by Natalie Dean
She looked… scared?
That didn’t make any sense.
Did she know who he was?
Word must have been getting around. Soon he was going to be the terror or the pity of the entire town; poor Bartie Miller, who got himself broken and scrambled in the head while fighting for his country, and all the riches in the world couldn’t fix him.
“Are you all right?” his mother asked.
“I’m fine,” he answered, tearing his eyes away. “Let’s just keep walking, okay?”
“Of course. Whatever you need.”
What did he need? Well, that was certainly a complicated question.
And maybe one day he would actually know the answer.
8
Missy
Missy’s heart thundered in her chest as she ducked back into the stall. She could feel her cheeks burning crimson.
Oh goodness.
Oh goodness gracious with a rotten cherry on top.
She hadn’t meant to gawk at the man right out in the open, but he was about the last person she had expected to see.
And what a sight he was.
It was like an utterly bizarre change to see him in broad daylight. So strong, so assured. If she didn’t know better, she would think that he was just another strapping Miller son. He was nothing like the hurt man that she had spent most of her night guiding to safety.
Was she exaggerating things in her own head? Projecting things onto this man based on her own experience with her father? She supposed it was possible, but she didn’t really have much to go on.
Maybe it would be best if she minded her own business and didn’t start poking around in the Miller family’s affairs.
Nodding to herself, Missy forced herself to get back to work, even if her back was practically weeping about it. But even as she cleaned the stall, her mind couldn’t get away from that man. That tall, handsome man.
Sure, he was attractive, but that wasn’t it.
Okay, so he was possibly one of the hottest men she had ever laid eyes on, and that certainly helped grab her attention, but that didn’t feel like the reason why he was centered in her mind.
No… it was because for a moment when their eyes were locked, she swore that she saw someone as out of place and lost as she was.
Hah! That was silly. She really was only overtired and needed to get a good nap in. And the sooner she finished her work, the sooner she could do just that.
It didn’t get any better after lunch. Her muscles were fatigued, and her thoughts were starting to get that particular sort of sleep-deprived syrupiness that made little sense and mostly whined a lot.
She didn’t want to go back to the stalls, but she had to. She’d only been there a week, and she couldn’t exactly shirk off her work. She needed to show her gratitude. That it was worth it that they had taken a risk on… well…
Someone like her.
So she found herself once again mucking out a stall, her frame screaming and her eyes constantly wanting to check her cracked phone for what time it was.
She forced herself to keep going, one toss after another until a sound broke through the drudgery.
It was so whisper-quiet that she almost didn’t catch it at first. Stilling, she cocked her head, closed her eyes and listened.
There it was again. Tremulous, and almost impossible to hear. The tiniest little call for help, pleading for someone to answer the cry.
Missy followed the sound to the edge of the stall and dug through the old hay, searching and searching until she finally found the source of the plaintive cry.
It was a kitten. Tiny, dirty and bedraggled. Missy let out a coo and pulled her bandana from her neck, using it to pick up the kitten as she went to cradle it to her chest.
“Hey there, little one. Are you okay?”
It let out another mewl, barely audible. Oh, the poor thing. He’d been rejected, hadn’t he? She looked him over. He was small, quite small, and he only had one eye, the other just a blank patch of fur. She turned him this way and that. He had fleas, and probably worms, but she could move all of his joints, and he was fully formed. No wounds either.
She could save him. Not that she knew he was a him, but to her, orange kitties always seemed like boys. She could check him later, assuming he survived.
Quickly, she took a mental inventory of everything she had at home. Antibiotics, deworming medicine, kitten formula. Yeah, she could definitely help him out.
“Hey, would you like it if I take you home?”
He let out another little warble, and Missy smiled. She really had a soft heart, didn’t she?
“Hey guys,” she said, wandering into the main aisle. A few of her fellow workers leaned out, looking at her curiously. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad would it be if I took off an hour and a half early to take care of this little one?”
“Are you sure you should do that? Usually, when a mamma rejects a kitten, it’s for a good reason.”
“I know,” she said with a shrug. “But I’ve had some success with runts. I think he could be a good ol’ cat if given a chance.”
There was a collective shrug. “I mean sure. As long as you don’t make it a habit. I can’t imagine any of the bosses being mad. They’re pretty understanding.”
“Perfect,” Missy said with a smile. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
Missy hurried off, kitten still held to her bosom, and she piled into her truck. “Just hang in there, okay little guy?”
She drove off, praying that he’d be all right. Maybe it was silly to get so wound up over a kitten, but she had a weak spot for helpless things.
Luckily, he made it to her home, and she concentrated on getting everything ready for him. First some water, then formula, then washing, then the medicine. By the time she was rubbing his hindquarters with a damp cloth, trying to get him to relieve himself, it was already dark.
Geez, she was tired. She felt like she could just fall into bed and sleep forever.
