Breaking point, p.7
Breaking Point, page 7
“You sound like you have it all planned out,” John said.
Hope laid her sandwich on her plate. “We will succeed. First, my mother, and then I will. McCallicks are strong women. We won’t settle for less.” She tipped her head toward the trailer. “This is temporary. Eventually, we’ll purchase our own home and have a pantry and refrigerator full of food.”
John nodded. “You don’t have to convince me. I believe you one hundred percent.”
For a moment her eyes narrowed. “Good. Then you’ll understand when I say this… Don’t derail my mother. She’s had a hard enough life without having a man jerk her around.”
He held up his hand. “I have no intention of jerking your mother around. She deserves better.”
“Damn right, she does.” Hope picked up her sandwich and hesitated before taking another bite. “You might remember that before you kiss her again.”
John wanted to bust out laughing but, based on the cant of Hope’s eyebrows and the firm set of her jaw, she wouldn’t think she’d said anything funny. “You saw that, I guess?”
She nodded and took a small bite, chewed and swallowed. “I did. I would’ve broken it up if she hadn’t been the one to initiate it. I didn’t see you setting her straight.”
No, he hadn’t. In fact, that had been the point at which he’d lost the control he’d been holding onto by a thread. “I admit,” he said, “I find your mother attractive.”
“I understand adults have physical needs,” she said.
John had been in the process of taking a drink of the root beer when Hope spoke. He nearly spewed liquid all over himself and the table.
Hope’s mouth quirked in half a smile. “I’m young, not stupid. My mother hasn’t been on a date since…well, I’ve never known her to go on a date. She might be vulnerable and out of practice.”
He cleared the root beer out of his throat and asked, “Out of what practice?”
“You know,” she said. “Flirting, kissing and making out. Obviously, she’s not a virgin, so please, if you have…relations, be well-prepared. I hear that I was the product of a faulty prophylaxis. Keep in mind that my mother is still young enough to bear children. She needs to get through nursing school before she has any more kids.”
Again, he wanted to laugh at the absurdity of a grown man like himself taking advice from a girl not much more than a child. However, he knew that if he did, he’d lose all credibility with Hope. Instead, he nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. Your mother has already told me she’s on a mission to get through her coursework and doesn’t have time for…relations.”
Hope’s lips twitched. “Sometimes, things happen that aren’t in your plan. You have to be ready and flexible enough to flow with it and still meet your goals.”
John sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Are you sixteen or sixty?”
Her eyes widened. “Sixteen.”
“You have the wisdom of a sixty-year-old.”
“I’m a bit of a control freak. I like to plan and follow my plan. Wild cards make me nervous.” She met his gaze with a steady one of her own. “Mr. Sanders, as useful as you’ve been, you are a wild card.”
“So, I make you nervous?” He gave her a gentle smile. “I don’t mean to make you nervous.”
“Not so much for me, but for my mother. She needs to get her nursing certification so she can help others and help herself to a better life. Until then, she doesn’t need a man in her life.”
“What if she married and the man provided for her.”
Hope snorted. “A woman should always be able to provide for herself. If the relationship doesn’t last, for whatever reason, she needs to be able to provide for herself and any children that might come along.”
“Sounds like she’s trained you well.”
“Not at all. I learn from example. My biological father didn’t help her one bit. In fact, he ignored the fact I existed altogether.” She lifted her chin. “I’m glad because he’s low life, bottom-dwelling pond scum.”
This time John did laugh. “Don’t hold back, Hope. Tell me how you really feel.”
Her frown turned into a grin. “I get fired up when I think about what my mother went through when she had me. Her own parents turned her out of their home, and my sperm donor did nothing to help.”
“Not all men are like him,” John pointed out.
“I hope not,” she said, not sounding totally convinced. “Well, at least Ryan isn’t like him, and I hope you’re not like him either.” She pinned him with her stare. “Are you? Do you plan on being a hit and run kind of guy to my mother?”
John drew in a breath and thought hard about his answer. “I’ve only just met her. I don’t know what, if anything, will develop. My job takes me away more days out of the year than I’m home. I have four more years until I can retire.”
“So, what you’re saying is you don’t plan on sticking around.” She laid her sandwich on her plate. “Relationships are hard. It’s easier to avoid them than to work on them.” The shadows in her green eyes, so much like her mother’s, spoke of a deep sadness that had no business in a teenager’s life.
John wanted to pull the girl into his arms and hug that look away. At the same time, he could tell she wouldn’t want his pity. “It’s not that I don’t want a relationship; it’s that I’m not good relationship material. At least, not now. It wouldn’t be fair to the one I left behind for months on end.”
“Is it fair for you to make that decision? Have you given love a chance? What if the person you loved loves you so much that she’d be waiting for you to return?” Hope’s chin rose, and she stared at him down the length of her nose.
John looked away. “I thought I was in love once. I deployed. She was gone before I got back.” With the little girl he’d grown to love as his own. “I can’t do that again.”
For a moment Hope stared across the table at him. She reached out to touch his hand. “It hurt, didn’t it?”
He stared at the girl’s hand on his. Mandy would be about her age by now. “Yes. It hurt,” he said softly.
