Page 34 of Driving Whiskey Wild
She pressed herself against his side as Tinkerbell barreled toward them with the ball in her mouth. “Do you sleep outside?”
“On occasion, but my place is so open, I don’t usually feel too closed in.”
She seemed to think about that as he tossed the ball again.
“Well, you sure lucked out with the gardens. I’ve never seen a yard like this.”
“It was pretty much all dirt when I moved in.” He steered her across the yard toward the pond, hoping to avoid talking about why he had such elaborate gardens.
“Then you must have an amazing gardener.”
“My father was, before his stroke.” Biggs had suffered the stroke while Bullet was away on tour, which added to the guilt Bullet wore like a lead coat.
“So, he did this? Dixie told me he suffered his stroke while you were in the military, but you said you bought this place afterward. Does he still garden? I know he walks with a cane and the stroke hindered his speech.”
As much as he didn’t want to appear weak in Finlay’s eyes, he wanted her in his life, and he knew that meant he had to be completely honest. His chest constricted with the thought of exposing so much of himself, but he’d already ripped open so many wounds in her presence, he told himself this was just giving her a birds’-eye view of the wreckage.
“Not really. Even though I didn’t come home until months after I was discharged, I was still pretty messed up when I got back to the harbor. I hate labels, but there’s no escaping PTSD. It really screwed with my head.” He filled his lungs with crisp air, watching Tinkerbell roll around in the grass. “Back then flashbacks hit hard and nightmares came often. I was with my parents one afternoon, and my father asked me to clean up my mother’s gardens. I was a mess, Fin. I was angry and out of control, and it didn’t matter that I’d served my country; I felt like a fucking failure. I told you I’d waited to enlist because I had to watch over my brothers and sister, and then I had the crushing weight of trying to figure out what that really meant. By the time I enlisted, I had gotten into trouble and brought some bad shit down on my father and the motorcycle club by infiltrating the wrong territory outside of the harbor. I was young and stupid, but I knew I had to get my act together. Being away when my old man suffered his stroke messed me up even more. There I was, overseas, years later, still torn over where I really belonged, and…”
He swallowed the confession that he’d only shared with Bones. The event that had led to his medical discharge. But when he gazed into Finlay’s compassionate eyes, he couldn’t keep from sharing his innermost secret with her.
“You already know about the terrible shit that goes on in wars. I was in the middle of my third tour, and when you’re in the thick of it, you don’t question or sit around and wonder how to get out from under the shadow of it. Your only focus is surviving and making sure your brothers in arms make it out alive. Even the fact that you’re doing it for a bigger purpose gets lost when you see men you’ve fought with, laughed with, given shit to go down.” A bead of sweat formed on his brow, and he swiped at it with his forearm.
“You don’t have to share this with me. I don’t want to ruin your afternoon.”
“Babe, you’re here. Nothing can ruin today.”
She leaned her head against his arm, and it eased the tension in his chest.
“Anyway, one of the guys went down. He was bleedin’ real bad. Like, so much I knew he didn’t have time to wait for the medics to come to him. I threw him over my shoulders.” He motioned to each side. “I held one leg over my left shoulder and his chest pressed to my right, and I hauled ass trying to find a medic. I didn’t feel the bullets when they hit me. When I finally went down, I twisted so the guy I was carrying landed on my chest. There was blood everywhere, and I was pumped with adrenaline. I didn’t know I’d been hit. My only thought was to save the other soldier. I spotted a medic and pushed to my knees, threw the injured guy over my shoulder, and made it a few more steps before collapsing. He had blood pouring out of his wounds, and when I laid him down, that’s when I saw the new wound in his chest. I was leaning over him, holding his hand, telling him we’d get him out of there, to hang on. Jesus, I would have given my own life to save his. That’s when I realized blood was pouring from my chest, where the bullets had gone through me, and hit him. He said all sorts of things while I tried like hell to stop the bleeding in his gut and legs, his chest. He was so fucking brave all the way to the end, telling me to save myself. I held him against me as he took his last breath. I’ll never forget the feel of that, and then everything went black.”
