One

ONE

SPRING EPIPHANY

S itting in a T-shirt and mostly clean fatigues—they had been laundered at the hospital—watching my fiancé bustle around the kitchen, I had a revelation.

“Hey,” I croaked out, my voice still trying to come back from yelling over gunfire and explosions for a week straight, “I don’t think we’re gonna make it to the altar.”

“Oh yes we are,” he corrected me quickly, smiling as he put down in front of me a big bowl of tomato bisque and a large grilled-cheese sandwich on sourdough. “Now eat.”

He had watched me moments before stagger and hop to the sink to wash my hands—my ankle had been crushed under rubble and now had four pins in it—and he’d decided right then that I needed to eat first and then take a shower. Normally I got under the hot water first, and then, clean, let him feed me. But he was right. Today I might not have made it back out. I was dead on my feet. And I didn’t come home bloody or dirty, which had happened more than once, as I’d spent the last two weeks in a hospital in Balad, fifty miles out of Baghdad, but to be in my own shower under endless hot water with strong pressure that wouldn’t run out, that would be a treat. Of course, I hadn’t told him anything about a hospital stay. All he knew was that I arrived home with a broken ankle, nothing more. He didn’t need to know how touch and go it had been.

“No,” I said, my chin resting on my palm, my elbow the only thing keeping my face out of the soup. “I don’t mean never. I mean sometime in the next few months.”

Dr. Kurt Butler, the man I loved, chuckled. “Yes, dear, I know that.”

I squinted at him. “You do?”

He scoffed. “It makes sense. You’ve had back-to-back deployments, and then you went out with that FBI hurt team?—”

“HRT team,” I corrected him.

“Which stands for what, so I can store that away in my brain?”

I didn’t like the idea of him having to memorize anything that wasn’t good in relation to me. I worried about that. Like one day he’d wake up and think how much easier it would be if he married a pharmacist. “Why would you need to?—”

“Just tell me,” he coaxed, cutting my sandwich into strips because he knew I liked to dip things. It also made it easier to eat.

“Hostage Rescue Team,” I clarified, picking up one of the pieces of sandwich oozing with cheesy goodness. He made it with smoky gouda, Gruyère, provolone, and sharp cheddar. I’d have thought the sharp kind wouldn’t be good, but it was amazing. Added to that, he made tomato bisque, not soup, but bisque , and now, starving and bruised, I was more than thankful.

“Okay, got it.” He leaned on the counter of the kitchen island. “But as I was saying, after this last mission you were sent on, I knew that a spring wedding was not in our future. But a fall wedding sounds lovely as well.”

“I don’t want you to think…”

He reached for me, but his hand stopped before he made contact.

“What’s with that?” I growled at him. “You don’t wanna touch me?”

On cue, I got the head tip, the bored look, and the huff of breath.

“Yeah, all right,” I muttered. “I heard how stupid that was.”

“Did you? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Quick grimace from him. “Love, I don’t think you realize how bruised your face looks, and there are cuts everywhere. I don’t know where to touch and not hurt you.”

“I promise, anything you do could never hurt me,” I said with an exaggerated wink.

“Easy, tiger. Why don’t you eat and take a shower and a nap. I’ll cancel the get-together I was having tonight.”

“No, don’t cancel anything. I can come down if I want, or veg upstairs, and you can check on me. It’s not a big deal.”

“No, I?—”

“C’mon. It’s fine. I promise.”

“I would much rather get some work done while you recuperate.”

“Do me a favor and have your friends over, all right? It’ll be fine. You work really hard. You deserve a nice night.”

“First off, they’re our friends, not—what was that for?”

“What?”

“Don’t do that,” he warned me. “You said your friends, and I was correcting you, and you made a face.”

“That’s because they’re yours. I bleed with mine.”

His groan was loud.

“Now look who’s making a face,” I deadpanned.

“All my friends think you’re amazing by yourself and for me, so knock it off. You just need to spend more time with them. Never in my life have I seen a group of people more interested in getting to know someone.”

I grunted.

“It’s true.” He was adamant. “And for your information, I’m already going to have a nice night, a great one, actually, now that you’re home and I don’t—” He stopped abruptly, pressing his lush lips together.

“You don’t what?”

He shook his head.

I grinned at him. “I know, yeah? So you should probably just g’head and say it.”

Long exhale. “I worry when you’re gone. I can’t help it. And I know you’re terribly capable, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Okay,” I husked.

“It’s not like I can change how I feel.”

“I’m aware.”

After a moment, he tipped his head as he continued to look at me. “I appreciate you not asking me a stupid question like if this is what I want my life to be.”

