Chapter 25

The heavy bag swayed from the power of his last punch. Scott removed the gloves and examined his knuckles. Even with sparring gloves, the skin didn't have the toughness it used to. He watched as the split skin healed. Another couple of weeks at the bag and that wouldn't happen anymore.

The healing was something he could only stop with specific thoughts. He'd forgotten in Afghanistan. The slip had nearly exposed him. Only a painful reversal of his rapidly healing wounds kept the medics from strapping him to a gurney and shipping him to a black site for dissection.

The muffled sound of a ringing cell phone broke him from his dark thoughts. He tossed a towel aside and dug the phone out of his sweatpants' pocket.

"Yo!" he said.

"Yo, yourself," Janie replied. "You sound out of breath."

"I bought an exercise machine," he fibbed. Actually, he'd bought a room full of them; weight machines, free weights, a running treadmill, exercise bike. All professional grade equipment, and he'd been putting it to use. "How's school?"

"I shipped the last of my dorm stuff home," she said. "All I have left is what I can carry on the plane, or don't plan to take with me."

"When's your last day?"

"The twelfth, as if you didn't know."

"Was that the date?" Scott wiped the sweat from his face with the towel and headed upstairs. "I think you've only told me fifty times."

"It hasn't been that many," she said. "Listen, the reason I called."

"Yeah?"

"I want to officially invite you to spend Christmas with us. Mom and Dad would love to see you and it's going to be Eddie's last before he moves to El Paso."

"Janie, I wouldn't come to Fort Stockton and not see the family."

"This is different. I want you to spend Christmas Eve at our house. We're going to have a big dinner and sing carols. Please."

"Are you cooking or is your mother cooking?"

"Hey!"

"I accept," Scott said. "Christmas with the Mendozas sounds great."

He'd given up trying to fight whatever it was the two of them were doing.

"Good," she said. "Now, when are you coming down?"

Scott filled a glass with water from the refrigerator door dispenser and took a gulp. "The twenty-third."

"You can't come sooner?"

"No, and I've got a commitment Christmas Eve day at the foster-care home."

Janie didn't say anything.

"Which you could help me with," he added quickly, "if you don't mind playing one of Santa's elves."

"Are you going to be Santa?"

"Not this year. I'm only an elf. It's in the afternoon, if that won't interfere with the meal preparation."

"I'd like that," she said.

"Then it's a—"

"Date?" She suggested.

"—it's a thing."

"Then I look forward to our thing."