Secrets of War: A Military Romance (7 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

I
t’d been three weeks since Suzy had worked to save a child’s life, and been injured herself, exposing her secret. The cut to her hand was so severe, she’d needed ten stiches.

She hadn’t heard from Jamie, one of the soldiers at the VA had told her he was out of town for a few weeks. To his credit, he’d come to the hospital the night of the incident and waited in the waiting room until someone said she would be okay.

Suzy was broken hearted to know a man she’d once held so dear, could be so closed minded that he couldn’t be friends with someone with HIV. However, she would be lying if she said she was surprised.

This day and age HIV and AIDS in society was as bad as being gay or transgender. Most people knew little about it and almost all people treated those with it like they were a danger to everyone in society and they deserved to die.

She was doing the inventory in the back of the shop, when she heard his voice behind her.

“Did you miss me?” he joked.

Whipping around, Suzy almost knocked the rack over she was hanging clothes on. “JAMIE! I—what? No, what are you doing here?” she finally asked.

“I came to talk to you,” he said leaning against the door.

“Oh…” she replied going back to what she was doing. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Well, I came to see if you would let me take you to dinner this evening? I have something I need to talk to you about.”

“I—why can’t you tell me n-now?” she stammered. Suzy didn’t know why she was so nervous with Jamie. She’d never known him to be a mean, spiteful person. But HIV and AIDS brought out the worst in people.

“Because it could take a while and I really would like to spend some time with you,” he explained.

* * * *

Suzy looked so beautiful. Her curves so enticing. She’d become a sexy woman, after all these years. She wouldn’t look at him and Jamie could tell she was afraid of what he might say and how he would treat her. The thought of Suzy being afraid of him was heartbreaking.

“I don’t think that is a good idea. If you can’t tell me what you want me to know now. Then, I guess I don’t need to hear it,” she retorted.

“Suzy,” he said softly keeping his distance from her, so she didn’t feel too uncomfortable. “I would never hurt you. I hope you know that. Knowing your status doesn’t change that. I’m sure you’ve had some ugly responses to this disease, but I would never, ever be cruel to you. Please will you come to dinner with me?” He’d moved closer to her as he was talking. Then she’d stopped moving, he could see her heart beating in the vein in her neck. Tucking a tendril of her hair that had come loose from her fishtail braid behind her ear, he tipped her chin up to make her look him in the eye. “Baby please” he whispered.

It had always done something to her when he called her baby. She nodded turning away from him.

Smiling, Jamie walked closer to her again, placing a sweet and endearing kiss on the top of her head then on her cheek. “I will pick you up at your house and eight o’clock. Okay?”

“Mmm….hmm,” she replied nodding.

* * * *

Jamie had never been stood up in his life, even with the missing leg. He had the ability to make women weak in the knees. Apparently not Suzy. He should have known something was funny when she called him earlier that day to say she would meet him at the restaurant, instead of him picking her up. Because she had a therapy session later.

He’d sat at that damn restaurant eating breadsticks for two hours before his waiter offered to comp his meal if he would eat and leave. Angrier than he’d ever been before, he’d headed straight to Suzy’s house to have it out with her.

He burned rubber up to her house parking partially on the curb. He took the steps two at a time and was banging on her front door. He didn’t realize how mad he was until he felt the glass in the door rattle.

“Boy! Who set your cute behind afire?” Geri asked opening the door.

“I’m sorry Momma Geri! Is Suzy here?” he asked walking past her into the house.

“Yeah sugar, she’s here….” Geri was saying when Jade and Suzy came down the stairs.

“What is going on?” Jade asked.

“You could have at least given me the courtesy of calling to say you weren’t coming!” Jamie yelled at Suzy ignoring Jade’s question.

Suzy went around Jade, taking the last few stairs to go and stand eye to eye with Jamie. Although he was a good eight inches taller than her, Suzy acted like a giant when she was frustrated. “I told you, I didn’t want to do it in the first place,” she mumbled.

“THEN WHY DID YOU CALL ME AND TELL ME YOU WOULD MEET ME THERE?” he yelled at her.

“HEY! DON’T YOU YELL AT HER!” Jade shouted coming further down the stairs. “Is everyone in this fucking town crazy?”

