Summer Burns Page 2

  "So are you looking for another military man," Miss Evelyn asked me.

  I blinked. "Pardon?"

  "That boy in uniform. You looking to get back to the military life?"

  I shook my head, my cheeks warm. "Oh no, Miss Evelyn. He was, uh, just a friend."

  She snorted.

  "Sure he was." She shifted in the chair as I pinned the last roller, making it fall out. "I saw the way he was looking at you."

  "Stop wiggling," I said. "You're as bad as my daughter."

  Evelyn laughed. "We all revert to childhood as we get older. Diapers and everything."

  "You're not right, Miss Evelyn."

  "Well, maybe not, but you young things, you worry about everything. I'll tell you what my mother told me. Even women have needs. We just hide it better."

  I dropped my comb. "Miss Evelyn!"

  Winter, who'd been walking by, stopped and glanced at Evelyn. "Now Miss Evelyn, are you being good over here?"

  "Nope, not a bit."

  We all laughed, including Lucy and Nicole, the stylists on either side of me, and both of them glanced at me, shaking their heads. Even over all the noise, hairdressers tend to hear everything, and the three of us were no different.

  Especially when little old ladies started speaking their minds.

  "Come on, Miss Evelyn, let's get you under the dryer." I helped her across the room, and tuned out the conversation she had with ladies in the shop. Every week, the ladies who came in the shop to get their weekly 'do had all become friends and the latest gossip about who's kid, or now, grand kid, was doing what, their health, and whatever else was on their minds filled the salon.

  "Well, I saw that tall drink of water holding the door for you, Evelyn. He was handsome," Miss Janet said.

  Evelyn snorted. "He's got the hots for Summer."

  "Oh really?" Miss Janet glanced at me, approval on her face.

  "Ladies, no one here has the hots for anyone," I said, trying to rein them in.

  But oh no, it was too late for that.

  "I used to date military men, they were wonderful. We'd write letters and I'd tell them all sorts of things to keep them warm at night," one of the ladies said.

  The laughter overpowered the dryers.

  "Okay you ladies, this is still a place of business," I said.

  This only made them laugh harder. So I walked away. Let the hens gossip. I glanced at my watch as I walked into the break room, and noticed the clock was three minutes fast. So I slid a chair over to adjust it--yes, I'm that anal person.

  "Good grief, Summer, what are you doing?" my mother asked, her usual flowy clothing replaced with a set of pink nurse's scrubs and her hair in a bun. Evidently, she was about to do a massage.

  "I'm selling an iceberg to the desert dwellers, Mom. What does it look like I'm doing?" I had the clock in my hand, and I adjusted the minutes to be on time.

  "Don't be a smartass to me, kiddo. I changed your diapers."

  "And I'll change yours in thirty years," I said as I sneezed. "Gah, it's dusty up here. Would you hand me a towel."

  She wet a rag and handed it to me.

  I started wiping off the top of the cupboard the clock hung over and fought more sneezes. Didn't work out very well for me.

  "And who was the young man who showed up here?" she asked.

  I sighed. "He was a soldier with Jake. Came to pay his respects." I finished my job and climbed down. My chest felt tight, but I wasn't sure it was because of the dust or just the arrival of Hennessey and the latent emotions his appearance brought up.

  It may have been three years, but some days, it felt like only yesterday. I touched my inhaler in my smock pocket.

  "I see," Mom said.

  "What is it with everyone today? He's a guy. He came to pay respects. End of story." I finished my job and climbed down, my chest felt tight.

  "Did you know him?" she asked.

  I shook my head. "No." I took a shot of my inhaler to cut off the impending attack. "Not really. He went to school with me and Jake for a year. I sort of remember him."

  "Seems like he's a little late."

  "It's never too late to pay respects," I said, a little irritated at my mother's comment. "He might have been overseas."

  "True," she replied. "It was nice of him to stop by." She made that "tsk" noise that she makes when she's not sure she approves of something.

  I rolled my eyes. I wasn't sure what Mom was thinking over this, but I wasn't sure I wanted to find out. I started to leave the break room, when Audra came in.

