SKYE MET Lexi and Dana for lunch at Bronco Billy’s. She waited until they’d ordered to share the news.
“T.J. was working for Garth.”
Dana paused in the middle of pouring sweetener into her iced tea. Lexi sagged back in her chair.
“Are you kidding?” Dana asked, then waved. “Don’t answer that. Stupid question. T.J. working for Garth. Of course.”
“It makes sense,” Lexi said. “He waltzes into your life and Izzy’s and totally messes up things. He gets between you and causes trouble.”
Skye sipped her diet soda. “He didn’t cause trouble on his own. We let him. I have to give him credit-he was really good. He pitted us against each other and all he had to do was sit back and watch the show.”
Lexi leaned toward her. “Are you okay?”
“If you’re asking if I’m hurt, I’m not. If you want to know if I feel like an idiot, absolutely. I can’t even remember how the fight with Izzy started. She was defending me and telling him off and he came on to her and…” It was a blur. “She was telling me there was something wrong, she just didn’t know what. I wouldn’t listen. Her gut was right but all I could hear was that some guy wanted her over me and I was tired of being the dateless sister.”
“Izzy will understand,” Dana told her. “She’s good that way.”
“I know.” Izzy would torture her for a few minutes, then let it go. Skye would be left wallowing in guilt on her own.
“I was so quick to jump to conclusions,” Skye murmured.
“You were looking for a distraction and T.J. provided a good one,” Lexi said.
“What do you mean, a distraction?”
Dana and Lexi looked at each other. The glance was quick, but Skye recognized it. It meant they’d been talking about her, that they’d figured everything out.
“What?” she demanded.
“You haven’t been yourself since Mitch came back,” Dana said. “I totally get why. It’s a big deal. T.J. got lucky with the timing. If he’d shown up a month earlier, you would have caught on to him much sooner.”
Skye didn’t bother pointing out she hadn’t caught on to him at all. Izzy had.
Was it as simple as Dana said? Had T.J. been nothing but a distraction? Skye knew she didn’t care about the guy-they’d only gone out a few times. It was more what he represented.
“Score another one for Garth,” Lexi said. “He’s managed to come between us.”
“I’ve sent Izzy a text message asking her to call me when she gets a chance,” Skye told them. “I hope she doesn’t wait too long. I want her to know. I just hope she wasn’t too involved with T.J. This could hurt her.” Which wasn’t anything Skye wanted.
“But you’re okay?” Lexi asked.
“Yes. On the surface, he seemed like the perfect guy. I’m more upset I was fooled.”
“How did you find out?” Dana asked.
Skye told them about Mitch going to confront Garth.
Lexi sighed. “He’s always been like that. A guy who gets things done. You have to respect that.”
“You still in love with him?”
Dana’s blunt question nearly made Skye choke on her drink. “Excuse me?”
“Should I talk louder?”
“No.” Skye glanced around to see who was sitting close. Fortunately, they were early and the place was fairly empty. “I’m not in love with Mitch.”
“You sure? It sounds like there’s something going on.”
“Don’t push,” Lexi said.
“Why not? The only reason she was involved with T.J. at all was because of Mitch.”
“Don’t forget that Jed wanted her to marry him. That would have had some weight.”
“You think Skye is going to do that twice?”
Skye slapped her hands down on the table. “Hello. I’m sitting right here.”
They looked at her and shrugged. “Feel free to step in at anytime,” Lexi told her.
“I have nothing to say on the subject of Mitch.”
“Which is part of the problem,” Dana told her.
Their lunches arrived. Lexi had ordered a salad, and both Skye and Dana dug into burgers. Skye was feeling the need for red meat and fries.
“Mitch and I are friends. That’s all.” Friends who fought and made up and had hot sex in strange places.
“You’re not friends,” Dana said. “I don’t know what you are, but it’s more than that.”
“You’re still in love with him,” Lexi said as she stabbed a piece of grilled chicken. “I don’t think you ever stopped loving him, even when you were married to Ray, but that’s just me.”
