The Lonely Hearts 06 The Grunt 2 (24 page)

Brett was flabbergasted.  The look on Judy’s face was priceless. She was sure of what she was saying, and there was nothing that he could have said to the contrary that would have changed her mind.

“He got shot trying to save me,” Brett said seriously. “Did he tell you that?  Did anyone tell you if I hadn’t gotten shot, we would have been at full complement?”

“He got
grazed
,” Judy said, lips tight.  “I talked to him a few days after. He was fine and if he weren’t, they would have never released him to go back under the wire.”  She led him over to the table to take a seat.  Taking a deep breath, she put her hand on his chest.  “I know that you’ve always been the type of man who thinks that you’re in control of the universe, but you’re not.  You’re not that special, baby. You’re a man just like every other.” 

Brett tried to smile but it quickly turned into tears.  He shook his head and dipped it toward her as his words turned sour on his lips. “I love you, and I can’t pretend that this isn’t my fault. I’m trying to live with it. I really am.  I’m trying to accept it.” He clenched his jaw. “But I won’t deny it, because that ain’t right.”

Judy slipped her hands around his face.  Looking deep into his beautiful blue eyes, she pushed down tears in gulps of breath.  “God decides.  Not you.”  She shook her head as though she had told herself this before a thousand times in the last two weeks.  “Not you.” Her thin lips quivered.  “Joe loved you.  He would be so happy to know that you’re still here.”

Brett put his hand on hers and sank into her.  “I don’t know how strong of a man I’ll be without him.  I know it sounds pitiful, but it’s the truth.  He was all the family I had outside of you and the kids.”

“Well, you’re going to have to be stronger than you were,
is all
.”  Judy wiped his tears.  “He always believed in you, Brett.  He told me that he was on a personal mission to bring you closer to God.” 

Brett laughed. “Yeah, I know.”

“Did he fail?” Judy asked seriously. 

Brett moved her hands and looked up at the ceiling of the room, rotating his neck in circles.  Finally, he looked at her.  “No, he didn’t fail,” he answered honestly.

That made Judy happy.  “I’ve got some healing to do, but when I come around,
and I will
, I want to be able to call you and come visit without feeling like I’m going to visit
Club Doom
.  If I can make it through this, so can you.  I mean, you got that beautiful woman out there and your new beautiful baby girl and Cameron…” She smacked her lips. “Well, honey, God must have something else for you to do on this Earth.”

Brett rubbed a hand over his head.  “I love them so much.”  He wanted to tell her everything, tell her how he’d come into some money and now Amy’s past was haunting him, but there was no way he would burden her with his problems.  He simply shook his head.  “You’re right.”

Judy didn’t need confirmation.  She knew that she was right.  “Well, if you love them like you say that you do, then you have to follow that up with some action. Get some help.  See someone. Talk to someone.  Get things in order.
Fight for your family! 
Just because you not over there in that wasteland doesn’t mean that you don’t have to keep fighting.”

Brett felt like she could see right through him.  He ducked his head again.  “I don’t really believe that I’ve been fighting quite enough since I got back.  I’ve been too busy feeling sorry for myself.”

Judy reached into her purse and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe her runny nose. “You and me both, kid.”  She pushed out a breath and sat up a little taller. “But I think it’s high time that now that we’ve thrown our pity parties, we get back to living.  Joe would have wanted that, and whether we admit it or not, we need it.”

Brett offered his hand. “No more pity party?”

Judy shook his hand.  “No more pity party.”  She smiled.  “You know; I think this was just what I needed.” She nodded. “I do.”  Looking around the room, she smiled like she had just had an epiphany.  “This is the first time since those Marines showed up at my front door that I’ve felt like a real human being.  Thank you.”

“For what?” Brett asked genuinely confused. How in the hell had he helped?

“For being a bigger pussy than me,” Judy said with a wink. 

Brett couldn’t help but laugh.  “I can’t believe you go to Church every Sunday with that mouth.”

