Keeping Promise Rock (32 page)

Behind them, what had looked to be a college kid with blond hair and blue eyes and a permanent sneer had called out, “Hey Benny—want some tequila? I’m dying for a blow job, sweetheart!” Benny had turned a mortified, stricken face to Andrew, and that was when the young Private had lost his mind.

“You don’t talk to a girl that way,” Andrew muttered. “I don’t care what you’ve done with her—that’s just six kinds of wrong.” Deacon pulled a steep breath—he had to agree. “So that’s when you hit him?”

Andrew nodded and looked uncomfortably at Deacon. “It wasn’t until Benny was pulling me off of him that she told me he was Parry’s father. Deacon….” Andrew shifted uncomfortably. “Deacon, that kid was damned near as old as I am. I’m twenty-two. If he’s Parry’s father, and he got her drunk, that doesn’t just make him a slimeball, that makes him a….”

“A criminal… yeah, I know. Thanks, Drew—I think I’ll be calling Jon after this, but first I’ve got to talk to Benny.” Deacon took another bite Keeping Promise Rock

of his sandwich, and Drew turned to leave. Deacon cleared his throat for a second. “Um, Andrew?”

“Sir?”

“Two things. The first thing: if the cops come to get you, we’ll bail you out ASAP. You know that, right?”

Andrew’s sweet, white smile in his dark face was plenty grateful.

“And the second thing—sort of the third thing too. Benny may not appreciate it, but I do. Crick, Benny… they didn’t have enough people standing up for them growing up. I’m glad you stood up for her today.” Andrew’s dark cheeks tinged a little bit red, and his expressive eyes went sideways. “Benny deserves someone standing up for her, sir. She’s really pretty special.”

And now Deacon blushed, because he figured his father said it to him, and it was his turn. “She is, and so are you. If you’re going to wait for her”—and his blush got darker—“that’s fine. Just”—and now it was his own hard experience and not his father talking—“just make sure she knows you’re planning to be there. Crick didn’t know… I kept trying to get him to see the world before he settled on me. It’s part of how we ended up where we are, you know? Just… if she shows any inclination back?

Tell her you’re waiting. You’ve got enough honor in you to see it through.”

Andrew looked up then and smiled. “Thank you, sir. I’ll think about it.”

Deacon nodded and talked through another bite of sandwich.

“Good… you can run away now, Private Blood-loss, but if you see Benny, tell her I’m being a good boy and having some cookies with my sandwich, would you?”

Benny had figured out that, besides red meat, Deacon’s other weakness was those soft shortbread cookies with the dollop of fudge in the middle that the bakery made every Tuesday. She made a point to buy them for him, and he was grateful enough to make a point of eating them. He’d pulled up a stool at the counter and was pulling one out of the plastic bakery box and dipping it in milk when she crept back in from her room.

“Pull up a stool, Shorty. Have a cookie with me.” 216

“I’ll get fat,” she sniffed, and he turned around and grinned at her.

Motherhood hadn’t made her fat—she was still as skinny and rangy as Crick had been, if significantly shorter.

“Honey, if you can’t grow upwards, the least you can do is grow outwards. Now come sit, have a cookie, and we’re going to pretend for a minute that you’re just a kid, okay?”

“I’m almost a grown-up,” she said, smiling a little. She hopped up on the stool next to his and took a cookie. He offered her his glass, and she dipped the cookie and grunted appreciatively with her first bite.

“You’re still a kid, Shorty. You and Crick, life tried to hurry you along, but you both were still way too young when you got hit with the worst shit, you know?”

“Not as young as you were, Deacon,” Benny said softly, and Deacon smiled at her grimly. Yes, she’d heard everything he’d said to Lisa, and although she hadn’t pressed him, he could tell she’d been curious.

He sighed. Well, if that painful episode with Crick and the phone call-by-proxy had taught him anything, it was that truth really did need to be reciprocated.

“I’ll tell you what, Shorty. I’ll tell you something painful and embarrassing about my childhood, and you return the favor.” He took another bite of cookie and thought rather sadly that it wasn’t as good when his stomach was all knotted up, but Benny was looking at him with that hopeful trust that she had developed since they’d become roommates at the beginning.

“That sounds like a deal, Deacon,” she told him softly, and he took a deep breath.

