A Love Like Ours Page 29

  “I’m here. I’ll stay awake and watch over Mollie for you.”

  “No. You need to go home yourself and . . .”

  She lost her train of thought when he stroked a strand of hair off her temple.

  He pressed her head back down against his chest. “You can trust me to wake you up if anything changes. Sleep.”

  “You don’t have to do this for me.”

  “Yes,” he said simply, “I do.”

  He may as well have saved her from a speeding train or a band of outlaws. Nothing on earth could have endeared him to her more or bolstered her flagging strength quite so much.

  From the moment she’d come face-to-face with the adult version of Jake, her expectation had been that God would use her and Mollie and their mom to heal him. But it looked as though God was also using him to heal the knotted, injured places in her own heart.

  She hadn’t seen it until now. How could she have overlooked it? He was an expert at guiding his horses to recovery. The very first time she’d seen him, in fact, that afternoon at Whispering Creek, he’d been checking on the rehabilitation of an injured Thoroughbred.

  “I wanted to be the one to help you,” she whispered against the soft fabric of his shirt. “But you’re the one helping me.”

  “No, beautiful. I can’t help anyone.”

  His hand, protectively clasping her against him and shielding her from danger, belied his words. Lyndie saw the perfect symmetry of it then. If she and Jake were irrevocably linked together, then of course God had intended them equally for the good of the other. Her for him. Him for her.

  Of course He did.

  Of course He had, all along.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Sickening fury and confusion and despair circled within Jake. It should have been him dead and burned. Not the kid.

  He stumbled back. “Panzetti!” he screamed, but he could barely hear his own hoarse voice.

  Two of the Marines in his squad ran in his direction. “Make sure someone’s called medical,” he yelled to them.

  They hesitated, nodded, and turned back to follow his order. Jake ran down the road, his attention cutting left and right, searching. He’d couldn’t breathe right through the liquid in his lungs. He continued to run. Saw nothing.

  Where were Panzetti and Scott? He waded into the brush, heat pouring down one side of his face. He reached up, and his fingers came away dripping with blood. More blood leaked out of him through a gash in his thigh and more from an injury to his right side.

  A sound finally penetrated to his brain. Screaming. Someone was screaming his name. Desperately, he pushed his way through vegetation—

  He came upon Justin Scott’s body. It lay twisted and unmoving, stomach down. His heart in his throat, Jake put a hand on Scott’s shoulder and carefully turned him upright. He uncovered a lake of blood spreading into the dirt. Part of Scott’s arms had been blown off and most of his chest. Dead, too.

  Dead. The realization sent ice through his arteries, lead through his limbs. Staggering physically and mentally, Jake pressed on. He’d heard screams, screams that hadn’t come from Scott. Sweat ran into his eyes. He couldn’t get enough air, and he still couldn’t find Panzetti.

  Rob wouldn’t have been thrown this far. Jake moved back toward the wreckage at a different angle. Finally, he spotted movement and sprinted toward it. His legs gave out, pitching him onto the palms of his hands. Disgusted with himself, he forced his body back up and into motion. At last he found his friend.

  Jake slid onto his knees beside him, immediately hooking an elbow beneath Rob’s shoulder to lend support. Jake saw pain and sorrow and also something like resignation in Panzetti’s soot-blackened face.

  “I’m glad to see you, brother,” Panzetti said.

  “Likewise.”

  “You look like hell.” A ghost of a smile moved across Panzetti’s face before he winced. He extended his hand, and Jake clasped it.

  Jake swept a glance down Panzetti’s body. His buddy’s uniform was scorched and shredded away in places. His legs . . . his legs were gone from the thighs down. More blood. Too much blood . . .

  “I’m not going to make it,” Panzetti said.

  “Yes. You are. I’m going to tourniquet your legs.”

  When Jake went to move, Rob jerked him back. “Wait.”

  Jake paused, frantically trying to think. What could he use for a tourniquet? He’d need—

  “An IED got us,” Rob said.

