The Returning Hero

by Soraya Lane

  “Who’s hungry?”

  Logan had returned with the bar food, which looked perfect and greasy.

  “Me, please,” she responded, her thigh pressed to Brett’s as she leaned forward. She was telling herself she needed it there to anchor her in place, keep her steady, but she knew better.

  She was drunk and coming on to her husband’s friend. It was a hundred shades of wrong, but it felt every shade of right. Jamie reached for a fry and dunked it in ketchup, closing her eyes with delight at the salty, greasy taste.

  “These are sooo good,” she murmured.

  Logan laughed. “Drunk as a skunk.”

  She didn’t care what they said. Tonight had been better than good, it had been amazing. For the first time in forever, she felt like herself again, and it had been a long time coming.

  Because for a while there, she’d wondered if she’d lost that Jamie forever.

  * * *

  Jamie held on to Brett’s arm as she stepped out of the taxi, and she didn’t let it go as they walked to her front door. He hadn’t said anything about staying or not staying, and even though she’d sobered up a heap, she still didn’t want to be alone. Nights like tonight brought everything crashing back to her, even though it had been over a decade ago.

  It had been pitch-black outside, and she’d been tucked under a blanket, alone, waiting for her mom to come home. She knew she’d be drunk, but she wanted to wait for her to come back. When the door had opened, she’d stayed still, not made a sound, knowing her mom would just make her way upstairs and collapse on her bed.

  Only it hadn’t been her mom. She’d hidden, terrified, as two men in balaclavas had burgled their house, never making a noise so they wouldn’t know anyone was home. Tears had choked in her throat, but she’d stayed silent, wishing that her dad had made it back. Knowing that if he’d been alive, her mom would still be holding it together, that she would have been safe.

  “So here we are,” Brett said when they reached the door, jolting her from her thoughts.

  She fumbled in her bag for her keys and called out to Bear as his loud bark boomed through the door. Letting her memories take hold was not something she usually let happen, not that easily.

  “Just me,” she told her dog, “it’s only me.”

  His barking stopped and she turned the key. Brett leaned past her and pushed the door, standing his ground as she dropped to give the dog a cuddle and then usher him back inside.

  “Are you going to be okay on your own?” he asked, looking uncomfortable, hands jammed in his pockets.

  Jamie wasn’t going to lie to him, especially not now. “I’ve never been okay on my own,” she admitted. “Every time Sam went away, I’d pretend to be all brave because I didn’t want him worrying about me, but when he was on tour I hardly ever went out unless I could be back before dark. I was just too nervous coming home to an empty house.”

  His expression changed, his face sad. “Is it better with Bear here?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, a little.”

  “You still want me to stay tonight, don’t you?”

  Jamie nodded again. Relief took away the tightness in her shoulders as she realized she was actually going to have someone in the house. That Brett, one of the people she trusted most in the world, was going to be sleeping under her roof, protecting her, letting her have a good night’s sleep without her worrying about every creak or rustle outside the window. Without her thinking someone might find their way into her home.

  Brett smiled when she stepped back, and he walked into the house and locked the door behind him.

  “I’ll just bunk on the sofa,” he said, following her into the kitchen.

  “I can make up the spare bed,” she told him, flicking on a light and fumbling in the pantry for coffee. “I don’t want you being uncomfortable.”

  “Hey,” Brett said, coming up behind her and taking the coffee. “You go sit down, I’ll make us both a cup. I’m sure your head could do without all the movement, might help the pounding stop.”

  His hand over hers made her freeze, and she resisted the urge to push back into him, to rock her body back into his like she was so desperate to do. She craved his touch like a desperate woman who’d never had the pleasure of a man before.

  “Go sit on the sofa,” he ordered, voice low.

  Jamie reluctantly did as she was told, listening to Brett as he moved around the kitchen. She flopped onto the big sofa, tucked up against a cushion, eyes back on him as he stirred two cups and then carried them over. He placed them down and went to sit on the armchair.