“My mother drank herself to death when I was five,” he started, and then, since he was being honest, he added the details that mattered. He talked about that day, wandering the house, afraid to go outside because she’d needed him in the past, and how scared he’d been when she hadn’t moved or breathed. He talked about how they found him after dark, when Parish had finally come home. He’d been hiding out in the stables, under a horse blanket, listening to the sound of something breathing.
It wasn’t so
lonely out here, Daddy. I’m sorry I left Mama when she needed me.

He shrugged when he was finished and hoped he’d managed to keep his face stoic enough not to upset her anymore than she was already. “So you see, Benny, I’m not great at being alone. I… it’s probably a weakness.

Maybe even a good thing Crick left, so he can see what a mess I can be if I’m the only heartbeat in the house….”

She threw herself on him and sobbed, and he stood and moved to the couch, which was better for this conversation anyway, and besides, they’d both finished the milk, and neither of them was up for more cookies.

When she was done crying, she looked up at him and wiped her face on his shirt. “You do fine, Deacon,” she said. “There’s no crime in not wanting to be alone. It’s dumbasses like Crick and me who think we’re going to push the world away before it can fuck with us again.” Deacon smiled faintly. “Well, I’m glad you think so, Shorty. I’ve always thought the two of you were particularly brave. Now, do you have anything you want to tell me?”

Benny looked down. She kept her head on his chest and wiped her cheek again.

“Crick had just left for Iraq, and I was so scared,” she murmured.

“When he was in Georgia it was one thing, but Iraq… it just….”

“Made it real.” Yeah. He knew.

“Yeah. And so that kid… there was a party out by Discovery Park, and he gave me something to drink….” She looked at him earnestly. “I knew what it was, Deacon. I wanted to get drunk.”

“You were fourteen, Benny.”

“It wasn’t the first time I got drunk!” She was confessing—he could hear her voice. She wanted him to know all the worst things about herself, and he couldn’t let her.

“Kids get drunk!” he told her sharply. “Doesn’t make me love you any less, Shorty, now get on with it!”

“I… I barely remember, Deacon. I remember saying ‘no’, and him laughing and telling me I didn’t mean it. I remember waking up—I just fell asleep on the ground. I wasn’t wearing anything, and there was blood on my….” She blushed, and Deacon swore. He was doing his best to not get all frightening and caveman on her, but the story made him want blood. The last time he’d wanted to hit somebody this bad was when Crick had been ambushed in high school.

He took a deep breath, and then another.

“Why didn’t you tell us, Shorty?” he finally asked softly.

“Would it have mattered?” she asked, and deep down, he could hear the insecurity there. Oh God—her and Crick, both of them waiting for eternity to come home and find their shit out on the lawn.

“About you coming here to live? No. You could have been the belle of the ball, sweetheart—hell, you could have done half the freshman class willingly, and I’d still love you like the short person you are.” Her giggle was gratifying—even if it was clogged and thick—but he had to keep going. “But this… this is wrong, Benny. Do you remember this kid’s name? How old was he?”

“Keith Alston,” she sniffled at last, “and he’d just gotten back from college.”

Scumbag!
But Deacon didn’t say it out loud. “See, Benny—kids like that—odds are good you’re not the first kid he’s gotten drunk, you know?

So now we’ve got a choice, and it’s not an easy one. Hell, I don’t like it, either way it goes.”

“Do I have to let him into the baby’s life?” she asked, and he could tell it was one of the most difficult things she’d ever done.

“Now that, darlin’, is not part of the choice in the least.” Benny nodded, safe in Deacon’s arms, and he made plans to call Jon as soon as she got up. It was time to keep his family safe again.

“Deacon?” Benny said quietly as he was mulling over his tentative plan.

“Yeah, Shorty?”

“Why’d Andrew do that? Hit him like that? I’ve never seen him lose his temper, not even when Shooting Star knocked him down that one time and kicked off his fake leg.” God, that horse was a rank whoring bitch!

“He loves you, Shorty. Same as me.”

Benny was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke next, it was uncomfortably. “Do you think maybe it’s the same as you loved Crick?” Great gobs of gooseshit—spare him from young lovers.

“Could be. Would that bother you?”

