Service and Sacrifice Read online

  The emotions he’d seen in the woman’s face today were grief and acceptance, well past the denial stage. What he’d offered her in the form of a physical connection wasn’t his gig. Condolences weren’t what he did, unless it was one of his men. There’d been too many of those, and he was hella glad those days were in his rearview.

  “Monk.” At his name, he looked up from the menu at Neptune, another fellow Marine and patch brother. “Woman needs your order, man.” Monk blinked, looked around, and realized the place had filled up with his brothers.

  “Just the coffee.” He knew even that would sour in his stomach, but the idea of eating wasn’t appealing. Not right now. Monk offered her the plastic-coated menu, and she pointed to the napkin holder on the table, where he saw three more just like it tucked alongside. Where he’d undoubtedly retrieved the thing from originally. Fuck. He tried to smile, nodding as she shifted to the next table. “Thanks.”

  “Pretty thang” came from beside him, and he glared at Wolf, another double brother he’d served with overseas. His glare apparently wasn’t enough of a deterrent, because the man continued in that vein, exactly as Monk would expect. “Gonna go back and tap that pretty thang? Be a Monk no more, brother, about damn time.”

  Alex had earned the name Monk one night at an epic party where there’d been girls and booze aplenty, nerve-soothing pot in ample quantities, and brotherhood of the highest order. Someone had asked him why he wasn’t in line for a woman, and he’d told them all about what it meant to have his PTSD. He rolled his eyes at the memory of that version of Monk, still just known as Waterboy, and he wasn’t sure which was worse.

  “You wanna know why? You sure? Because I’m fucked in the head.” He pulled a face, tongue wagging, finger cocked at his own temple. “Fucked in the head, but can’t fuck with the body.” Jeans unzipped, he dug his soft cock out and shook it. “ED ain’t no joke, man. Little buddy here ain’t interested in anything anymore.” Gyrating his hips, he helicoptered his dick, the men around him falling out of their chairs laughing. “Uncle Sam won’t allow but six little blue pills a month.” He pulled up ramrod straight and saluted. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I’ll be happy to get a half a dozen hard-ons every thirty, sir.” Shoving his member back in his jeans, he finished, “Half the time it’s too much work to dick around with.” Laughing, he pounded Blade’s shoulder. “Get it, dick around with?” Collapsing back into his chair, he said, “So that’s why I’m here and not there.” He pointed across the room to where two men were double-teaming a woman, had her squeezed between them as they fucked her ass and pussy hard. “Might as well join a…what’s it called for men? A monkery? I don’t know. I’m just fucked in the head, man, and these days, not fucked in the flesh.”

  “No. She’s a widow, brother.” All three men seated with him froze in place. They knew the significance that word carried and were probably rewriting today’s encounter in their own minds with just that single sentence.

  Blade pulled in a breath. “She’s from there.” It was a statement, not a question, but Monk responded as if he’d asked it, nodding slowly. Blade hummed softly, face twisting in remembered grief. “I did an honor ride a few years ago from the base.”

  The three of them had all been stationed at the local base, Monk the only one who’d settled here to get away from all the baggage he’d wanted to leave behind. A wife, and her not liking being alone ten or eleven months of the year, if they were lucky. Friends, who didn’t get why he wasn’t the same free spirit they’d known in high school. Family, who looked at him sadly as they patched holes in their walls or paid bail bondsmen cash to retrieve his ass from the most recent round of ridiculous behavior. Bosses as they shook their heads, holding out an envelope to indicate a termination of employment. Establishing a new life here had been a chance at a fresh start, and finding the brotherhood he’d needed in the Borderline Freaks had proved the move to be fate.

  Neptune added, “Dude was corps,” and Wolf nodded. “Had nearly twenty-two hundred bikes on that ride. Streets and roads were lined for miles and miles with people paying their respects. Flags everywhere. Patriots had point,” meaning the local chapter of that national MC had been positioned directly behind the hearse and cars with family, “and we were next in line. Oorah.”