Skye stared at her. “I’m not in love with him.”
“Oh, please,” Dana said, then frowned at Lexi’s salad. “Your healthy eating is starting to get on my nerves.”
“I’m pregnant.”
“I know that, but jeez, don’t you think you’re taking it too far? I agree with giving up drinking and all that, but I saw organic yogurt and tofu in your refrigerator the other day. Tofu? I’m starting to wonder how much longer we can be friends.”
Skye couldn’t believe it. They made an announcement like that then bickered about tofu?
“I am not in love with Mitch,” she announced loudly.
Lexi looked at her. “Okay. If you say so.”
“I’m not. I was, years ago. But we’re both different people. We have a history. It will always be complicated, but I’m not in love with him.”
She couldn’t be. People change. They’d changed. “If I met him today, I’m not sure I’d even like him.”
“Oh, you’d like him,” Dana told her. “He’s very likable.”
“He can be a jerk,” Lexi pointed out. “But he’s dealing with a lot. His heart is in the right place.”
“And other stuff.” Dana grinned. “Or so I’ve heard.”
“Who did you hear that from?” Skye demanded. “Is Mitch sleeping with someone else?”
“Ooh.” Lexi looked delighted. “So you are having sex with Mitch.”
Skye felt herself flush. “I really hate you.”
“No, you don’t. You love me and we’ll stop teasing you now.”
“He’s not sleeping with anyone else,” Dana said. “He’s all yours.”
“You make me insane. Both of you.”
Lexi and Dana grinned at each other. “We know,” Lexi said. “It’s a gift.”
SKYE GOT HOME a few minutes before the bus arrived with Erin. Her daughter burst into the house and began talking about her day.
“I got an A on my book report,” she said as she put down her backpack. “My teacher says over the summer I need to read books that are about more than horses.” Erin wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know why.”
“She wants you to broaden your horizons.”
Skye cut up an apple and put it on a plate, then added some cheese and crackers. They sat across from each other at the table.
“What else happened today?” she asked her daughter.
“We have to bring in somebody to school our last week before summer vacation. Like show-and-tell only about work. Mandy’s dad owns a McDonald’s and he’s going to talk about that.”
“Who were you thinking of bringing?” Skye asked, hoping it wasn’t Jed.
“Mitch,” Erin said, watching her. “He could talk about being a SEAL and his leg and stuff.”
Mitch would shine in the classroom, she thought. “I think that’s a good idea.”
“You’re not mad at him?”
Skye sighed. “No. Not anymore.”
Erin nodded, then bit into an apple slice. “He made you cry.”
“Sometimes people who know each other for a long time have fights. But we get over them and are friends again.”
“So I can ask Mitch?”
“Yes.”
Erin chatted more about her day, how she’d eaten lunch with her friends and that maybe, just maybe, she would read a book that wasn’t about horses.
Skye listened and talked, but she couldn’t stop thinking about her conversation with Lexi and Dana and their assumption that she was still in love with Mitch.
It wasn’t true, she told herself. She might not be able to totally define her feelings but they weren’t love. They were complicated and rooted in the past. In time she would sort them out. Not that it really mattered one way or the other.
But as she listened to her daughter, she couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like if she’d stood up to Jed and refused to marry Ray. If she hadn’t slept with him and gotten pregnant. Where would she and Mitch be now?
MITCH STOOD outside the closed door. He didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to talk to a group of people he didn’t know anything about. Joss waited patiently beside him.
“Let me answer the question,” the other man said. “Yes, you have to.”
“Technically, I don’t,” Mitch muttered.
Joss shook his head. “You’re consistent. I’ll give you that. Talk to me about the energy exercises I’ve given you.”
Something else Mitch didn’t want to do. He’d mocked and resisted and finally he’d given in and done them. Every morning he rubbed his hands together like a cartoon villain to start the flow of energy. He moved his hands up and down his body, including where his leg had been, matching his breathing to the motions. He held pressure points and cleared his mind and dammit all to hell, it had helped. His phantom pain was nearly gone. If he skipped a couple of days, it started to return.
