Page 14 of Vaquero
Unnerved by the electricity sizzling between them, she bowed her head and retreated to the makeshift table, took a bowl, and sat down on the sturdy log that now served as a bench.
Lucky her, she’d grown up in a family of one girl and four boys, all older brothers. Which had alternately turned her into the spoiled brat of the Duncan family and one toady little tomboy who adored her brothers. When the oldest, Trevor, joined the Army, the twins, Dallas and Ash, followed suit by enlisting early in the Air Force. Colt, the fourth in line, opted for the Navy when it came his turn. Which would’ve left Meg behind. But was she content to stay home, write letters to her valiant brothers, and wait while they served their country and saw the world? Not on your life.
As soon as she could, Meg took the ASVAB, Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, scored high enough to get into the MOS, Military Occupational Specialty, she’d wanted, Communications. Then she’d followed Trevor into the Army. Which was why she was in Brazil today.
After torrential downpours hit Brazil two years ago, when the São Paulo overflowed its banks and flooded Rio de Janeiro, American-aid came in the form of US Army troops, supplies, and financial-aid packages. That was when Meg fell in love with this country and the hardworking Brazilians. She’d stood side-by-side with armies of volunteers, sandbagging, digging victims out of their mud-encased homes, and just generally doing everything and anything that was needed. Right then and there, she knew she’d be back. She’d found her niche in the world, and it was service.
Little did she know then the condition she’d return under, however. After that exhausting humanitarian mission, she’d taken two weeks leave. She was married by then. Ted Jeurgen, her dashing blond husband of seven months, one week, and three days, met her at DFW, Dallas-Fort Worth airport. They’d had four days to spend alone before they’d go home to Big Springs, Texas, and reconnect with family and friends. It was supposed to have been their second honeymoon, and the perfect break for Meg after an incredibly difficult, but satisfying, deployment. Trevor, her oldest brother, happened to be on leave from the Army at the same time. He was supposed to have been home by the time she’d arrived.
Until the second day into her leave, when Meg collapsed in the hotel shower. Stroke. She’d had a damned stroke. Her. At the ridiculously young age of twenty-three. She’d come to in some DFW emergency room with an overzealous doctor shining a bright light into her bleary, aching eyes. He’d kept asking questions that didn’t make sense. It would’ve helped if he’d spoken English. Which he had, but which her damaged brain could no longer process.
When he’d forced her into a sitting position by raising the bed, her nose started bleeding. That was when she’d figured things were serious. All that red blood had literally poured out of her head, like a river she couldn’t stop. But what she remembered most vividly was Ted standing behind the ER doctor and the horrified shock on his pale face. The way disgust curled his upper lip. The rejection in his headshake. The revulsion in his eyes.
He didn’t offer one word of encouragement. Never once made a move to hold or console her or—anything. He’d turned into stone, the invisible husband, all because she’d had a stroke. Like that was her fault? She’d loved his pale blue eyes until the day they’d stopped seeing his wife as the perky, take-all-comers, sassy Corporal he’d married. He’d never said a word. Not ‘I love you, we’re going to fight this stroke together.’ Not ‘go to hell. It’s been fun. Buh-bye’. He’d just turned his back while she lay bleeding like a stuck pig, and he’d walked out of her life.
Two hours later, Trevor slammed the door to her hospital room open and bellowed, “Where’s my little sister?”
She’d burst out bawling like a baby then. Someone still loved her. Might not be the guy who’d taken marriage vows with her, but Trevor made sure she knew she was not only going to make it, she was going to do better than ever before. She could and she would! She was not a pariah. Damn Ted for making her feel like one!
Trevor, bless his heart, had comforted her through the first days and weeks of the paralysis. He was the one who’d taken her back to her old room in their parents’ home, and he was the one who held her upright while she learned to stand again. When she couldn’t hold a spoon, he did it for her. He made her laugh, told her she looked like a baby orangutan when she was all lips and couldn’t get anything on her soft-food diet to stay inside her mouth. Trevor made her human again. He made her believe in herself. God, she adored her big brother.
Not Ted, the man she’d thought she’d love forever. He’d already deployed to Afghanistan by the time she went home. Had the nerve to write one last letter, though. Thoughtful jerk. What’d they call them? Dear Jane letters? He’d kept it short, Meg had to give him that. The man knew how to end things. Short, but not sweet or painless.
She’d cried for weeks, her emotions strung tighter because of the stroke. It took months before she could process information correctly again. Her speech returned around the same time. Muscle coordination on her left side was the problem. She still tired easily. But what she lacked in physical prowess, she’d made up for in sheer willpower and good old Army determination, by hell. Trevor taught her that.‘She was an Army of one, damn it,’he’d say when he helped her into the swimming pool at the gym. And Meg chose to believe him. It was either that or turn into a weeping, sniveling recluse. A victim. Not her. Trevor said she was better than that. So she was.
Meg didn’t blame Ted for ditching her. She couldn’t. Some guys just didn’t have the capacity to nurture their partially-paralyzed wife—the same woman they’d vowed to love through sickness and health, til death us do part—back to health. And that was okay. It was better to have loved and lost, and all that crap. But mostly, she thanked her lucky stars they hadn’t had children. Ted would never have made a good father. He didn’t have the balls.
