Page 6 of Luke (Rogue County Rangers #1)

Luke

Marie’s been back in town for a month and I’m still no closer to understanding why she left town all those years ago.

Alice’s treatment is taking its toll. Her hair is gone.

She can only drink smoothies now, which she doesn’t mind one bit.

In fact, now she gives me lists of ingredients and challenges me to make a smoothie out of them.

It’s fun for me too, though I’d never recommend mixing peanut butter and kale. It just doesn’t work.

Now that Alice is on an all-smoothie diet, I’ve started bringing normal food for Marie. I’m in the kitchen seasoning chicken for dinner when my phone rings.

“What’s up?” I answer, already knowing it’s Max, a fellow ranger.

“Are you coming out tonight or are you staying in with the wife?” He jokes.

“Very funny,” I mutter. “I’m having dinner with Marie and her mother tonight.”

“Ah, so staying with the wife.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call her that,” I say.

Sometimes, it feels like Marie and I can easily slip back into how we were before she left.

It’s like we haven’t missed a beat. Other times, she can’t look me in the eye.

I don’t understand it and I have no intention of backing off until I do.

It doesn’t help that I can’t be in the room with her for an extended period of time without wanting to push her up against the wall or take her into the bedroom.

All this time spent at her home, cooking dinner, and fixing things up has made me realize just how empty my life was without her.

It’s a stressful time for her and her mother, but I haven’t felt so at ease in years.

Looking after them is as easy as breathing.

I want Alice to get better more than anything, but when she does, I’m worried that Marie will disappear all over again.

I don’t know if I can go another six years without my best friend.

She needs me right now, even though she won’t admit it.

What she doesn’t know is that I need her just as much.

“You’re basically a married couple. You look way too damn chipper every time you come into work. It’s obvious,” Max taunts. “Rhodes thinks so, too.”

“You’re just jealous that I get to spend my time with two wonderful women and you’re eating leftover casserole out of Tupperware.”

“We’re definitely both jealous,” Max agrees. “When are you and the missus going to have us over for dinner?”

“When Alice is better, she wants to have a huge cookout,” I say. “You two idiots are definitely coming.”

“Awesome. Tell her we’ve got her back, all right? Marie, too.”

“Sure thing.”

I hang up and grab a can of cat food from the cabinet. Sometimes, Marie and her mother hit a bit of traffic on the way home from treatment, so I’ve taken it upon myself to feed the cats.

Lucy and Edmund come running.I place their food in the usual spot by a huge bookshelf crammed with knickknacks. As I straightened up, I spy something I hadn’t noticed before.

It’s a photo from ages ago at a school event.

I must’ve been around ten years old. Marie is in the photo, too.

So are Alice and my mother. The face I’m not expecting to see is my father’s.

He didn’t get to come to school events often.

Work took him all over the place. This must’ve been the last school event he came to before he…

The front door slides open. Marie has her arm around Alice for support.

“How’d it go?” I ask, unable to take my eyes off the photo.

“The doctors get more hopeful every day,” Marie says.

She installs Alice in her favorite chair in the office. It looks out onto the rolling hills and the mountains beyond. Alice will probably fall asleep within a few minutes.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Marie asks when she enters the room. Then she lets out a soft gasp. “I’m so sorry, Luke. I forgot we even had that photo. Do you want me to put it away?”

“No,” I say slowly. “Mom doesn’t keep any photos of dad in the house. It upsets her too much. She wouldn’t even let me keep them.”

“I know,” Marie says softly. Her hand comes to rest on my shoulder. Her touch sends soothing waves of calm through me. She’s always been able to do that. I don’t know how. “Are you okay?”

“Sometimes, I forget how screwed up it was, you know?” I shrug. “Then I feel horrible for forgetting.”

“You haven’t forgotten. You’ve just healed.” Marie takes my hand and makes me sit down on the couch.

I don’t think about my dad enough, but when I do think about him, I get so angry I want to hurt someone. Marie used to help me keep my temper under control. She’s the only one who knows how much my dad’s death messed me up.

When I was ten, he picked me up from school one day.

We had to stop and get gas on the way home.

While he was filling the tank, a nervous kid that couldn’t have been more than seventeen, held my dad at knifepoint.

Now that I know more about this sort of thing, he was obviously having intense withdrawals, probably from meth.

When my dad refused to give him anything, the guy got mad. I don’t think he realized he stabbed my dad until he fell to the floor. The junkie took off. I used my dad’s cell to call 911 but by the time the ambulance arrived, he was gone.

“I don’t think I have,” I say. I stand up. I can’t sit still. I need to walk. I need to run. I need to do something .

When I was offered a position with the rangers, I thought that was my chance to catch the guy. A lack of witness reports and the spotty memory of my traumatized ten-year-old brain wasn’t enough to go on. I’ve never found so much as a lead. I doubt I ever will.

“The oven is pre-heated. The chicken is all ready to go. I don’t think I can stay tonight.”

I make my way to the door, but Marie catches my hand.

“If you need a landing spot, I’m here.”

Landing spot was one of our little code words. It’s our way of saying we’re here for each other.

“You are?”

She smiles, nods, and gives my hand a squeeze.

I believe her.