Danny looked from Chester, to Julie, and back to Chester. It hadn’t occurred to Danny not to go home, but now that the option had been presented, the thought of spending more time in that house felt just as confining as his brother’s coffin had looked. “I’d love a drink, man. Jules, what do you say?”
Her small smile felt like sun he hadn’t seen in months. “I say let’s go for drinks, but we need to call your dad first. I don’t want him to worry.”
“Ahh, I got one of those mobile phone things in my truck,” Chester gloated. “Feel all James Bond-ish. Call your pop, and we’ll catch up. You look like you could use a talkin’ to, and you know I can only give advice in my office.”
“Your office?” Julie’s brows arched.
“Yeah, Julie girl, my office…you know, my bar. But since we’re a long ways from there, any bar will do. Just need a couple a drinks, and our boy won’t know the difference.”
The heavy laugh that left Danny’s chest felt foreign, but something told him that a few hours with Julie and Chester was just what he needed to feel more like himself. At Chester’s car, Danny called his dad and explained the situation. His father sounded a bit relieved and even told him to take his time.
“Follow us,” Danny told Chester after he hung up. “There’s a bar a few miles from here in the hotel.”
Safely tucked in the Ranger with the engine idling and the heat blowing, Danny looked at his wife. “Honey, you called Chester.”
The statement sounded simple, but he was so incredibly touched by her actions. Over the past few days—he’d lost count of how many—he’d been a wasteland, a void. And while Julie was grieving with him, sharing in his pain and feeling her own loss, she’d still managed to pack his suit before they’d left Baltimore, organize the funeral, keep him fed, and contact someone who was extremely important to them both.
“Yes, Danny, I did. He’s family.”
Danny let the word roll around in his head. He’d been lucky to have his own family, but with his mother and both of his brothers gone and a wife he loved more than life, the word family was taking on new shapes…new boundaries.
As if she could read his thoughts, her cool palm cupped his chin, keeping their eyes connected. “Family doesn’t always have to come with blood. It only has to come with love.” She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.
For the first time since receiving his father’s phone call, he felt her kiss. Christ, it felt good. More, he needed more.
Honk! A horn blared behind them. Chester’s Jeep rolled up to their side, and he motioned for Danny to slide down his window. “Boy, not that I mind seein’ you love on your woman, but I’d appreciate it more with my ass on a stool and a drink in my hand. So drive.”
###
“IS IT POSSIBLE to still be hung-over?” Danny asked after swallowing two pain relievers and a large gulp of water.
“Anything’s possible with the way you and Chester drank the other night.” Julie rubbed his thigh with her right hand while keeping her left on the steering wheel.
It had been two days since Neal’s funeral, and while the pain was razor sharp, Danny preferred it to the numbness he’d suffered before he laid his brother to rest. He welcomed the agony over the paralysis he’d felt in the years that followed Jeff’s death. He could deal with hurting because it would lessen over time. He’d been through it, as had his wife. It was she who’d pulled him through to the other side the first time. He had been stuck in a revolving door of mourning, unable to get out of the cycle, and she somehow jammed the motor long enough for him to leave safely. She saved him then, and she saved him now.
When they’d gotten to the bar after the funeral, Chester opened a tab, ordered tequila shots and a couple pitchers of beer, and told the waitress to “keep the drinks coming till the pretty boy either passes out or pukes.” While most of the conversation from that night had been coming back in dribs and drabs over the past forty-eight hours (due to the puking and passing out), there was one part Danny remembered quite clearly. It was something Chester had told Danny the night Danny got discharged from the army, something that had floated around in his subconscious for years but came to the surface only while sitting face-to-face with his old friend after placing his baby brother in the ground. Julie had gone to the hotel’s front desk to book a room for Chester, seeing as the man had matched Danny drink for drink, shot for shot.
“Hey man,” Danny slurred, “you remember what you said to me on my last night in uniform?” Danny remembered, even through his drunken vision, how incredibly sober Chester had looked in that moment.
“Yeah, boy, I do. Why?”
Danny nodded. “You asked why I was running from one thrill mission straight to another if I’d found my woman and my peace.” Danny rubbed his eyes, trying to wipe away the alcohol-induced cloudy vision. “I was always supposed to be a fire fighter, Chester. It’s in the Marcus blood, like loyalty, but when Jeff died, that loyalty split. I needed to fight for him, avenge him, become who he was so he was never forgotten. But after four years, I hadn’t brought him back and I hadn’t become him. I only lost parts of me. So I figured it was time to go back to my original plan, be the Marcus man I always dreamed I’d be. ‘Cept I met her… my Julie. You told me that every time I took a call, I’d take her with me, but it’s more than that, man. She’s in every breath I take. Not sure it’s fucking normal, so I’ve tried to ignore it. Tried to shove it down. But once again, feel like I’m doing a job tailored for someone else. Then Neal’s accident…he lost his life. Lost his goddamn life. Hell, I’m thinking I need to stop tempting fate.”
“What are you saying, Dan?” Chester’s brow arched as he filled their glasses with beer.
“I’m saying I know I can walk outside and get hit by a bus tomorrow. Can have a weird accident and die. But I’d rather take those chances than continue doing a job that feels more like a familial obligation than a labor of love. Not when I’m putting her happiness on the line every single day.”
It may have been the ridiculous amount of tequila running through Danny’s blood, but he swore Chester’s eyes softened. “Congratulations, son. Now you’ve found your peace.”
The rest of the night disappeared down the toilet and into a black haze. According to Julie, the waitress had more than earned the generous tip she received. Chester phoned in his good-bye from his mobile early the next morning while on his way home to Laurel.
Now Julie was driving them home, and Danny watched her command his truck. Without alcohol fogging up his brain, he knew it was the right time to discuss their future. “I’m gonna quit the station, Jules.”
Surprise worked its way over his wife’s face. “Babe…” Julie sighed as she flipped on the turn signal and pulled over to the side of the quiet road. “Sweetie”—her clear gray eyes searched his—“this isn’t a decision you should be making right now.”
“It’s not,” Danny admitted. “You know I haven’t been in love with my job since…well, almost the start. I told you I’d be okay. I promised you the gear was state of the art, and it is. But Neal still died. Can you honestly tell me that you won’t panic every single time I go to work now, knowing there’s a chance I won’t come home?”
Julie cocked her head, utter confusion on her face as well as in her tone. “Dan, are you kidding me? I get sick to my stomach every time you leave for work. I vomited for the first few months after you left our house.”
What the hell? How had he never known? Why had she never told him? “Julie, you never told me any of that. Why?”
“Because it wasn’t your cross to bear. You run into burning buildings, and your goal is to get in and get out as fast as humanly possible while saving lives and containing the fire. The very last thing you need is having my fears on your back. So I do what all of the other spouses do—I cry with fear when you leave and with joy when you come home.”