Free Return to Glory (Hqn) by Sara Arden Page B

ever thought she wasn’t good enough for him. Jack was twice the man Marcel was.
    He took a deep breath, as if steeling himself for something. “Why do you think I was always at your house on the weekends?”
    Her heart ached for him, but she couldn’t let that change what she said to him. He needed tough love, and Betsy hoped she was strong enough to do this. “I know why you were at our house. Your father was always drunk.” She reached out to cup his cheek to soften the blow of what she said next. “You’re starting to act just like him.”
    Betsy didn’t want to wound him, but she wanted him to know that she saw him. Really saw him, not the painted facsimile the rest of the town saw, but the man underneath. They were so close to the same person. On the face that Jack tried to hide was the one that adopted everyone’s sins as his own.
    Rather than get angry, Jack said, “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
    “No. We make our own decisions about who we are. You choose to pick up the bottle, you choose to drink from it and you choose when you put it down.”
    “I choose to pick it up,” he repeated. “I choose not to put it down until the screaming in my head stops and the nerve endings of a leg I don’t have stop burning.”
    “Okay.” She exhaled heavily. “It’s your time at night and if that’s how you want to spend it, then that’s what we’ll do. Let me tell Mom I’m leaving. I’ll drive. You can get your car tomorrow.”
    “Damn it, Betsy.”
    “Add to that list to stop trying to scare me off. It’s not going to work.” She leaned in and kissed him again, savoring the freedom she had now to do it as she wished. “You know why? Because you’re still trying to do what you think is best for me, no matter how you feel about it. I will never give up on you and there is nothing you can do that will make me.”
    “Is that a challenge?” His eyes narrowed and he was suddenly focused on an escape hatch.
    “No. A challenge implies that it’s something defeatable. In this case, I am the immovable object and the unstoppable force.”
    “That would be a paradox.”
    “Wouldn’t it just?” She wasn’t going to argue with that. It would be a paradox, but Betsy would let nothing, not even the laws of physics, get in her way.
    “Betsy,” her mother called from the dining room.
    “One moment, Mama.”
    “No, no. Just remember what I said. Country club, ” her mother reminded her.
    Betsy flushed, remembering exactly what her mother had said about making her a grandma and asking if she wanted her wedding reception at the country club. She’d been telling her that since she was sixteen.
    “Go on, then. Good night, Jack.” Her mother said with a purposeful drawl.
    “Good night, Miss Lula,” he called back, and then dropped his voice to a whisper. “What’s she talking about country clubs?”
    “Nothing. She’s senile,” Betsy hissed.
    “I heard that, and I am not, ” Lula’s voice echoed through to the foyer.
    She opened the door and pushed Jack outside in the hopes that her mother wouldn’t decide confession was good for the soul and come spill everything about their earlier discussion.
    “Does she know you’re coming to my place?” Jack asked hesitantly halfway down the stairs.
    “It’s not that hard to figure out.”
    For a moment, Jack wore a stricken expression.
    “She never did ground me for stealing that cordial.” As if that made it okay.
    “You said you had it with her permission.” His mouth curved into a sly grin.
    “And you said I was horrible liar.” Warmth filled her at the memory. She’d replayed it in her head so many times, but with a much different outcome.
    “You are.”
    There was something in his voice, something soft, tender. Something he’d been hiding from her.
    “Did you ever wonder what would’ve happened if you’d said yes?” The words escaped before she could think better of them and then she blushed. “I mean, beyond the