The Promise of Rainbows (2 page)

His commander radioed him for an update. Jake made himself relay the news that Booker was gone. Another team was coming his way, he was told. He just needed to hang in there.

Hang in there? What did it matter? Booker was dead.

His hands were bathed in blood, and he couldn’t take his gaze off the torn flesh of Booker’s neck. He made himself close his friend’s eyes.

Then he reached for his rifle like he knew he should. Like he’d been trained to do.

But he didn’t care if anyone took him out.

***

Jake awoke in a rush. His skin was clammy. His heart was pounding. And then he felt it. The horrible greasy nausea in his belly.

He rolled out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom. The inside of his mouth was dry, and though he knew it was a trick of his mind, he could
taste
the dust in that alley where Booker had died.

When he turned on the bathroom light, he soaked in its warm glow. Even though he was thirty-three now, and Booker had died five years ago, he still couldn’t sleep in the dark after one of these nightmares.

He turned on the cold water and leaned over the sink, plunging his sweaty head under the faucet.
I’m not going to throw up. I’m not.

But he did.

There was no stopping it tonight. After it was over, he leaned his head on the toilet seat, praying the dry heaves would stop. They always hurt his throat, and as a country singer, he didn’t like anything harming his voice.

Singing was his salvation. His music had healed him in a way he’d never imagined. He just wasn’t healed all the way yet.

Tonight he wondered for the millionth time if he ever would be.

He’d done everything he was supposed to do, from therapy to meds. And it had worked…to an extent. He wasn’t afraid to leave his house any more; he didn’t break into a cold sweat whenever he heard a loud noise; he no longer felt compelled to ignore phone calls and texts from worried friends; and he didn’t flash into a rage if someone cut him off on the highway.

But nothing seemed to permanently stop the nightmares.

This time, he’d gone six months without the dream of Booker coming back to haunt him.

He’d been so hopeful the nightmares were gone for good… And that hope had given life to a new one.

A few months ago, he’d met Susannah McGuiness, his friend J.P.’s sweet and beautiful sister. He’d fallen for her in the space of a few minutes. Her voice had wrapped around him like a cool breeze after a hot day, and her moss-green eyes had seemed to reach all the way into his tattered soul.

She was as magical and creative as the fairy tale pictures she’d painted in a tree house for her niece and nephew. And she’d taken the photos of abused women and made them into a work of art for the charity concert he’d headlined with another country singer and friend.

And then there was her smile. It was like a warm slice of apple pie, the kind that made everything good in the world after a backbreaking day. She was beautiful and funny too, and he was so crazy about her he could barely string together complete sentences in her presence.

But because he hadn’t trusted himself to be completely cured of all his shit, he hadn’t asked her out on a date—even though he’d wanted to do that more than he’d wanted to win another Country Music Award.

They’d worked on that charity concert together, and he’d even held her hand once. What a shock of attraction that had been! He’d never been so affected by an innocent touch. Still, he’d played it safe and asked her to redecorate his new house in Dare River, right outside Nashville. This way, he could see if he could be in her presence without risking a return of the nightmares. Because the strange thing about them was that they always came back when he was happy, when he started to let himself think he could form a full life for himself.

He’d called off two relationships in the last five years because of the nightmares. There was no way he was going to do what his daddy had done to his mama. He’d seen the cracks in their relationship at an early age. The wild mood swings his Army colonel daddy blamed on anything from the dog barking too loud to the extra traffic in Little Rock, Arkansas as he drove home from work had been manifestations of his own PTSD, a topic rarely discussed at that time and never acknowledged by his tough-as-nails daddy.

Then there was the way Daddy had treated his two sons, not giving them much choice about following in the family footsteps by going into the Army. Jake’s older brother, Aaron, was still serving, and he was just like Daddy.

No, Jake wasn’t going to let himself carry on that tradition.

But with Susannah, he’d dared to let himself think things might be different. As each nightmare-free night had passed, the hope in his chest had bloomed bigger and brighter. An invitation lingered just behind his lips each time he and Susannah saw each other, and the look in her eyes told him that she wished it would voice itself.

Now that was over. Another dream turned to ash.

Susannah was supposed to come over to the house for her first consultation this morning. That must have been the trigger for the dream. When Jake was able to stand, he rinsed his mouth out and looked into the mirror. The jagged bullet scar on his shoulder seemed uglier in the light—his daily reminder of what he’d seen and done.

“I vow I will never get involved with a woman again until I’m totally okay,” he reaffirmed to the harsh image of himself in the mirror.

He put his hands under the faucet to wash them. But even though the water ran clear, to him it looked like Booker’s blood. His gut surged anew, and he stumbled to the toilet and dry heaved until his stomach muscles trembled.

“God,” he said when he finally was able to push away.

He hadn’t even gotten a brief interlude to believe in the possibility that he and Susannah could be together. It was over before it had even started, before he’d been able to push her long brown hair back behind her ear or kiss her sweetly on her rosy-red lips.

His heart broke. It was like being doomed to a life of darkness.

He was never
ever
going to be okay again.

Chapter 2

Susannah McGuiness schooled herself not to go gaga over Jake Lassiter on their first consult. Sure, he’d held her hand a couple of times, and when he looked at her, he made her feel like she was the only woman in existence. But he’d made it clear he wasn’t interested in her romantically. If he had been, he would’ve asked her on a date instead of asking her to decorate his home in Dare River.