  “It’s way more comfy over here,” she told him.

  He hesitated before coming over to sit beside her. Jamie tucked her feet up and changed position, her body against Brett’s instead of the oversized cushion. Now she had an oversized, warm, muscled man to lean into.

  “Thanks for tonight,” she told him.

  “My pleasure,” he responded, staying still but looking down at her.

  Jamie knew she was still a little drunk, that she needed to just sleep it off and not do anything stupid, but ever since she’d kissed Brett at the bar, on the cheek, she’d thought of nothing other than his lips; his full, kissable lips.

  Before she knew what she was doing, she reached up to touch his face, tracing her fingers over his mouth before leaning on him and putting her lips there. It was a sweet kiss, a warm kiss, a kiss that made her skin tingle. And it wasn’t easy to pull back from. Brett didn’t resist, didn’t push her away, but he didn’t move closer, either. He just moved his lips enough for her to know that he was kissing her back, that he wanted it, too. Or at least that’s what she wanted to think.

  He didn’t say anything when she pulled away, and neither did she. Brett reached for a cushion, put it at the end of the sofa and leaned back into it, letting her fall down against him. She put her head against his chest, tucked up beside him, like a cat purring into his hold as he put his arm around her.

  She should have gone and found a blanket to keep them warm, but she didn’t want to move and Brett was warm and snuggly even without anything covering them. Instead she shut her eyes and let sleep catch her and wrap her in its equally warm embrace. She couldn’t have fought it if she tried, and Jamie had a feeling that for once she might actually sleep through the entire night without waking, terrified, like she usually did.

  * * *

  Brett stared down at Jamie. She was asleep, he could hear the change in her breathing, but it didn’t make him even close to being sleepy himself.

  Jamie, Sam’s wife, had just kissed him. And he’d done nothing to stop it and everything to encourage it.

  Granted, he’d had a lot to drink, but not enough to make him drunk or to make him forget that she was forbidden. Even Logan had reminded him, just in case he’d managed to forget himself, that she was the one woman he wasn’t supposed to think about, like that. And yet she’d come on to him and he’d willingly accepted her advances.

  But then he’d known he was a goner tonight from the moment she’d traced her fingers down his inner arm, along the words of his tattoo, and he’d known he was incapable of doing the right thing when she’d kissed his cheek in the bar. The heat of her breath against his skin, her warm lips, the look in her eyes…like she wanted him, trusted him and needed him, all rolled into one stare. Into one gentle touch that he found one hundred percent irresistible.

  Brett groaned, but there was no getting away from her, not now that she was clutching his shirt between her fingers and her head was tucked against his chest like it was her own personal pillow to snuggle up into.

  The light in the kitchen was still on, but unless he could teach the dog how to turn it off, he was just going to have to shut his eyes and do his best to ignore it.

  He caught sight of Bear watching him, head between his paws, eyebrows raised.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Brett told him, scowling.

  He didn’t need a damn dog to make him feel even more guilty
than he already felt.

  “And don’t you be forgetting that I saved your life,” he muttered, before shutting his eyes.

  The truth was that Bear had saved all of them that day. He’d stopped after Sam had sent him out, body dead-still, tail quivering, head cocked to the side. It had been Bear who’d alerted them to the bomb—only trouble was that it wasn’t a standard improvised explosive device. This IED had been remote-detonated, most likely from a local hiding where they hadn’t been able to find him. Someone watching, in wait, to explode an entire 4x4 full of SAS soldiers, wanting to blow them all into pieces.

  Sam and Brett’s dog had been the casualties that day, so maybe he should be showing Bear some respect and thanking him for saving his life.