“Jade, settle down, it’s okay,” Suzy said wrapping one arm around her sister.

“Excuse me?” Jamie asked a little confused.

“Suzy had a visit from your mother at the store today. She came with that Henderson’s boy’s grandmother. It seems his family has a bee in their bonnet about my girl saving their boys life, and your bitter constipated mother seems to be more than ready to join the ax wielding villagers, in roasting my baby at the stake,” Geri told Jamie.

“She should have just let the little redneck die,” Jade mumbled.

“JADE ALLINIA!” Geri exclaimed swatting her youngest granddaughter on the behind. “Don’t you ever let me hear you say something like that! All life is precious! Even that old battle ax, Sally Merrik.”

Jamie and Suzy stared at each other while Jade and Geri went on about their anger at the way Suzy had been treated today and almost every day since she’d done what was ingrained in her to do. Help.

“Guys, can we have a moment alone?” Suzy finally said.

“Are you sure?” Geri asked

“Yeah. I don’t think you should be talking to him. Especially, if it means his mother is going to be harassing you because of it,” Jade added, being a typical teenager her moods swung like the wind blew but she loved her sister and grandmother and was very protective of them. Since she’d lost her mother at an early age it wasn’t surprising. But there were times with her being a teenager and protective when it didn’t mesh well with decorum.

“Yes! I’m fine. I only need five minutes, I will be back up and we can finish the movie,” Suzy said smiling sadly.

“Okay,” Jade scrutinized Jamie from head to toe. “If I hear one raised voice I’m coming back down here, and believe me. My sister is a panda bear compared to me when I’m angry. So be nice!”

Jamie simply glared, as his mood was still volatile.

Geri turned to him as Jade stomped her way up the steps. “Believe me son. That one is a wild cat.” She turned away, returning to her room.

They stood in the grand foyer for a while both at a loss for words.

* * * * *

Suzy never meant to hurt him, or even waste his time. She’d been on her way out the door to go home to change and meet him at the restaurant when Sally and Sarah had walked in.

“On your way out?” Sally had asked with her usual superior tone. “I thought you might want to look the woman whose grandson you have given a death sentence in the eye.”

“Hello, Sally,” she’d said hoping to make the exchange quick. “I’m on my way out. But I’m sure one of the associates can help you.”

“Are you serious?” Sarah had asked blocking her from leaving. “Who do you think you are?”

“I’m sorry? Do we know each other?” Suzy asked confused.

“You put your infected hands into my grandson, and now he is at risk of having a disease that could kill him. If you were going to be a diseased whore, you should have stayed in California,” Sarah Mae spat.

Sarah Mae Henderson was the typical down home southern woman. She only wore dresses that were the appropriate length with the appropriate amount of cleavage showing. Her hair was always in an appointed little bun. She’d been a virgin when she and her high school sweetheart had gotten married, well at least that was the story but their first child had been born five months after they’d wed and that math didn’t add up. She never raised her voice, she was at church every single Sunday and taught Sunday school. She never, ever swore and when she did, she clutched her pearls like she was doing today.

“EXCUSE ME!” Suzy replied angrily. “I helped your grandson! If I hadn’t acted, he would have died there in that machine.”

“Like mother like daughter,” Sally replied smirking at all the drama, she was creating.

Sick and tired of that smug look on her face Suzy did something she never did. She went as low as the people that were confronting her. “Look Sally, it’s not my fault you know your husband will never be married to the woman he really wanted. That happened long before me. But if you’d stop being such a bitch, now that my mother is dead you may have a chance of him liking you before you die.”

“YOU BITCH!” Sally had yelled slapping Suzy across the face.

Suzy recoiled placing her hand over her burning cheek where she’d just been slapped with an enormous diamond ring. She’d hit her so fast and so hard she’d even surprised Sarah. Who’d backed away with a look of shock and like she was in way over hear head, trying to be the sidekick of the devil herself.

“GET THE HELL OUT OF MY STORE BEFORE I CALL THE SHERIFF!” Suzy yelled.

“Oh, don’t you talk to me like that! This is my town, you piece of trash! I’m going to make sure to get rid of you and your family if it’s the last thing I do. This time, I will make sure it sticks!”