“Because organic beef and free-range chickens aren’t enough,” he grumbled. “You’ve got me chanting and hugging trees.”
“No one is asking you to chant. Now are you going in or are you going to continue to waste my time?”
He really wanted to waste Joss’s time but knew that wasn’t the right choice. He straightened, raised his chin and pushed open the door.
Inside were a bunch of people sitting in chairs pulled into a circle. The men ranged in age from maybe eighteen to sixty-something. At first glance they seemed to have nothing in common. Then Mitch noticed a hook here, a wheelchair there. They were a support group for amputees.
Joss had been pushing the group for a while now. He’d offered Mitch the choice of times and places, but not the option of not attending. Mitch had picked an all-male session with mostly vets. At least they would have that to talk about.
“This is Mitch,” Joss said, walking into the circle and greeting several of the guys. “He’s new.”
An old guy in a wheelchair laughed. “Let me guess. He doesn’t want to be here.” The man patted his two stumps. “I don’t want to be here, either. But every week I show up.”
“Burt here is the leader of the group,” Joss told Mitch. “He’ll take care of you.”
Mitch wanted to bolt. Instead he took a seat, knowing this was where he had to be. Joss slipped from the room.
“I’ll start,” Burt said when the door had shut. “I’m Burt. I got stupid when I was twenty and lost both my legs when I played chicken with a train and lost. I still dream I can walk. Just the other night, I was walking on the beach with Raquel Welsh. Now most of you young pups don’t even know who she is, but trust me, she was something. A lady worth walking for.”
Burt grinned. “Right now I’m in a good place. If I could get you gimps to let go of your anger, I’d be in a better place. But that’s why we’re here. I’m going to drag you kicking and screaming back into the world.” His smile broadened. “Some of you I have to drag because you can’t walk, but that’s a different story. Who wants to talk?”
A man in his thirties raised his arm. The utility prosthesis glinted in the light.
“I wish I could dream about some broad,” he said. “I keep dreaming about Iraq. Every time I close my eyes, I’m back there.” He was still staring at the group, but his gaze seemed to turn inward. “I can’t turn it off. It haunts me. All of it. Then I wake up feeling the pain.” He glanced at Mitch. “My arm got burned off. It all comes back to me. Every second.”
Mitch swallowed. “I’m sorry, man,” he said.
“Yeah? Me, too.”
Mitch waited for Burt to say something, to help, but the old man was silent. Finally the one who looked like he was barely eighteen said, “You try sleeping with a dog?”
They all looked at him. Even Burt seemed startled.
“Cliff, there are some things we don’t need to know,” a guy said.
The kid flushed. “Not like that. I mean get a dog. I got one from a shelter. A mutt. He’s happy as hell and sometimes that bugs me, you know? But he’s always there. Always ready to listen or play. He takes me out of myself. I’m saying a dog can help. They curl up next to you at night.” He shrugged.
One guy mentioned tai chi as a way to deal with the pain. Another talked about the energy work Mitch was already doing. Nobody said he should get drunk and forget about it. Nobody assumed it would fix itself.
Over the next hour, problems were presented and solutions offered. A few men just wanted to talk, which Mitch couldn’t understand, but maybe time would change that. When the session was over, he found Joss outside.
“What’d you think?” Joss asked. “You coming back?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“We all have choices. They’re not always good ones, but we have them.”
Mitch thought about the group, how they were all different but each understood the loss of a very real part of themselves.
“I’ll be back,” he said.
“Good.” Joss shoved a brochure in his hands.
“What’s this?”
“A crisis training seminar. You learn how to talk to people in trouble. It’s a six-month course. At the end you’re not a therapist, but you’re somebody who knows how to listen.”
Mitch dropped the brochure as if it were a live grenade. “What are you talking about? I can’t help anyone else.”
