The Top Gun's Return

Chapter 12

There had been Starrs in Oglethorpe County since before the War of Northern Aggression. Nobody in Jessie's family knew exactly how much before, since all the records prior to that had been burned up by General Sherman during his rampage through Georgia. All Jessie or any of her brothers and sisters had ever known was that after General Lee's surrender, one Joseph Jeremiah Starr had come limping back home to find the place burned to the ground, the livestock all run off or eaten, and the old folks dead and gone. Young Joseph being a resilient soul, once his wounds had healed and his dysentery cleared up he'd set about building himself another house, married a local widow woman-of which there'd been an abundant supply at the time-and started right in on establishing a new Starr dynasty.

Over the years, Starrs had continued to be born, live, build, procreate and sometimes die in Oglethorpe County. More had gone off to do most of those things somewhere else. A few found other wars to fight. Some of those hadn't made it back.

The house Joseph Jeremiah built burned down sometime in the 1890s and was replaced with a huge white Victorian complete with curlicues and cupolas; the Starr in residence at the time had made quite a lot of money in textiles, and his wife had her own ideas about what constituted high style. Forty years or so later that house, too, burned to the ground, taking its owners, then in their seventies, with it.

The one that replaced it was also white wood frame, but since it was the Depression, when money was scarce and labor cheap, this one had been built to be simple but solid, and was meant to last. It had two stories and an attic, high ceilings and a big cluttered kitchen that smelled of canned tomatoes in the summertime and wet shoes in winter, and a pantry upon whose doorjamb generations of Starr children, including Jessie and Sammi June, had had their growth recorded. It also had a big wraparound porch where Jessie and her sister-in-law, Mirabella, were sitting in creaky white rocking chairs, taking a moment's respite from the family gathering that was noisily in progress.

It was to this house that James Joseph Starr, just returned from the latest war-the Korean-and eager to begin carrying on the rest of the Starr-family traditions, had brought his bride, the former Betty Calhoun, a retired schoolteacher from Augusta. Having learned to drive big trucks in the Army, Joe Starr made good use of a G.I. loan to buy his own rig. With it he'd managed to provide reasonably well for the seven children Betty gave him, right up until his final heart attack-which fortunately did not happen while he was behind the wheel of his eighteen-wheeler. The three youngest of his children, including Jessie, had still been in school at the time, and Jessie's next older brother, Jimmy Joe, barely out of school himself, had stepped in to take over the trucking business. Jessie's momma, Betty, had gone back to teaching part-time, and the family had made it through the hard times, somehow.

And they'd all stayed close, except for Joy Lynn, who'd gone off to New York City to live after her second divorce, and Roy, who was on a fishing boat somewhere down in Florida, doing who-knew-what. Jessie's oldest sister, Tracy, also a teacher, lived over in Augusta with her policeman husband, Al, and their three kids. The baby of the family, Calvin, or C.J., as he'd decided he wanted to be called, had gotten married last fall. He and his wife, Caitlyn, and the little girl they were adopting, were living temporarily a mile up the road while C.J. decided on where he wanted to hang out his shingle and start practicing law.

Troy, Jessie's oldest brother, had been a SEAL before he retired from the Navy and married Charly, a lawyer who'd grown up practically next door in Alabama before she ran away from home and wound up in California. Troy and Charly had met each other when Charly came back south to be maid of honor at her best friend Mirabella's wedding to Jimmy Joe. Those two had met when Jimmy Joe delivered Mirabella's baby in the sleeper cab of his rig during a Christmas Eve blizzard in the Texas Panhandle. Now, Charly and Troy lived in Atlanta, where Charly practiced law and Troy had his own P.I. firm. Jimmy Joe had built his daddy's trucking business into Blue Starr Transport, which ran both long-and short-haul drivers all over the country. He and Mirabella lived nearby in a modest brick house with a big yard for their three kids to play in. Their oldest son, J.J., from Jimmy Joe's first brief marriage when he was still a kid, had pretty much grown up in his gramma Betty's house with Sammi June and was a year behind her in school. He'd be graduating from high school in a couple of weeks.