As they’d turned to leave, Sarah had given Suzy one last blow, “If my grandson has….has that…disgusting disease. I promise you, I will take everything you own and then some.”

It had taken all she could muster not to fall on her knees into the fetal position and cry until her body was completely dry of fluid. She didn’t, she’d left and went home.

In her mind, that slap and threat was the nail in the coffin of there ever being a relationship between her and Jamie.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“I
’m sorry about the way I acted just now,” Jamie finally spoke. “I’m sorry about my mom…did she do that to your face?” he asked about the small cut on her cheekbone the anger in him bubbling higher and higher almost about to over flow.

“It’s—it’s fine. I’m sure I’ll be fine tomorrow,” Suzy whispered waving him off. “Look, I’m sorry. I should have called to tell you I wasn’t coming. I’m a big enough woman to admit, I was angry.”

“Hey, who could blame you, right?” Jamie felt so bad about what had been done to her because of him.

“Yeah, listen Jamie. I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to see each other anymore. I mean, it seems things are about to get real hairy around here for me now, and I wouldn’t want any of that blowback to hit you. Besides, it’s not like we can have a normal relationship anyway—”

“Wait…wait…stop, just stop this,” Jamie said cutting her off. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her into the parlor, closing the sliding wooden door behind him, in an attempt to get a little privacy. He felt sure her security team was standing at the top of the steps listening to everything they said.

Turning toward her, he tried to read her body language and the story it was telling wasn’t good. “Listen, before you banish me to regular town folk, that you avoid like the plague can I tell you what I wanted to tell you at dinner tonight?”

“What’s the point?” she asked. “I’m pretty sure I already know what you were going to say. And being that I heard it from your mother today already, I don’t necessarily need to hear it from you. We have a past, and now we both know that is all it will ever be, the past.” She was pacing in front of her fireplace looking at the photos on the mantle as if they weren’t pictures she’d seen over and over again.

Jamie knew she was avoiding looking at him, so he couldn’t see the hurt and disillusionment in her eyes. Walking over to her, he grabbed her shoulders to stop her from pacing and force her to look at him. “I was going to say, that the HIV doesn’t matter, that I still want you. That I left town because when I heard you say those words it was like my world was tumbling down around me. But it also made me want to go and see some of the guys that were in my platoon. Talk to them tell them what a bad leader I’d been and finally share the secret that I’d been keeping from them for years. I was gonna beg you to give me another chance. To have faith in us and believe in me, and now that I know you’ve had a couple run in’s with my mother, I promise you, I’m going to have my mother committed to an insane asylum if she keeps bothering you.”

Suzy couldn’t help but laugh. The one thing Jamie had always been able to do…Make her laugh. “You may want to do that regardless, for the sake of the general public.”

“HA! Good one!” He grinned. “There’s my girl.”

* * * *

Hearing him say those words brought Suzy racing back to the reality that she could never be his girl, or anyone’s for that matter. “Jamie, I appreciate everything you just said. But I can’t, I just can’t. WE aren’t meant to be. I’m not meant to be anyone’s forever. HIV isn’t the flu, it can take your life. I already have on little boy haunting my dreams. I don’t need you doing that.” She walked over and sat in a wing backed chair in the corner.

“That’s not the Suzy I know, talking!” he said sitting on the coffee table across from her. “There are tons of advances in treatments for HIV these days. Hell, look at that Magic Johnson guy. He’s going to outlive all of us. Why are you giving up on having a happy life?” he asked.

“Because I can’t have the life I wanted!” she yelled standing up pacing the floor again. “I trusted the wrong man, gave him everything I was and what did he give me back? HIV and a missing sixty thousand dollars in my bank account! I’m not that woman anymore, Jamie. I’m not optimistic about life, I’m living in reality. You are the father of a beautiful little boy. You deserve to father dozens more. That can’t happen with me! This—this is my reality,” she said clearing her throat to keep the tears from flowing. “All you can do for me is leave me alone and stop trying to sell me hope.”

