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“I won’t.” We reached the wooden fence, and I rested a hand on the top railing. “We need to make some progress each day to keep his mind active and to help him move past being abandoned and neglected. We eclipse those instincts with new, better bonds.”

“I think a lot of my men could use the same help,” he said softly.

“I know.” I glanced at Peter, thinking of Eddie. “I wish I could reach them all the same way that Gramps saved so many horses. The way he saved—” I bit my lip.

Peter, as if picking up on my study or the weight of our conversation, walked back toward the barn, head down and shoulders hunched.

Warren leaned on the railing beside me. “I’ve been thinking about that, you know. How to help the guys as they adjust to home. Some of them find the world a bit different than it was before the war.”

“You can’t save them all,” I said, repeating the words that had been drilled into my head by every hospital administrator and commander I’d ever served under. Even Gramps had said as much.

“I’m still going to try,” he whispered back, his words nearly stolen by the breeze.

The conviction in his voice plucked at a chord deep in my chest that pulled me toward him, churning emotions long forbidden. At the same time, I wanted to shake some sense into him, to convey the lessons I’d so painfully learned in the past five years.

I put my hand on his forearm instead, which drew his gaze to meet mine. “It starts with just one.”

Yourself. Gramps had taught me that first and foremost. You couldn’t take emotion in the arena with you. The horses picked up on it, acted out because of it. “Clear your mind, clear your heart,” he’d say.

I’d never mastered this the way Gramps had. I wished he were here instead of me. The young colt deserved as much.

Still, I reached for the water bucket and climbed into the pen, where the light gray horse gleamed before me in the midday sun.

I couldn’t pull myself from the brink of the abyss, the nightmares, and the ghosts that haunted me. But if I didn’t find some way to set that all aside, I’d never be able to help this creature.

Warren

“You can’t save them all.”

The wisdom of a combat nurse who’d faced death and impossible decisions.

Phantom trotted around the far side of the square paddock, his black eyes locked on Eva and his ears twitching. His silky gray mane danced against his neck with the smooth motions and high desert wind.

I fought down the rising fear, as I did each time, for Eva’s safety against the animal nearly eight times her size.

Her focus tunneled in on the stallion. Her posture was confident and her energy calm. I saw the same competence and power she’d shown when delivering Phantom in Germany, and it set my nerves a little more at ease.

She picked up a coiled rope and walked into the center of the pen as Phantom trotted around the perimeter. With a few flicks of her wrist and a toss, she lassoed Phantom’s neck.

“Nice shot,” I said.

She smiled over at me. “We used to run cattle.”

Was there no end to her surprising skills?

Phantom snorted and jumped with the rope around his neck, and Eva kept the line loose as he got used to the feel of it.

“Hey, boss,” Eddie called from the barn. “Can I get your help holding these boards in place?”

I wanted to watch her work, but I could do more by helping Eddie with the repairs. I needed to trust her and her methods.

Her focus remained on Phantom as I walked away from the paddock. I had the sense she didn’t truly know whether I was watching or not, so focused on the moment and the task at hand.

When I turned into the barn, Eddie stood in the shadows with his arms crossed and an expectant look. “What’d you find out this morning?”

Ah, so he knew, or suspected, why I had been so late to arrive at Birkstrom Ranch today. There wasn’t any board he needed help holding.

“I made a few calls. Turns out Reid Erickson has a private investigation firm and is willing to dig into Victor Merrick and his associates.”