She grunted. “I don’t know if he’s seen me at my best.” Deacon laughed, thinking of Crick on top of the water tower, dizzy and feverish, or Crick sobbing behind the principal’s office, remorseful and still coming down off his first (and only) high. A whole montage of Keeping Promise Rock

Crick flashed before his eyes then, bloody and battered but not beaten, embarrassed but still game, happy and eager, smiling that goofy, crooked smile that meant he was about to come up with something truly outrageous that nobody had ever considered.

“You don’t love people at their best, sweetheart. You just love them because you can’t help it. You’re too young to worry about this right now, and Andrew’s too good a guy to make you.” Crick flashed behind his eyes again, this time on the day Parish had died. Crick had looked so old and so wise as Deacon had sank his head onto his lap and put his trust in someone with his whole heart.

“If you love them and have faith in them, you’ll see them at their best every day.”

DP @Crick—How’s the replacement training going?

Crick @DP—Like shit. I used to think I was a fuck-up, then I joined
the army.

DP @Crick—You’ll do fine, Crick. I have faith.

Crick @DP—I don’t know why. You’ve had a front row seat to my
greatest-fuck-ups of all time.

DP @Crick—I’ve also seen your finest moments. No contest—

greatest moments win.

Crick @DP—If you’re trying to make me choke up like an asshole,
you just did.

DP @Crick—Don’t blame me. You’re the one who’s wonderful.

Crick @DP—Jesus, Deacon, who did you watch grow up?

LISA was reading Deacon’s letters again. She got her own letters from her own parents, and they were sweet and newsy and she read them to Crick faithfully, but as she said frequently, they weren’t Deacon. Crick had to agree. As shy as Deacon was to strangers, his letters showed the real Deacon, dry humor, understated wisdom, sharp mind, and all.

Andrew was all for rigging his car to explode, but we talked him out
of it. (For one thing, we didn’t like his chances in the county jail—Levee
220

Oaks not so big with the cultural diversity, you know?) But I called Jon,
and we came up with a plan. We gave the fucker a reasonable choice—he
could relinquish all rights to Parry Angel, or we’d charge him with
statutory rape. Now I know what you’re thinking—you’re thinking that a
scumsucker like this isn’t going to just date-rape one fourteen-year-old,
he’s going to keep doing it. But that’s okay—we told him he had to come
clean to a judge. I’m sure you see the big ol’ fucking catch twenty-two, but
dumbshit has yet to figure it out. He’s too scared of losing daddy’s money
to come clean to his own lawyer, and I’m thinking the trial is going to be
more fun than I’ve had in a while.

Of course, it’s scheduled for the day you get released and leave for
home. Here’s hoping we can think of better things to do once you get here.

Lisa finished reading the letter out loud and frowned a little.

“What? You get what’s going to happen, right?” Lisa nodded. “Oh yeah. They have the same sort of laws in Seattle.

It’s not the victim who presses charges, it’s the state. Pretty clever of Deacon, though—gets the bastard right out of the baby’s life at the same time he gets a sex-offender mark on his file. Win-win.”

“So why the long face?” Crick was busy stocking the ambulance. He had been going to show Second Lieutenant Stick-up-his-ass how to do it again, but Stick-up-his-ass was busy writing a report about how slack Crick was on military training regulations. Crick had told the Captain it was coming, and the Captain had looked at Crick and shaken his head.

Lieutenant, I don’t know what your life as a civilian was like, but I’m
damned proud to have served with you.

It was one of the nicest compliments Crick had ever received that didn’t come from Deacon or Parish, and Crick would treasure it.

“I don’t know… this thing between Andrew and Benny….” Crick looked at her over his shoulder as he tallied the drug inventory.

“What thing?”

Lisa looked back at him. “The thing… the thing that made Andrew deck the guy who trash-talked her. C’mon, Carrick, you should recognize

‘the thing’!”

Crick thought about it carefully—Deacon, pulling him away from Brian’s crazed mother, helping him pick up his stuff off his lawn, running Keeping Promise Rock

interference when he picked up his sisters. “Yeah, okay, I recognize it,” he said softly. “The Thing.” Of course.

“So it doesn’t worry you?”

Crick looked at his hands, scorched brown by the sun, and the tiny little store-room in the ambulance bay. He’d hated being an EMT. He hadn’t thought about it until this last week, but he might have to be an EMT back at The Pulpit
,
just to help Deacon with the money a little. He could have been an art student this entire time, if only he’d been aware, just a little, that “The Thing” had been real and not just a terrible, fragile hope.