  And my chance hit me. "Audra!"

  She grinned. "Shelby has gone."

  I grabbed her hand and pulled her into the far corner of the room. "Now dish woman," I said in the loudest whisper I could manage. "I have to know what she said about me."

  Audra laughed.

  Chapter Four

  Thursday

  After Henessey finished at work, he decided to stop by Gregg's, a local pizzeria to grab a slice for his dinner. He walked in, and the place was fairly crowded as he headed to the counter to order. Training kicked in, and he started scanning the crowd, looking for threats.

  He forced himself to take a deep breath and remember where he was. This was a pizzeria, not a war zone. There weren't enemies hiding in the corners, waiting to pounce.

  It was just families. Families who were there getting some food. Kids ran around--video games took up a back corner, and several kids were playing the noisy things.

  Another breath.

  In and out.

  Easy.

  Hennessey didn't have PTSD, as many of his friends had come home with, but there were moments when crowds and noise bothered him. He'd been to all the therapy he was supposed to go to, and they'd cleared him for active duty. However, considering the loss of his comrades from his last mission, he'd been kept state side.

  This too shall pass.

  Laughter made him turn, and he saw a young girl, blonde hair cut to her shoulders, with bright green eyes, smiling at her mother.

  He paused.

  He'd seen that face before. But in a helmet, and all grown up.

  He blinked. And took a step toward the little girl. The little girl stopped laughing, and she stared back at him, her brow crinkled in a funny expression.

  "Mama, who is that man?" she pointed right at him.

  The girl's mother turned.

  It was Summer. Which meant the girl was Bette's daughter. The one he'd talked about. Hennessey's breath caught.

  Summer smiled. "Hi there, Sergeant."

  He took a couple steps forward. "Hi." He kept staring at the little girl. It was uncanny. Really. Just incredible how much that little girl looked like Jake Bettes. Pain hit him in an unexpected way--like a kick he never saw coming.

  "Are you a friend?" the little girl asked.

  He glanced to Summer, unsure how to answer. He'd never been around kids much.

  "Sure he is." She wiped her mouth with a napkin. "He worked with your daddy."

  "Oh." The little girl seemed to process this for a moment. Then she turned her bright green eyes on him. "Well, my daddy's in heaven now, so we have this extra chair here, if you want to sit down."

  "Thank you, miss." He nodded to the girl. "But I was going to grab a slice and be on my way."

  Summer gestured to the pizza on their table, where only two pieces were gone. "Please, sit down. We have plenty. If you don't mind pepperoni, anyway."

  "I wouldn't want to impose."

  "Really, it's no trouble. Take a seat."

  He hesitated. Not that he didn't want the piece, the pie smelled great--hence the reason he came in. However, he felt a little strange taking a handout from his friend's wife.

  But as he looked into Summer's blue eyes--strikingly different than her little girl's--he couldn't help himself, and sat in the open chair.

  "Thank you," he said as he got comfortable.

  The waitress brought him a plate and he ordered a soda.

  The
little girl glanced at him. "I'm Emma."

  "Nice to meet you, Emma. I'm Matthew."

  She grinned. "There's a boy named Maffew in my class. But he's kinda stinky. I don't like to share my crayons with him because he breaks them sometimes."

  Summer arched her eyebrow at the little girl. "Emma, really?"

  "Well, he did one time." Emma forked a piece of her cut-up pizza. "But you don't stink. Well, you do, but you stink like my daddy did when he got off work, so it's okay. I like that smell."

  He glanced at Summer, and for a second, her eyes glistened, but she cleared her throat. "Emma, we don't talk about how people smell."

  "Sorry." She waved her fork around. "But what if the smell is good? Do we talk about that?"

  "Yes. You can talk about that."

  "Good. Because I like good smells." She leaned over to Matthew, and smelled his sleeve. "Yeah. You smell good."

  "Um..." He glanced at Summer, and she bit her lip--he imagined he must have a deer-in-headlights expression, because that's how he felt--like he'd wandered into a world he had no preparation for.