“Well, God knows that I ain’t no Saint, but He loves me anyway.”  She stood up and picked up her shoes. “I’m done wearing these.  The guests will just have to excuse me.”

“Oh, I think you’ll get a pass as long as it doesn’t start smelling like corn chips in the gym,” Brett joked. 

She helped him up and passed him his crutches.  “I’m glad that you’re my friend, Brett,” she said as they walked beside each other to the door. 

“I’m glad that you’re my friend, Judy,” Brett said, looking over at her.  He thought it was funny that God would send such an unlikely messenger.  Ironically, the person who gave him everything back today was the person who had lost the most.

Chapter 19

“A man's wife has more power over him than the state has.”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals

On the way home from the funeral, Brett had more clarity than he had since this entire situation began. In truth, the closure that he desperately needed, he had received and now he felt dramatically liberated. And while it was sidebar from his original intention on seeing her, during their conversation Judy had been right. He needed to fight back; he needed to fight harder. And he intended to do just that, starting now.

Something had been bothering him for the last few days. It had festered like salt in an open wound, picking at his pride and silently putting his manhood into question. If he was going to start to fix things in his life, he had to start there. He knew that now. Of course, his wife’s little voice of reason had crept into his mind trying to stifle the Alpha in him with sensibility, but he knew that if he let this infraction slide, then it would only happen again. And it would be his fault.

              When a person allows someone to disrespect them once, they are both put at an awkward crossroad. The person who had presented the insult is put into a position of control and power, and the person who received the insult is put into a position of submission. But if there is ever a chance to reverse the roles and to reclaim the pride lost, then it must happen before the two people can move forward. Or at least, that was how he had always lived his life.

Now he had to reverse the roles, and he had to let the person responsible for the insult know that he had changed them.

Glancing behind him, he saw both children were asleep again, exhausted from a long day of sitting, standing, rain, sun and excitement. He wasn’t far behind them in the exhaustion department, but before he left Fayetteville, he had one final thing to check off his list.

“Hey baby,” Brett said, putting his hand on Courtney’s leg.

“Yeah,” she said, keeping her eyes on the road.

“Do me a favor?”

“Anything,” she said with a gentle smile, clueless to what he was about to ask.

“Stop by Sharon Riley’s place. The kids are asleep. They won’t even know that we were there. It’ll only take a minute. I’ll make it quick.” He knew before he even asked that Cameron would be her main concern. Courtney didn’t want their son anywhere around those people and he didn’t blame her. But today, she’d have to make an exception.

Courtney’s hands gripped the steering wheel tighter as her heart lurched. “Why do you want to go there?”

Brett sucked his teeth. “I need to talk to them face-to-face.”

Smelling trouble in his seemingly innocent request, Courtney scratched her brow in contemplation of how this could play out.
Jail. Hospital. The news.
Definitely something that involved breaking the law. “The lawyer gave very specific instructions on what we need to do until the case is complete.”

Brett expected her to be the voice of reason, but today he was determined to get closure with everyone who owed him. Sharon Riley
owed
him. “Sometimes it’s not about what should happen. Sometimes it’s about what needs to happen.”

His response did nothing to quell her reservations. “I told her that if she ever came to my house, it would be the last house that she ever visited.”

Brett was proud that she had stood up for herself, but that wasn’t the point for him. “Did she tell you the same?” he asked, already knowing he was being a smart ass.

“I think it was sort of implied,” Courtney said, still refusing to look at him.

“Well, I didn’t agree to that.”

“It’s not that I’m afraid of her. I’m not. I just don’t want to do anything that could negatively affect this case.” Courtney clarified.

Brett knew she wasn’t afraid of Sharon Riley, but that wasn’t the point either.

Courtney waited for him to say something in response, but he didn’t. He simply looked out of the window and listened to the radio.

They drove for a few more blocks without a word between them. The audiobook rotated to the next CD for the second half of the story, and the sun in the rearview mirror slowly began to set.