But she couldn’t. The kitten needed to be checked on every two to four hours. Oh boy, she was going to have a real rough week, but it would be worth it if the kitten pulled through.
Sighing, Missy set her alarm for two hours then slid into bed.
Missy awoke right on time with a groan, her alarm persistently howling. She rolled out of bed—an easy feat to do since her twin mattress sat on the floor. She crawled over to the little box that she had put the kitten in.
He was sleeping, but he mewled at her again when she picked him up, acknowledging that she was close. He wasn’t old enough to have his eyes open, but she figured he was awake enough to feed.
Once more, she went through all of the steps of taking care of him until, finally, he was tended to and sleeping in her hands like a little butterball.
“We’re off to a good start,” she told the kitten before returning back to bed. “I’ll drop you off at the vet’s in the morning to get checked out and take care of those fleas.”
But as she settled in, she couldn’t get comfortable. She tossed and turned; then she tried reading for a bit. Nothing worked. Every minute she could feel precious time slipping away. She needed to go to sleep. Couldn’t just one thing go right for once?
She tried to settle down, but eventually, she ended up on her back, staring up at the cracked ceiling of her studio apartment. There was something tugging at the back of her mind, whispering that there was something else that she wanted to do…needed to do.
What if the Miller brother was out in the open again? What if he got into trouble? It really wasn’t any of her business, but…
Finally, after probably not that long at all, she groaned and got out of bed. A few moments later, she was throwing a flannel over herself and then driving back to the ranch. She had three hours before having to get back to the kitten.
She was being ridiculous about Bart. And she knew that. But the same compunction that made her want to take care of the kitten also made her
want to take care of the strange soldier that she knew nothing about.
She arrived just as quickly as she had the first night and parked her truck. Making her way to the same hill with a new blanket in hand. She was being crazy. This was dangerous. And yet she kept on walking until she was on top of the grassy knoll, looking up at the velvet sky.
No one was there.
She let out a breath, not knowing if she was relieved or upset. She had wasted so much time, and not to mention sleep, only for no one to be around.
Sighing, Missy set out her blanket and went to sit on it, figuring she could at least stare up at the sky and feel some peace. But then she heard shuffling behind her.
There he was, walking through the grass, reaching for something she couldn’t see.
It didn’t even take her a breath to know that she had to help him.
Somehow.
9
Bart
Screaming.
Gunfire.
The never-ending clatter of tank treads moving. Crunching. Destroying.
It was loud. So loud. Why couldn’t it just be quiet?
There were voices in the cacophony. They coiled around his ears until recognition sank in.
His friends. His brothers-in-arms. People that he knew and shared every day with. They needed him. He had to help them.
He stumbled around in the smoke and fog and terror, the ground shifting under him this way and that. He couldn’t see anything, couldn’t smell anything other than the acrid burn of war, but he had to find them.
The churning ground beneath him shifted into a burning fire, red-hot embers causing his feet to smolder. But he didn’t care. Let the fire burn him. Turn him to ash and then maybe he would finally be clean. Reborn.
But until it did that, he needed to keep on searching.
No man left behind. Right? That was what he repeated to himself as he struggled through the inferno that was quickly swallowing everything.
The entire world was smoke and pain and fear. Fear of failure, fear he would never find them, fear that he was lost in a hellscape that he could never be freed from, but then it appeared again.
The light.
It was small, twinkling and weak in its incandescence, but it was there. The light beckoned him to follow without words and gestures, and yet he knew that was exactly what he had to do.
His body moved forward of its own, the terror and noise around him dulling ever so slightly. It led him through the flames, bit by bit until finally, he was in a calm sort of grayness again.
Bart took a breath for what felt like the first time in ages. The battle was gone. Had it ever been? He was—
The light flickered and then suddenly shifted, its form tapering and warping into a flashlight mounted on the barrel of a rifle that was about to fire.
No! He’d come too far and fought too hard to be taken away now. He dove for the gun, dove for his life, and his body clattered against the ground hard enough to rattle his entire frame.
He just wanted to go home! Why didn’t they get that? Everyone around him was desperate and scared, and he felt like all of their feelings were drenched into every part of him until his soul was so full of their terror he might burst.
Something hit the side of his head, and the grayness started to spin away. He held on tighter to the rifle, the person who was holding it struggling to wrest free. To kill him. To take everything away!
He couldn’t see who the other person was that was holding the gun, but he knew they were the enemy. That they wanted to kill him and take away everything he loved. He could see the tortured expression on Ma’s face. See his brothers all standing in a line, trying not to cry. He had to stay alive, for them. He wouldn’t let some demon in the night make them hurt so badly!
Another hit to his head then everything was swirling, and he was falling outside of himself.
Was this it? Was he going to die? Did he—
He landed back into himself, his rattling breath snapping him to reality as he straightened. His head felt like it was full of cotton, and everything around him seemed tilted as he tried to understand what was happening.
