Southern Sunshine by Natasha Madison

Chapter 21

Reed

I put my hands on my knees, looking out in front of me. “What else is on your list?" I ask Hazel, looking at her.

"If I do something you don’t like …" I look over at her again and fuck if she isn’t as beautiful as she was all those nights ago. More beautiful than I remember, she is wearing another pair of yoga pants and a white T-shirt tucked into the front. The same thing she was wearing this morning, but seeing her again still takes my breath away. "Or if you do something I don’t like, we talk to each other without Sofia."

"I would think that is a given,” I say. “But I have no idea. I’ll never put you down in front of her."

"Punishments,” she says and holds her hands up. “I don’t spank her, never have had to. She’s a great kid, and she is well behaved."

"She’s the best,” I say. “I know I’m biased, but in the two days I’ve known her, I can see how fucking amazing she is, and it’s all because of you. I can’t ever repay you." I stop talking, hoping I can say more, but I know I have to tread lightly. “I won’t spank her." I shake my head, the thought making my stomach hurt.

"Fuck, when she told me she fell on that fucking rock …" I point at the field that we cleared today. “I swear on everything, I wanted to blow up the fucking rock with a bazooka." Hazel laughs now. “It’s not funny. I had this rage in me." I shake my head. “Besides, I don’t ever remember getting a spanking when we were growing up." I try to think back. “I don’t think I ever got spanked." I laugh. “I mean, there were times I thought my father was going to ream my ass, but I sort of knew the tone.” She nods her head, agreeing with me. “If my father said it in a certain tone, I knew if I fucked with him, he would have me over his knee. Remember when I crashed his car at fourteen.” Her eyes open big now.

“Oh my God, I remember that,” she says. “We didn’t see you for a month."

"Because I mucked fucking stalls for a month from six a.m. until six p.m.,” I say, laughing. "I even tried to go to summer school to get out of it, but nothing helped. At one point, my hand was stuck from holding a rake all day long."

She can’t stop laughing, and I, for one, will listen to her laugh every single day of my life. Talking to her has always been so fucking easy. “But you never ever drove again until you got your license." She pushes my shoulder with her own. "Pops had a look, and I knew. He didn’t give it to me often." She shakes her head now, most likely remembering that look. “I knew that it would be bad. All it took was a look, and I knew that whatever I was doing, I better fucking stop."

"I got that look once,” I say, slapping my leg. “It was a Sunday barbecue. Christopher and I were chasing you. I think we were eleven or twelve. I couldn’t catch you, so I pulled your bra strap from the back." I watch her to see if she remembers, but she just looks at me with her eyebrows pinched together. In the dark, I can’t see her eyes, but when they sparkle, it’s the best. “I turned to the side and saw Pops standing there, and I almost shit my pants from the look he gave me. I never touched another bra strap again. Plus, it didn’t help that he was standing with Grandpa, and his look said that if Pops didn’t kick my ass, he would." Her head goes back, and she laughs.

"Why can’t I remember that?” she says.

"Fuck if I know,” I say. “I thought I was going to piss myself there. I still remember Christopher almost shit himself. He never even looked at you twice. When you started working at the bar, he wouldn’t even go near the tables you were working.”

She gasps. “How did I never know this? I just thought he was quiet and shy."

I shake my head. “No, not even close."

"I guess we agree that if the other parent gives her a punishment, that we follow it when she is with them?” she asks, and I nod. "Dating,” she says, and I whip my head to look at her.

"Are you dating?" I ask, and my tone is harsher than I want it to be, but she caught me off guard. I guess it crossed my mind that maybe she had a man back home, but I was fucking hoping she didn’t.

"I am not,” she says. “I haven’t dated in six years. It’s pretty hard to date when you don’t trust anyone with your daughter, and there are no family members to help out. Besides, it was hard to do it with a child,” she says and all I can say is thank fuck. I look ahead, and neither of us says anything.