Still, she found herself checking her image in the rearview mirror to make sure her brown hair wasn’t frizzy. Even though it was mid-January, there was more than average humidity in the air. And it was fifty-two degrees outside. In the South, weather was as unpredictable as an elderly relative—the kind who perched on the front porch and held court, spouting wisdom or crazy notions.

She was checking her lipstick when she caught sight of Jake coming down the front steps. His creamy-white three-story house boasted dormer windows, black shutters, and a red gabled roof. Like most of the houses in Dare River, it featured a traditional wrap-around porch. She wondered if Jake ever sat on the red-cushioned porch swing or the oak table in the right corner of the house and played his soulful country music.

As she stepped out of her Audi, she forced herself to meet his cobalt blue gaze. He’d stopped six feet away from her—almost as if he’d intentionally decided not to come any closer. Today he had on a simple button-down navy shirt and faded jeans that hugged the defined muscles of his legs. His signature silver belt buckle engraved with a stag winked in the sunlight.

The punch of attraction that rocked through her was unwelcome. Why did she feel so drawn to him? It was so unfair given the fact that he didn’t seem to like her that way.

His sandy blond hair curled at the ends, giving him a softer look. She had a hard time imagining what his hair must have looked like when he was in the Army. The military cut would have made him look fierce and likely unapproachable. Then there was the way he moved—like the brave soldier he’d been. No sauntering or strutting for Jake. There was purpose and grace in each movement he made.

“Hi,” she made herself say.

“Hey,” he answered, his smile completely open and engaging now. “Welcome to Redemption Ridge.”

Her brow winged up. “I didn’t know you’d named your property.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Some people around here do, so I decided why not me? I just didn’t put a sign out front.”

Redemption.
The word settled over her as she studied him. What did he feel he needed redemption from? Having heard his music, she guessed it was from the war. There were still shadows in his eyes when he sang about it.

“I like your place,” she said, turning to scan his property. “Tammy did an incredible job with the grounds.”

“She did,” he agreed, and with that, he finally came to stand beside her, though he maintained a good amount of distance between them. “She pushed pretty hard to plant everything before the first frost. I can’t wait until everything comes up out of the earth and blooms in spring. It’s going to be spectacular. You’re lucky to have her in the family.”

Even though Tammy hadn’t yet officially married Susannah’s brother, John Parker, or J.P. as they called him, she and her two kids were already family. “Yes, we’re incredibly blessed by them.”

He took a few more steps until he was standing closer to her, almost as if the family talk had made him more comfortable. “You have a wonderful family.”

“I do indeed.” She looked him straight in the eye. There was something in his voice. Up close, she noticed the dark smudges under his eyes. “You look tired. Were you up late working on a song?”

He kicked at the ground, breaking eye contact. “Maybe. I didn’t sleep too well last night.”

She knew a forbidden subject when she heard it. “Why don’t you show me around?”

He extended his hand to her, and her gaze lowered. His palm looked so open and inviting, but his hand clenched an instant later, as if he’d only then realized what he was doing. She looked up to meet his eyes.

What is he thinking?

The memory of how that hand had felt wrapped around hers washed over her. He’d held her hand during the preview of her art for the concert to benefit abused women, and in that long, delicious moment, she’d been unable to tell where his hand began and hers ended. Never before had she felt like she’d melded into someone else. Afterward, she’d hoped he would ask her out, but he hadn’t. And he’d reached for her hand again after asking her to be his decorator.

Obviously, there was some sort of connection between them—one he wanted to fight, for whatever reason. He lowered his hand slowly, and her throat squeezed down to the size of a pea. The laugh he uttered was as strained as a preacher confessing his sins to his congregation.

“The whole ‘hold your hand thing’ between us is weird, right?” he asked and then coughed, looking away from her.

“Jake—”

“Ignore what I just did—and said.” He turned on the heel of his caramel-colored cowboy boots and took off in the direction of the house. “Let me show you around.”

Suddenly it was difficult to breathe, but she slung her purse and the strap of her thin leather briefcase over her shoulder and followed him, schooling her features and praying her heart rate would calm down. She took her time, walking in slow, easy steps, trying to mirror her breathing.

He was waiting for her by the side of the house, and from behind, she could see how tense his back muscles were through his shirt. Since it clearly wasn’t an option to talk about what had just happened, she gave him a simple smile when he glanced at her.

“Tell me what you have in mind for the house,” she said in her best professional tone. “I’ll share my thoughts later, and we can forge a joint vision.”

“You sound like your brother when we write songs together,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

It was undoubtedly easier for her brother, a lawyer and songwriter, to collaborate with Jake—he didn’t have to balance his professional duties with this
…
tension
. “J.P. knows how to collaborate. I’d like to think it’s because he grew up as the only boy in a family with four women.”

They started walking down a flagstone path lined with copper garden lights. Tammy had created curved beds that hugged the path before opening up in the backyard. A stone fountain dominated the open space, surrounded by a ring of stones flanked by dormant rose bushes.

“Your daddy wasn’t around growing up, as I recall,” Jake said when they reached the fountain.

“No,” she replied, wishing he wouldn’t breach this topic. It was too personal, particularly given this strange tension between them. “He left when I was four. I didn’t expect you to have a fountain.”

Jake shrugged. “I really like water. I think it’s from all the time I spent in the desert.”

He didn’t need to tell her what desert he meant. She wouldn’t press; if he wanted to talk about it, he would.

“I’m surprised to see the fountains working in January,” she commented.