She’s sleeping with me. Her soft breaths are whispering across the fur on my chest and she’s smiling in her sleep.
I groan and close my eyes, exhausted beyond belief.
I’ve got the woman I’ve wanted since I was a teenager lying with me, smiling while she sleeps curled up next to me.
Her hair is a wild, pale halo of curls on my chest, her delicate fingers are resting on my chest over my heart and she’s smiling happily in her sleep.
I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as her soft pink cheeks and her full, pouty raspberry lips.
I close my eyes and slide into sleep, hoping that for once it will be a good night.
I’ve got the woman I love, how can it not?
And then I’m back on that godforsaken day, watching clinically as our convoy moves closer and closer to disaster.
I’m talking to Danny. He’s popping his head out and he’s searching for every damn thing he can find wrong.
Right now, I let myself go in the dream, hoping that it takes me someplace else. Someplace where nobody dies. Nobody becomes disabled on my watch.
But that’s not what happens and a huge bang slams into our vehicle. I’m in an army-issue jeep and the second the car slams into the IED, all hell breaks loose and it’s chaos and smoke, screams and moans of the dying.
All of whom are my buddies. The people I’ve worked with for the longest time.
Fidgeting in my sleep, I fight to get back to Marina. Fight to get my sanity back.
But right now there’s no escape.
The first one to fall after me is Dennis. His truck goes up and then the guns are tearing through the wreckage and the moans of my people cut off.
And then there’s a bang as my car explodes and with it my best friend. I’m screaming and cursing as flames lick at me but I fight to get back to Rand, needing to get him out of here. There’s no way that I can look his sister in the face if I leave him without helping.
All hell breaks loose and there’s gunfire and screaming abruptly cut off and I’m lying across Rand where I found him.
I will not leave him out here alone. No matter what.
And then I sink over Rand, my heart hammering out of control, sweat pooling in unpleasant places on my body as footsteps come closer and closer.
And I wake up, screaming like a damn pussy, my heart pounding and sweat pouring off of me in rivers.
Marina squeaks and sits straight up in bed. “Wha…What’s going on?”
“I need out of here,” I pant and leap to my feet, pulling on my jeans and boxers, racing out of the room like my pants are on fire.
She follows me, stumbling, her eyes sleepy. “What’s going on? Where are you going? Stop!”
But I don’t. I head out the door and whistle for Linc. I grab a coat, not even bothering with a shirt. I just need to get out of there, need to get out in the quiet of the night and let it soothe my pain.
“Dammit, Jeremiah! Get back here! Stop leaving me behind every time you get spooked !”
But I don’t stop. I slam the door closed behind me, hoisting my rifle to walk the trees, letting the soft sound of the wind sighing in the trees wash over me, blur my memories until there’s just the memory of Marina yelling at me as I race out the door.
Guilt and shame washes over me. The same old story. I hoped that maybe if I let Marina in again, if I let myself go and love her again, I’d finally find the peace I’ve been looking for.
But it’s not to be and I need to let her go again.
I can’t be the disruption in her life. The man who messes it up even more than it already is thanks to some other asshole.
I want to be my woman’s rock. But instead I’m the anchor around her neck. The thing that drags her down and drowns her.