  Jake nodded. “I swear to you that I was looking for anything out of place.” His vehicle had been the first in the convoy. It had been Jake’s responsibility to spot any small clue of a buried explosive. “I didn’t see anything.”

  “I know you didn’t, man.” Rob squeezed his hand to gain Jake’s full attention. “I want you to tell my wife something for me.”

  The chaos in Jake’s ears made it hard to hear. He fought to concentrate.

  “Tell her that she’s the best thing . . . that ever happened to me and that I’m . . . I’m sorry and that I love her.”

  Tell her yourself, Jake wanted to yell. Instead, he looked his friend full in the face. This was their third tour together. So many years and memories. “I’ll tell her.”

  “Tell my kids that Daddy—” Panzetti choked and coughed. His eyes filled with tears, but he shook his head to clear them, determined to finish. “Tell them that Daddy loves them. That . . . I’ll . . . always love them.”

  “All right.”

  “Do you think you can remember that, or are you . . . only a pretty face?” Panzetti gave a sad huff of laughter. His breaths had grown shallower, short and quick now.

  “I can remember.”

  “Good.”

  Jake’s peripheral vision registered motion. He looked up to see a CH-46 helicopter racing through the sky. “Medical’s coming.”

  “I’m not feeling . . . so good, man.” Rob’s eyes closed. “Can you lay me down?”

  Jake did so, gently, his hand still gripping Panzetti’s. He could feel the strength in his friend’s hand lessening. “Medical’s coming,” Jake repeated. “Almost here. Hang on. I’ll get a tourniquet started and they’ll get us out of here.”

  “Don’t worry,” Rob slurred. “It’s okay.”

  “Panzetti—”

  His friend released a long exhale. Then nothing. The life drained from his hand.

  No.

  The word, the denial, carved through Jake. He felt Rob’s wrist for a pulse. No pulse. He rose up, placing his joined palms on Rob’s chest to begin chest compressions, counting out loud to focus his mind and his efforts.

  A part of him knew it was too late for CPR to help. But he couldn’t stop. It wasn’t too late. He wouldn’t let it be too late—

  Jake wrenched awake and upright, sucking in air as if he’d been drowning. Dim light from the bathroom revealed his bed, the window, the dresser.

  He cursed and covered his face with his hands, hunching over. His thigh and his side ached the way they had in the dream, phantom pain. Long gone. Sweat rose on his bare skin, and tremors took over control of his body.

  It was a nightmare. You’re not there anymore. You’re at home in Holley. That was eight years ago, Jake. Just a nightmare.

  He gripped his skull, trying to feel something, to anchor himself in the present. He’d had the recurring nightmare many, many times over the years. Every time he woke from it he had to face the fact that Rob Panzetti and Justin Scott and Dan Barnes were dead. They were still dead. And he could still do nothing to change it. He hated that he couldn’t.

  Guilt, black and heavy, crept over him.

  A memory of Lyndie, in the shed row at Lone Star, slipped into his mind. She smiled at him and pointed at Silver Leaf, who’d recovered from an illness that should have taken him low. “In this life,” she’d said to him, “there is always reason to hope.”

  Was there? he thought bitterly. It did not feel that way to him on this particular day, because today was the day sh
e’d race Silver Leaf. He was about to put Lyndie, his only reason to hope, at risk.

  Angrily, he slashed the blankets to the side and made his way into the bathroom. The water had only warmed halfway to hot before he stepped under the spray. He stared at the thin white scar on his leg, and then at the one on the side of his abdomen. Both lines were as permanent as the one across his face. He’d wished sometimes that his injuries had been worse. It would have been a better representation of his inner destruction. If he’d suffered brain damage, he’d have lived the rest of his life unaware of what had happened to him. If he’d been in a wheelchair, if his own legs had been taken from him, maybe guilt wouldn’t have such power over him.

  Jake ducked his head, letting the water drum the cords at the back of his neck. He hadn’t had the nightmare since he’d started following Karen’s advice to relive the memories. It didn’t take a PhD to know why his nightmare had come back to him tonight. He’d lain in bed for two hours before falling asleep, watching the red numbers on his clock, sick with worry about Lyndie’s race, before finally falling asleep around one. It was now four.