His heart hammered against his ribs with the memories, and he steeled himself for a flashback, but the words still came, and the flashback remained at bay. “I woke up in a military hospital, thrashing and trying to get back to the field. In my head, that’s where I belonged. That’s all that mattered. But I had taken a lot of fire, and they wanted to notify my family because they weren’t sure I’d make it. I told them I’d sue their asses if they contacted anyone before I was dead. My family had been through enough with my dad’s stroke, and we had lost my uncle, who ran the auto shop, after that. By the time I was hit, Bear had been running both for a few years, and Dixie was helping him. My father had gone through physical therapy, and their lives were finally stable again. They didn’t need the stress of not knowing if I’d survive, or of caring for me if I ended up too fucked up to function.”
“But what if you’d died? They wouldn’t have been able to say goodbye.” Tears slid down Finlay’s cheeks.
“I know my family loves me. I wanted them to remember me strong, not in a hospital bed, riddled with bullet holes.”
“But you were alone through all of that?”
“Yeah, but it was no big deal.” He wiped her tears and pressed his lips to hers.
“It was a very big deal.” She wrapped her arms around him, holding him so tight he shut his eyes against his own emotions. “I hate knowing you went through that alone.”
He remembered what she’d said about her late boyfriend, and guilt consumed him. He shouldn’t have told her, shouldn’t have made her sad.
“Hey.” He tipped up her chin and kissed her again. “I was fine, Fins. Fucked up, slammed with PTSD, but I was okay. And I wasn’t alone the whole time.”
He took her hand as they walked beside the pond, needing to move. “Once I healed enough, I called Bones, who hooked me up with a buddy of his, that therapist I mentioned the other night. And a few months later, when I felt like I had my head on straighter, I came home. All my family knows is that I took a few bullets and suffered from PTSD. They didn’t need to be saddled with the rest. But being home was hard. It stirred up all those old confusing feelings, and I learned firsthand that PTSD was a damn nasty competitor. It came out of nowhere at times and sucked the life out of me, which is why I have these gardens.”
He glanced across the yard at the burgeoning gardens and paths, remembering how cathartic working with his hands had been, and after he felt more like himself, how focusing on the bar had also helped him heal.
“My old man had me out in his gardens day and night, teaching me everything he knew. He told me it was to help out my mother since he could no longer use both hands well enough to do the things her garden needed. Bear would show up, and he’d spend hours with us.” He laughed with the memory of the two of them out there on their knees, shooting the shit while they weeded and mulched flowerbeds. “I was too messed up to realize it until later, but Biggs used gardening to get me out of my own head enough to help me heal. And Bear? He’s so damn empathetic, he couldn’t heal from my wounds until I did. Talk about a reason to get past my shit…”
“And you still don’t call yourself a hero,” Finlay said, watching as Tinkerbell trotted toward them with the ball in her mouth.
The pup plopped down on her butt in front of Finlay and dropped the ball. Finlay picked it up, holding the slobbery ball by her fingertips. Bullet put out his hand.
“No, I can do it. I’m not afraid of dog slobber, just dog bites.” She pulled her arm back, and as she released the ball—and Tink took off running after it—Bullet realized it was flying directly toward the pond.
“Tink!” he hollered, but the dog was already in the air, front and back legs extended as she dove for the ball. Bullet hauled ass into the water, vaguely aware of Finlay calling after him.
Chapter Fourteen
“I’M SORRY. I didn’t know she couldn’t swim,” Finlay said as Bullet trudged from the pond with Tinkerbell in his arms, his clothing and boots drenched.
“She can swim just fine,” he said as the pup lavished him with kisses. “But she freaks out in the water and cries, paddling around in circles. She only goes in after a ball or a stick.” He set Tinkerbell down on the grass, and she immediately shook off the water, showering Finlay with stinky pond water.
She gasped as the dog did it again, and she couldn’t help but laugh.