I shrugged. “You’re a smart man. You knew who I was when you brought me home the first time. If I were different, you might not have wanted me.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “This is what I signed up for.”

“But you’re still going to worry, aren’t you.”

He nodded. “Yes. And I can’t help that, and I refuse to try and change that any more than I would ask you to change for me.”

There was no arguing with that. “Okay, then,” I said with a smile.

“I love you dearly.”

It was so easy for him to speak from his heart. I had not mastered that quite yet. “So then, you’re not looking to cut me loose.”

“No,” he husked. “I’m keeping you.”

It was good to hear.

The food was the best thing I’d had in two months—he made me a fruit salad too—and then he sent me upstairs while he cleaned, promising he was right behind me with a garbage bag and painter’s tape.

“Kinky,” I teased him.

He shook his head. “I want to keep the cast dry.”

“That’s unnecessary. This is fiberglass, that’s why it’s blue.”

After a moment he said, “None of that made sense.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re saying I was supposed to know it’s fiberglass because it’s blue?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” he said like I was nuts.

“You’re placating me.”

His grin was adorable. “I am. Yes. Now tell me from the beginning.”

I pointed at the cast on my leg. “This is fiberglass. It’s much lighter weight than plaster, and it can get wet. Also, it comes in all these groovy colors.”

He nodded. “You were misinformed, my love.”

“How?”

“The shell is okay to get wet, but think about the inside and––”

“No. It has a waterproof liner.”

“Fancy.”

“I’m a sniper. You think those come along every day?” I was indignant.

Quick chuckle. “My mistake.”

“That’s right.”

“But still, liner or not, extra fancy fiberglass or not, water in between your skin and the cast will be irritating, so we’re going to wrap it.”

“Whatever you want.” I gave up. “You’re the doctor.”

“Thank you. Now how long will you be on the crutches?”

“Apparently in two weeks”—which would make a month total, but he didn’t need to know that—“I will transition into one of those air-cast walking boots, and the doctor who fixed me up didn’t say how long I’d have to wear that.”

His eyes narrowed as he studied me. “Do you have paperwork I can look at?”

“How do you mean?”

“You know what I mean, don’t play dumb.”

“Pardon me?” I hedged.

“I want to see what was done. I want to read it.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know if you have to go to physical therapy? And why a cast and the boot? I want to see what exactly you broke.”

“I broke my ankle,” I said matter-of-factly, pointing at the cast.

“Don’t be funny.”

I smirked at him. “That’s gonna be hard.”

“George Hunt,” he barked, “Produce the paperwork.”

But that would be bad for me, so I went with what always worked from an excuse standpoint. “This is the US military, man, it’s all in my jacket. There is no discharge-from-the-hospital paper trail for a black ops sniper. Gimme a break.”

“I––”

“And c’mon, all these questions are killin’ the mood.”

“There’s no mood, love. You can barely keep your eyes open.”

That was true. If you wanted rest, a hospital, especially a military one, wasn’t the place. But still, when he went to his knees, securing the cast with plastic and tape, I couldn’t help smiling wolfishly and waggling my eyebrows at him.

“Stop,” he said chuckling. “You’re in no condition to flirt with me.”

“I dunno about that.”

“You know, it occurs to me that this cast is really robust. Two weeks in the fiberglass cast and then into the boot—that seems like a long time for a break.”

“I don’t––”

“And why not a boot right away? Why this one first at all?”

What to say. “It might have been all they had at the field hospital,” I said, shrugging, without explaining about the titanium pins keeping my ankle together.

His eyes narrowed. “That makes no sense. You would think the boot would be more readily available.”

“I have no idea,” I lied.

“Tell me what happened.”

“Nothing to tell. I twisted it too far in the wrong direction. You know how it goes.”

He nodded and stood up. “Get in the shower.”

“Yessir.”

Once I was in with the water going, he opened the door. “Do you need me to hold you up in there?”

“Oh yes, please,” I rushed out. “Get in here with me.”

I got the headshaking then.

“Fine,” I grumbled.

“We’ll get you one of those medical stools to put in the shower.”

“Uh—never,” I warned him. “Just seeing that thing will make my dick go soft.”

His laugh tumbled out of him. “That’s ridiculous.”

I shrugged.

“And why don’t you have your crutches in here? You can’t go hopping around everywhere in the house.”

“I made it in here easy.”

“You need to use your crutches,” he replied sternly. “Until you’re out of the cast and into the boot, that means you’re not supposed to put any weight on that ankle.”