Nobody, of course, could top Jessie when it came to sticking close to home. She and Sammi June had moved in with Jessie's mother when Tristan was deployed to the Gulf that last time, thinking it was going to be maybe for six months, no more. Instead it turned out to be almost nine years.

It had been a good arrangement, though, for all concerned, and Jessie knew how lucky she and Sammi June had been, to have had the kind of security and stability the old home place provided. Even after the news had come that Tris had been shot down, their lives had gone on pretty much as before, surrounded by family and familiar things, brothers and sisters and cousins and lots of laughter and love. They hadn't had much of a chance to be lonely. Well, hardly ever. There'd always been weddings and new babies, work and school, and family get-togethers at any excuse whatsoever, with barbecues and homemade peach ice cream and watermelon in the summertime and pumpkin pie in the winter and kids rambling off in the woods and the older ones playing touch football or baseball in the fallow field next door, and the menfolk with their heads stuck under the hood of somebody's car.

Like a lot of Starr family gatherings, this one hadn't really been planned. It had sort of grown out of everyone's natural desire to drop in and welcome Tristan back from the dead in classic Southern style, with gifts of-what else?-food.

It was Saturday; that morning Troy and Charly had driven over from Atlanta with a trunkful of sweet corn and watermelons, apologizing about the fact that they'd had to buy them at the supermarket, since nobody's gardens were producing so early in the season. Tracy and Al showed up around noon, bringing strawberries and homemade short-cake, and C.J. and Caitlyn hauled over a vat of potato salad big enough to feed the Seventh Fleet. Jimmy Joe had picked up baby back ribs at the supermarket and got the old, rusty half-barrel barbecue set up, while Mirabella, always the practical organizer, remembered to get paper plates, napkins, plastic cups and dinnerware, and all the other odds and ends vital for family picnics. To top it off, Mirabella's sister Summer and her husband, Riley, had showed up a little while ago, having driven all the way from Charleston with a huge cooler full of fresh shrimp-shucked-on ice. Now an enormous pot of water was simmering on the kitchen stove, ready to receive the shrimp, and the air outside was thick with charcoal smoke and the scent of lighter fluid.

Meanwhile, small children rolled and tumbled on the lawn, ignoring their mothers' warnings about chiggers, while the older ones were off in the woods somewhere, getting as filthy as they possibly could in the shortest possible time. The women visited and tended the food and the occasional child-related crisis, while the men…did what they usually did at such gatherings.

Except, at the moment it wasn't a car that had the undivided attention of every male member of the family, and a few of the others, besides. It was a motorcycle-a modest Honda, gleaming black and daffodil yellow-and its proud owner was Jessie's nephew and Mirabella's stepson, J.J., the soon-to-be high school graduate.

"We made the mistake of telling him he could have the transportation of his choice if he got straight As all senior year," Mirabella said mournfully. "I never thought he'd ask for a motorcycle." She'd left her rocking chair and was leaning against a porch post, gazing at the knot of interested males out in the lane, and the way she said the word it might as well have been missile launcher.

"Well," Jessie said, "at least it's not a Harley."

Mirabella shot her a look. "Oh, he wanted a Harley. Thank God, his dad drew the line at that. At least…well, I guess you could say they compromised. If J.J. proves he's responsible enough to handle this one safely, Jimmy Joe told him he could have a Harley for his college graduation present."

Jessie burst out with a cackle of laughter. Mirabella bristled and said, "What?"

"Nothing-except you reminded me so much of Momma just then." She paused, then added, "You do, you know-you're a lot like Momma-in more ways than one. I've always thought so."