  “Oorah.” The time-worn response to a call to faith and fidelity echoed around the table, Monk’s voice the final one to chime in.

  “How do you know her?” Blade pushed back in the seat, and Monk looked up to see the waitress coming their way with a tray of drinks.

  “Don’t. She was having a hard time today, and something clicked, so I knew she was a widow.” He met the waitress’s eyes and nodded his thanks for the mug of coffee. “Tomorrow’s five for her without him.”

  “Oh, man. Death days are the worst.” Neptune reached for the sugar and poured an unhealthy stream into his black coffee. “No wonder she was having a hard time.”

  “Yeah.” Monk glanced around the room, then looked outside at the bright blue sky dotted with white clouds. No worries there. He blinked and thought he saw mountains in the distance, but a second blink wiped them away. “No wonder.”

  Three

  Amanda

  Amanda twisted in the seat of the parked car and gathered up the things she needed for her vigil. She’d done this often enough to know exactly what made her the right level of comfortable to stay as long as she needed. Blanket to sit on, but not too thick, because Martin’s body was surrounded by cold dirt and it was right that she feel some of that. A bottle of water, because the first two years she’d wept so much in the summer sun she’d dehydrated and passed out, waking up hours later with an uneven sunburn on her face that had been hard to explain away. Their wedding book, which had turned into a scrapbook of their lives together. Ritual and known, this was what she did.

  She climbed out and sighed as she leaned her weight against the door, bumping it hard enough with her hip to make the latch catch. Then she began the long walk back through the headstones to where Martin’s grave was. This too was part of the ritual, because she could have parked within ten feet of the granite that bore his name, but the trek helped Amanda center herself so she didn’t lose it as soon as she stood in front of him. Living, breathing—alive, while he was dead.

  As she got closer, she noticed a motorcycle parked just down the row from her destination. Big and black, it had angular handlebars and some kind of fabric wrapped around the pipes, nothing shiny about this bike, and it felt even more imposing for that detail. Another twenty feet and she saw something else unusual, a man kneeling next to Martin’s grave, one hand placing something in the back pocket of his jeans, the other holding a small flag. As she watched, he reached out and stuck the flag into the ground next to the headstone, adjusting until it stood upright.

  This wasn’t someone she knew, no one from Martin’s family or hers, no friend from school. He must have served with Martin. She pulled in a shocked breath, blinking back sudden tears. No, no, not yet. Her throat clicked when she swallowed, even as her mouth flooded with bitter saliva because she hadn’t prepared for this. Wasn’t ready to talk about Martin, to share memories with someone she didn’t know, to listen to their stories and their grief. Then he looked up, and with a swirl of relief, she saw it was the man from the gas station. Stupid. Of course it would have to be him; she’d talked to him only yesterday and told him what today meant. I should have recognized the bike.

  “Ma’am.” Stilted and formal, he dipped his head toward the gravestone. “Wasn’t hard to find. Thought I’d pay my respects.” He moved away, stepping into the middle of the little road. “I’ll be out of your hair.”

  “Did you know him? Martin? My husband? Did you know him?” She was overwhelmed with a need to know. Counter to what she’d felt a moment ago when it was a stranger who might have served, she didn’t feel this man a stranger any longer. “Martin Stewart?”

  “No, ma’am. We weren’t posted together that I know of. But he was USMC.
” He lifted one shoulder and took a step towards his bike. “Corps.”

  “Makes you family.” She nodded. “You don’t have to, you know.” He paused and looked at her. “Leave, I mean. I don’t mind.”

  “Figured you’d rather time alone.” He glanced at the headstone, then back at her. “Mrs. Stewart.”

  She dipped her chin and broke free from his gaze. It had been so long since anyone called her that, it felt wrong, almost like she was an imposter. “I’m alone all the time. It’d be nice—” She gestured towards the grave. “—for it to not be just me for once.”