Jamie stepped toward her. “Suzy I—”

“DON’T!” She put her hand up to stop him from advancing. “Please don’t! Jamie, I’m begging you, please, just go on and have a happy life. I’m glad I could help you have a breakthrough but please, just GO!”

* * * *

Jamie hadn’t felt this desperate since he’d lost her last time. He wanted to grab her and carry her up those stairs, hold her and kiss her until she realized the only thing that would ever make either of them happy was each other.

But she’d shut down, pushing him away.

“Suz—” he started.

“I think she already said what she has to say,” Jade interjected from the doorway.

He hadn’t heard her come into the room.

“I can show you to the door.”

Suzy turned her back to him indicating she was done with the conversation and him.

“I will go,” he said his voice cracking. “I’m always here for you Suzy. No matter what.”

* * * *

“I would rather be anywhere else in the world than in the airport on my way to Los Angeles,” Suzy told her grandmother over the phone. “But I've really got no choice. I can't see a doctor in town and be sure that my status and medical information will not somehow, be released to the locals. I haven’t been feeling well at all these last couple weeks; continuing to pretend that everything is well at home or at least will get well soon, isn’t working.”

“I know sweetie. I just hate that you have to go back for help to the place that broke your heart and physical health,” her grandmother said. “The most aggravating thing about this whole arrangement is that boy…thanks to you get’s to keep his arms and is doing a lot better. You on the other hand, have been sick since that day. The so called doctors at the hospital did a terrible job on your hand. You’ve had two infections in your incision. Now you have to fly all the way to California! But the people of this town are still doing their best to make things miserable for you.”

Geri was mad as a bee in a hornet’s nest. Things had been bad for Suzy lately; it wasn’t everyone in town. It was the few prominent people that Sally could get worked up into a frenzy and the family of the boy she’d helped doing all they could to scare them out of town.

The only one Suzy was worried about was Rich Henderson, he’d flattened her tires, busted her taillights and spray painted
whore
on her car. He’d tried to get the hospital to fire her but when they told her she didn’t see patients in the capacity for them to fire her, he’d thrown a Molotov cocktail into her office window at the baby store. The fire department had luckily been able to but the fire out before any severe damage was done. Rich was running around making threats to her life making Suzy worried over her grandmother and sister’s safety. The Sheriff had told her not to worry when she’d gone to see him the day before to ask him to look out for her mother and sister while she was gone.

“Jamie came by the shop again today,” Geri was saying.

“Granny… please stop!” she said in frustration trying to find her gate. Ever since DJ had given her AIDS, she made a vow that she would never allow a guy into her heart so much that he could hurt her as much as DJ did. What she didn’t want to face was Jamie had never left her heart.

“All I’m saying is you need to talk to him. He cares for you, baby girl. He made a mistake. I think you should go and see him when you get home, talk to him. Be open to love baby girl,” her grandmother advised. “All I want for you is what your Papi and I had.”

“Granny, I don't have to see him when I get home. My time will be taken up with caring for my other therapy patients and getting the store back on its feet.”

Luckily for Suzy, they called for people in first class to board her flight. She wouldn’t have to continue this conversation with her grandmother. Not now anyway.

“Granny I have to go. They are calling for me to board. I will call you when I land. My flight to come home is three hours after my appointment. So I will be really late getting in. You don’t have to wait up for me. I love you,” she told her grandmother before quickly hanging up the phone.

* * * *

“I think your sister just hung up on me,” Geri told Jade.

“I’m sure she did. Granny, why would you want her to be with him? He is obviously just like his mother. She’s the reason I got kicked off the cheerleading team and the debut team. The people in this town are awful!”

“Jade baby, I know you’re angry and frustrated and I can’t say that I blame you. But you are doing the same thing they’re doing, you are judging an entire town based on the actions of a few. Baby, your sister loves Jamie and he loves her, don’t you want her to have happiness in this life? Don’t you want there to be someone who will take care of her for a change? That will be Jamie.”

“How can you say that?” Jade asked leaning against the kitchen sink with her arms crossed. “His mother runs around this town like an old hate filled tornado supposedly to protect him; and he never stops her.”

“I think my loving girl, that you will be surprised by him. I think very soon; Jamie is going to shock a lot of people in this town and in his own family.”