A Virgin River Christmas (Virgin River #4)(67)

“My old man was there when I was decorated. He stood nice and tall, polite, and told everyone he knew about the medals. But he never said jack to me. Then when I told him I was getting out of the Marine Corps, he told me I was a f**kup. That I didn’t know a good thing when I had it. And he said…” He paused for a second. “He said he’d never been so ashamed of me in his whole goddamn life and if I did that—got out—I wasn’t his son.”

Instead of crumbling into tears on his behalf, she leaned against him, stroked his cheek a little and smiled. “So—he was the same guy his whole stupid life.”

Ian felt a slight, melancholy smile tug at his lips. “The same guy. One miserable son of a bitch.”

“There’s really no excuse for a guy like that,” she said. “It doesn’t cost you anything to be nice.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Oh?”

“Really. He ought to be ashamed. Everyone has the option to be civil. Decent. I knew when I met him he was mean and ornery.”

“Next you’re going to say I won’t be free of that till I forgive him,” Ian said. “They always say, not for the person who has been horrible, but for yourself.”

“Not bloody likely, coming from me,” she said. “Now if he asked for forgiveness…”

“Hah. Not in your wildest dreams,” he said.

“I wouldn’t expect so. I met him, remember. None of what you told me surprises me.”

“Marcie, I don’t hate him, I swear to God. But I can’t see why I’d want to say, ‘I’m perfectly okay with you being the coldest SOB I’ve ever known.’ And I’m sure not looking to be around that again. What’s the point?”

She leaned forward and laid her head against his shoulder. “Hmm. Why would you? It’s not likely he’d change. Ian, there’s nothing you can do to change him. Now I understand. Now it will be all right.”

“What is it you think you understand?”

She held him close. “You were battle scarred. You’d lost your best friend, even though he was still alive—technically—a complication that probably made things even worse for you. Your relationship floundered. That happens so often after a soldier gets out of a war zone—been happening since World War I and earlier, I’m sure. Too bad that happened, but I don’t think you could have helped it…. You had to have a little time…”

“I know I could’ve used some help, but if anyone had offered to help me, I’d have broken his jaw,” Ian said.

“I’m sure. You probably had a lot of rage stored up at that time. Well-deserved rage. The least a person can do is try to empathize. Be patient. Your loved ones—”

“It turned out I didn’t have loved ones,” he said in a quiet voice.

“Well,” she said, lifting her head and looking into those lovely brown eyes. “You do now. And thank you—I wanted to understand what happened. That’s all I wanted, and you didn’t have to tell me, but you did.”

He pushed some of that wild red hair over her ear. “You had some fantasy about what would happen when you found me, admit it.”

“I did.” She grinned. “I tried to keep it to myself, and it didn’t include fabulous sex. I fantasized that I’d find you, tell you some things that would ease your mind and then I’d take you home.”

“Home?”

“To Chico, or wherever home is to you,” Marcie said. “A lot of your old squad checked in on Bobby, asked if I knew where you were. You’re not as alone as you think. But you’d have to go to some trouble to find them now. You went missing too long. When people think you don’t want them, they let you be.”

“Not all of them.” He laughed.

“Well, I told you—I can match you for stubborn.”

“So, tell me about this forgiveness thing you don’t get,” he prodded.

“Oh, Ian—I’m in the same spot as you. If someone did something horrible to me and never apologized or asked for forgiveness, I wouldn’t break my neck trying to forgive them. Those insurgents in Fallujah? I’m not working on loving them like brothers. If that’s what I have to do to be an okay person, I’m going to remain the baddest little carrottop on the playground.”

“What about God?”

“God understands everything. And even He made a mistake or two. Look at the size of avocado seeds—way too big. And pomegranates? Too many seeds. What a waste of fruit!”

He laughed loudly. “So what do you do to come to a peaceful place about those horrible people?”

She lifted her head and looked into his eyes without mirth. Her green eyes were warm and soft. Her smile was gentle. “We accept them as they are. And if we can’t love them like brothers, maybe we can understand and let them be their own problems. Holy Christ, isn’t that enough of a challenge? Accept him as he is, Ian—a miserable old son of a bitch who was hardly happy a day in his life, and it really had nothing to do with you.”

Though he fought it, he felt his eyes glisten with tears. Long seconds passed in which she met that clouded gaze fearlessly—not afraid of his roar, his rage or his tears. “How does someone so young and bad and wild get wisdom?” he asked in a whisper.