Page 39 of Firefly Embers

“How long?” Her words came out breathless, and the shake clearly wasn’t only in her hands as I heard the tremor radiate through her voice.

I hung my head, ashamed to admit how long I’d been fighting these demons alone. I didn’t want her pity. I finally had the woman of my dreams, and I didn’t need her realizing how truly broken ‌a man I was.

“How long, Wade?” she repeated, anger replacing terror as she took a fortified step forward, her shoulders back and chin lifted as she fought to put her mask of bravery in place.

“Since a month or so after coming home from the hospital.” The words felt like acid on my tongue as I shared the darkest parts of me with the only thing that brought me light. “They started out mild, but lately they’ve gotten worse. They’ve gotten harder to snap out of and more vivid. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between a dream and reality.” Seeing her flinch, I backpedaled, scared that things had gone too far and I’d done something I couldn’t take back.

“I promise I won’t hurt you.”

“Hurt me?” she scoffed, tears pouring down her cheeks, leaving damp rivers of betrayal in their wake. She brushed them away with the back of her hand and turned her head away to speak softly. “I’m not scared of you. I’m scared for you.”

“I’m fine. It’s just nightmares. Anyone who’d been through the hell I have would have nightmares.”

“Just nightmares?!” she screeched, her voice rising and breaking with a sob at the tail end of her words. Her carefully placed armor was cracking, and I could see the scared and hurt woman beneath. “You call that just a nightmare?”

She took another step closer, and I threw back the covers, turning so my legs dangled off the edge of the bed. She stepped between my knees and pressed her hand to my cheek. I leaned into her caress as I felt the hot tears drip off her chin onto my sweat-slicked skin.

“Wade, just nightmares would be seeing yourself in a classroom full of your friends while you gave a presentation in your underwear. Just nightmares would be missing a deadline, your teeth falling out, being chased by snakes. This was not just a nightmare. That empty look of pure terror in your eyes will haunt me.” Her touch was a brand against my clammy skin as she tilted my chin up to look at her.

“I think you’re having flashbacks.”

Her soft words hit like daggers to my chest as I fought for each ragged breath, the weight of anxiety threatening to close my throat. Flashbacks meant PTSD. Flashbacks meant I was broken. Flashbacks meant I needed help.

Fuck.

For so long, I’d been fighting this battle alone, not realizing how it was affecting everyone around me, even when I tried my hardest to keep them away from it.

Seeing the hurt in Ray’s eyes as I fought to control my breathing, soaking in the warm comfort of her touch, I realized I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t stand back and push this to the side, letting it eat away at the goodness left inside of me.

The nightmares were getting worse; I was angry all the damn time, and before long, I was going to burn bridges with the people most important to me that wouldn’t be able to be repaired.

“I think I need help, Sunshine,” I whispered into the darkness, leaning forward and pressing my forehead to her belly.

She hugged me to her and rubbed my back as I let the tears I’d been holding fall, soaking her shirt with all the pain and anger I’d been trying to hide.

“It’s okay. We will do this together.”

I didn’t deserve this woman, but I was damn sure determined to prove that I could be a better man. She deserved to be loved by the man I was before the incident. She deserved to be loved wholly and without reservations.

As she held me softly under the glow of moonlight, I vowed within myself that I would do what it took to be a better man for her, even if it meant facing the demons I didn’t want to acknowledge.

RAY

The morning after Wade’s nightmare and emotional purge was tense. Neither ‌of us knew what to say in the light of day, but we both knew that something needed to be done to help him heal the broken parts of himself he was so desperate to hide.

Days passed, and we didn’t talk much, outside of the occasional text or funny meme sent back and forth. It was as if the events of that night hadn’t happened.

Wade was busy getting the ranch ready for the next influx of riders and their horses, while I threw myself into designs for an upscale office building in Atlanta, a small-town hair salon across the pond in Ember Ridge, and a couple of party plans for various functions.

Over the course of the last year, business had doubled, and I was looking into finally hiring some part-time help.

Even though the majority of my job was virtual, going out to the different thrift stores during the day took me away from more important work that needed to be done in the office, and vice versa.

I wanted to get back to the root of the things that I enjoyed about my business, and if that meant handing off the boring stuff like paperwork to someone else, I was finally in a place where I could afford to do it.

I was enjoying my day off, spending it with the cutest kid on the planet. Stella’s daughter, Charlie, came over at least once a week to spend time with me while her mama went to work down at the boutique on Main Street.

There was nothing I loved more than getting to spend time with that sweet little chunk.