Mirabella considered, then smiled. "I used to wonder what Jimmy Joe could possibly see in me. The first time he brought me here-remember?-and I saw you and Sammi June and J.J., all of you tall, blond and thin types-you could have been clones of my sisters-and my heart sank because here I am, you know, built just like a fireplug-short, round, and redheaded. And then your mother walked out. And I remember thinking, Okay, yes, now I understand. I think it was actually at that moment I began to believe it could work between us." Her voice was the purr of a contented woman, and Jessie felt unexpected twinges of envy.

She studied her sister-in-law, realizing, not for the first time, that at nearly fifty, Mirabella was still an uncommonly beautiful woman. "And…it doesn't bother you that your husband picked you because you remind him of his momma?"

Typically emphatic, Mirabella snorted. "Why should it? It always seems to me, if a man has a reasonably healthy respect and admiration for his mother, it only makes good sense for him to use her as a role model when he goes to choose a mate for himself. Doesn't it? Ha-if only more men were that smart."

Jessie smiled; Mirabella was famous for being forceful in her opinions. Then she shook her head and had to look away, because her smile was fading fast. She took a breath and let it out, and when it did nothing to ease the knot of fear and sadness that had come into her throat, said softly, "Well, I sure don't think I'm anything like Tris's mother."

"How do you know? I thought she died before you met him."

"I've seen pictures-she was dark, like Tris-but that's not what I mean. From what he's told me about her, she must have been tough as nails. Typical German woman-the boss of the house, if not the household, if you know what I mean." She sighed as she watched the knot of menfolk and adolescents of both genders gathered out in the lane. With arms crossed she absently rubbed her upper arms with her hands, though it wasn't chilly. "With Tris and me it was different-maybe because I was young when he met me. Or…maybe I'm too easygoing, I don't know. Anyway, he was the boss, and that was that. About pretty much everything. I guess I just…wanted to please him. So I always-"

She broke off with a gasp as a metallic scream ripped the soft air. The black-and-yellow motorcycle had just shot out of the knot of spectators and was tearing off down the lane, a long, lean figure hunched low over the handlebars.

"Oh…God, that's Tris. What is he-" She stopped herself with fingertips touched to her lips, and cleared her throat.

"He'll be fine," said Mirabella dismissively, following her gaze. Then her eyes came back to Jessie, and she made a sound that was half sympathy, half exasperation. "Honey, don't worry. He's a big boy. I imagine he's got some catch-up living to do."

"It's not that," Jessie muttered with a sniff, impatient and appalled at the tears that seemed to flow so easily these days. She scrubbed them away with her wrist and, because she knew Mirabella wasn't going to rest until she'd gotten to the bottom of the reason for them, she went on bluntly, almost angrily, "Sometimes I think…maybe I was too damn agreeable. Back then. Too accommodating. I mean-if it's true men want a woman like their mommas, and I sure as hell wasn't…I can't help but think…you know…"

"Think what?" Mirabella wasn't inclined to help her out.

"Maybe," Jessie mumbled, embarrassed to voice the thoughts that had been haunting her, "he was bored with me."

She expected another one of Mirabella's patented snorts, but instead her sister-in-law said, with unheralded gentleness, "Now, why would you think that?"

So Jessie snorted instead, and began pacing restlessly across the porch. "Because he sure didn't seem to mind being away from me. In fact, it always seemed to me like he was eager to be gone. I think he loved being out there, in the middle of the action. I don't think he was ever happy when he was home."

She stopped to dash away a tear and stare across the yard at nothing. "We fought about it," she said at last, softly. "Before he left for the Gulf, that last time. I'd stood up to him, for once. I told him he was being selfish and childish, going off to a war zone when he had a wife and child right here who needed him. He didn't have to go. But he'd missed the action during the Gulf War, because of that water-skiing accident, remember? And he figured patrolling the no-fly zone was going to be his last chance at flying combat missions. He was so damn stubborn about it-he just kept saying, 'It's something I have to do.' Like nothing in the world was as important to him, not me, not Sammi June-nothing. It made me so angry, 'Bella. I was actually…I'd started to think-" She put a hand over her eyes and drew a shaking breath. "Oh God. I was thinking what it would be like…not to be married to him anymore. Not to have to always be saying goodbye to him, then getting used to him coming back. I was actually thinking maybe, when he came back, I'd leave him. That's why I moved back here and got that job at the hospital."