“But don’t you see? Avoiding love is the coward’s way of avoiding pain.”
He pulled his hand from beneath hers. “Like your mother, I have to compartmentalize emotion in order to get through some days alive. I can’t deploy into enemy territory thinking about the woman I left behind. I have to focus completely on my mission, without the worry of coming home to an empty house, stripped of all the furnishings and everything I ever owned.”
“And my mother can’t lose her focus on her studies, or she won’t achieve the goal she’s always wanted to attain. She has the added burden of making sure I’m fed, clothed and loved. She doesn’t have time for anything else.”
“I’m confused,” John said. “On the one hand, you’re telling me to bring protection, and on the other, you’re telling me to stay away from your mother so she doesn’t lose focus on her goal. Which one do you want?”
Hope sighed. “I don’t know. I just know my mother hasn’t looked this alive in years. And she blushed this morning. I’ve never seen her blush. If she needs male companionship, so be it. As long as he understands what’s at stake, and she doesn’t get stupid in love and throw everything away she’s worked so hard for.”
“I’m still not sure what you want me to do.”
Hope’s lips pressed together. “You’re already doing it. You’re relieving some of her burden by being here for me. It allows her to worry a little less. You also breathed new life into her. If that’s what your kisses do for her…maybe it’s what she needs. A reminder that she’s still a beautiful woman.”
“Oh, she is very beautiful.”
“She doesn’t think so. My mother only sees herself as my mother. She’s got a huge heart and deserves to be loved for herself.” Hope leaned toward John. “Just don’t break it.” With that, she leaped to her feet. “I have to do my homework now.” Hope grabbed her sandwich and the root beer and turned. “Thanks for the sandwich and the chat,” she shot over her shoulder as she walked away.
And like the whirlwind she was proving to be, Hope was gone.
For a long time, John sat in his chair, staring at the empty one across from him, feeling the teenager’s presence even though she wasn’t there.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered. The girl had put him in his place and, at the same time, had left him wondering what he should do. John prided himself in knowing exactly what he should do in any situation. Until he’d met Collette.
Kissing her had probably been the worst thing he could’ve done to muddy the waters. Now that he’d tasted her lips, he was like a man on drugs, craving and desperate for more. With her daughter warning him not to get her pregnant and telling him that she needed to remain focused, he wasn’t sure if he should be coming or going.
His cellphone rang in his pocket. He dug it out and saw the call was from Rucker. “Tank here,” he answered.
“Don’t forget, we’re meeting at seven o’clock. Your ass better be there.” The call ended.
John had his marching orders. Even if he didn’t want to, he was headed for the Salty Dog Saloon anyway. Collette would be there, and he wanted…no…needed to see her in spite of, or maybe because of, all her daughter had shared and warned him about.
Chapter 6
Collette worked the busy after-work shift, confident in the knowledge her daughter had made it home safely, thanks to the watchful eye of her new neighbor, John.
She smiled as she took orders, cleared tables and served more drinks.
“Hey, Collette, when are you going to marry me?” a slightly inebriated customer yelled out loud.
“Never in a million years,” she responded, setting his mug of beer in front of him. “Besides, you’re married.”
“We could move to Utah,” he said. “They allow a man to have more than one wife there, don’t they?” He settled a hand on her ass.
Collette slammed the tray she’d been carrying onto the table, grabbed Joe’s hand and bent his thumb back until the grown man squealed like a little girl.
“Why do you have to be so mean to me?” Joe cried. “I asked you to marry me, not have my children.”
She waved her free hand over her torso. “This is my body. You have no right to touch it in any way whatsoever. Got it?”
He winced, sweat breaking out on his forehead in his effort to keep from yelling out loud. “I got it. Just let go before you break my thumb.”
Bending it back just a little more, she stared into his eyes. “Touch me again, and I’ll break your thumb.”
“I won’t touch you,” Joe said. “Promise.”
Collette stared at him through narrowed eyes. “You’d better not. If you do, I’ll break it…slowly.” Then she let go of his hand, brushed her hands over her shirt and skirt, lifted the tray full of empty containers to her shoulder and sailed across the room.
She was tired of men thinking they could touch her any time they wanted. If Sarge got mad at her for roughing up a customer, then so be it.
As she neared the counter, Red, the pretty strawberry-blonde bartender clapped. “Way to go. I’ve been wanting to put Joe in his place for ages. And here you are, doing it for me. Bravo, Collette.” Red turned to Sarge as he pushed through the door to the kitchen.
“What are we celebrating?” he asked. “The fact you have all the tables loaded with drinks and everyone served?”
Red snorted. “Oh, hell no. We’re celebrating the fact Collette stood up to Joe and his octopus-like hands.”
Sarge frowned. “Where is he? I need to cut him off and ban him from drinking alcohol while he’s in my building.” The owner of the bar scanned the room, his gaze coming to rest on the construction worker seated amongst a table full of his blue-collar pals. “I’m going to have a word with him.” He pushed his sleeves up his arms and started for the gate that would allow him to walk through the bar counter onto the dance floor.
Collette caught his arm. “It’s okay. I handled it.”