"It’s crazy if you think about it," I start. “If I hadn’t come home this time …" I try not to think about it because it makes me want to throw up. “I would never know that I have a daughter." I can see that this bothers her. "I never thought I would be here,” I say softly. “Do you know why I’m here?"

She shakes her head. “I haven’t really kept up with what you have been doing. Besides Pops, I never really talked to anyone here. He brought you up the first two years, and he knew that I just couldn’t even handle hearing your name. I was so hurt that you didn’t even answer my message. He tried to talk me into coming home and telling Billy and Charlotte, but …" She takes a deep breath. “I wasn’t going to give them the burden of Sofia or me. So I worked harder to make sure that she was never ever missing anything."

My heart breaks again, knowing she went through all of this by herself. I owe her more than what I can give her. "This is the first time in six years I’ve been back,” I say, and she gasps in shock.

"I knew you wanted to leave,” she says. “But I always thought you would come back to visit."

I shake my head. “Just the thought of coming back here would make me sick,” I say the truth. “I would sign up for another deployment just to escape from coming back here."

"Then why now?" she asks, and I swallow.

"When I left here," I start, “it was so fucking liberating. I was in no one’s shadow. I was just Reed Barnes,” I say. “The first month was fucking awesome. Highest on the scoreboard. Beat my records, and not one person mentioned my father or my brother." She just listens and doesn’t say anything. "The second month was going well and then I fucking missed them," I admit to her and to myself for the first time ever. “I missed seeing them, being with them. Then I got your message." I shake my head. “It fucking threw me off the track." She blinks away her own tears now. “I’m so sorry I never answered you, and until I die, that will be my biggest regret. But I had to cut the ties. It fucked me up for a week." My hand comes out. “I never came back because I knew that if I did, I wouldn’t have the balls to leave again. So whenever I had leave, I traveled. Picked a spot and backpacked."

"So why are you here now?" she asks.

"Eight weeks ago …" I close my eyes, and I can see it like it’s happening right now in front of me. "My squad and I were taking a drive to the city." I swallow, and I can feel the heat on my body. “Routine. Nothing out of the ordinary. I heard the whizzing before I had a chance to do anything. I was in charge of the squad, and all I could do was yell incoming." The pain in my chest is just as intense as it was that day. “It gave the driver a split second to swerve before a missile hit us." Her hand goes to her chest. “I blinked, and all I saw was black. I don’t remember anything. I heard screaming. When I opened my eyes, there was this buzzing noise, and it took me a second to realize where I was. I had glass all over me, and I will never forget the smell of burnt flesh." She puts her hand on my leg now, the exact leg that was stuck. "I was stuck,” I say. “I was under a part of the truck, and I could hear the bullets trying to hit us. I raised my head, and all I saw was dust everywhere. I reached for my radio, but I just couldn’t grasp it. I yelled for my men, and we were all in bad shape. But their lives rested on my shoulders."

"You were trapped,” she says in a whisper.

"I felt the steel in my leg." I look down to where her hand is, and she takes it off as if my leg is on fire. “I knew that if I didn’t get out of there, I would die there." She wipes the tears running down her face. “I knew that if I gave up and waited for help, they would take us, and we would be their fucking pawn." I shake my head, my voice cracking. “That wasn’t happening. Not on my watch."

"What did you do?" she whispers.

“I closed my eyes and shut everything down and pulled my leg free. I felt the steel rip through my flesh. The burning went right down to my bones. But I got the radio and got an air strike to come and rescue us. I pulled two of the guys who had burns on their hands to safety, and it was the longest twenty-two minutes of my life. The minute I got into the helicopter, I faded to black. I woke up seven days later in Germany. I was put on the injury list, thirty days until my next check-in, so I called my father and decided to come home. Fuck." I shake my head. “I always wondered why I didn’t die there that day. I wondered why I was saved, but now being here, coming home, I know why." My own tears stream down my face. “It was for you, this." I look into her eyes. “It was for you two."