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He was tired, his muscles ached, he needed a hot shower and a cold beer.
In other words, he felt fine.
The guys in his group had said physical labor was excellent for giving you enough mental space to help get your head straight.
Turned out they were right.
“Pare your life down to basics,” one guy who’d survived Kandahar had told him.
That, too, had been good advice.
Hard work during the day. Meetings a couple of evenings a week. Nights sitting here, on the porch, listening to the crickets and the coyotes. Then bedtime.
Jake had started as a cynic.
Now, he was close to a convert.
The regimen, especially the meetings, the open talk, had made big changes.
Correction.
He’d made big changes. In himself. It was important to know that.
He was in charge of his own life again. It was one hell of a feeling. He still had issues to get through but he could work through them.
The proof was that he slept dreamlessly through the night.
Okay.
Not necessarily dreamlessly. But when he dreamed, it wasn’t about fire and screams and death.
He dreamed of Addison. Of what he had lost and would never find again.
No point thinking of that now. The truck—a white SUV—was visible now, and barreling toward him.
Jake shaded his eyes as it ground to a stop.
Ready or not, here they were. Yeah. Travis getting out from the driver’s side, Caleb from the passenger’s side …
The General from the rear.
Jacob couldn’t believe it. His father? Here? Impossible. Maybe he’d been out in the sun longer than he’d thought. Maybe he was having a hallucination….
“Jacob,” his father said.
So much for hallucinations.
What now? Did he salute? No. He was no longer in the service. And salutes didn’t go with dirt-smeared jeans and sweaty shirts.
Instead, he stepped forward and stuck out his hand. It was dirt-smeared, too. His father looked at it. Then he took it in his.
“I’m happy to see you, son.”
Jake nodded. “It’s good to see you, too, sir.”
His brothers stopped just behind the General.
“Jake,” they said.
