The Promise of Rainbows (22 page)

“That would be mighty fine,” he answered, setting his hands calmly in his lap. “Can I see what you have, Jake?”

Jake and Susannah shared a look.

“Sure,” the man answered. “Come this way.”

“I’ll find a bottle in the chiller and pour them some wine,” Susannah told Jake, putting her hand on his arm.

His chest seemed to rise like a mountain’s shadow at night. “Thank you, J.P. Let’s get you that beer.”

Shelby bit her lip, watching as they left the room. Jake was obviously upset, but he was making a brave showing. Sadie ran over to Susannah, and Shelby followed suit. They wrapped their arms around their sister.

“Mama called,” Sadie whispered harshly. “She said you needed prayers. We got scared.”

Susannah was gripping them back with all her strength.

“Are you all right?” Shelby asked.

“That poor man,” Susannah whispered and then pressed back. “He needs prayers too. What he must have gone through…”

“What happened?” Sadie asked, cuddling closer.

“I can’t talk about it now,” she continued, “but I’ll tell you later. I know it must have been weird for y’all to come over here and check on me, but I’m so glad you did.”

Someone cleared their throat, and their heads swiveled. J.P. had his hands in his pockets. He walked forward slowly, his lips pursed in thought.

“Jake doesn’t feel much like a drink tonight, after all,” he told them. “He wanted me to give his apologies.”

Susannah’s face fell. “You need to go. I’ll stay a while longer.”

J.P. shook his head. “Jake asked me to stay behind and chat. Susannah, can you see the girls to their cars?”

“Where are y’all parked?” Susannah asked, staring in the direction of the kitchen with a concerned look in her eyes.

“Ah…at the end of Jake’s lane,” Shelby said, twisting her hands.

Her sister didn’t seem to hear her or find anything strange in that comment. “Fine. I’m …going to say goodbye to him.” She walked a few steps and then turned. “Are you sure you’re all right to stay, J.P.?”

He nodded. “It’ll be fine, Susannah. I’ll take good care of him.”

Tears welled in her eyes, but she shook her head as if to deny them. “Be right back.”

As soon as Susannah left the room, Sadie reached out and clutched Shelby’s wrist. “Oh, she’s crying. J.P., do you know what happened?”

“Did Jake say anything?” Shelby shot out.

“Nothing more than what I told you,” her brother said gravely. “Y’all take good care of Susannah, you hear?”

They both bobbed their heads. Susannah came back, wiping tears from her eyes. They rushed toward her.

“It’s okay,” she said, patting the hands they’d stretched toward her. “Let’s go.” She paused and wrapped her arms around J.P. “Thanks for taking care of him for me.”

“Don’t worry, sugar,” he said, kissing her cheek. “I’ve got him now.”

The sisters held hands on the way to Susannah’s Audi. She drove them to their cars, but when she put the car in park, silence descended.

“We’re coming over to your house,” Shelby said.

“Don’t even think of putting us off,” Sadie added.

Susannah only nodded.

As Shelby walked toward her convertible, she pressed a hand to her heart. Her sister was in love—all the way in love.

And from the look of it, Jake was a much more troubled man than any of them had thought.

Chapter 16

“I told my sisters to go on and head out,” J.P. told Jake when he wandered back into the kitchen.

Jake loosened his grip on the edge of the kitchen sink. He’d been staring out into the blackness. Susannah’s touch and their connection had kept him from being enveloped by the familiar void, but he could feel it on the edge of his consciousness. One of his favorite writers on fear and anger—Pema Chodron—had a saying:
Don’t Bite the Hook.
And he was doing his best not to get sucked back into the story of today or the past. He was trying to be present. But honestly, he was exhausted, the kind of bone-deep fatigue that came from facing all your demons and crawling away to survive one more time.

Susannah had been exhausted too. He’d known it was time to send her home because of the way she’d clutched her sisters like they were life vests. Asking J.P. to stay a while would help ease her worry, so he’d gone ahead and done it.

