Best Kept Secrets(60)
"A loan."
"A government loan?"
"No, a private one," he answered evasively.
"Who lent you the money--Angus?"
"So? I paid back every friggin' cent of it."
"By working for him?"
"Until I left ME."
"Why'd you leave?"
"Because I'd paid him back and wanted to do something
else."
"That was as soon as you got out of college?"
He shook his head. "The air force."
"You were in the air force?"
"Four years of officers' training during college, then active
duty after graduation. For six years my ass belonged to Uncle
Sam. Two of those years were spent bombing gooks in Vietnam."
Alex hadn't known he'd been involved in the war, but she
should have guessed. He'd been at draftable age during the
height of it. "Did Junior serve, too?"
"Junior at war? Can you picture that?" he asked with a
rough laugh. "No, he didn't go. Angus pulled some strings
and got him into the reserves."
"Why not you, too?"
"I didn't want him to. I wanted to go into the air force."
"To learn to fly?"
"I already knew how to fly. I had my pilot's license before
I had my driver's license."
She contemplated him for a moment. The information was
coming too fast and furious to absorb. "You're just full of
surprises this morning, aren't you? I didn't know you could
fly."
"No reason you should, Counselor."
"Why aren't there any pictures of you in uniform?" she
asked, indicating the bookcase.
"I hated what I was doing over there. No mementos of
wartime, thanks." He backed away from her, picked up his
hat, gloves, and coat, then went to the front door and ungraciously
pulled it open.
Alex remained where she was. "You and Junior must have
missed each other white you were serving your six years in
the air force."
"What's that supposed to mean? Do you think we're queer
for each other?"
"No," she said with diminishing patience. "I just meant
that you're good friends who, up till that point, had spent a
lot of time together."
He slammed the door closed and slung down his outerwear.
"By then we were used to being apart."
"You spent four years of college together," she pointed
out.
"No, we didn't. We were attending Texas Tech at the
same time, but since he was married--"
"Married?"
"Another surprise?" he asked tauntingly. "Didn't you
know? Junior got married just a few weeks after we graduated
from high school."
No, Alex hadn't known that. She hadn't realized that Junior's
first marriage had come on the heels of high school
graduation, and consequently, so soon after Celina's murder.
The timing seemed strange.
"For a long while, then, you and Junior didn't see much
of each other."
"That's right," was Reede's clipped response.
"Did my mother's death have anything to do with that?"
"Maybe. We didn't--couldn't talk about it."
"Why?"
"It was too damned hard. Why the hell do you think?"
"Why was it hard to be around Junior and talk about
Celina's death?"
"Because we'd always been a trio. One of us was suddenly
missing. It didn't feel right to be together."
Alex weighed the advisability of pressing him on this, but
decided to take the plunge. "You were a trio, yes, but if it
was ever odd man out, the odd man was Junior, not Celina.
Right? You and she were an inseparable duo before you
became an inseparable trio."
"You keep the hell out of my life," he ground out. "You
don't know a damn thing about it, about me."
" There's no need for you to get mad, Reede."
"Oh, no? Why shouldn't I get mad? You want to resurrect
the past, everything from my first real kiss to some f*cking
football trophy that has about as much value as a pile of horse
shit, but I'm not supposed to get mad."
"Most people enjoy reminiscing."
"I don't. I want to leave my past in the past."
"Because it's hurtful?"
"Some of it."
"Is it hurtful to remember the first time you Kissed my
mother for real?"
He strode toward the sofa and bridged her hips with his
hands, keeping his arms stiff. His voice changed from a
ranting pitch to pure silk. "That kiss sure as hell intrigues
you, doesn't it, Counselor?"
He overwhelmed her. She could say nothing.