"Oh, Jessie," Mirabella said softly. "I had no idea." After a moment she added in a thoughtful tone, "And yet, all those years, you never remarried."

Jessie angrily dashed away tears. "Well, it wasn't that I didn't love him. I was just so tired of being alone all the time…seeing Sammi June's heart get broken over and over again. And then he didn't come back, and-" she gave a high, hard laugh "-I'm thinking, Okay, God's punishing me."

"Oh, for heaven's sake," said Mirabella. "Like God's some sort of puppetmaster with a weird sense of humor? I never have been able to buy that." She shook her head, and her smile grew softer. "I think things have an odd way of working out, that's all." She paused, and then…"Jimmy Joe was angry with me when he first met me, did you know that? He thought I was being selfish because I'd had myself artificially inseminated when I was pushing forty and hadn't found Mr. Right. He thought I was just awful to bring a child into the world and knowingly deprive it of a father. But, you know what? And I told him this later-if I hadn't done that terrible thing, then I wouldn't have been out there on that interstate on Christmas Eve, having a baby in a blizzard, and I never would have met the one man in this world, I swear, with the temperament to put up with me."

"Oh, 'Bella." Jessie couldn't help but laugh. Then she was wistfully silent, thinking about it.

Mirabella airily waved her hand. "Look-maybe it's just a matter of neither one of you knowing what you had before. And now you do. Like…you get a second chance."

"Do we?" Aching inside, Jessie leaned against a porch post and watched as the motorcycle came zipping back down the road and turned into the lane, making a sound like an angry hornet hooked up to an amplifier. She watched Tristan deftly and gracefully dismount, pull off the helmet and hand it over to J.J. with a grin she could see all the way from here. She threw Mirabella a look. "Not a second chance-I mean, do we know what we have? Because whatever we may have had before, it's not gonna be the same thing now. He's for sure not the same way he was, and I'm not, either. What do we do if we can't-if he doesn't-"

She stopped, because thinking about it was like looking into a terrifying abyss. After a couple of painful swallows, she gave an impatient, almost angry laugh. "Oh, hell, I'm just bein' a crybaby, never mind me. I don't s'pose we're the first married couple to have to readjust after bein' separated by a war. What do you think-a few million?"

"I don't know," said Mirabella with uncharacteristic gravity, "but I imagine quite a few of those marriages suffered as a result. But," she added in a more normal, positive tone, "you two loved each other once, enough that you didn't remarry-"

"Oh, for Pete's sake," Jessie interrupted, with an angry swat at the air, "it's not like I wouldn't have, if I'd met anybody I wanted to marry! I just didn't, that's all."

"Maybe," said Mirabella, "that's because you never found anybody who could measure up to Tristan." Jessie looked at her and didn't say anything. "So what was it about him, do you remember? What was it that made you fall in love with him, all those years ago?"

Jessie gave a gulp of guilty laughter. "Oh Lord-the sex. No-I swear, it was. Sex, hormones, chemistry…what can I say?"

Mirabella made an impatient face. "Yeah, sure, right. At first, maybe. Look-I know Tristan's got great eyes and a killer smile, but the sex-appeal thing doesn't last. I mean, what did you love about him?"

"Oh Lord." Jessie thought about it, hugging herself because, in spite of the warmth of the afternoon, she could feel herself shivering deep inside. "God…when I think about him back then, all I seem to be able to remember is the way he smiled…his eyes…he seemed so happy-go-lucky, so arrogant, so confident and cocky…" She laughed shakily. "Stubborn to the point of being bullheaded…opinionated…convictions as unshakable as his jaw."

Her sister-in-law shook her head and made a clicking sound with her tongue. "Hmm…not exactly an easy person to live with," she murmured, and Jessie caught a glimpse of the laughter in her eyes. Because, of course, Mirabella herself could have been that person Jessie'd just described.