“You can head on home to Tammy and the kids any time,” he said, turning around.

The situation could hardly be more awkward, but J.P. was the embodiment of calm.

“They’re at their other house tonight since Annabelle has a cold.”

“Sorry to hear that. She’s a sweet girl.” Even thoughts of her didn’t ease him.

J.P. reached into the refrigerator for the beer Jake had never offered him. “Would you like a beer?” He popped the top using the edge of the countertop—a move Jake had never mastered. Yeah, he couldn’t remember where his bottle opener was. His mind was mush.

“Best not,” Jake responded, leaning back against the counter to support himself.

“I want you to know that my sisters and I don’t usually show up unannounced,” J.P. said after taking a sip. “Our mama called us and asked us to let Susannah know we’re praying for her, which is code in my family for something big being wrong. Mama wouldn’t say what, of course. When Susannah didn’t pick up her phone, Sadie drove by her house. After some discussion, we decided to see if she was out here with you. I did try contacting you to ask.”

He was relieved to hear Susannah’s siblings didn’t know the full scope of the situation. The sound of the truck approaching had put him on high alert. No one came to his home unless he knew about it, like with the BBQ delivery man earlier.

And then the McGuinesses had stepped out of J.P.’s truck. Susannah hadn’t made any calls, so for a horrible moment, he’d imagined that her mama had asked them to come get her. It was one thing for him to be messed up. Perhaps it was another thing for him to be messed up with her daughter. Talk about the paranoia that comes from PTSD.

“I appreciate you sharing that,” Jake said, studying his boots. “You really don’t need to stay.”

“We’ve known each other for a spell now,” J.P. said, easing back against the opposite counter. “I know a friend in need when I see one. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

Shame flushed his cheeks. He’d told J.P. some stories about his time in the Army to help inspire some of the songs they wrote together. But this? It involved his sister. If he told him everything, J.P. might not want him to be involved with Susannah. Perhaps it would be good to find out. He wasn’t too sure what to do right now. He wanted Susannah, but he was more scared than ever to be with her after today.

“I know you won’t say anything to anyone,” Jake said, bracing himself, “but I’d still like to ask for your confidence.”

“You have it,” J.P. said, resting the beer against his chest.

And so, Jake told him about the day’s events. His friend listened without interruption, watching him all the while.

“Your sister…she wants to be involved with me despite all this. Even though I deeply care for her…” Care was a tame word, but he wasn’t prepared to use the word “love.” That had too much power. “I don’t know if us being involved is a good idea. Your mama thought it might be. Before today.”

“When are you seeing my mama again?” J.P. asked, his brow knit in deep thought.

“Tomorrow morning.” His mouth was suddenly bone dry, so he refilled his water glass.

“That’s good. That’s real good. Why don’t we sit a spell?”

The chairs scraped the floor as they sat at the kitchen table. J.P. set his beer down and leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest.

“My mama has plenty of experience with people who have PTSD, so she’s got a good head on her shoulders. See what she says tomorrow. But I’m your friend, and I’ve also fallen in love with someone who had PTSD.”

Jake was sure his mouth about dropped open. Then it hit him. “Tammy.” Funny, he saw PTSD as a man’s problem, but the disorder wasn’t exclusively for people serving in the military. Plenty of women had PTSD too.

Nodding, J.P. continued, “I met Tammy right after she’d left her ex-husband, but I waited almost a year to ask her out. I wanted her divorce to be final, obviously, but I also wanted to give her enough time to heal from it.”

J.P. certainly had been patient, which was more than honorable, if you asked him.

“Some might say, I shouldn’t have gotten involved with a women who was still recovering from domestic violence,” J.P. said with a shrug. “Frankly, the thought never occurred to me. Tammy is the most wonderful woman in the world. Nothing would have stopped me from being with her.”

Was that how Susannah thought about him? Her behavior certainly suggested it. His heart squeezed in his chest. But how could she want to be with him when he had so much baggage?

