AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She needed to survive. There was nothing more now.
No escape.
She felt the urge to turn around and look out the back of the sedan into the dark night. She wanted one more glimpse of him. But she knew they’d already traveled too far.
Still, she hadn’t expected Josh to find her. She’d avoided the nearest police station, knowing he’d look there first. And she hadn’t steeled herself for his words.
Trust me.
Oh, she’d heard every word he’d fired at the soldiers tasked with transporting her to the nearest military base. She’d listened as he jumped to her defense and she’d soaked up his every I love you.
But when he’d asked her to have faith in him, to believe that he would fix this . . . she’d faltered.
How could he help her now? She didn’t even know where they were taking her. She hadn’t asked how soon she would be court-martialed. Or which military prison was nearby. She had no idea what would happen to her next.
Something always happens next.
He’d been right about that. And this was the only step left for her—this bleak, heartbreaking path.
She closed her eyes and beat back the tears. She’d wept once tonight. For Helena. And she’d opened her heart to a spectrum of emotions while she wrote that letter.
Now it was best to remain numb. If she let herself feel, the despair would rush in.
But no matter what happened next, no matter where they took her, or what sentence they handed down for her unauthorized absence, she was done living in fear.
JOSH PULLED INTO the Big Buck’s parking lot at two in the afternoon the next day, a full twelve hours after he’d called Noah. He was surprised to find the bar closed. The lights were off. And as he climbed out of his truck, he saw a sign hung on the door that read ‘Closed for Emergency Repairs.’
It had taken him longer than he’d expected to get back to the hotel in Palo Alto, rouse a passed out Helena, and get on the road. Plus, when they’d arrived in Forever he’d agreed to drop his hungover and exhausted travel companion at her mother’s house. Helena had been through enough in the past twenty hours and he wasn’t about to subject her to an interrogation. Plus, he knew her childhood friends would have a mountain of questions.
He walked past the line of familiar cars and pickups. He raised a tired hand and knocked on the wooden door beside the sign. Noah pulled it open, propped the door with his foot, and folded his arms across his chest.
“About damn time you got back here.” He nodded to the long wooden bar and scattered high top tables lined with familiar faces. “We got started without you.”
Josh stepped into Big Buck’s and surveyed the space. His gaze landed on Brody and Chad. His brothers shared a table with Kat, the doctor who’d helped Josh reclaim his memory—and in the process fallen for his oldest brother—and Lena, the army veteran who never left the house without her golden retriever, Hero. Right now, her PTSD service dog sat at her feet chewing on his toy duck.
“Before you start,” Josh said, pointing a finger first at Brody and then at Chad, “I love her. This is it for me. I’m not trying to win her back just because she walked out. I’m not playing out some messed-up ‘abandonment issues’ or anything.”
“Didn’t say you were,” Chad muttered, but one look from Brody and their middle brother shut up.
“I’m not trying to slot her into some version of my fantasy future,” he added.
His eldest brother raised an eyebrow.
“OK, maybe at first, I was looking to make the pieces fit. But not anymore.” This earned an approving nod from Kat.
“And I’m sure as hell not trying to be a hero,” Josh continued, looking away from his brothers and scanning the room. “I can’t do this on my own. I need your help because . . .”
He shook his head. He couldn’t believe he was standing here in front of his family and the Big Buck’s crew spilling his guts. “I need your help because I’m so damn afraid I’m going to let her down. And she’s not just my second chance after all the shit I’ve been through . . . the accident, the coma . . . She’s my everything.” His voice broke over that last word, but he kept going. “And I’ll use up all my chances to get her back.”
“We’re going to get her out,” Noah said, slapping Josh on the shoulder as he walked past. “While you were driving back, we started making calls.”
“I found a therapist who specializes in military sexual trauma,” Kat announced. “She’s based in Washington, DC, but she’s willing to fly out here to meet with Caroline. She’s respected in the military community. I think we can get her access if we make some noise.”
“We have a plan for that,” Lily piped up.
“And I spoke with my counselor,” Lena said as she lowered her hand to her dog. “There’s precedence for a medical discharge. Women who suffer from MST or even PTSD have been released without jail time before. Even after they’ve gone AWOL. If we can pull some strings, she would avoid being court-martialed.”
“Pull some strings?” Josh repeated. How the hell was he going to manage that?