  He shut his eyes, knowing sleep wouldn’t come easily, because it never did these days. If he managed to fall asleep, he’d wake up in a sweat and twisted in his sheets, mind full of the darkness of that day he was trying so hard to forget. And then he’d lie awake, scared of shutting his eyes again because of the memories that flashed like scenes from a movie beneath his eyelids.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WHEN BRETT WOKE up, the pain in his leg and back hit him straight away. He was all crooked from lying flat, and when he tried to move, he realized he couldn’t. Because the woman he’d just been having an erotic dream about was still attached to his chest, her long hair splayed out across him, arm slung down low, cheek to his heart.

  He shut his eyes again, remembering how uncomfortable it had been carrying a hundred-and-fifty-pound pack when he was on patrol with the SAS. At least Jamie was warm and… He swallowed away that particular thought. Now he just had to hope that she didn’t wake up for a little bit longer, so she didn’t have to wonder if it was a gun or if he was just pleased to see her when she realized where her hand was resting.

  But…he’d slept. He’d dreamed about Jamie. And he wasn’t wet with sweat. Which meant that last night was the first night he’d actually slept through, without nightmares, since that day.

  When Brett opened his eyes again, Bear was staring back at him, his nose right beside his face, as if he’d just been waiting for them to wake up.

  “Hey, buddy,” he whispered, receiving a giant lick in reply.

  Jamie groaned then and wriggled closer against him, her arm flinging across his chest. He kept one hand on her to keep her in place, not wanting her to fall off the sofa if she stretched the other way. Another low groan told him she perhaps wasn’t a morning person, or that her head was starting to thump.

  “Want some pain meds?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

  She went still, then put her palm flat on his chest and pushed up. Her hair was all messy, curlier than he’d ever seen it, and her eyes were smudged. She looked lazy and sexy all rolled into one.

  “I slept on you.”

  He chuckled. “We still have our clothes on, so don’t worry.”

  She didn’t smile, so he was guessing his joke wasn’t in the best taste, but she did flop back down on top of him, face buried in his chest again.

  “My head kind of hurts,” she muttered. “And don’t even try to tell me I don’t look like crap, because I know I do.”

  He laughed. “You actually look pretty good.”

  Funny how he could go from freaking out to joking with her in two seconds flat, and he wasn’t lying, either.

  “Warmed-up crap,” she muttered. “That’s even worse than straight crap, right?”

  Brett pushed her gently off him and stretched, being careful to flex his leg before standing up. He’d missed a few physical therapy sessions since he’d been back, and the last thing he needed was to do damage to his just-recovered leg because he was too lazy to stretch.

  “I’m going to get you a glass of water and something for your head. Where do you keep the meds?”

  “In the bathroom,” she mumbled.

  Brett stood and crossed the room. If he were going to pretend like he was here just to protect her, to look after her, he may as well do something to actually be helpful.

  * * *

  Jamie excused herself, went up to her bathroom and took a long shower. She just stood there under the burning hot water, letting it pour down her face and hair. Her head had stopped pounding, thanks to the tablets she’d just swallowed, but she was still feeling a lot less perky than she usually did.

  She forced herself to step out of the shower and wrapped a massive towel around her small frame, using a different one to dry her long hair. After what had happened last night she was in no hurry to rush back downstairs to Brett, not after she’d gone ahead and kissed him. Her only hope was that maybe he thought she’d been too drunk to remember it. She wished.

  Jamie rubbed moisturizer onto her body, then applied some makeup, smoothing on some foundation, then mascara, blush and lip gloss. She didn’t want to look like she’d gone to too much effort, but then she didn’t want him to see her looking hungover with no makeup on, either.

  She heard a noise behind her and jumped, but it was only Bear. The last thing she needed was Brett walking in on her naked, wearing only a dog tag around her neck. The dog tag that was supposed to remind her, no matter what, that a certain friend of her husband’s was out of bounds.

  “Hey, buddy.” Bear was staring at her with his head cocked to the side, and she was pleased to think about something other than her behavior the night previous. “You hungry?”