The crossed arms were a bad sign, so I promised quickly. I didn’t want him thinking about my ankle too hard, so anything to bring an end to the conversation about it was good. Because I really didn’t want to confess that I was lucky to have a functioning limb. Nothing good could come of telling the whole truth. Reiterating that it was broken was enough. Since the operation had been classified, I figured that not sharing all the pertinent points with him was okay. It was how I rationalized always leaving out all the big life-and-death details. And again, this went back to not wanting him wondering if marrying me was, in fact, the best thing for him. Planting that thought in his head had no upside.

I took a long, hot shower, and though I had plans to ravish him when I got out, instead, he was there to dry my hair, pull the tape and bag off my cast, put something on my face that cooled my wind-chafed, sunburned skin, then steered me to the bed.

“You need to lie down so I can have my wicked way with you,” I mumbled, sounding a bit whiny—which wasn’t surprising, given that my ankle still twinged and I hadn’t slept in over seventy-two hours.

He chuckled, put the covers over me, and kissed my forehead.

“No, really. Been thinkin’ about you.”

“I would hope so,” he soothed, hand in my hair, then rose off the bed.

I was going to get up and grab him, but my cat, Bubs—Beelzebub—flopped down against my back—delicate he was not—and started purring. He sounded like an outboard motor, but it was like a constant hum , and that was it. I was out like a light.

I did not enjoy dreaming, so I was happy I hadn’t. I had been told that everyone dreamed every night, but sometimes when you woke up, you simply didn’t remember them. When I’d asked Kurt, who I figured would know, he couldn’t say for certain whether that was true or not. All I knew was that I went from being dead to the world to awake in seconds and could recall nothing.

What woke me was a weird noise. Not something scary, not someone walking nearby. Not the snap of a twig or a catch of breath, and not the slide of a pistol loading. The noise didn’t scare me, but it concerned me. It was halfway between a whimper and a soft growl. Again, because I was still in deployment mode, not having had enough time to return to home mode yet, my eyes snapped open and I sat up.

I was glad Kurt wasn’t in the room. He didn’t like it when I woke up like that. He called it my vampire rising , and he was not a fan.

Since this was March, and it was dark, and in Chicago we had returned to spring forward with daylight saving time, that meant it was late. Evidently, I’d been comatose for hours. But at the moment, my stomach was trying to eat itself, and the door, strangely, was closed. I didn’t like to be quartered off when I was at home, and Kurt knew that. Even if I got woken up, that was preferable to not being able to hear what was going on around me.

Turning on the light on the nightstand, I found that Bubs was not next to me anymore, but instead at the French doors to the right of the bed, along with the dogs.

“What the hell are you guys doing in here?” I asked them as though they could answer. More importantly, they didn’t turn their heads to me.

That morning, when I’d limped through the door, they’d both been all over me, so happy I had returned, their little nubby tails going a million miles an hour as they whined and licked my face and hands. Now I was being completely ignored, which was weird.

Grabbing my crutches that were beside the bed, I walked over to where they were, looked outside, and after a moment, saw Kurt emerge from beside one of the many enormous oak trees in the backyard, hands flailing, which meant he was yelling, with a man following behind him. From where I was, it didn’t look scary or concerning, but the dogs were laser-focused on the guy, and that worried me. The likely reason for their heightened agitation was that they’d been closed in the room with me. The dogs were always allowed full run of the house. Same with the cat. If you were allergic or afraid or whatever, then you couldn’t come to our house. Those were the rules. So what were they doing sequestered with me? It made no sense.

“You two are freaking me out,” I advised them, grabbing my crutches and crossing over to my Mission Antique chest of drawers Kurt had bought me to match his.

Rummaging, I shed my sleep shorts, pulled on briefs, joggers, and a T-shirt, then ordered the dogs to follow as I grabbed the crutches again and briskly left the room.

We all went downstairs together, and I could see the living room as I slowly descended. Several people were drinking wine and picking at charcuterie boards.

“Hi,” Alice called to me. I liked her and her husband, Derek. Actually, I liked all Kurt’s friends. “You’re up. Should you be up?”

“Shit,” Derek said, sounding worried. “Were we too loud? Did we wake you?”

“Are you okay coming down the stairs on your crutches?” Javier asked.

It was a lot of questions at once.

“I’m really good with crutches,” I responded to Javier, one of Kurt’s oldest friends in Chicago. “Unfortunately, I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“Which is so not great.”

“It happens.”

“We did wake you, didn’t we?” Alice sounded remorseful as she looked at the others. “We’re bad people. Worse—bad friends.”

“No, not at all. The dogs were in the room with me, and they wanted out.”

