AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Then came the day my unit was destroyed. Good men and women cut to tatters right before my eyes under a cruel, unblinking sun.
It was just one more ambush among hundreds—hardly a blip in the press which lost interest covering a forgotten war until its nightmarish end—and nobody gave a damn.
Month by month, the war receded, and so did its rights and wrongs and what-ifs.
I stayed through the loss, served through the tears, and wondered ten thousand times why I was left to breathe another day when so many others with lives and families bigger than mine were obliterated.
And when I couldn’t do it anymore—when I got sick of good people being shredded by a meat grinder with ever-moving goal posts that changed with the seasons—I came home.
I came back intact and standing. Not like the others in their coffins, a flag folded around their spirits, while new bodies deployed to take our place until the agonizing end.
That’s how this shit works.
We were just soldiers—a policy wonk’s currency—trying like hell to do the right thing and locked into doing what we were ordered.
Honestly, I was so busy over there that it didn’t fully hit me until after I returned.
Then I woke up half the week in a glacial sweat, breathless and screaming.
I couldn’t tell you how many pillows I tore apart in my fits.
Everything I heard about how fucking hard it is to stand down, to come home, to be a human being again in a safe nook of small-town America came true like a demented fairy tale.
No, it wasn’t all bad.
The Army, the discipline, the education, and friendships forged in blood were good for me.
It was the demons of war that were relentless, always tearing at my throat.
I had come to grips with myself—with letting myself get help—and now I’m wondering if I can use what I’ve learned to help me make peace with something else.
Rachel. Damn. Simon.
Shelly.
Shel.
I can’t shake her out of my mind. She’s imbedded like a thorn, all pig run-ins and biting words.
All five foot five inches of her framing a fancy new set of curves I want to roam with my tongue.
She’s not a scrawny girl anymore.
Fuck, I like that she rocks a grippable ass, an ample chest, and hair that’s only softer than her little muffin top of a belly I want to shake until my bones split.
I never denied I had it bad for her.
I just didn’t know how screwed I really was until she showed up and brought my rally to an oinking halt.
Sunset red hair. Emerald-green eyes. Voice like a flute crafted by an angel—even when she’s giving me hell.
Damn if I can’t hear it in my sleep.
It’s a welcome break from the nightmares.
To make matters worse, that sleazy city slicker is still stinking up the B&B with his trash-ass nuts.
It’s been almost a week since Herc dragged me over there and I can’t figure out why the asshole wants to hang around this town any longer.
