Shelter Me (21 page)

“Later, okay?”

He just nodded, letting her go. Without another word, she finished dressing and slipped out the door. The fresh Tennessee air swept over her with the scent of farm fields and the first hint of a scorcher of a day to come. Her one day off since they’d worked all yesterday at the adoption event. Except there was no such thing as a day off here. She didn’t have time for a “boyfriend”—especially when that relationship came with so much potential for an implosion.

She sagged against the closed door for a second before regaining her balance. She just needed to slip into the house and get a shower, return her life to normal and then figure out what to do next when she had a clear head. Away from the temptation of licking caramel sauce off each other’s bodies.

Steeling her resolve, she raced down the steps, checking the yard carefully for her mom. At the sound of Sierra’s footsteps, the dogs started barking even though feeding wasn’t for another hour.

Her sandals slapped the grass, early morning dew squelching with each step closer to the house. The back porch fans were already churning, which could be an accident. Her family forgot to turn them off all the time.

Or someone could already be awake.

Not that it should matter. She was twenty-three, staying at home to help, not living at home. She paid her own bills and helped her mother out when the rescue made things financially tight.

So why did she feel like a teenager slipping in after hours?

Seeing her mom on the porch, Sierra considered bolting back to Mike’s apartment—
her
apartment. Or making her way around to the front door so she could slip into her childhood room like a delinquent.

God, that sounded lame. And truth be told, she could use some advice. Or if nothing else, some sign of how to deal with what happened last night.

Shaking off the urge to run, she walked to the screened back porch where her mother sat in a wrought iron chair with a fat floral cushion. The fairy-tale-named pit puppies played in a pen in front of her. Watching them while they romped and rolled, Lacey tucked her legs to the side, still wearing her yoga pants and a loose T-shirt. She sipped a crystal flute of orange juice, a muffin on a plate beside her.

Her mom lifted her drink toward Sierra. “Would you like a mimosa? I actually have a matching flute. These didn’t get broken in the moves like most of the other crystal.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.” Sierra sat in a wrought iron porch chair next to her mother. They used to have wicker but the dogs chewed it. So Sierra went to rummage sales and found assorted pieces, and painted them all different bright colors. “Feels strange—you offering me a drink—especially at seven in the morning.”

“You’re over twenty-one. We’ve had wine with dinner before.”

“Still seems . . . odd.” Maybe because it was breakfast. She thought back to her mom’s wineglass the night Trooper arrived. “Are you planning to go to church toasted?”

“One drink. Not toasted.” She sipped, sticking a toe through the wire playpen to tease a puppy. “What about you?”

“Thanks, but I’ve already had breakfast.” Memories of her and Mike feeding each other in between caramel kisses sent her sinking into the chair. “What kind of muffin are you having with the mimosa?”

“Apple nut. I guess I should eat it.” She set aside her glass and pinched off a bite of muffin.

“I would agree. You skip too many meals, Mom.” Sierra leaned into the pen and picked up a puppy . . . Rapunzel, a blond little girl who liked to snuggle.

“I’m having trouble scrounging up the energy to face the kitchen. I’ve cooked for over twenty years. I’m tired.” She picked up her mimosa again, the bubbles rising to the top. “Nathan’s still asleep, so I’m not a bad influence. Your grandfather is in the shower. And how’s Mike?”

Well, there it finally was, out in the open. Sierra cuddled the puppy up under her chin, the warm little body curling against her with a sweet sigh. “Aren’t you going to tell me I should be smart about seeing him?”

“You’re an adult, completely capable of supporting yourself, only staying here because I can’t manage life on my own.” She spread her hands to include everything around her. “I don’t think I’m in any position to lecture you on squat.”

The cynicism in her mother’s voice caught Sierra off guard. “Mom, are you okay?”

“Not even remotely.” She tipped her head back blinking fast and gathering her tangled curls to shove them behind one shoulder. “But I’m working on it.”

“I’m here if you need to talk.”

“Honestly, I’m totally talked out . . .” She pulled a scrunchie off her wrist and secured her hair into a loose ponytail as if seeking to add some kind of order to her world. “You talk. Tell me about you, your love life, like a normal mother and daughter chat.”