Quietly, Brett waited for Courtney to accept what he needed to do and Courtney tried to figure out how to beg him not to do this.

But it was apparent that they were at an impasse.

Finally, she turned on her left blinker, made a U-Turn and headed in the direction of the Riley’s home. Her body language said that she didn’t approve, but she was done telling him what to do. Pushing her foot down on the accelerator, she huffed. It was better that if they just hurry up and get this done and over with.

Brett looked over at her with her beautiful brown face turned down in displeasure and found her anger to be utterly adorable. He loved that she was such a team player, even when she didn’t want to be. The soft curves of her lips were poked out and her nostrils slightly flared in agitation. And he was certain that her brain was spinning at 100 miles a minute. He glanced down at the long miles of swan-like elegance of her neck and the small gold necklace dangling just at her throat and felt the need in him began to ignite.

Feeling his grinning stare, she cut her eyes at him. “What?” she asked in a voice filled with faux disgust.

Brett smiled slyly. “Nothing.”

Well that just wasn’t good enough for Courtney
. “Had to be something,” she prodded.

“I was just thinking that you really are a good woman.” His eye twitched. “Maybe too good for me, but I’m not giving you up.”

Courtney found that funny. “Defiant until the very end.”

“Well, sometimes a man has to recognize when he’s lucked out,” Brett said, pushing back in his seat and adjusting himself before she even noticed what she was doing to him.

Courtney appreciated the compliment, but there was something else that wouldn’t allow her to just leave the subject alone. “Why are you doing this?” she asked, as she drove into the cul-de-sac of the Riley house.

Brett let her pull all the way into the Riley’s driveway before he answered. As he opened the door to step out, he paused and glanced over at her. Her hazel eyes were big as melons now, gleaming in confusion and fighting for understanding. “I swore as your husband to never allow anyone to every hurt you. I promised your father too. Do you remember that?”

Her voice softened. “Yes,” she said, lips parted. “Of course I remember that.”

Brett reached across the seat and touched her bottom lip with his thumb. Looking at her mouth, he tilted his head. “What kind of man would I be if I didn’t keep my promises?”

***

Sharon Riley was up to her elbows in folding linen, pulled fresh out of the dryer, when the doorbell rang. Followed by two very hostile knocks on the door, she realized that her husband was waiting on her to get it.
Typical.
Throwing down the Egyptian cotton sheets in a pile on the guest bed, she made her way down the long corridor of shiny hardwood floors and gold framed mirrors to the front door.

As she got closer to the entrance, she could see a large male’s silhouette. Half expecting it to be Leo when she pulled the curtain back to look out, she was surprised to find Brett Black in full dress uniform glaring at her like he wanted to chew off her face. But he always looked like that when he talked to her. Evidently, he didn’t like her much.

Opening the large wooden door, she cracked open the wrought-iron door just enough to let in a breeze and stared at him. “Can I help you?” she asked, glasses down on her nose.

Brett nodded. Despite his disdain for the woman, he was still a Southern gentleman at heart and could not begin without greeting her. “Hello Sharon.”

“Brett,” she snarled, pissed that somewhere between being his ex-mother-in-law and a Southern Baptist Pastor’s wife; she still could not get enough respect from him to rate being called
Mrs. Riley
. “What are you doing here?”

I came here to burn your fucking house down
, he thought to himself. Instead, he smiled. “I came here to say something to you that I couldn’t say over the phone.”

              She brushed a strand of hair from her face with her aged finger and pulled her green cardigan into her chest. “I wasn’t aware that you were even in the country,” she said, noticing the crutches and his bruised face.
He looked like he had been run over by a train
, she thought,
too bad he couldn’t have been hit twice
.

“Good thing that I was…back home, huh? I couldn’t imagine that summons coming to my front door without me being there to receive it. You could call that a blessing,” Brett quipped. He couldn’t help but be an asshole even though he had promised himself he would avoid all theatrics.