  Her stomach growled in response to her own question, so she left her hair pinned up wet and signaled for her dog to follow her. She wasn’t used to drinking, and she sure as hell wasn’t used to dealing with a hangover.

  Jamie removed the dog tag and slung it back on the hook by her shoes, feeling like a traitor for wearing it after the way she’d behaved with Brett the night before, and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. Then she walked down the hall to find Brett with the morning paper, sprawled out over the kitchen counter as he ate a piece of toast.

  “Hey,” she said as she went straight for the coffee.

  He looked up and held his toast in his mouth as he shuffled the paper so it took up less space.

  “How you feeling now?” he asked with a grin.

  Jamie groaned. “Please don’t remind me about last night.” She poured herself a large cup of coffee, stirred in two sugars and took a gulp. It was piping hot and burned her tongue but she didn’t care.

  She scooped a cup of Bear’s special dog biscuits into his bowl, aware that he’d been patiently waiting at her feet since they’d arrived in the kitchen, then went back to nursing her coffee.

  “I’m feeling a bit responsible for plying you with those drinks,” he said, finishing his toast. “Maybe we should have gone with beer, or just let you a have a few girly cocktails instead of the most potent blend on the menu.”

  Jamie held up her hand. “I’ll take full responsibility for drinking them, so long as you don’t ever mention the words Long Island iced tea to me ever again.”

  Brett laughed and held up his coffee cup. “Deal,” he agreed. “You want me to make you anything for brekkie while you nurse your head?”

  She groaned again, sipping more coffee. “I’ll just have toast, thanks. Cold toast with jam, something easy on my poor stomach.”

  The way Brett was watching her told her he was thinking about something, waiting to ask her something. Please don’t bring up the kiss. The last thing she needed right now was to deal with that particular conversation, especially before she’d eaten anything and had time to process it.

  “Jamie, I don’t know if you remember, but when we were at the bar, and then when we came back here last night…”

  She gulped when he paused, and then he said, “You mentioned that you never told Sam how scared you were coming home to an empty house in the dark.”

  Phew. She could deal with this conversation if she had to. It might have been difficult to talk about, admitting to that, but given what the alternative topic could have been, she was relieved.

  �
�My dad was a soldier, and he died on deployment, too.” Jamie kept her gaze trained on her coffee, not wanting to look at Brett. “When he died, my mom went on a bender that lasted a few years, and I was home alone when we were burgled. I hid until they left, but I guess I’ve never really gotten over that fear of it happening again. Which is why I’m obsessed with locking doors and being inside before sundown, and my security alarm was always on before Bear came back to live here.”

  Brett was still staring at her, concern written all over his face. “So I’m guessing you told Sam about what happened, but you never told him how much it still scared you. Because you always knew that he’d be going away and leaving you alone. That there was nothing he could do to change that.”

  Jamie nodded.

  “I can’t believe he was away for months at a time, and you had to be a prisoner inside your own house every night. You should have told us.”

  She sighed and moved closer to him, staying on the other side of the kitchen counter and leaning forward. “I just always had that fear of going to sleep and not knowing if someone could have gotten into the house while I was out. There’s nothing Sam could have done for me, except worry like crazy from the other side of the world, and that wouldn’t have been good for either of us.”

  “But you’re sleeping okay now?”

  She shook her head, not wanting to tell the truth but wanting to lie to Brett even less. “Last night was the first time since before Sam deployed that I’ve slept through without waking. I’ve been better with Bear here this last month, so I’m not complaining, but being alone isn’t something I’ve ever been good at. I freak out at every sound and then can’t fall asleep again.”

  Brett stared into his coffee cup, which she was sure must have been empty by now. “Did you sleep better because I was here with you, or because of the alcohol?”

  Jamie grinned at him. “Last night might well have been a combination of both, but I have no intentions of turning into an alcoholic just to sleep through the night. Plus I have no plans of turning into my mom.”