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BOOK OF THE MONTH: HOMEFRONT
CHAPTER TWELVE
Mel sat in her office, preparing for her meeting with her client. Captain Sarah Anders was recently back from Iraq, according to her e-mails. She was looking to buy in Harker Heights for the schools for her daughter. Nothing extraordinary in her requests, and she was looking well within her budget framework.
Except when she walked into the office, Mel was not expecting the younger woman to be walking with a limp. “Are you hurt?”
“Long story,” Sarah said with a wave of her hand.
Mel made a mental note about the brush-off but let it ride. “Have you had a chance to look over the houses I sent you?”
“I have.” Sarah pulled a few papers out of her bag. “I’ve pulled down a bunch of houses from the Internet that kind of give you an idea of what I’m looking for.”
Melanie flipped through the papers. All the homes were modest, perfect for a woman and a single child. She saw the wedding ring on Anders’s left finger. She wanted to ask where her husband was but Melanie had learned a long time ago not to dig into personal questions like that.
Things could go badly. She was there to help Sarah find a house, not be her therapist. “Well, I’ve got appointments scheduled at five houses today. Should we get started? Do you have your preapproval letter?”
“Yes,” Sarah said. She handed Melanie another sheet of paper from a national bank. “I’m looking to stay in a reasonable price range. I want to be able to rent it after I leave Fort Hood. And it’s important that Anna be in a good school, near a good daycare.” Sarah’s expression faltered. Only for a moment and it was gone, but enough that Mel noticed it.
There was something more there, but Mel let it ride because honestly, it was none of her business. “I think we’ve got several options that will meet your requirements,” Mel said, handing her a printout of the homes they were going to see. “Let’s see if we can’t find you a new home?”
An hour later, Mel could tell that Sarah had found the house she wanted. The captain had walked through the front door and her eyes had lit up. It was easy enough to let Sarah walk through the house by herself. Mel had her own thoughts to keep her busy.
She gave herself a mental shake as Sarah walked back into the kitchen. The floor plan was wide open, with room for a little girl’s bedroom as well as a study if she needed one.
Add in that it was close to a good school and priced right, and it was a really great house for Sarah, considering her financial situation.
She knew from Sarah’s financial information that the young captain wasn’t broke but she wasn’t flush, either. And Melanie had never once gotten someone into a house they couldn’t afford. If Sarah decided this was the right house, Mel would help make sure it worked for her.
Sarah meandered through the kitchen. The countertops weren’t granite or marble like in some of the nicer homes but the kitchen was a huge, welcoming space. Mel could see a little girl doing homework at the kitchen table.
Kind of like Jamie had, once upon a time. Before things had gotten complicated and twisted.
“You had a far away look just then,” Sarah said, walking through the kitchen to lean on the island.
Mel smiled sadly. “I was just thinking about my daughter doing homework in here. This is a really great space.”
“Why does your daughter make you sad?” Sarah asked.
“How about we leave it at difficult mother-daughter relationship?” she said.
“I live in mortal fear of puberty.” Sarah smiled. “Is it as bad as I’ve heard?”
Mel laughed out loud. “Does the fact that I’m considering moving to Canada and letting her raise herself for the rest of it clarify the situation at all?”
“That’s terrifying,” Sarah said.
Mel looked down at her hands, a sudden sadness sweeping through her. “Yeah, well, I’ve made a lot of mistakes. And I don’t know how to undo them, you know? It feels like all we do is fight.” She looked up, with a shrug. “I guess we’ll keep struggling through, right?”
“I think it’s a parenting law that you have to.” Sarah folded her arms over her chest, rubbing her upper arm absently. “I guess we just do the best we can.”
“I think that’s all we can do.” Mel sighed. “Sometimes, I think she blames me for divorcing her dad when she was a baby.” She looked up abruptly. “And hello over-sharing. Sorry. Didn’t mean to dump that on you.”
Sarah waved her hand. “Completely fine, believe me. If we can’t bond over our children’s angst what can we bond over?”
Melanie grinned. “Oh, I knew I liked you when we met. I sense a kindred sarcastic mom.”
“Sarcasm is my sacred totem animal. I swear I wouldn’t survive without it.”
Melanie laughed out loud. “Oh, that’s priceless.”
Sarah walked around the island and threaded her arm through Melanie’s. “So how about we go figure out whatever magic woo-woo you need to do to get me into this house and then we go share labor and delivery stories while bonding over cheesecake? Is there anywhere around here we can even get good cheesecake?”
Melanie smiled. “Oh, this sounds absolutely perfect. And yes, I know just the spot.”
***
Gale was stalling. He’d already sent all the evaluation reports back to the platoon sergeants. He’d cleared out his inbox and come up with a duty roster for the next three weeks.