“Normal?” She lifted the puppy, rubbing noses. “Mom, you may not have noticed but we live in a zoo.”

“Normal doesn’t have to be boring.” She tossed a squeaky toy into the puppy pen.

The four pups pounced on the toy while Rapunzel licked Sierra’s nose.

“This family is at no risk of being called boring.” Sierra placed the puppy back in the pen, on top of the toy.

“So.” Lacey leaned back again, reaching for her drink. “Is he good?”

“What?” She couldn’t be hearing what she thought. She’d wanted relationship advice. Not sex advice.

“Mike,” Lacey clarified. “Is he good in bed?”

“Sheesh, Mom.” She looked around to make sure no one was listening. “Do you really expect me to answer that?”

“I wouldn’t have asked otherwise. I don’t need details, just curious.” She shrugged. “Chalk it up to my pathetic love life.”

Sierra’s heart squeezed with guilt. All her problems and grief were nothing compared to what her mother faced. And there was little she could do to make that better other than try to offer a lighter moment, a brief respite. “We were, uh, playing Scrabble.”

“Scrabble?” Her mother laughed. “I’ve never heard it called that before.”

She grinned sheepishly. “Really, really good Scrabble?”

“Ahhh, finally, you appease my curiosity.”

Sierra scratched a tiny patch of rust on the iron chair, a purple one, her favorite of the hodgepodge colors. “I thought mothers didn’t want to know these sorts of things.”

“I just want to be sure you’re being treated well. That you’re appreciated.” Something whimsical chased through Lacey’s green eyes.

Happy or sad?

Sierra brought her thoughts back to the question at hand, trying to figure out how to answer. “Sometimes I think he appreciates me too much.”

“And what is the problem with being placed on a pedestal?” Lacey picked up a magazine and fanned herself, the morning heating up past the power of the ceiling fans. “Clue me in. Because honestly, there are plenty of women who would appreciate a little more adoration from the man in her life.”

“I’m not sure Mike sees me, the person. He keeps seeing differences between our upbringings.” Barking in the distance reminded her the dogs needed feeding soon, kennels needed cleaning. This chance to talk uninterrupted was short. “It’s setting us both up for failure again, even bigger this time when he finally sees me as a regular person, flaws and all.”

“I’m still not understanding the problem here.”

“I’m being serious about this, Mom.” She clasped her mother’s wrist. She wanted—needed—her mom’s help in figuring this out. “He and I broke up before because he had this messed-up idea he couldn’t give me the rich life. Now he’s got a scorching case of survivor’s guilt on top of everything else.”

Her mom whistled softly, then downed the rest of her mimosa in one gulp. “Now that is problematic. What about you? How do you feel?”

The truth was scary and she wasn’t even sure she should say it. She chewed her lip before confessing, “I’m afraid of living your life.”

Lacey blinked slowly, exhaling hard as she slid both legs to the floor. “Well, hell, I didn’t see that coming.”

“I’m not trying to be mean, Mom.” Already she regretted sharing. She should have kept her mouth shut. “You’re an incredible person, and I admire all you manage here, keeping things together through Dad’s constant absenteeism. Then to go through all of that and have him die? I don’t know how you manage to keep your sanity.”

Laughing weakly, Lacey pressed a hand to her chest. “Who says I’m sane?”

Sierra leaned forward, clasped her mom’s hands in hers, tightly. “You are completely levelheaded and you know it. You’ve handled more than any one person should have to face, and I admire you for it.” Even if she made it through all the long separations, she couldn’t bear the thought of someday getting that knock on the door with the military notifying her that . . . She swallowed hard. “But honest to God, Mom, I don’t want my tombstone to read, ‘Here lies Sierra. She was
strong
.’”

Lacey sighed. “Sure you don’t want a mimosa after all?”

Maybe. Probably. But first, she needed to explain—hell, figure it out as she spoke. “Since dating Mike, I see you with different eyes. Military life for a wife is strange in ways I didn’t understand until I tried to envision myself in that role. You always made everything so normal for us, but I think that is because you were our normal.”