  "We can talk about good smells, Emma, but we don't smell people at the table."

  "Fine," she sighed, and sat up. "Have some pizza Maffew."

  "Mister Matthew," Summer said.

  "Mister Maffew."

  "Sorry, she's very sociable. The teacher tells me she'll talk to anyone."

  He smiled. "I can tell."

  "I don't talk to anyone, I only talk to people who smell good," she said as she shoved another bite of pizza in her mouth. "We talked about strangers, and we're not supposed to talk to them. But I can talk to you, Mister Maffew, because you're not a stranger."

  He met Summer's gaze, and she rolled her eyes. "Thank you Emma, now eat your dinner."

  "Okay."

  Summer took a drink of her tea as the waitress returned with his drink and he pulled a piece of pizza off the pie.

  "So what are you up to tonight, Hennessey?" she asked.

  "This is it. Go home, relax. Get up and do it again tomorrow."

  She nodded. "But at least tomorrow's Friday."

  He shrugged. "There is that. I have the weekend free to do..."

  "To do what?" she asked before she took a bite of her pizza.

  "Not sure yet." He took a drink. "What are you two doing?"

  She swallowed. "This is tradition, right Emma?"

  "Right."

  "Tradition?"

  "We get pizza on Thursday night, and we'll watch a movie tonight."

  "Frozen!"

  Summer's smile didn't quite meet her eyes. "Yes, we can watch Frozen again."

  "Yeah!" The little girl started quietly singing some song about letting stuff go. From the strained look on Summer's face, he figured she'd sang this song before.

  "Thursday night movie night?" he asked.

  She nodded. "We watch a movie tonight, and tomorrow, after she gets out of summer camp at the YMCA, she'll spend the night with Grandma Bettes, and I'll pick her up after I get off work Saturday."

  "I love Grandma Bettes! We have popcorn. And candy for breakfast--"

  "What?" Summer snapped.

  Emma grinned. "I'm just kidding Mommy. Though she did let me have a cookie after I ate my sausage one time."

  "Lovely," Summer said, not sounding like she thought it was very lovely at all.

  He raised his eyebrow.

  "Grandma Bettes has been known to give her about anything she wants."

  "Yep!" Emma said. "I'm her only granddaughter. So I'm special."

  "You're very special, I bet," Matthew said.

  "I am," she said, puffing out her chest, and turning to look around the pizzeria.

  "And she works it, too," Summer said.

  "I wanna go play video games!"

  "Finish your piece of pizza."

  "Okay." She went back to eating.

  Matthew did the same, taking a couple of bites of his slice. He probably could have eaten the whole pie by himself, it was so good.

  Summer jarred him from gorging himself. "So where are you stationed, if you're just here training, Matthew?"

  "Fort Hood, in Texas."

  She nodded. "What is that, eight, nine hours from here?"

  "Something like that. I think the last time I went back down, I did it in just under eight."

  "And you didn't speed at all, did you?" She asked with a wink.

  He grinned. Because, yeah, gotta beat the last time.

  "So are you married? Do you have kids?"

  "No."

  "Why not?" she asked.

  He shrugged. "Not much time for it. I've been," he glanced at Emma "overseas a lot."

  "My daddy went over the sea," she added. "But he didn't come home. Maybe he missed his flight."

  Meeting Summer's gaze, he held his breath, unsure what she would say--what any parent would say about such a comment from a child.

  What did you say? Really?

  Was there anything that could comfort a kid in a moment like that? His gut coiled in pain for this little girl, and her loss. For her loss, and all the families who lost someone that horrible day.

  And the guilt from being the one to survive the attack. Why would he survive the attack, someone with no family to return to, and a father and husband die instead?

  The guilt was almost too much for him to take. He shifted in his chair. He really should get out of here. They didn't need him.

  He didn't need to be here.

  Summer, oblivious to his warring thoughts, spoke. "Well, Emma, remember, he went to heaven instead."

  "Right," she said. "Is there visiting hours there? I heard a song on the radio about visiting heaven. Can we do that?"

