there. I just knew they’d soften
up and realize how much we all needed each other. I even called our folks to
plead with them to reconsider.” She looked off toward the slowly setting sun in
the west, wiping at a tear in the corner of one eye.

The sight had Mitch wanting to pull her
tightly against him, just to comfort her. Nothing else. “I gather they wouldn’t
consider it?”

A snort accompanied her sharp comeback.
“My own father hung up on me, just before telling me he didn’t have a
daughter.” She released a hysterical little laugh. “Even after that, I still
insisted on waiting to marry Chris. I told him God wouldn’t smile down on our
marriage if we did it without our parents’ approval.” She sniffed loudly and
kicked at a pebble.

“Do they know they have a grandson?”

She stared straight ahead, her eyes
darkened with anger. “Chris had me listed as the contact for the Marines, so
when I called his parents to let them know he’d died, I told them I was
pregnant. It didn’t change a thing. They even blamed me for Chris enlisting
instead of going to college as they’d planned for him.” She swiped at her
eyes.  “Hell, I didn’t want him to go. Did they think I enjoyed worrying
about the man I loved? Did they think I haven’t wished thousands of times he’d
listened to me and gone to college instead? We could have made it just as
easily, both working part-time jobs and taking a few classes.”

He already suspected how she’d answer
his next question. “And your parents?”

“They weren’t any nicer. My mother even
asked if I was certain the child was Christopher’s.” She gave her head one
final shake before lifting her chin. “I told all of them they could take their
holier than thou values and stick ‘
em
where the sun
didn’t shine. Told them my child was better off without grandparents who were
such huge hypocrites.” She sniffed. “Turns out I’m pretty damn good at holding
a grudge, myself.”

“Can’t say that I blame you, Meg. Seems
like they all had it coming.” He shook his head, remembering all the wonderful
times with his parents. “I can’t imagine my parents treating either Sarah or me
that way. I know it’s none of my business, but had you or Chris given them
trouble at home? Were either of you teenage terrors?”

Meagan snorted. “Both of us straight-A
students, who never smoked, drank, or did drugs. Neither of us ever in trouble
with the law, and did whatever they asked without any backtalk. Chris used to
say that instead of them spoiling us, we spoiled them. The very first time we
stood up to them, they bailed, couldn’t take it.”

He grunted, still trying to grasp how a
parent could abandon their child. “How difficult could it be to reach out to
their daughter or the mother of their future grandchild?”

“Apparently impossible for the four of
them.” She turned to watch Buck climb his way up the tallest slide on the
playground, then slide down, still hanging onto the kite. “I got the best part
of that deal. The very best part of Chris. Our son. I’m so thankful for him.”

“I imagine Chris was pumped up when he
found out you were pregnant.” He stepped closer, seeing her eyes tear-up
suddenly. “What is it?” He could have kicked his own ass for making her cry.

“He never knew.” Meagan clamped a hand
over her mouth to smother a sob, but soon recovered and wiped hastily at her
eyes. “I sent him an email with a picture of the ultrasound. Buck was just a
tiny little bean.” She wiped at her eyes again with the hem of her light
jacket. “He never got the chance to see it. I was notified a few hours later.”

“How?”

“A personal visit…one was a chaplain.”
She glanced up at him, her lashes heavy and wet with tears. “If there is any
moment in this world that’s worse than opening your front door to three Marines
carrying a single envelope, I hope I never experience it.”

He placed a hand on her shoulder as she
kicked nervously at some pebbles on the ground. “I’ve never been on that end of
it. I’ve had to report Marines down to CO’s, but never family members. I’ve
also visited the widow of a Marine brother, along with a few other guys once we
got leave. We couldn’t attend his funeral so we paid our respects when we
could.”

He sucked in his breath and cringed at
the memory of Bobby’s wife crying, hugging each of them in turn. Touching their
faces, their shoulders and chests as though she could somehow connect to
her
Marine through them. “That was almost as difficult for us as the day Bobby lost
his life from that IED.” He snorted. “You know, for years, it was good enough
to call those damn things what they were, pipe bombs or roadside bombs, or
whatever. One day we were told to call them IED’s, an acronym for Improvised
Explosive Devices. Different name, but they kill just the same.” He shook his
head slowly. “I sure am sorry for you and Buck, Meg. I truly wish Chris had
made it back home to you.”

“He made it back, all right, just not as
I’d hoped and prayed.” The chain from her swing bounced and jangled as she
stood abruptly. “I’m still a little angry at God for that. I’ve attended a
couple of church weddings since then but still haven’t stepped inside my church
on a Sunday since he took my Marine from me.” His grunt had her turning to face
off with him. “Does that disappoint you?”