They were both silent for a moment. Finally Maxie said, “You aren’t mad in love with Miss Picky Pants?”
He shook his head.
“Then stop kissing her!” Maxie demanded.
Tom grinned. “You don’t miss anything, do you?”
“You think I raised a decorated marine and made money on apples by missing things?”
Chapter Thirteen
It wasn’t unusual for busy married couples who had both children and careers that took more than the usual forty hours per week to do more communicating through phone calls, emails and during short breaks in the workday than at other times. So it was with Jack Sheridan and his wife, Mel. What was unusual was for Preacher to call Mel and ask her to drop in to the bar when things were quiet to have a chat with her husband.
“What’s the matter?” she asked when she got there.
“Nothing,” Jack answered. “Why?”
“Because Preacher asked me to come over if I wasn’t busy. He said you needed counseling.”
Jack grumbled and poured himself a cup of coffee. “He’s getting worse than an old woman.”
Mel stared him down for a minute, then she went to the door to the kitchen, pushed it open and said, “Preach, help me out here. I have a patient in a half hour and Jack doesn’t want to talk right now.” Then she went back to her stool.
Momentarily Preacher was standing beside Jack. “So,” the cook said. “You haven’t told her what’s wrong?”
“I don’t have anything to say!” he said with attitude.
Preacher faced Mel, and about that time Paige came into the bar, standing beside her husband. “About a week ago Luke brought a friend in for a beer. Old friend of Luke’s from Army days—an old Black Hawk pilot. Well, it turns out Jack and Coop, the friend, knew each other way back when. Some woman accused Coop of beating her up, Jack called the MP’s and Coop was locked up. But it turned out to be some kind of misunderstanding, Coop got out, Jack shipped out, the woman disappeared long ago and now what we have, with holidays and town parties coming up, is a little bad blood between the Riordans and Jack. A Riordan-Sheridan standoff over something that happened a long time ago with a lot of mixed-up details and facts.”
Mel was stunned silent for a moment. Her mouth hung open, her blue eyes were wide. Finally she said, “Huh?”
Preacher took a deep breath. Then he began again. “About a week ago…”
Paige put a hand on her husband’s forearm. She shook her head. “Not from the beginning, John,” she said. Paige looked at her friend. “Mel, about fifteen years ago a marine and a soldier were both at the same place at the same time. Your marine was friendly with a waitress who confided she had a bad relationship. Abusive, she said. You know Jack—he offered to help if needed. He gave her a phone number and a couple of days later, she called that number and left Jack a message that she needed help.”
“And I went,” Jack said. “She was banged up pretty bad and crying. I tried to take her to the hospital, but she wouldn’t go. So I called the police and stayed with her until they came.”
Mel looked at him. “What did she want, Jack?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “Moral support, I guess. I suggested she get herself away from whoever would do that to her and she said she’d go anywhere I’d take her, just to get her out of there. But I couldn’t do any more—I was scheduled out on a military transport with a squad of marines. And our destination was privileged. So she told the MP’s who beat her up and then, wouldn’t you know, he stumbled in, half drunk, knuckles bruised, denying he’d ever touched her…”
“And Jack,” Mel asked. “Who told the military police that he was the one? Was it you? Did you say, that’s him?”
“He could hardly stand up! He’d been passed out and looked guilty as all hell.”
Preacher made a sound. “Fortunately that sort of thing never happened to you.”
“That’s how I got to read his tattoos,” Mel said. “Remember that, Preach? He was completely toasted, face down on the floor and I sat up with him all night.”
“All right, all right,” Jack said. “Did I need an alibi?