Sharon rolled her eyes. Something about him referring to the Bible irked her. “If you say so.”

Brett continued with poise. “Is your husband here? I’d like to say what I have to say to both of you.”

“Bill!” she screamed out, knowing no matter where her husband was in the house, he could hear her shrill voice. Glancing past Brett, she saw Courtney in the car with the children in the back.

“What is it?” William asked, emerging from his study.

“Brett Black wants to see you. He says that he has something to say to both of us,” Sharon said sarcastically. She could hear her husband’s large padded footsteps as they approached. Folding her arms across her chest, she waited.

William was just as shocked as Sharon to see Brett in the flesh. It was his understanding that he wouldn’t be home for another two weeks to a month, but based upon the way that he looked; he must have been injured in combat and sent home early.
That would definitely be a blow to the case.

“How can we help you?” William asked all but politely. Without intention, he scanned the man’s immaculate dress and the colorful, shiny medals on his uniform gleaming in the fading sunlight. The damn boy looked like new money.
No way he wanted him showing up to Court like that.

Brett was neither tense nor nervous about the confrontation. Gripping the handles of the crutches, he stared them both down. It was amazing that at one point in his life, he actually tried to please these hypocrites. “I’m not a man who believes in bullying women no matter how angry they make me. So I wanted to say this in your presence, Bill. Plus, I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her. I don’t need her trying to say that I did something to her.”

Sharon was instantly offended by his snide remark, but William knew Brett was smart for thinking ahead.
Though he’d never tell him that.

Brett got on with it. “I’m here for two reasons. First off, you are to
never
call my wife again…for any reason. I know how you people are. I’ve dealt with you long enough to know that when you call, it’s to stir up trouble.”

Sharon immediately jumped in. “The only time I call is when I want to see my grandson. I don’t bother you people for any other reason,” she said, shaking her finger at him.

Brett continued as if Sharon hadn’t said a word. “
Like I said
, I won’t have you harassing her. And we all know damn well what your problem is. You don’t like her because she’s a black woman.”

Sharon was insistent. “We don’t like her because she’s trying to keep us from our grandson. He
needs
our influence. He needs to be in the church learning scripture, learning how to live with a decent moral upbringing…”

Brett drove the point home. “Dear God. Thumping that Bible on Sunday morning; burning that cross on Sunday night. Keep your attacks on me,
if that makes you feel good about yourself,
but leave her out of it.”

“I resent being associated with the Klan,” Sharon said, turning up her nose.

“Well if the sheets fit. Oh, I’m sorry, am I striking a nerve with you. Let me tell you what I resent. I resent the trunk upstairs in your attic with his and her hoodies that says otherwise. So don’t you dare talk to me about good moral upbringing,” Brett said, condescendingly. He winked at William as he adjusted on his crutches. “Yeah, Amy was a talker when she wanted to be.”

“Did you come here just to call us racists, son?” William asked, completely unmoved. “We are God-fearing…”

Brett cut him off. “
Secondly!
This court case is going to end badly. Not for me. For you.”

“No one keeps us away from our family,” Sharon said, happy with herself about the heartache she had caused him. “It’s your fault that it had to go this far.”

“No one in their right mind gets in the way of a father and his son,” Brett snapped. He swallowed hard causing his Adam’s apple to bob. “Once, I loved your daughter, but at some point, I stopped being good enough for her. Between her countless affairs and her decision to run off to Japan and leave me and her toddler son, I think it goes without saying that your kin didn’t matter very much to Amy Riley.”

He saw their faces change as he confirmed their quiet assumptions. “Her choices killed her, not me. You can accept it, or you can’t. I don’t’ care. Doesn’t change it from being the truth. You’re supposed to be religious, right?
The wages of sin is death.
Well, it’s apparent with the paternity case and all of her other indiscretions with anything that had officer insignia on it, that she was
sinning
more than you or I knew.” He wanted to say fucking so bad until he literally had to bit his tongue, but he was going to get through this without losing his honor.