Rhonda Nelson - The Rule-Breaker

But when Sally had told him that they’d simply plan the event around his leave, his schedule, he knew he wasn’t going to be able to get out of it. And considering how good the Hollands had been to him—they’d practically taken him in as one of their own as soon as he’d graduated—he could hardly refuse. Eli’s own family tree had withered and died with the death of his father, so being brought into the Holland fold had filled a void he’d scarcely realized was there.

Sally was the quintessential Southern mom. Her love language was food and nothing made her happier than a full table and full bellies. There was always a cake on the covered stand, cookies of some sort in the jar and cold iced tea in the pitcher. His lips quirked. And the emergency casserole in the freezer, of course, should she need to quickly provide a meal, either for her family or for someone else’s.

Carl Holland was a farmer with a degree in Agriculture from Auburn University—and had two Toomer’s Oaks grown from seedlings standing in the front yard. He had a deep affection for things grown in the soil. He was wise and patient, slow to anger and quick to laugh. Big and burly, with skin darkened from years spent in the sun and hands that were callused and scarred, Sally called him her Gentle Giant, GG for short, a sweet term of endearment that never failed to make Eli smile. He did now, remembering, and the action felt strange, almost foreign.

Probably because there hadn’t been much to smile about in recent months.

Truthfully, though he’d never considered a career outside the military, he had to admit he’d been growing increasingly dissatisfied since Micah’s death. He couldn’t seem to shake the sense that his feet weren’t so much on the right path as stuck to one instead. Bound by the very rules and regulations he used to appreciate, relish even. Micah had often joked that while he’d never met a rule he didn’t break, Eli had never met one he didn’t like.

Too true, he knew.

But rules established order and the absence of order was chaos. And Eli hated chaos. That word virtually described every foster home he’d lived in after the death of his father and the mental decline of his mother. The sweet, smiling woman he remembered from his early childhood had disintegrated into a vacant-eyed stranger who had to be reminded to eat, to bathe, and had to be told that she even had a son who needed to do those things, as well.

“Fragile,” they’d called her, when she’d been taken to the psych ward at their local hospital in Twisted Pines, Georgia.

“Irrevocably broken,” he’d later realize.

He drummed his thumb against the steering wheel, biting the inside of his cheek as the familiar sense of regret trickled through him. He’d need to go and see her before he reported back to base, Eli thought with a stoic twinge of dread. Not that she’d know him, not that she’d care. But he would do it, anyway, because it was the right thing to do, because she was the only family he had.

Furthermore, though he often spoke to her doctors and care team at the assisted living facility she called home—the one he paid for—a personal visit would remind them all that he was more than just the person writing the check. He was her son and, though he barely knew her, he loved her all the same.

Not that he was suspicious of any kind of abuse. He wasn’t. Having heard horror stories about mental hospitals and nursing homes, he’d researched dozens of potential facilities before settling on Marigold Manor. It offered the best in security and care, and smelled more like flowers than antiseptic. Which was a plus if you asked him. To this day the faintest whiff of bleach conjured up images of slumped over bodies too medicated to move, most particularly his mother’s. It had been a nightmare. He’d been twelve at the time. Old enough to know that her treatment was horribly wrong, but not old enough to do anything about it. Powerless.

Awful.

That was no small part of the reason he’d entered the ROTC program. With both sets of grandparents dead before his own birth and no close family, he’d known that he’d need the funds and the security to take care of his mother.

And he had, since he was eighteen years old. Two jobs, sometimes three, during college, then beyond graduation active duty had done the rest.

Duty, Eli thought. Would he ever escape it? And if he could, would he really want to? He released a long breath and slowly entered the town square. Those were questions for another day. A humorless laugh bubbled up his throat.

Or never.

As expected, the little hub of Willow Haven was abuzz with activity. Shoppers strolled along the freshly swept sidewalks, peering into windows as the regular walkers smoothly weaved in and out around them. Lots of flowers he couldn’t name bloomed from overstuffed planters and hanging baskets, and red, white and blue banners hung from various eaves, proclaiming the Micah Holland Memorial Dedication for the coming weekend. Another knot of dread landed in his belly and a pinch of pain constricted his chest as the image of his bloodied friend rose instantly in his mind.

It haunted him, that image.

And the slightest thing could bring it back. The sound of a gunshot, a whiff of Jack Daniel’s, even a laugh similar to his friend’s. It would catch him unaware, yank him unwillingly back into that wretched moment when he knew his friend was gone. At some point he was going to have to tell Gage the truth, Eli thought, wincing from the reminder. The third member of their “three amigos” crew, Gage Harper had been running a covert mission when Micah had died. Knowing that Micah had been struggling, Eli imagined Gage already suspected the truth but, out of respect or fearful of the answer, hadn’t asked.

He’d tell him, of course. At some point. In the near future, in all probability. And, God, how he dreaded it.

He’d become too damned acquainted with dread, Eli thought. In fact, he was so accustomed to it at this point, he was beginning to wonder if he’d know how to function without it, without the disquieting tightening of his gut or the ever-present whisper of uneasiness along his spine.

A group of men, Carl among them, of course, were busy driving stakes into the ground and pulling string, marking off the dimensions for the gazebo. Eli had yet to see the plans, but had been told the design had been rendered by Micah’s ex-fiancée, Shelby Monroe. He hadn’t quite worked out how he felt about that—had never been able to work out how he felt about her, for that matter. Not that anything beyond passing friendliness was in order—he’d be damned before he’d poach on a friend’s territory—but somehow the prickling of his skin, the inexplicable jump in his heart rate and the unwelcome stirring in his loins didn’t strike the strictly platonic note.

It was odd, really, how well he knew her without really knowing her. He’d been able to read her from the get-go, had been able to discern the thoughts behind the furrowing of her sleek brow, the upward quirk of her ripe lips, the twinkling or dimming of her pale green gaze.

That especially sensitive perception had also allowed him to work out some other things, as well. Like the fact that Micah had been more heavily invested in her than she’d been in him. He wasn’t judging. Even now, he wouldn’t. It happened. Micah and Shelby had been high school sweethearts who’d let things cool during college, when they’d both dated other people. They’d reconnected after a bad breakup—hers—and had stuck it out for quite a while. But it had ended six months before Micah’s death.

Despite being desperately in love with her, Micah had drunkenly admitted after she’d broken things off that he’d taken advantage of the situation. He’d offered her a shoulder to cry on, then pressed his advantage by proposing before she was ready. “Because she would have said no if I’d waited,” he’d explained. “And I just wanted her for my own. She was my It Girl,” he’d said, smiling sadly. “I met her and—” he’d shrugged fatalistically “—that was it.”