His desk was even cleaned off.
So why was he sitting there, staring at his computer, willing an e-mail to pop into his inbox? Something. Anything.
Anything to keep him from having to go pick up his daughter and have the talk.
He scrubbed his hands over his face.
“Rough day?”
Teague walked in and sat. He started to kick his feet up on Gale’s desk but then decided against it when Gale glared at him.
“Fine,” Teague said with a grin. He was eating from his never-ending sleeve of cookies.
“Keep eating like that. It’ll catch up to you eventually,” Gale said.
“Meh. I’m not worried about it. Maybe when I’m as old as you, I’ll worry. Otherwise? What else am I supposed to do? I’m practicing being a responsible adult. I damn sure can’t drink at work anymore.” Teague sounded disgruntled but Gale knew him well enough to know he was joking. Mostly.
“Are we set to go to the range later this week?” Teague asked.
“Roger, sir. Iaconelli is running down the last of the logistic issues. And Foster is due back at work soon, too, so that’ll be one less thing to worry about.”
Teague chewed thoughtfully on a cookie. “I appreciate you not giving them a hard time,” he said after a moment.
Gale leaned back in his chair. “They’re important to you.”
“It’s that simple, is it?” Teague asked.
“Sometimes it is,” Gale said. “Sometimes it isn’t. This is one of the simple times for now.”
As opposed to in about an hour when he had to figure out how to get into the right frame of mind to talk to his daughter about sex.
“So did you happen to see Tellhouse’s kid on the back dock?” Teague asked after a moment.
Gale stilled. “No, why?”
“Might need to go take a look. Let me know what you think.”
Gale grabbed his headgear and headed for the back of the company.
Alex stood, or rather slouched, on the back dock. His hands were stuffed into his too-baggy pants, his shoulders slumped.
But when he glanced up, Gale’s shitty mood twisted in the wind and evaporated. Even the thought of this kid with a condom around his little girl did nothing to spike his anger any longer.
The kid was sporting a fat black eye. And unless he’d taken up UFC fights, Gale was willing to bet he knew the source of that black eye.
He ground his teeth, violence threatening at the tattered edges of its restraints.
Gale was going to have to have a chat with Alex’s father.
Alex lifted his chin defiantly. He glared at Gale with something akin to abject hatred, then pushed off the wall and stalked back inside Tellhouse’s company operations. He honestly didn’t remember being such an angry kid. He glanced at his watch. He fired off a text to Mel apologizing but letting her know he wasn’t going to be able to get Jamie.
He walked into the back of Assassin Company’s operations. Alex sat at an abandoned desk, glaring at what looked like a calculus book.
He did not look up when Gale walked in. He continued to ignore him when Gale stopped in front of the desk.
Gale’s blood pressure climbed up his neck.
He was not used to being spitefully ignored. He fought the urge to snatch the kid up out of his chair.
But that would make him no better than the kid’s father or any other bully.
Alex was not a soldier. Funny how Gale needed to remind himself of that.
He stopped in front of Alex’s desk. “Your dad around?”
“No.”
No, first sergeant,was what Gale’s brain was expecting to hear. “No” just struck him as wrong. And flagrantly disrespectful.
Alex was not a soldier. If he said it enough, his brain would stop insisting otherwise.
Gale exhaled sharply. “Well, if that had been a killing word, I’m sure I’d be lying on the floor, twitching in a pool of my own vomit.”
Alex looked up. The expression of bored indifference on his face was damn near perfect. But there was a twitch at the corner of his mouth. Very faint, but Gale noticed it. He’d been dealing with pissy teenage boys for a long time.
“My dad’s at battalion,” Alex said. His tone was slightly less grating.
“Oh good, progress,” Gale said. “Do you know when he’ll be back?”
Alex shook his head. The ring in the kid’s nose was rapidly driving Gale insane. And the multi-colored hair made Gale’s palm twitch for a pair of clippers.
“No, but he said he wouldn’t be long.”
“Thanks.” Gale jerked his chin in his direction. “What happened to your eye?”
“Hit myself in the head with the car door.”
It sounded strangely like I walked into a door.An excuse Gale had heard before.
He didn’t believe it any more coming from a young man than he did if it had come from a young woman.
“How do you hit yourself with a car door hard enough to get a black eye?” Gale was doing his damnedest to keep the anger out of his voice.
Alex shrugged and looked down at his homework. “I’m ADD. I get distracted a lot.”
A lie if Gale had ever heard one but the kid didn’t want him to push the issue.
There were other ways to skin this cat.
“Tell your dad I need to talk to him?”
Alex shrugged. “Sure.”
He doubted the kid would relay the message. But he stopped near the back door to the company ops. “Alex?”