He was on the grass. The dampness of it seeped into his sleep pants, making his knees cold and clammy.
Outside the main house maybe?
Yes. He knew this hill. He and his brothers had sled down it during the really good snowfalls when they were younger. It was perfect for really long glides.
It was nighttime.
The stars were sparkling above. Different from the ones he had seen every night when he was overseas, but they were still beautiful.
It was a bit cold.
His feet were bare. Didn’t he know to wear proper shoes outside the house? Certainly, his mother had drilled that much into him. Why was he outside anyway? He didn’t remember needing or wanting to go anywhere tonight. Everything was worse while the sun was down.
Then he realized…someone’s throat was in his grasp.
He looked down, his hands squeezing the tanned neck of the woman that he had seen in the barn that day. She was still beautiful, but something was wrong. Very wrong. Her face was red, with dirt streaked across one of her cheeks. Her hazel eyes looked up at him, bloodshot and with tears in the corners.
Fear. Terror. Everything he saw in her face was what he had felt. Odd, wasn’t it—
Oh God, he was killing her!
She was gasping, one hand balled into a fist that reached up to slam into the side of his head again, and the other trying to pry his fingers from her delicate throat.
Bart threw himself back, his thoughts swirling and panic drenching the world in black. He curled to the ground, throwing his arms over his head and not daring to look at her body. No. No! No! This couldn’t be happening! Why was she even on the ranch? Surely this was a dream. One of his messed up, walking night terrors that bit into his brain and didn’t let him go until he was even more fractured than he was before.
But he could tell by all the sensations around him that this was indeed real. Her body, laying just a bit away from him, and the warmth in his hands from touching another human being.
He had finally done it. Snapped and killed someone like everyone said he would. He was too dangerous to be out. He should have been locked up when they first noticed how messed up he was.
There was no coming back from this. There was no forgiveness. He had done the unthinkable, and now finally, everyone would know exactly how far down into Hell he belonged.
10
Missy
Air rushed into Missy’s lungs in a pained wheeze.
Ow.
Ow.
The black-speckled corners of her vision began to clear while her throat burned painfully, protesting at the trauma.
She had almost died there, hadn’t she? She had felt her brain shutting down, her vision fading as her limbs had turned into lead weights. It had seemed impossible to get free, and yet she was.
She sat up slowly, her head throbbing as it tried to figure out exactly what had happened. She had been approaching the man carefully, calling his name as lightly as she could. But apparently, it hadn’t been careful enough. Because when she kicked over a rock on accident, he had started like she had tried to shoot him, then tackled her to the ground.
It hadn’t exactly felt pleasant, but she’d had worse in her life. Back before she filled out, she used to play football with the boys all the time. But then his hands had wrapped around her throat, and he started squeezing, and squeezing, and squeezing until the world had swirled away and halfway down a drain.
A cough forced itself out of her protesting esophagus, bringing her back to the situation. Right. She was on the Miller Ranch helping the son who had PTSD.
Her eyes shifted around, and she spotted the man in question only a bit away, doubled over on the ground, covering his face and shaking. Crap.
He didn’t seem to be attacking her, or even in a state to think about attacking her, so she tried swallowing several times before
speaking.
“I’m fine,” she tried to speak, but instead it came out as a raspy sort of whisper. Barely audible. And certainly not audible over his wheezing.
Where did he come off wheezing, though, when she was one who had her throat squeezed shut just moments ago?
Her petty thought didn’t help lighten the situation in her head like she hoped it would, but she pressed on.
“Hey, hey, I’m all right. You awake now? You stopped, so that means you’re awake, right?” Her voice wavered between a barely there whisper and an annoying sort of squeak, and he didn’t look up then either.
Darn.
She crawled a little closer. Then a little closer. Every moment drawing dangerously nearer made her heart beat that much harder. Her subconscious was going crazy, warning her that she was getting nearer and nearer to a man who had just tried to kill her. That she needed to tuck tail and run, run, run until she was far away from any sort of threat.
But she ignored it. She kept going bit by bit until she was close enough to reach out for him.
Missy had always liked to think that she was a brave person, but her hand was shaking as it tentatively stretched for him. She should go. Just being near him made her head dizzy and her mind bring up the myriad of uncomfortable sensations her body had. It felt like something was stuck in her throat—which was now very achy. Her head was pounding. Her blood was thrumming in her ears.
But still, she let her fingers just barely brush against the top of his hand as he shook.
“I’m fine,” she whispered again, hoping he heard.
He snapped up like he was some sort of machine, and for a moment she was truly afraid that he was still caught in his fugue. But human recognition flashed within his eyes, and the next thing Missy knew, he was lunging for her.
Idiot! She was an idiot!
She didn’t even have time to curse herself or react before he was pulling her into a tight hug, her front slammed into his hard chest.