Way of the Warrior (Troubleshooters #17.5)(20)

He had to know, wanted to ask a helluva lot more.

“Rattled, but all right. Thank you for your help.”

“I was doing my job.”

“You did it well.”

“I wish we could have caught him.” He wished he could have been boots on the ground, tracking the son-of-bitch who’d dared threaten her. “Anastasia…”

“Don’t call me that. My name is Stacy,” she corrected softly but with a hint of anger. “Why haven’t you come to see me since you returned?”

Now, wasn’t that the million-dollar question? If he’d wanted to stay away from her altogether, he never should have come back to town. This had been inevitable, yet for a month he’d delayed taking that final step. Would she have been safer last night if he hadn’t been such a damn coward these past four weeks?

He settled for the obvious answer rather than the deeper, more complex truth. “You got married. We’re not together anymore.”

Yeah, he’d been bitter for a long time over how she’d found another man to love rather than leave their small country town with him. How could she have given up on the connection they had? They’d been teenagers in the same group home, become friends, then later they’d become way more than friends. He’d lost everything when she?d turned away from him. But even in that bitterness, he’d wanted her to be happy. The thought of her at the mercy of someone who would harm even a single hair on her strawberry blond head…

His hand fell to his dog, and he took comfort in Radar’s soft, short fur, a Dutch shepherd, smart as hell and his lifeline. Funny how not too long ago he’d been freaked out by anything bristly or fuzzy, and now he clung to his dog for comfort in a world turned upside down by war.

“Gavin, I still don’t understand why you didn’t let me know you’re back. I’m divorced. Even if I wasn’t or you didn’t know, I would want to hear how you’re doing.” Her chair squeaked as she leaned closer, wind whipping a strand of her wispy, long hair over his wrist. So close, he could have reached out to hold her. “We were friends long before we were lovers. How could you come back and not contact me? Let me know how you’re doing? Are you okay?”

Of course she would notice the scar along his forehead, the jagged line and melted patch even a skin graft couldn’t erase. He wore his hair long these days now that he was out of the Air Force. Not that it really mattered to him what he looked like. “I’m healthy.”

“But no longer in the military?”

“Clearly, I have a new job now. I’ve been medically discharged.”

“And you didn’t think I would want to know? Do you hate me so much you can’t even share a burger and a beer to catch up?”

He smelled strawberries. Definitely more than a memory, the sweet scent teased him, tempted him. “I don’t hate you at all.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

He pulled off his sunglasses and waited. How long would it take her to put together the pieces? To really see and understand that he didn’t wear sunglasses to protect his eyes from the sunlight that warmed the scars along his forehead. To realize his dog wasn’t just a pet, but also a working companion. To discern he wasn’t looking her in the eyes.

Because he couldn’t.

He was blind.





CHAPTER 2


Blind.

The realization stunned Stacy quiet, holding her stone still as she processed a painful truth in front of her. She looked into Gavin’s dark brown eyes, his unfocused gaze settled somewhere to the left of her. His fists rested on his knees as he sat on the edge of the hammock in his backyard. She’d been too distracted by the rest of him to notice things maybe she should have picked up on, her own eyes drawn to mouth-watering muscles and his impressive physical presence. He’d always been a big, bold man, like a wrestler. That strength had turned hotter with age. He’d been good-looking at nineteen.

He was mesmerizing and sexy as sin at twenty-nine.

She pulled her eyes off the hard angles of his face, away from temptation. His dog lay on the grass, body pressed against Gavin’s thick, muscled leg. She hadn’t paid much attention to the dog before other than noting a large, mellow, brindle-colored mutt of some kind. Now, she realized this was a working canine. A guide dog.

The scars on Gavin’s forehead—his service to his country had cost him dearly.

She could still remember the day he’d decided to join the Air Force. She’d been so proud of him and crushed at the same time. They’d spent their teenage years in a group home. He’d landed there as an orphan without any relatives after bouncing through the foster system. Her mother had died of an overdose, and none of her relatives wanted Stacy. Gavin had looked so lost his first day at the home. She knew the others would prey on that. So she’d stepped up to show him the ropes and offer her friendship. She may have been scrawny, but she was fearless back then. She thought she’d already conquered the worst the world had to dish up.

Their unlikely friendship had stuck, shifting to something more on her sweet-sixteen birthday when he’d impulsively kissed her. That one kiss had changed everything for them.

As teens stargazing on the roof of the group home, she and Gavin had dreamed of making a home together. He was going to train to be an EMT. She would become a nurse. They would have a house with a yard…and children.