“Yes, she did,” Red said. “I don’t think Joe will touch her again. I think he likes having an opposable thumb.” She chuckled as she filled a mug full of beer from the tap. She set it on Collette’s tray, along with a couple of longneck bottles of designer beer and a bowl full of pretzels. “Is this tray for him?” she asked.
Collette nodded. “It is.”
“Good. I want to watch you break his thumb.” She pushed the tray toward Collette.
“I’m not sure I want to see that,” Sarge said. “Maybe I should deliver the drinks just this once.”
Red glared at her boss. “You spoil all the fun.”
“I can’t have my staff injuring customers,” he said.
“And you can’t have your customers sexually harassing your staff,” Red shot back. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared Sarge down.
His frown deepened, but he didn’t take the tray and deliver it himself. “Take the tray. If he bothers you again, I want to know. I’ll throw his butt out of here so fast, he won’t know what hit him.”
Stiffening her spine, Collette lifted the heavy tray and marched back to the table where Joe, the married man with the wondering hand, sat with a group of his friends.
“I knew you’d be back for more.” Joe smiled smugly as he reached for her ass, his hand landing on her hip instead.
Collette nearly dropped the tray full of drinks.
“Leave her alone,” one of his friends said. “We’re here to drink, not harass the staff.”
“I’m not harassing,” Joe insisted. “I’m flirting. And she came back, so she must have liked it.”
“I don’t,” Collette said, her tone flat, her jaw clenched so tightly, she was afraid she might break her teeth. “You have three seconds to get your hand off me.”
Joe laughed and slid his fingers around to cup her bottom. “Aw, you’re just teasing old Joe.”
“Two seconds,” she stated clearly.
“I’m liking what I’m feeling,” he said.
“One.” Collette shoved the full tray into Joe’s face, spilling beer, mugs and bottles into his lap. Glass broke as it hit the concrete floor.
Joe tipped backward in his chair and nearly fell over. When he regained his balance, he lurched to his feet. “Got a little sass going there, do you?”
She planted her fists on her hips and squared off with Joe. “There’s a lot more where that came from. Do you just want me to whip your sorry ass?”
“As long as you sit on my face in the process,” he said, his words slurring. “Now, come here and give me some of that sugar. I love me a feisty woman.”
Feeling sorry for Joe’s wife, Collette could do nothing but defend herself. If that meant breaking Joe, then she’d love the hell out of doing it.
This time when he reached for her, she was ready. His alcohol-dulled senses were no match for the few self-defense techniques she’d learned. Collette grabbed his hand and twisted around, coming up behind him. She shoved that hand up the middle of his back between his shoulder blades.
The man chuckled, and then grunted when she pushed it up further. “You’re hurting me, sweetheart. Why don’t you let go and give me that sugar instead?”
Tired of fooling with the man who couldn’t take a hint if it hit him square in the face, she rammed his hand higher up the middle of his back. “Don’t ever touch me again, Joe. Or any of the waitresses here at the Salty Dog.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean nothing by it,” he said, his voice getting higher. “You don’t have to hurt me. I’m a paying customer.” He shouted across the barroom, “Sarge, can you call off your rabid dog? She’s hurting my paying arm.”
Sarge crossed the floor, coming to stand in front of Joe.
“Thank goodness,” Joe said. “Tell her to let go, will ya?”
Sarge exchanged glances with Collette. “I’ll take it from here.”
“Not until he apologizes and promises to leave us alone,” Collette said between clenched teeth.
“I’m sorry already,” Joe said, standing on his toes to relieve the pain. “I promise not to touch you ever again.”
“He’s promised that before,” Red said from behind the bar.
“I mean it this time,” he said. “I swear.”
“He’s apologized and promised.” Sarge came to stand behind Joe with Collette. “I’ve got this, now.”
Collette didn’t release her hold until Sarge had a good grip on the man’s arm.
“Collette, do you want to press charges on this man for sexual harassment?” Sarge asked. “Say the word, and I’ll have the cops here so fast, you’d think they were on standby. And if I know Red, she’s already called them.”
“I said I wouldn’t do it again,” Joe said. “You call the cops and my wife will kill me.”
“You should’ve thought of that before you made an ass of yourself,” Sarge said, pushing Joe’s wrist up higher between his shoulder blades.
“I won’t press charges…this time,” Collette said. “But if he ever does this again to any of us here at the Salty Dog, I will.” She wasn’t sure how she’d pay for a lawyer to represent her, but the man had to learn he couldn’t get away with that kind of disrespect.
“You won’t have to worry about him harassing you here anymore. Not here, anyway,” Sarge said. “He’s not welcome in the Salty Dog from now on. Do you hear that, Joe?”
“What?” Joe tried to turn around, but Sarge held firm. “You mean my money ain’t good enough for your crummy bar?”
“No,” Sarge said. “Your manners aren’t good enough. I won’t tolerate anyone harassing my wait staff. You’ve gotten away with too much for too long. It ends here.” The retired sergeant marched the offensive man toward the front door.
“Guys!” Joe called out to his buddies at the table. “You gonna let them do this to me?”
Not one of them rose to defend him.
“I can have you up on charges of assault and battery,” Joe blustered.