  “Are you sure, ma’am?”

  Eyes angled down, she nodded slowly. “I am.” She bent to set the water and scrapbook down, then began unfolding the blanket. A shadow fell on her, and she looked up to find him close, reaching out for a corner of the fabric. Together they arranged it as she always did, directly to the side of the place where dirt had once mounded. Once they were seated, she lifted the bottle and apologized. “I only have the one.”

  “Don’t you worry about me. I’m fine.” He leaned forwards and plucked a blade of grass, arm propped on one bent knee. “You come out every year?”

  “Every week, actually, but I always make sure to come on the anniversary.” She spun the lid off and lifted the bottle for a drink. “His parents come on Saturdays or Sundays, when they come, so I always aim at Wednesday.”

  “You don’t get along?” His questions were innocent, skimming along the surface of polite, not knowing the landmines waiting underneath.

  “Understatement.” She smiled and stretched out a hand, dusting the surface of the stone’s base. “They didn’t like that we got married so young, and thought I influenced him to join up.” Turning her neck, she looked at him. “Opposite from reality, and they probably know it under everything. But it’s easier to have someone to be mad at, you know? I can take it. They lost a son, so it’s the least I can do.” She rested her cheek on her knees. “They wanted him in Arlington, or in the state military cemetery. Someplace more befitting a man of his”—with one hand she made air quotes—“stature.” He stared at her steadily, not looking away, taking in everything she had to say. Being the subject of that kind of singular focus from this man felt surprisingly good, comfortable. “And by stature I mean money, their money. Family money. I wanted him here.” She turned her head away, staring at the granite etched with his name. “Where I could come see him.”

  They sat in silence for several minutes, Amanda’s memories awash with images of Martin at graduation: from high school, from boot camp, from officer’s training. She didn’t know what the man spent those minutes thinking or considering, but for her, it was all Martin.

  “My name’s Amanda,” she said, suddenly aware she hadn’t introduced herself to this stranger, no matter they were sharing a private moment. “So you can ix-nay on the am-may bit.”

  He laughed softly, chuckling long past when she thought it should have been funny, so she turned to look at him. A gentle smile quirked his lips sideways. “Ix-nay? Really?”

  “Yeah.” She sat up straight, staring at him. He’s teasing me. She gave it right back to him, lifting her chin as she repeated, “Ix-nay.”

  “Alex Waterman.”

  “Good to meet you, Alex Waterman.”

  “Same to you, Amanda Stewart.”

  An hour passed by before either spoke again. It was Alex who broke the silence, asking a question she’d never fielded before. “How was it for you, being home, before this happened?”

  “You mean staying here while he deployed?” She turned to look at him in time to see a tiny nod. “It was okay. I had the house to take care of, and I worked. I missed him, of course, but he missed me, too.”

  “Did you know he was going to join before you married? Or was that a decision he came to afterwards?”

  “Oh, no. I knew from the time we were sophomores he would be in the military. It was what he’d planned and worked towards. He did delayed entry our senior year, and we’d planned on waiting until he’d gotten out of basic to get married. None of this made it through to any conversations with our parents, of course.” She laughed.

  “Of course.” He smiled at her, a full spreading of his lips that changed his face entirely, making him more approachable, softening the hard lines he wore most of the time, and turning up his good-looking level by several notches. She wasn’t immune to the fact he was handsome, in that bad boy way that hadn’t ever been her go-to for desirability. But this, what they were doing by sitting here to honor Martin, turned any idea that the meeting might be seen as tawdry into a lie, showing instead that it was a brilliant sign of respect for her dead husband. That smile on his face, however, turned the corner from attractive to smoldering hot in a moment. She stared at him until he frowned, losing the grin to an expression of puzzlement. “What?”

