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Lukas studied him a moment, then nodded. “For the first time in months, I believe you are. I don’t know what happened in Kentucky, but something must have.”
Sarah’s sweet face flashed through Bodie’s mind. Her smile. Her laughter. Her kind heart. The way she loved the Butterflies and they loved her. The way she’d looked at him after their kiss beneath the mistletoe after a snowy sleigh ride.
He flexed his jaw, shrugged, then said, “Nothing happened in Kentucky.”
“Yeah, right.” Lukas laughed. “You forget who you’re talking to, but whatever. Come on and meet my daughter.”
Lukas knocked on the door, then they entered the hospital room. Kelly, looking lovely as ever, lay in the bed, a blanket tucked up around her waist, and a wrapped-up bundle in her arms.
Lukas crossed the room, kissed his wife, then grinned down at the baby she held. “Isn’t she the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”
Bodie stared at his friend in amazement. Was this really the same tough, take-no-prisoners man he’d rather have had at his side during battle than any other? Lukas had loved the adrenaline rush every bit as much as Bodie had. Yet in this quiet, domestic moment, his friend looked completely happy.
Good for him.
Now that Bodie was returning to work, he’d be happy, too.
Well, if not happy, he’d be content to be back to doing what he loved, to be able to feel whole again.
What he wouldn’t do is look at his friend and wonder if he could have ever been happy with that type of life—with a wife, a child, a home he could return to at the end of every day. If things had been different then maybe it could have been him with Sarah welcoming a child.
But things weren’t different. This was the life he had.
Every muscle in his body tightened, making taking his next breath difficult.
“Get over here and see your goddaughter,” Kelly ordered when Bodie lingered near the door. “And thank you for doing this so Lukas can be here with us.”
Shoving his wayward thoughts aside, Bodie smiled at the woman who he’d grown to genuinely like during the time he’d lived with them, and who obviously made his friend a happy man. “No problem. I appreciate you forcing his hand into letting me get back to work sooner rather than later.”
“You’re ready?” she asked, concern visible in her eyes.
He understood why she asked. She’d seen the darkness in him, had heard him cry out with the nightmares.
For those same reasons, he understood why his friend had wanted him to take those few extra weeks that the V.A. doctors had thought he needed.
They’d been right. Although he had been physically ready for any job handed to him, his mind hadn’t been in the right place.
He hadn’t been in the right place.
Being around Sarah, soaking in her goodness, had soothed his tortured soul, made him want to be better than what he was. For that, and so much more, he’d be eternally grateful.
Knowing he told the truth, he nodded. “I’m ready.”
“Everything’s ready for tomorrow?”
Snuggling beneath the quilt her mother had made her father, Sarah took a sip of hot tea and nodded. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”
Her father laughed. “There is that.”
Although she’d started the day early, doing one last walkthrough to make sure everything was perfect for the open house, Sarah had spent most of the day with her father. They’d gone to Maybelle’s for a late Christmas Eve lunch, then they’d met up with the Butterflies and others from church to go caroling, then they’d attended a Christmas Eve service.
She’d had a busy day. A good day. And yet…
“I was at Lou’s yesterday,” her father continued. “Everyone I talked to is excited about the Open House tomorrow.”
“Me, too.” Mostly. Because no matter how much she tried she couldn’t quite get past the wish that Bodie would be there.
He wouldn’t be.