  Summer shook her head. "It's too far away."

  "Okay." The tension that had coiled in Hennessey diffused as the little girl went back to what she was doing, like there was nothing wrong with the conversation she'd just had with her mother.

  Summer, however, had that glossy look in her eyes again.

  He reached over the table and brushed her fingers. Summer didn't look at him, but she took his hand and squeezed it as she wiped her eyes with her napkin.

  When their gazes did meet, he nodded, hoping, without words, to tell her that she'd done good handling that little moment. Not only for the little girl, but for him as well.

  What had all the doctors told him? Life will go on. Whether we know why or not, it still would.

  He glanced at the girl--such a reminder of Jake--and again felt guilt that he was here, and her daddy wasn't. Turning to Summer, he didn't envy the difficult road she had ahead without Jake, who'd loved her so much. He let go of Summer's hand and took a bite of pizza as his mind traveled a million miles away, back to the desert, back to that hell on earth.

  All Jake talked about over there was his Summer and his Emma. All the things he had planned when he got back, the stuff he wanted to do with them. Camping. Disney Land. Museums and picnics. Coloring.

  Jake couldn't wait to come home and color with his daughter.

  Matthew's eyes darted to the coloring sheet under Emma's plate and the open package of crayons on the table.

  Matthew hated himself, because he was here, and Jake wasn't.

  "I'm done! I want to play video games!" Emma's declaration jarred him, and he almost spilled his soda.

  Summer glanced at the corner where the games were. There weren't too many kids over there. "Sure honey." She pulled out a stack of quarters.

  "I can do it by myself," she said, and grabbed the six coins. "I'm rich!" she said and headed the twenty feet to the games.

  He could see her perfectly from his seat, but Summer had to turn to see her. She twisted and watched for a second then got up and took Emma's seat. Her gaze remained locked on her daughter.

  "You did good handling that." He scooted his chair over, making a little more room for Summer.

  "Thanks."

  "She seems like she handles it okay."

  Summer grab
bed a breadstick and tore a piece off. "She has days where she really misses him. Then there are days where it's like she doesn't notice he's gone. He's been gone most of her life."

  "She was, what, three, when he died? Seems like that's what he told me, his kid was three." He bit back a choke in his throat, and hoped she didn't notice.

  If she did, she didn't say anything. "We used to video chat when we could, and I have pictures of him in her room, but I don't know that she remembers him much." She glanced at him. "Though the smell thing is new. She's never mentioned that, but it does explain why after he died, she would go get his shirts and curl up with them, like they were blankets." Her eyes shined again with unshed tears.

  "I'm sorry," he said.

  "What for?"

  "For stirring stuff up." He wiped his mouth and reached for his wallet. "I should go."

  She touched his arm and he froze. "You don't have to. It's actually nice to talk to an adult once in a while, and I don't have to cut your hair while I do it." She gestured to her daughter, who'd gotten situated in a driving video game. "I love her with everything, I do, but it's nice to not be doing everything on a kid level." She picked up the crayons on the table and put them back in the little box.

  "I'm sure it's tough."

  "I'm lucky. I have family all around me. Mine, of course, and Jake's mother is always available for Emma. It's nice. There's always someone who can help me out if I need it."

  "Family is important."

  "True. Where's your family at?"

  "Not far. St Louis, Missouri."

  "Is that where you moved back in high school?"

  He nodded. "Dad got a job, and we had to go."

  "Did you move around a lot?"

  "Yeah. Probably why the military was such a good fit. I'm used to moving." His parents followed work all his childhood.

  "I'd never moved in my life. I live in the house I grew up in." She smirked. "When Jake and I got married, he got transferred to North Carolina. Then Texas. Then back here. Then over there."

  "Army makes you a tumbleweed."

  "I know, I hated it. I hated not having roots anywhere. I missed my family so much." She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I'm being awfully rude. I shouldn't be saying bad things to you about the military."

  He smiled. "Well, it's not for everyone. Some people thrive there. Others not so much." Yet another reason why he'd been hesitant to commit to anyone--the military lifestyle wasn't easy.