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Outside, Kellen located a sunny bench and parked Chad beside it before taking a seat. Chad tilted his face toward the sun and closed his eyes, breathing deeply to clear his thoughts again.
“Do you want to talk about what’s going on between you and Owen?” he asked after a long moment.
“No,” Kellen said. “Do you want to talk about what happened in Afghanistan?”
“Not at all.”
So, the two of them sat side by side in comfortable silence, knowing the other was there if or when needed, and it was enough.
*~*~*
Maybe Chad should have just stayed in the hospital, but two weeks of that hellhole had been far worse than being deployed. Getting into Owen’s Jeep that morning had been a chore, even with the assistance of two strong orderlies, but he was determined to get out of the vehicle at Owen’s house without falling on his face and looking weak in front of Lindsey. His brother had installed a long wooden ramp at the back of the house so at least Chad didn’t have to navigate steps to get inside—scooting up the porch stairs on his ass would be his only option until his shoulder was better and he could handle crutches. And he could hop now, so maybe he could have hopped up the steps one by one. But Owen had gone to all that trouble to build him a ramp, so the least Chad could do was get himself into the goddamned wheelchair to make the work that had gone into building the ramp worthwhile.
“Are you ready for this?” Owen asked as they sat in the car and stared at the ramp as if it were a Rube Goldberg machine.
“Yeah,” Chad said. He sounded confident, but it was a ruse.
The back door opened, and Lindsey emerged. A bright smile lit up her face. As stupid as it sounded—even to himself—Chad was there for her. He liked her more than he cared to admit. Thinking about her took his mind off any regrets over his past and lessened his worries over the future. When she was near, he could live in the moment. He just didn’t want her to witness any of his moments that were embarrassing and showed his weakness. She gave him a reason to be strong. He needed a reason—even a simple reason—to move forward without falling into despair.
“Can you ask Lindsey to wait inside?” Chad asked.
“She’ll be crushed that you want her to go away,” Owen said. “Look how happy she is to see you.”
She did look happy with one hand on her large belly and the other waving enthusiastically at the Jeep. She waddled down the ramp at an expedient clip.
“It’s not that I want her to go away,” he admitted. “I don’t want her to see me floundering about as I get into the wheelchair.”
“But we might need her help.”
“I don’t want her help.”
“Then why did you have the nurses explain your care procedures to her instead of to me?”
Hell if Chad knew. Thinking about Lindsey taking care of him and having her do it were entirely different.
The little argument between him and Owen had taken too long; Lindsey was on Chad’s side of the Jeep and opening his door.
“You made it!” she said, wrapping her arms around him.
She smelled of peaches and sunshine. His heart quickened as he wrapped his good arm around her and pulled her closer. God, he wanted to kiss her, but didn’t want to make their growing friendship awkward. He was undeniably attracted to her, but he knew it was impossible for her to feel anything more for him than camaraderie. She likely felt sorry for him even though he strove hard not to encourage that reaction. She never treated him like she pitied him, but in the weeks he’d spent recovering in the hospital, he’d never let her see him struggle. She had witnessed his weakness for a few minutes when she’d caught him mourning the loss of Josie, but not since, and he vowed she’d never see it again. He’d be strong. He’d be strong for her.
Owen got out of the car and freed the wheelchair from the back. Chad forced himself to let go of Lindsey when she started to pull away.
“You look better,” she said, cupping the side of his face and studying him.
“It’s the sunglasses,” he said. They’d unbandaged his eye, and though it was irritated due to the scratch on his cornea, his vision hadn’t been damaged. The eye was especially sensitive to bright light, though, so he was wearing a very unattractive pair of wrap-around sunglasses that optometrists were so fond of making patients wear after eye surgery. He still had the bandage on the side of his head where he’d almost lost his ear. It was probably healed enough not to need the bandage, but the covering looked far less terrible than the jagged scar that was forming.
“They’re very Terminator,” Lindsey said.
They’d watched that film together—squashed side by side in his narrow hospital bed—a few days ago. Well, she’d watched it. He’d mostly sat there thinking about how much he wanted to kiss her.
She scrunched up her nose and asked, “You didn’t rip your eye out and throw it into a sink, did you?”
“Kind of feels like it,” he admitted, but he lowered his shades to show her both eyes were fully functional.
Her smile turned dreamy. She oughtn’t do that. It gave him hope.
“They’re both gorgeous blue,” she said. “I was starting to worry you had a glowing red robot eye under there. Does it hurt?” Her fingers traced the healing scratch near his temple.
“I sense injuries,” he said in a wooden Schwarzenegger accent. “The data could be called pain.” He wondered if she’d seen the second Terminator film. He was ready to binge-watch them all again and hoped she’d join him. Cozying up with her on the sofa and making her laugh as he repeated lines to her sounded like the only piece of heaven he had any interest in.
“Are you ready?” Owen asked. He stood with the damned wheelchair directly behind the passenger door.
Chad gave his brother a searching look before he pushed his shades back into place. Owen licked his lips. “Say, Lindsey . . . Could you go hold the back door open for us? I know how slow you walk.”
She stuck her tongue out at him but headed away from the car. “I made lunch,” she called over her shoulder. “Your mom is coming over to eat with us. I told her I’d call her when you got here. James has to work.”
“She just fits right in here, doesn’t she?” Chad said, gripping the handle near the Jeep’s open door and turning in the seat so his left leg would catch him when he found the courage to push out of the vehicle. He hoped his leg could support his weight. His hospital physical therapy had gone well. Surprisingly well. But he’d been determined to show the doctor that he was ready to go home. His only motivation now was to drop himself into that wheelchair without breaking his neck. There’d been a therapeutic rail on either side of him when he’d pushed himself out of the chair and stood for the first time. More recently, he’d taken a few hops forward, turned, and gone back. That was when they’d put the sling on him to keep him from overusing his shoulder until the torn muscle healed. They’d worried that he’d overdo it in his determination to prove that he’d been broken but not beaten.
“She tries really hard,” Owen said quietly. “She wants a family. More for the baby than for herself, I think. Aren’t we lucky she picked ours?”
Owen sounded sarcastic, but Chad thought they were exceptionally lucky that Lindsey had picked them. It was good to have someone around who didn’t remember the “old” Chad. Someone who would see him as he was now without comparing him to what he’d once been. Someone who wouldn’t celebrate every miniscule milestone as he sought his new normal. He didn’t need that. He was sure his mother would fill that role if he wanted a trophy for wiping his own ass. What his soul needed was someone who laughed at his lame impressions, teased him about his ugly sunglasses, told him his eyes were gorgeous, and held no expectations, just acceptance. So far, Lindsey was the only one who came even close to fitting that description.
“Are the wheels locked?” Chad asked, taking a deep breath and trying to think of this as just jumping out of a car on one leg because he wanted to, not because he had to.
“Yep
.”
“Here goes nothing.”
Owen reached out to grab him, but Chad shook his head. “Let me try it on my own first.”
“If you fall—”
“Then I’ll drag my sorry carcass off the ground. Don’t help me.”
“But—”
“Owen.”
At Chad’s stern look, Owen dropped his hand to rest on the wheelchair handle. “Mom will kill me if I let you fall.”
Chad snorted. “You’re a grown-ass man. Don’t tell me you’re still scared of your mommy.”
“Hell yes I’m scared of her. You’d be scared of her too if our roles were reversed.”
