Page 87 of Keeping a Warrior

“Fuck, Devon.” It broke Rhys’s heart to see the empty-handed girls sit quietly, used to the treatment. “Will you—”

“Don’t worry. I’ll see that they get their share.” Devon patted Rhys’s arm. “Otherwise, we can’t interfere.” She hesitated. “That woman on the end, she’s a widow who supports her family by making these kites. Can you get the guys to ante up?”

Before the words had even left her mouth, Rhys was making the rounds of the dudes who’d participated in the fun, and soon he had a fistful of American dollars. He pressed them into Devon’s hands. “Is this enough?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Her voice was soft. “And I think I owe you a kiss.”

Her cheeks were pink from the wind and the excitement, her lips chapped and lightly coated with dust, but to Rhys she’d never looked more beautiful. Gulping, he murmured, “I’d love to collect. Meet me at my place?”

“Soon as I can.”

Rhys pitched in to help clean up the trash from the impromptu kite-flying playdate, amazed at how carefully the kids gathered up every scrap of paper, every stick, so as not to waste a thing. He made sure they had all the broken-down cardboard they wanted, and soon the group of them trotted off, followed more slowly by the girls and women.

Watching them go, Rhys couldn’t help but wonder—how many of those women would now go home to their families and speak positively of their time on the outpost? How many young fighting-age men would hear the words of their mothers, their sisters, their wives, and maybe resist the siren call of those calling for jihad?

He glanced at Devon. And it’s all because of you. Your courage, and kindness, your heart.

His own chest tight with pride, Rhys headed for his hooch to wait for her. He washed his hands and face as best he could, queued up some downloaded music on his laptop and then settled his hips against a table to wait.

It seemed an eternity before there came a soft knock on the door, and Devon slipped inside, her hair free of its scarf and loose around her shoulders, her own face scrubbed clean. Without a word, she moved into his arms and they went into an impromptu slow dance, bodies swaying.

“Hey,” she whispered at last. “Thanks for being such a good sport this afternoon.”

He chuckled. “It was a blast, really. Good to see kids just being kids.”

“Mmm-hmm.” With a sigh, Devon put her head on his shoulder, her arms wrapped loosely around his neck. “This is nice.”

After another few moments, Rhys gathered his courage and croaked, “I’m really sorry about this morning. Really sorry.”

Devon stroked his nape with her thumb. “It’s okay. I told you I understood.”

He groaned. “But I still feel like shit. It won’t happen again.”

At that, Devon lifted her head and gazed up into his eyes. “If you could, would you get back together with her?”

Taken aback, but knowing Devon wouldn’t want an immediate, flippant answer, Rhys thought about his words carefully before he said, “If you’d asked me that even a month ago, I would’ve said yeah, I’d be open to it. But now—”

“Not now?”

“No.”

“Why?”

He swallowed hard. “Because I’ve come to realize how blind I’d been to how far we’d grown apart over the years. How little we had in common as adults.”

She nodded at him encouragingly, and as always with her, Rhys let the verbal vomit spew. “After I joined the Air Force and was gone so much, it was super easy to pretend everything was great, you know? I’d come home, there’d be lots of sex, good times with friends, just the—the newness of it all over again. By the time the cracks started showing, it’d be time for me to leave again.”

“But you asked her to marry you.” Devon’s tone wasn’t accusatory, just genuinely curious. “In a big production, I’ve heard.”

At the thought of that oh-so-public boneheaded proposal, Rhys buried his face in her hair. “Desperation,” he admitted quietly. “I could feel her slipping away, feel us slipping away. Being with her is all I’ve ever known, Devon, and she’s always needed me so damn much. Getting married wasn’t the answer, and I knew that, but I still put her on the spot so bad, oh my God. In front of my entire goddamn platoon. What could she say but yes?”

Embarrassment and anguish fought for dominance, clogging his throat, but Devon soothed him with a kiss. “I think we’ve all been there. Trying to hang on to something that’s over, or trying to force it into one certain shape when it’s clearly another.”

Like us. Like me dreaming about a life with you.

Suddenly he could picture it so clearly—skydiving together on their downtime, working out, hiking, learning to ride motorcycles, surfing; a whole lifetime of fun, and adventure, and service with this beautiful, fearless woman who’d snuck her way into his soul when he wasn’t looking.

You’re going to leave me. You have to, because you have so much to offer the Army, the world, the women in places like this who need a strong advocate. How can I possibly tie you down?