"Well, no," she hastened to add, "but he was strong and brave and loyal, too. He wouldn't hesitate to risk his life for somebody, even a stranger. And he was about as softhearted as they come. I don't know if anybody knew it, but he was really sentimental. And gentle. And-" her voice choked and she finished in a whisper "-he really, really adored his little girl."

"And her mother, too, certainly."

"That I'm not so sure about," Jessie said with a bleak little smile.

"Oh, come on." But for once Mirabella wasn't going to have a chance to argue, because Tristan was coming toward them across the lawn. Max was with him, and the two men were talking and laughing and grinning like little boys who'd just done something incredibly foolhardy and gotten away without a scratch.

The sight should have warmed her heart…shouldn't it? Here it was, a beautiful day, much like when she'd stood on this very porch and watched those two officers in dress blues come across the lawn with the news that had blown her world apart. The climbing rosebush was in full bloom, the lawn was yellow-polka-dotted with dandelions, just as they'd been then. From the other side of the house she could hear somebody hollering that the ribs were 'bout done and for Momma to send somebody out with a platter. A screen door slammed, and laughter and conversation rippled and floated on the warm, humid air.

Home. This is my home…my family. And here in the midst of it all was Tristan…alive, laughing, grinning his old familiar Tristan grin. It was a miracle…beyond anything she could possibly have dreamed of. She should be overflowing with happiness. Giddy with it.

Later that evening Jessie stood before the antique oak chest of drawers that had belonged to Granny Calhoun, and gazed at the gold wedding band in the palm of her hand. Outside, the brief Southern dusk had deepened into its soft and velvety darkness, and somewhere out in the woods a whippoorwill had begun its frantic song. The food leftovers had been packed up and distributed, and one by one the families had drifted away-Troy and Charly were on their way back to Atlanta, and Tracy and Al to Augusta, and C.J. and Caitlyn to their little house down the road. Summer and Riley were staying overnight with Mirabella and Jimmy Joe; it was a long drive back to Charleston. Tris and Max and Sammi June were still out in the backyard, dismantling the tables and putting away the barbecue.

Jessie had finished helping with the last of the kitchen clean-up and had come upstairs to the room that had been hers alone for eight and a half years, and which, for the past two days, and for the first time in her life, she'd been sharing-sort of-with Tristan. With my husband. She'd been putting lotion on her hands when she remembered her wedding ring, still in its little velvet box where she'd put it years ago, in the old rosewood humidor that had served as her jewelry box ever since she was a teenager. In the hectic time since they'd been home, with all the demands of family and television interviews and tapings, neither she nor Tristan had thought of it.

Now she was remembering the terrible day she'd taken it off…the day of Tristan's memorial service. It had been hot, she remembered, and humid, with rain threatening and thunder grumbling in the distance. She remembered Sammi June's small, sticky hand in hers, and both of them jerking when the rifles fired their salute…and then the white-gloved hands holding out to her the folded three-corner flag. She barely remembered taking it and murmuring thank you. Later, she'd placed the flag in a drawer in this very dresser-the top one-and had taken off her wedding ring and put it in its box and put it in the drawer with the flag. Later that night, unable to sleep, she'd opened the drawer with trembling hands and taken the ring out of its box and put it back on her finger. Sometime after that, during a spring cleaning-she couldn't remember exactly when-she'd moved the flag to the cedar chest. The ring had stayed on her finger until she'd started working in the NICU. She'd started taking it off when she left for her shift, and then one day she came home and didn't put it back on. Tristan's gone, she remembered telling herself half defiantly, as if she were about to commit a sin. He's not coming back. It's time to move on.

Now, gazing at the ring, her eyes shimmered and filled with tears. Tris is alive! I should be so happy, she thought. I am happy, dammit.

So why do I feel this aching sadness that won't go away?