Tears welled up in Lacey’s eyes. Her hands trembled. Sierra half wished she could call the words back. Instead she slid from her chair and wrapped her mom in a tight hug. She couldn’t hold back her own tears, the sting and the emotion building. She heard her mother sniffle once before Lacey pulled back with a brittle strength.

Sierra didn’t bother to hide her tears. She just squeezed her mom’s hand, but couldn’t push any words past the knot in her throat.

Lacey laughed softly and squeezed back. “If I was normal, then heaven help you and Nathan both.”

Eleven

L
ACEY GRIPPED THE
steering wheel of her SUV, weaving in and out of Sunday lunchtime traffic on her way to the local Animal Control shelter to pull new additions to her rescue. Families filled the other cars. Young families. Multigenerational families. But it was seeing the senior couples that hurt the most. Each silver-haired man and woman reminded her of the future she’d lost.

After four months of grieving, she would have expected to shore up some defenses. But everything still made her think of Allen’s death. Today images of their life together bombarded her, from memories of their first time making love to the day they’d bought the house here with plans of living out their golden years in Tennessee.

Maybe she was just particularly raw after seeing her daughter’s face blushed with happiness and . . . well . . . the afterglow of good Scrabble.

Running on fumes after yesterday’s event and a sleepless night, she still hadn’t found her balance after her conversation with Sierra. She knew the military lifestyle growing up had left marks on her family. But she hadn’t realized how deeply until she heard her daughter explaining exactly why she’d broken up with Mike initially. Lacey hadn’t pried during the breakup, telling herself she was respecting her daughter’s privacy.

Or maybe she’d used that as an excuse to keep from facing how messed up her own relationship was. She and Allen had loved each other. He had a funny, laid-back approach that offset her frenetic way of barreling through life. At least, they used to balance each other out before they spent so much time apart, working or parenting, which left little time to be a couple. What time they did spend together? Their marriage was a series of reunions. She would clean the house, cook his favorite foods and dress up. He brought gifts from around the world. He made sure to show up for major events whenever possible in party mode—first communion, graduations, special concerts. But they hadn’t shared much in the way of day-to-day life, the routine chores and joys. They hadn’t shared burdens. Conversations over the phone couldn’t get too complicated or he would have a “bad connection.”

She was independent because she had to be.

And to be fair, it was easier to do things herself than to try and integrate the man that came home. If she pushed too hard, her funny, easygoing husband turned moody. So she let him keep those superficial walls in place. It was simpler than pushing through, even though she’d grown damn weary with holding down the home front alone. So as years went by, she chose the easier route in her marriage and hoped they’d have time to work things out. Now, she would never have the chance to change that, to see if she and Allen could have waded through their problems to find what they’d once dreamed of having as they grew old together.

Had she robbed them both? Had he? There was plenty of blame to go around. Plenty of hurt to share that no doubt spilled over onto the kids. And still, she couldn’t see a way they might have changed the choices they’d made. She was left with only this endless cycle of painful questions she would never be able to answer.

Nearing Animal Control’s shelter, Lacey slowed as she drove down the river road. A raised levee with a rock wall lined the waterside on the way to the gray cement building a half mile ahead. She’d lived here so long she’d carved a niche. She’d built a life for herself. Allen had vowed this would be his last deployment, and if orders came to move, he would put in his papers. He would get out. They would start the second phase of their life.

Now she would never know if they could have made that work. The ache of that loss piled high on top of so many others already large enough the pain rivaled the Smoky Mountains.

Lacey accelerated through a yellow light, desperate to get to the shelter where she could lose herself in something besides thinking about the past. The shelter director was personally coming in to meet with her. In spite of Saturday’s success for everyone, the county shelter was still packed to capacity. They were always full. And while Second Chance had adopted out more dogs than she’d expected, she remained stretched pretty thin these days.

Still, she didn’t have nearly as many animals in her care as the county facility. And if her operation was shuttered, dozens of animals would have nowhere else to go . . . She couldn’t give up. She had to win.