  After toweling the moisture from his body and hair, he pulled on a pair of track pants. Then he paused and rested his palm on top of his dresser, the surface smooth and cool.

  He usually didn’t even look in the direction of his dresser’s bottom corner drawer, much less touch it. The things inside reminded him of the IED, and he’d spent a long time avoiding reminders.

  Today . . . today, though, he wanted to be reminded.

  Kneeling, he set his hand on the drawer’s handle and took an unsteady breath. Then he pulled it forward.

  Anxiety slammed into him. He should slide the drawer closed again—no. You need to remember, Jake. You’ve told Lyndie that she can ride Silver Leaf today. Stop hiding. Remember.

  His heart began to knock. A photo of the squad he’d commanded on that final tour rested on the top of the stack of items. In the picture, Panzetti grinned at the camera. Barnes looked like he was trying to impress everyone with his maturity even though he’d had none. Scott faced the photographer, easygoing and intelligent. He remembered each of the other guys in the picture, too. Their histories, nicknames, personalities. Jake’s own face looked young and soft to him without its scar. He felt cut off from the man he’d been then, as if it hadn’t actually been him who’d been captured there in the photo, but a stranger.

  Below the picture lay his dog tags and below them his uniforms. He left the uniforms untouched and rose to sit on the edge of his bed, the photograph next to him and his dog tags in his hands. He frowned at the familiar letters and numbers stamped into his tags.

  PORTER

  JAKE R. O POS

  4343

  USMC M

  CHRISTIAN

  The metal looked worn but not dirty. Someone had cleaned off the soot, sweat, and blood. It almost didn’t hit him right, that they looked so clean. They ought to look lousy. But they’d been washed off and shined up. Just like he had. As if exteriors mattered.

  The situations he’d lived through with these tags around his neck crowded into his head, bringing back the smells, the temperature, the details of Iraq and Afghanistan. His worry increased, his breath quickening.

  For all his success in his former career, these dog tags were a symbol of his greatest failure. Ultimately, Sergeant Jake R. Porter, USMC, CHRISTIAN, hadn’t been able to keep his Marines alive. He hadn’t brought Panzetti home so that he could be a husband to his wife and a father to his children. Scott had never had the chance to earn a degree in psychology. Barnes hadn’t made it back to the girlfriend he’d loved, let alone his nineteenth birthday.

  Jake hadn’t seen the buried daisy chain of IEDs, so none of them had made it. What cause did he have to think that Lyndie would make it through today’s race?

  After what had happened in Iraq, he’d never thought he’d love anything. But her, he loved. He loved her with hard, unrelenting devotion. Loved her far more than anything he’d ever known or known himself capable of.

  How had it come to this? Last night, she’d rested against him on the hospital sofa and dozed, his arms around her. She’d been safe. And today he was going to put her up on one of his horses to do something as dangerous as jockeying? Why did she have to love jockeying the way she did? Why hadn’t Silver Leaf run for Elizabeth? Why couldn’t Lyndie have let this race go? Her sister . . . her poor sister was an inch from death.

  His hand fisted around the dog tags, the metal biting into his palm. He was Whispering Creek’s trainer. He had the power to sideline Lyndie. His instincts were ringing, telling him to scratch Silver Leaf from the race. He would have done so days ago if he’d had any confidence in his own rationality.

  Lyndie was positive that she was the right jockey for Silver Leaf, and Jake’s most trusted advisors, Bo and his foreman, agreed. Her performance on the horse had proven her ability. There could be no arguing her skill or her experience.

  All week long he’d watched his staff deal with Lyndie. They’d all been excited for her, comfortable with her role as Silver Leaf’s jockey. He’d felt just the opposite, which made him doubt whether he could be trusted to make a logical decision where she was concerned.

  He didn’t think he could.

  Was he going to go with his gut and take her off Silver Leaf? Or was he going to put his faith in Lyndie and in others? The others didn’t have fractured minds like he did.