Behind her the door opened. She heard Tristan come quietly into the room and close the door. She didn't turn but watched his reflection come to join hers in the murky, oak-framed oval mirror above the dresser. He was smiling, and when he put his hands on her shoulders and bent his head to kiss the side of her neck, she smelled beer on his breath.

"Hmm," he murmured, nuzzling her with his chin, "wha'cha doin'? Ah-" Noticing the ring in her hand, he took it from her, and with both arms encircling her from behind, slipped it onto her finger. "There," he said thickly, "back where it belongs."

He nudged aside her hair and kissed the back of her neck, and she shivered. In response he chuckled and opened his mouth on her damp nape, at the same time wrapping her in his arms and covering her breasts with his hands. She felt a hot, drawing pressure on her neck, and nerves sang through her skin and hardened her nipples, and arousal pooled between her thighs.

"Are you making a hicky?" she mumbled, already half-incoherent.

"Mmm…so what? Nobody'll see it. Unless you put your hair up…oops, damn. You made me lose my place. Oh, well…guess I'll just have to start over…"

"Tris…" But his hands were under her shirt, cupping her breasts and plucking impatiently between them at the closing of her bra. She released it for him, then gasped when he brushed the bra aside and took each sensitized tip between a thumb and forefinger. The heat between her thighs coiled and writhed, and her legs turned to jelly. This time she whimpered it: "Tris…"

He lifted his head and watched her in the mirror while one hand found her zipper and ripped it down, then slipped inside her panties. His palm was warm, and his fingers splayed over her belly, gently kneading. The other arm, tight across her breasts, held her close against him while he continued to torment one taut nipple. "I enjoyed today," he said softly. "More than I thought I would." His eyes gleamed like dark pools in moonlight.

"Did you?" She could barely talk, now…barely stand.

"Umm-hmm…more than you'll ever know." The unfathomable pools that were his eyes darkened…deepened. His lips tightened briefly and then quirked sideways, as if he'd felt a spasm of pain and was determined to hide it.

More than you'll ever know… How will I know if you won't tell me? she thought. But her mind and body were in different places. Her heart was bumping against his arm, and lower down, his fingers measured the frantic thrumming of her pulse.

She wanted to close her eyes but somehow knew he wouldn't want her to, so she fiercely ordered them to stay open and watched herself…watched him…as he slipped his fingers into her. Not gently-suddenly and deeply, and holding her tightly so that the thrust of his hand made her feel his hardness pressed against her buttocks. But she was ready for him, and the gasp that burst from her wasn't pain. Her body liquefied. Her palms and the soles of her feet felt scorched. In the murky glass of the old mirror, her eyes looked wild, and her cheeks glowed as if with a fever.

"I can't-"

"Yes-you can. You can."

But her body was already spiraling out of her control-if it had ever been in it-and she was breaking up in a thousand tiny explosions, all cold fire and flooding warmth. She gave a soft, desperate cry and let the kindly darkness come, and as she closed her eyes she felt his mouth, hot and open on her neck, and his fingers inside her, playing her body's sensations like quivering guitar strings, making them last and last and last…

And then he was laying her down on the bed and taking off her clothes…guiding her thighs apart and entering her still-throbbing body. Gently now, he moved within her, braced above her on taut and trembling arms, eyes closed, neck muscles corded. Dazed, Jessie drew her hands down his back, stroking rigid muscles and sliding over the ropy ribbons of scar tissue, rocking with his thrusts, arching her body into his, remembering what it had been like, remembering this…remembering.

His climax was restrained, almost…polite, Jessie thought. Afterward, he kissed her, used his discarded T-shirt for a towel, then gathered her against him-her back to his front-and fell asleep, breathing softly…snoring gently into her hair.

It was early, nowhere near Jessie's customary bedtime, and she lay awake for a long time, afraid to move or get up and go to the bathroom or turn off the lights Tris had left burning.

It's going to be all right, she told herself, staring at the familiar room…the wallpaper, the furniture, the curtains she knew so well. We've come so far already. Haven't we?

It'll be better once we have a place of our own.