Joss stared at him. “That’s where you’re wrong. You’re exactly the right person for someone in crisis to lean on. It’s not easy and there are plenty who can’t be saved, but when you pull someone back from the brink, when you see him build up his life again, it’s a good day. Don’t you want a few good days?”
Mitch looked from Joss to the brochure, then bent over and picked it up. “I didn’t talk today,” he said. “I don’t want to talk. What makes you think I want to listen?”
“I have a gut instinct about these things.” Joss grinned. “It’s part of my charm. Just ask my wife.”
“I’ll pass.”
Joss patted the brochure. “Think about it. The next class starts in a couple of months. By then they won’t be able to shut you up in group.”
“That will never happen.”
“I know, but it’s fun to think about. You’ve got someone to watch your back, Mitch. There are plenty of guys who don’t have anyone. That’s not right and it’s something we can change-one vet at a time.”
Joss walked back to the physical therapy center. Mitch made his way to his truck. He climbed in and put the brochure on the seat next to him.
Could he help someone in crisis? Did he want to? His first instinct was to call Skye and talk to her about it. Not that he would. She had enough going on.
Joss was right-someone had his back. Who had Skye’s? Who would protect her from Garth’s next move? Except it wasn’t a difficult question and he already knew the answer.
He would.
THAT NIGHT, after Erin was in bed, Skye went to see Jed in his study. Her father was laying low these days. No parties had been planned, which after the last one wasn’t much of a surprise. But he also hadn’t been coming to dinner or showing up at breakfast. He was either at the office or in his study at home.
She knocked on the partially open door. Jed barely looked up.
“What?” he asked.
“I need to talk to you.”
“This isn’t a good time.”
“T.J. was working for Garth.”
Jed straightened in his chair and motioned for her to come in. “Where’d you hear that nonsense?”
“I know it’s true. He was just one part of Garth’s assault plan. He came between me and Izzy, which was his goal. Divide and conquer.”
“You think Garth has a plan?”
“I’m sure he does. He’s working all of us. You, me, Lexi. Even Cruz has had some trouble. No one is safe.” Except Izzy, who was on the rig. “I’m sure T.J. isn’t the first spy he’s had.” She didn’t mention that Garth had approached Mitch. There was no point in distracting Jed.
“We need to have a family meeting,” she continued. “We need to come up with a plan of our own to stop him.”
Jed dismissed her with a flick of his fingers. “This isn’t your fight.”
“He’s made it mine. Somehow he got into the computer system at the foundation. He’s uploaded a second set of books that are completely false. But until I can prove that, we’re under scrutiny from the government. We’re at risk of losing our nonprofit status.”
“No one cares about that,” Jed said flatly. “You want to compare your silly foundation with the charges I’m fighting? I never understood why you’re wasting your time with all that.”
“Feeding hungry children? You consider that a waste? Oh, wait. Let me guess. These kids aren’t worth saving. Is that it?”
“You should put your resources into something that matters.”
“This matters to me.”
“Then you’re a fool. But fine. Keep your foundation. I’ll find someone else for you to marry. You need a husband and more kids. That will keep you busy.”
His total dismissal of who and what she was shouldn’t have been a surprise, yet it was.
“You don’t own me,” she said quietly. “You’re not picking out my next husband.”
“Of course I am. Don’t forget who you’re talking to, little girl. This is my house. Glory’s Gate is what you want and to win it, you have to play by my rules. Lexi played and lost the business. The same thing can happen to you.”
She didn’t know this man, she thought sadly. He was her father and she didn’t understand anything about him. She didn’t think he was deliberately cruel, but he was a bully.
“Does it occur to you that most fathers don’t have to play the fear card with their children? Why do you think you have to buy us?”
Jed stood. “Be careful, Skye. You don’t want to push me.”
“I will if I have to,” she said, and left.
On her way upstairs, she thought about how powerful her father was. He could be as ruthless as Garth. This might very well be a battle to the death and she had no idea who would win.