  The others also didn’t love her like he did.

  The others didn’t value protecting her above everything else in the world.

  “How about we go and show these other wannabes what’s what, Silver? You game?” Lyndie gave the Thoroughbred an affectionate pat.

  “He’s game,” Zoe answered, bending to adjust the wrapping on one of Silver’s back legs.

  Lyndie had donned Whispering Creek’s silks, her helmet, and the rest of the jockey’s uniform. Less than a minute ago, she’d arrived at the saddling paddock to find Zoe and Silver awaiting her, but no Jake. She scanned the setting. “Jake was right behind you, you said?”

  “Yep. He’ll be here.”

  Jake’s late arrival struck her as odd, but not entirely unusual. Trainers often operated on a tight schedule, with several horses in several races on any given day. “What’s the latest with Andrew?” she asked. Zoe and the veterinary intern had been texting each other nonstop and had seen each other a couple of times.

  Zoe released a lovelorn sigh. “Everything’s going perfectly with Andrew. We’re . . .”

  Going to French braid each other’s hair? Lyndie mused. Dance an Irish jig? “We’re?” Lyndie prompted.

  “Oh. We’re going to see each other this weekend. I volunteered to give him a tour of Whispering Creek Horses and he said he’d like to, which in my eyes is just about as good as him saying he’d like to marry me.”

  “Um, sure.”

  “He’s tall, Lyndie.”

  “I noticed.”

  “And he has the cutest smile, and he’s going to be a veterinarian and—clearly—I love animals so we’re—clearly—perfect for each other.”

  “Clearly. I’m happy for you, Zoe.”

  “I’m happy for you in advance because I know that you and Silver Leaf here are going to win this race.”

  Jake strode into view.

  Relief and pleasure rolled through Lyndie as she watched him near. “Hey.”

  Instead of answering, he took hold of her elbow and guided her to the rear corner of the stall. He turned so that his back faced the spectators and shielded her from their view. “You don’t have to do this,” he said.

  “What, wear these silks?” She smiled, deliberately teasing him in hopes of easing his seriousness. “Of course I do. All Whispering Creek jockeys wear them.”

  “You’re not one of Whispering Creek’s jockeys.”

  At his words, her tummy took a downward dip and her smile faltered. Worry spidered its way into her confidence. “Of course I am. I’m Silver
Leaf’s jockey.”

  “You’re more than that to me.”

  “And you’re more to me than Silver Leaf’s trainer. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be jockey and trainer, too. We are jockey and trainer, too.”

  He crossed his arms, his tall body taut. When people were in pain they did what Jake was doing right at this moment, they drew themselves in tight in order to hold themselves together. She didn’t know if he was angry at her for convincing him to let her ride or angry at himself for allowing it. Both, probably. But he’d see. Silver Leaf would win this race.

  “Jockeys up!” The paddock judge’s voice rang through the space.

  Jake’s lips flattened. “I mean it, Lyndie. You don’t have to ride.”

  Geez, his pre-race pep talks to his jockeys could use some tweaking. He was supposed to be giving her encouragement and last-minute instructions. She recalled that he’d spent the moments before her previous race this same way, assuring her that she wasn’t obligated to do her job. “I don’t have to ride,” she said, “but I’m going to. I’m prepared for this, and your horse is ready. Just watch. Silver’s going to win.”

  His face went cold and blank. He took a step back when she would have reached out to rest a reassuring hand on his forearm. She could plainly see that he’d shut himself off from her. Gone was the intimacy they’d shared last night.

  His reaction caused panic to press in on her. Surely . . . surely he’d get over his anger. She loved him, and she didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize their relationship, but he was the one in the wrong here. He was the one acting irrationally. She’d been slated to ride Silver in this race for days. Just like the last time, the race would go off without a hitch, she’d be fine, Silver would excel, and Jake would recover. Their relationship would be fine.

  “Jockeys up!” The paddock judge had made his way to their stall. He eyed the two of them impatiently.

  Lyndie surveyed Jake, her heart twisting because it felt wrong to leave things undone between them.