He waited until Alex looked up at him. “Tell your dad to be more careful with the door.”
Alex’s eyes flared wide with panic as fear registered on his damaged face. The shock in his eyes was worth relaying the message.
The fear was not.
Alex’s mouth worked but no sound came out.
“I’m not going to say anything to him,” Gale said softly. A lie but Alex needed a comfortable lie more than he needed to know the truth.
And the truth was that Gale was going to have a talk with Tellhouse.
And if that kid showed up with any more bruises, that talk would escalate into something else.
Gale had made his point. Alex had an ally – condoms notwithstanding.
Gale never would have thought he’d be looking out for a kid who was quite possibly trying to sleep with his little girl, but there he was.
The question now was the best way to tackle it, because while he had enough to satisfy his own beliefs that Tellhouse had hit his kid, he didn’t have enough proof to go to the battalion sergeant major.
And before he made any further moves, he needed to plan them out. Very carefully.
***
Mel closed her computer, feeling quite satisfied. Sarah’s paperwork was well on its way to being complete. She had never met a potential homebuyer more organized. She’d had copies of everything in a single, neat folder.
Mel wished more of her clients could be like that.
Then again, she supposed Sarah had to be organized. There was a sadness around the other woman, a sadness that was there even when she smiled.
She’d admitted to having lost her husband in the war, so it was a sadness that Mel could understand.
She hadn’t lost Gale to the war-at least not permanently-but she’d lost him just the same.
The problem was, now that she had a second chance, she didn’t know what to do with it. Or him.
But Sarah’s stubborn determination to press on, to do the right thing by her daughter, made Mel admire her more. And made her determined that the other woman would not be alone here at Hood.
She shouldered her bag and headed out of her office, waving to Courtney, the receptionist, on her way out. The sky was darkening overhead, the threat of a Texas-sized thunderstorm rolling closer in those dark, swollen clouds.
She stopped short, though, at the man waiting by her truck.
Gale. His hands stuffed in his pockets. His pose belied the tension in his shoulders.
“I take it the talk with Jamie didn’t go well?” Mel said as she approached.
The muscle in his jaw pulsed and she felt bad for his teeth. “I didn’t pick her up. Sent you a text. She should be at the house.”
Melanie frowned. “Then what’s wrong?” He was silent, long enough to start Mel worrying. “Gale?”
Gale’s chest rose as he took a deep breath. “I think Jamie’s friend is getting the shit beat out of him at home.”
“Alex?” Mel’s breath left her lungs in a rush. “What do we do?”
Gale bit his lips together, the frustration radiating off him in waves. “I don’t know. I don’t have proof so I can’t take it to the boss. The police likely won’t look into it either.”
“And calling CPS will only make it worse on him,” Mel added.
Gale tipped his head, studying her with his dark brown eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?” Gale said, shifting slightly.
“Jamie had a classmate in the third grade. She came home crying one day about how his parents had caused a scene at school. One of the nurses had called CPS on the father and the parents had been furious. Chris had been taken from the school kicking and screaming by his father.” Mel looked away, the memory of Jamie’s pain still as sharp as the first time she’d held her crying daughter. “Chris never went back to class after that. Jamie stopped asking about him eventually.”
“What happened to him?”
“The school wouldn’t tell me. But it hurt my heart. I remember Chris. He was such a sad little boy.”
Gale shifted again and then his palm was warm on her cheek. He angled her face up until she met his eyes. “You can’t stop all the bad in the world, Mel. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
“Which doesn’t answer the question of what do we do about Alex,” Mel said softly. “Are you sure about him?”
Gale nodded, not lowering his hand. His palm was rough. Comforting. A source of steady heat. “Yeah. As sure as I can be on a gut suspicion.” His palm slid slowly down her cheek, resting at the curve of her throat.
An uneasy tension pulsed off of Gale. He was a man of action and this uncertainty looked uncomfortable and unusual on him.
She lifted her palm to his chest. His heart was solid and strong beneath her touch. “Can you talk to his father?”
“Yeah, I’m going to talk to him. I can’t sit on my hands and do nothing.” He swallowed, his eyes dark and tormented. “I feel so powerless.”
She did the only thing she could then. She wrapped her arms around his waist, leaning in until her cheek rested against his heart. His arms tightened around her; his cheek rested against her hair.
She stood with him in silence as the storm gathered overhead. Neither of them moved. She closed her eyes and felt the rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek, his back beneath her palms. “You’re a good man, Gale Sorren,” she whispered. His arms tightened around her but he said nothing. He didn’t need to.
For all his strength, the fate of one young boy had undone this man.
And it was this, this simple admission that he was willing to take a stand for a boy that was not his own, that undid the bindings around her heart just a little more.
CONTINUE READING…
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