“Hey, guys, how you doing?” He shook hands with Brian and Tyler, two farm laborers he knew through Trey, the party’s host. Following the direction of their stares he added, “This is my wife, Tara.”
“Very nice to meet you, ma’am,” Brian said, emphasizing the first word.
“I guess my wedding invitation was lost in the mail.” Tyler arched an inquisitive brow. Brian never took his eyes off Tara.
“It was a real small ceremony,” she explained, smiling graciously. Chance watched Brian’s gaze wander to her lips, then her breasts, and he released her shoulders to take her by the hand.
“We’ve got a lot of people for Tara to meet, so I’ll catch y’all later.” He tugged her toward the row of cooler-laden card tables serving as a makeshift bar, stepping up the pace when he heard Brian’s hollered farewell.
“They seemed nice,” she offered. He pulled a bottle of beer from one of the ice-filled coolers, slammed it against the edge of the table to send the cap flying and drained half of it in one long gulp.
He lowered the bottle to find her frowning up at him. “Everything okay?”
Like hell it is. Didn’t you see the way that scumbag was eyeing you up? “Fine. Thirsty?”
“Yeah, do you see any—?”
“Hey, McKinley, what’s this crap I hear about you getting hitched to—oh, hi there.” Trey Smith stopped short in his approach, pressing his beer can to his lips like it might seal in any further embarrassing outbursts.
“Tara, meet Trey Smith, the owner of this godforsaken piece of scrub. Trey, this is Tara.”
She shook his hand with a warm smile. “Great party, thanks for inviting us.”
Trey nodded, looking unsure. “My pleasure. And you are—”
“My wife.”
“We got married in December,” she added. “I stayed in Kansas City while he was in Afghanistan, then it took us a little while to coordinate for me to come out here.”
“Cool,” Trey replied, blatantly unconvinced. “So did I tell you I finally found vintage side moldings for the Impala? I need to hammer a few dings out of them, otherwise they’re perfect.”
They talked cars for a few minutes until Tara excused herself to get a drink, batting away Chance’s apology as she insisted she didn’t want to interrupt their conversation. He watched her walk back to the card tables stacked with booze, admiring the swing of her hips, her unexpectedly easy manner with his friends, and her needless effort to fancy up her down-home accent. Too bad these hayseeds wouldn’t know Boston from the bayou.
“So?” He turned to find Trey’s eyes wide and full of irritation. “You’re married?”
“Sure am.”
“And what, you thought you’d just stroll on in here having mysteriously acquired a wife since I saw you last week without any details?”
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
“Come on, you’ve gotta give me something. Who is she? How’d you meet? Why on earth did you decide to marry her?”
His shoulders stiffened. “Why wouldn’t I? She’s a beautiful girl.”
“She surely is.” Trey held up a placatory palm. “And I know you like to do things spur of the moment, but—”
“But you think this is like that time I got drunk and decided to collect up all the traffic cones I could find and hold them hostage until the city paid a ransom for their return.”
“More like that time you bet Brian fifty dollars you could jump off the roof of Rock’s and land without breaking your leg.”
“Which I did. Anyway, I was drunk then too.”
“Are you telling me you walked down the aisle stone-cold sober?”
“Not exactly,” Chance admitted. “But this is different. I’m serious about this. I’m serious about her.”
Trey tugged the zipper on his jacket a little higher, then looked at the ground as he spoke. “Is this about Afghanistan? I didn’t want to say anything, but I couldn’t believe it when you said you were going back. After all that shit that happened last time, all those guys that didn’t come back—hell, we all read the obituaries in the paper, McKinley. Echo Company barely staggered back in one piece and then you put up your hand to return. I don’t want to offend you, bro, but it just seems—”
“Crazy?”
“Reckless,” Trey corrected.
Over Trey’s shoulder Chance saw Tara move up to a group of people standing by the bonfire, their handshakes and introductory gestures silhouetted against the flames.
Chance let his eyes defocus as he squinted into that roiling red heat, logs cracking and shifting at its core, unearthly wisps of smoke escaping from its tips and disappearing into the night air. He’d always loved fire, from the ace-of-spades-engraved lighter he’d stolen from one of his mother’s boyfriends to the throbbing glow of a city lit up by heavy artillery.
The army’s psych geeks would probably have a field day if he ever mentioned that, writing phrases like latent pyromaniac and combat addiction in what he imagined was already a thick personnel file. But it wasn’t the destructive power of fire that attracted him, it was its wildness, its freedom, and the unquenchable thirst with which it consumed everything in its path until it burned itself out.
“It’s hard to explain,” he said finally, returning his attention to Trey. “I’m a soldier, and I knew exactly what that meant when I signed my first contract. I’m not going back to Afghanistan because I’m suicidal, or I can’t function in civilian society, or any of that Hollywood crap. I’m going because it’s my job.”
Trey frowned, shoved his hands in his pockets, studied the dry grass beneath his feet. Chance glanced back to the fire.
How many times had he seen that look on someone’s face? That frustrated, searching attempt to make sense of choices that to him seemed perfectly reasonable. When he was late to pick up his prom date because he couldn’t resist gunning his car down the abandoned airfield near her house, when he eagerly rolled up his sleeve to show his sisters his new tattoo of the combat medic insignia beneath the words cry havoc, when he insisted to his commanding officer that he was ready to accompany the departing patrol unit despite having just returned from the heavy fighting that befell its predecessor. It seemed his only access to self-doubt was through the disapproving expressions of other people, by which point it was usually too late anyway.
Tara was the exception. Sure, she rolled her eyes and arched her brows and scowled at him plenty, but that’s because she was a tough, shrewd woman who was making him re-earn her trust. He respected that, expected it. Sure, she hadn’t been thrilled at the news he was deploying again so soon, but she was still here—she hadn’t left him. He’d seen her annoyance and exasperation, but never felt her incredulity or concern about who he was and what he wanted to do.
Then again, maybe she just hadn’t had the chance yet. Maybe it was only a matter of time until she was giving him that look too.