“Maybe Susannah is like me in that regard,” J.P. said, pausing for a moment. “She doesn’t see any reason not to be with you when you both obviously care about each other.”

Jake shifted in his chair. “I
do
care about her. I have from the beginning. I didn’t ask her out—”

“Because you were concerned about your PTSD,” J.P. finished for him. “I guessed as much. I was hoping your worry might fade, or Susannah’s feelings for you would grow enough that you’d cave like Tammy did with me. She resisted at first. Heck, that woman still hasn’t agreed to marry me yet. But I support her and love her just the same. And she will marry me. Love always wins out.”

Jake liked to believe that, but he knew firsthand that the world didn’t always work out the way it should. “Susannah is like you, and for that I’m grateful. More grateful than you could know. How she acted after what I did today… Well, it’s a sheer miracle, and I don’t believe in them much anymore.”

“There’s always the promise of rainbows, Jake.”

Those words again. “What? You too?”

J.P. chuckled softly. “It’s not just something my mama says. She used to say you could wish for a rainbow after a storm with your whole heart and one might appear. It might sound crazy, but I believe it to be true. Not all rainbows are visible to the naked eye. Tammy and the kids are my rainbows, and I’m theirs.”

Jake’s mama had told him to hush his mouth whenever he’d talked about things like magic and stardust when he was a boy. “That’s really beautiful, man.” And he meant it as both a friend and as a fellow artist.

“Tammy won’t mind me saying so, but she thought she was messed up too. We’ve talked before about some of the problems you faced after you left the Army. Things have gotten a heck of a lot better for you, Jake, if you ask me.”

All that was true, and he’d tried to hold onto that thought like a drowning man would hold onto a piece of driftwood. He ran a hand through his hair. “The thing is…except for the nightmare I still have on and off, I felt like I had my remaining symptoms under control. Flashbacks and mental tricks like tasting sand in my mouth. Now I’m afraid—”

“That you’ve backtracked,” J.P. finished for him, picking up his beer and taking a swig. “When you start to care about someone, it has a way of bringing other things up. Rather like deep water fishing, if you ask me. It sounds like being with Susannah is doing that for you.”

Jake rubbed his forehead. There were dried salt crystals there from all the sweating he’d done today. God, he needed a shower. “I’m worried it’s getting worse again. While there’s a lot written about PTSD, the experts don’t know if it ever completely goes away.” And didn’t that fear drive a stake in his heart?

“So you’re supposed to go your whole life without the love of a good woman and family?” J.P. said. “In my opinion, that’s bullshit.”

His lungs seemed to deflate in his chest. “The rational part of me wants to agree with you, but Susannah doesn’t deserve the problems I’d bring to our relationship.”

J.P. rested his elbow on the table, thinking for a spell, and then said, “Do you think Tammy deserves to be with me even though she’s still healing from what happened to her?”

He hung his head. The hole he’d dug himself was big enough for a dinosaur. “Of course she deserves it.”

“Then why don’t you?” J.P. asked, watching him closely.

“Tammy was a victim of what happened to her.” Jake’s throat burned. “I wasn’t a victim. I killed people, and when it mattered the most, I let my best friend down.”

“When you wrote ‘Man Down’ with me, I wondered who you had lost. I knew it had been someone close to you even though you wouldn’t talk about it.” J.P. rested both forearms on the table. “You killed people because it was your job, Jake. I can’t even imagine what that would be like, but if I had to kill someone to protect my own, I would do it and live with it. Not that I wouldn’t be sorry and pray for forgiveness and hope it never happened again.”

J.P.’s matter-of-fact attitude was oddly soothing. It
had
been his job, one he’d signed up for. And the man was right. If he had to defend someone he loved or cared about, he wouldn’t hesitate to do it.

Something clicked inside him.

“As for your friend…you didn’t kill him,” J.P. said, “and from everything I know about you, I’d bet anything that if you could have saved him, you would have. Right?”