  “Nothing.” She turned away, back to the headstone, feeling as if she’d somehow betrayed Martin by noticing the attractiveness. Which was stupid, because he wasn’t around to betray. He was gone, long gone, and the permanence of his not being here struck her hard, like it always did out of the blue. It took her breath away, and in a moment she was crying hard, shoulders shaking as she wrapped her arms around her knees, tucking them close to her chest to try and stop the pain flooding through her.

  As he had at the gas station, Alex gathered her into his arms and held her. Wordless, gentle, and with an air of patient understanding that reassured her this was normal, this was grief, this was having to live without the one person you always thought you’d have. This was pain and anguish. This was sadness because of all the firsts Martin would never see. All the firsts stripped away from her future, dropped to the bloody earth in a faraway land.

  She cried, as she did on every anniversary, unable to speak or breathe, choking on the mass of impotent wishes that swelled inside her chest.

  This year, unlike the ones that had come before, she wasn’t alone.

  Four

  Monk

  Alex waited for her tears to slow, for the sobs to become less heartbreaking. It took a long time, but eventually she stopped shaking, and her breathing evened out. He’d adjusted his hold on her a couple of times while weariness overtook her, Amanda’s body slumping against him as her muscles weakened.

  He didn’t try to tell her it would be better, or that she’d get over it. He took the waves of grief that emanated from her body and absorbed them as best he could, giving her a safe place to pour out her pain.

  Instead of telling her it would pass, he shared how his family had dealt with a loss like, and yet unlike, hers.

  “When I was twenty-five, my younger sister went missing. I was deployed overseas in the sandbox, about to head home on leave, and got a text from my mom asking if I’d heard from Tracey. She was twenty-one and finishing up college, and my folks tried not to treat her like anything other than the grownup she was. They didn’t keep tabs on her; it wasn’t like that. But Tracey’s roommate had called. She hadn’t come back to the dorm, and a quick check with her professors found her absent that day. I looked back at my messages from her and found the last three had been a week earlier. Funny pictures and jokes that I hadn’t responded to.” Amanda made a sound and went to pick up her head, but he cradled her skull close with a quiet, “Shhhh,” until she settled against his chest again.

  “My folks got the runaround from the cops. Some song and dance about her being an adult, and sometimes people just got tired of their lives and left. She wasn’t in a relationship, didn’t have kids or a pet, didn’t own a car or a house. A prime candidate to just pick up and vacate, at least in their eyes. Me and my folks, we knew different.” He stroked Amanda’s hair and knew by her stillness she was listening intently. It was good to take her out of what she’d been stuck in for so long, and even if it hurt to tell this, that’d be worth the effort.

  “She was the good kid.” He snorted. “Not like me, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

  Amanda did in
terrupt him then, and he smiled at the determination in her voice. “You seem plenty nice to me.”

  “Nice, sure. But good? Not always.” He stared at the flagpole yards away, at the center of the graveyard. “Not hardly ever.” With a quick breath, he pushed past those memories and continued on. “Tracey was the kind of kid who texted, even away at college. She kept the ’rents in the know with her life. Voluntarily, probably because they didn’t demand it of her. Those texts, random things about food and friends, announcements that she was going out to parties, or made it home safe—they stopped the night she went missing.”

  “Oh no.” Amanda pulled away, and he could feel the weight of her stare on him, even as he refused to meet it.

  “Oh yeah.” He cleared his throat, suddenly thick with tears. “Two weeks went past, and nothing. I got home finally, just in time. I was over at their place, helping organize the stuff volunteers needed, about to head out and put up posters when I looked through the window to see my folks’ pastor pull up at the curb, followed by a cruiser. It was like I was frozen in the spot. I saw the men get out, watched the three of them cluster at the end of the sidewalk. I didn’t get to the door before my mom, but I was there to catch her as she fell. Tracey’s body had been found in a copse of woods close to the school’s campus. Their best guess, she’d been dead before she’d even been reported missing.”