The Military Wife (A Heart of a Hero, #1)(5)

She jogged into the middle of the street. No sign of him in either direction. She spent precious seconds waffling over which way to go, finally taking off at a fast walk into the heart of the base. At the next crossroads, she turned in a slow circle on the hunt for any movement.

Yellow and red slides of a playground were lit by weak streetlights. A dark figure hunched in a swing and rocked back and forth. Harper’s heart dropped from her throat back where it belonged.

Darren did nothing but watch as she approached and took the swing next to him. The squeak of the chains broke the silence of the night. She shivered and stared down at his bare feet.

“I’m not crazy.” His voice was graveled with disuse.

“I know.”

He planted his feet and stopped his swing. “They all think something’s wrong with me.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Harper sensed his defensiveness and deflected.

“I’m not crazy,” he repeated.

“No one thinks you’re crazy, Darren. But … you were injured.”

“Banged up. Not like some of my boys who came home without legs or in body bags.”

Harper was out of her depth, drowning in platitudes. How was she qualified to help exorcise his demons when she still fought her own? “There’s different kinds of injuries. You might be physically healed, but concussions can affect you for months.”

“Fuck that.” He pushed up and stalked off. She scrambled to follow. “I should be able to deal with a head knock.”

He didn’t turn back toward the house, and she kept pace at his side. “Aren’t your feet cold?”

He glanced down, his step stuttering slightly as if he hadn’t realized he was barefoot. His stalk evened out and slowed to an amble. “No.”

“Liar.” She forced tease into her voice and was rewarded with a twitch of his lips.

“Did Allison beg you to come down and save her from the living hell I’m putting her and the kids through?” Resignation sucked any emotion from his voice.

The one thing she’d hated above all else in the weeks after Noah had died was the pity in people’s eyes and voices. “No. She begged me to come down and put my foot up your ass.”

This time he smiled and came to a stop. “Did she really say that?”

“I read between the lines.” Harper shrugged and looked around, trying for nonchalance. “Look, I’m tired and completely turned around, so unless you want to explain my frostbitten body to Allison and the MPs, I need an escort back to your house.”

He huffed something resembling a laugh, which she counted as a small victory, and turned them around. She kept the conversation light and about how great his kids were. Tension seeped out of her shoulders when the house came into view. She wasn’t scared of Darren, but he was a big guy and physically forcing him back inside wasn’t an option.

“I’ll bet Allison keeps stock in hot chocolate. Want a mug?” she asked.

“Why not. No way I’ll be able to go back to sleep.” His expression was flat, just like his voice.

Under the kitchen lights, the toll the injury had taken on Darren became more apparent. His eyes were bloodshot and shadowed. He, too, had lost weight, and his hair was longer than she’d ever seen it.

Sure enough, a dozen packets of Swiss Miss were in a polka-dot bin in the pantry. Darren sprawled in a chair and fiddled with the fringed edges of the place mat. She set down steaming mugs and joined him. While she’d never been shot at, she was intimately acquainted with death.

“I had nightmares every night for months after Noah died. Still do sometimes,” she said. When he didn’t speak or look up, she continued. “Every night I dreamed another horrible way he was killed. Dreamed he died quick and painless, dreamed he suffered, dreamed he died all alone. There were times Ben was the only thing keeping me sane.”

She refused to push him any further, and the silence stretched taut.

“McIntyre got shot three feet away from me. Then a bomb went off, and I was on my back. He dragged himself toward me, one of his legs a bloody stump.” His words came out choppy, bordering on unemotional even though his eyes said differently. “Over and over and over in my head. I can’t get away from it. From him. Maybe it’s a blessing Noah was killed.”

Anger flared quick and hot in that hollowed-out place in her heart, spreading like wildfire. She popped up and slapped her hands on either side of his mug. The untouched contents sloshed and left a brown stain on the cheery yellow place mat. For the first time, his attention was fixed on her and not turned inward.

“Don’t you ever fucking say that again, you hear me? I would do anything, give up anything, to have him back. I don’t care what kind of shape he was in. And Allison feels the same way about you. She wants to help you. Let her, dammit.”

His brown eyes were wide and his mouth gaping. Her anger died as quickly as it had flared and left her feeling as shocked as he looked.

The stairs creaked and broke the intensity of their gazes. Harper cleared her throat and retrieved a paper towel to dab at the spilled hot chocolate.

Allison shuffled into the kitchen, squinting against the light. “Is everything okay?”

Harper forced a smile. “Fine. Darren and I were chatting over some hot chocolate. Want some?” She didn’t wait but grabbed another mug. With her back to Allison and Darren, Harper dropped the pretense and the smile and took a deep breath. She owed Darren an apology.