“See? I told you,” Brian said to the group. “Baylor was being an ass. Why couldn’t he let the dogs go outside with them?”

So some guy named Baylor was the man Kurt was yelling at. “Baylor who?” I asked.

“Baylor Donovan,” Alice advised me.

“And it was stupid that Baylor didn’t want the dogs outside with him and Kurt,” Liz, Brian’s wife, concurred. “We should have insisted he take them, but we were in a fierce game of Uno here, George, and you know how we all hate to lose.”

“I do,” I said, grinning at her. “You people take your games far too seriously.”

“Would we say too seriously ?” Brian mused.

“Plus, it was so fast,” Javier commented. “Kurt and Baylor were headed outside before we even knew what was happening.”

“Well, I’m gonna take the dogs out now,” I told him, already on my way to the door.

“Maybe Baylor’s afraid of them,” Claudia offered as she poured herself a glass of wine. “I mean, why else would he insist the dogs stay inside?”

Good question.

“But you can go back to bed,” Alice offered kindly. “Vince and Car are out on the deck. They can let the dogs down into the yard.”

Why were Carson and Vince out there as well instead of inside with everyone else?

I wasn’t actually worried, because if I had been, I would have grabbed one of the two guns I kept in my nightstand before heading downstairs. Kurt was involved in some kind of discussion outside, not fighting for his life.

Crossing to the sliding glass door leading to the patio, I exited fast, the dogs on my heels, and they immediately charged over to the tall gate that, strangely, was closed. Normally, we kept the one on the deck open. If we were going out, we closed it, as it kept the two Dobermans from taking the flight of stairs down to the backyard. The property was not fenced, and we didn’t want them roaming onto the preserve. They probably wouldn’t, but neither of us was taking any chances with their lives.

“Fuck this,” Carson growled, moving around me to reach a tub of sports equipment Kurt kept on the deck for his patients. Sometimes it was easier for kids, and some adults, to talk to him while their hands were engaged.

“Amazing what a kid will tell you while they’re bouncing a basketball,” he’d told me when I’d first inquired about the various items.

When I reached the railing, I could see Kurt pacing as Baylor tried, unsuccessfully, to grab hold of his arms. Whatever the talk was about, Kurt didn’t want to hear it.

“Let the dogs out,” Vince told me, then turned to his husband, who rotated his right arm once, then gripped the ball. second it was in his hand, and I had a moment to think, Is he going to throw that? before he fired the ball like his arm was a rifle.

I had watched lots of football in my life, seen lots of quarterbacks throw the ball, but I’d never seen anyone I personally knew hurl anything that fast. I barely had enough time to turn my head before there was a scream of pain.

Across the yard, Kurt was now bent over Baylor, who was writhing on the ground, clutching his left shoulder. After a moment, Kurt straightened up. When he did, the dogs, who had been at the gate, dying to get out, suddenly calmed. They could see, as well as I could, that Kurt was fine and the threat had been quashed.

“You’re in trouble.” Vince snickered a second before Kurt yelled.

“ Have you lost your mind ?”

“What?” Carson volleyed back as though he couldn’t hear him. I knew that ruse; I’d used it many times myself.

“That’s not gonna work,” Vince assured his husband with a soft chuckle.

“I have no control of my arm, you know that.”

Vince scoffed. Loudly. “What I know is that you’ve still got it.”

“Yeah,” Carson agreed, rotating his shoulder. “But it hurt.”

“You could have broken his arm!” Kurt called over.

Vince groaned like that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. I was right there with him.

Did it hurt, getting hit in the arm? Yes, I was sure it did. Had it been absolutely jolting and probably scary? Most likely. Would he have a bruise? Undoubtedly. But broken? Absolutely not.

“Seriously, Carson, have you completely lost your mind?” Kurt sounded really mad.

Carson pointed to his ear. “Still can’t hear you. You need to come inside.”

Vince took that moment to charge over to the gate.

“Don’t let the dogs out,” Kurt bellowed.

“What?” Vince returned, immediately doing just that. The dogs were down the stairs in seconds, and we all watched as the two enormous Dobermans streaked across the lawn toward the man they loved.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Carson told Vince. “You’re gonna get in trouble, and I’m already throwing you under the bus.”

“I figured as much,” Vince said with a sigh as he reached Carson’s side.

“It’s not my fault I don’t like Baylor. The guy’s a tool.”

“Yes, but you used to play on the same team in college.”

“So what? Doesn’t mean he’s not a douchebag.”

It struck me then, and I was surprised I hadn’t made the connection. “You played ball in college at the same place Kurt went? At Emerson?”

“I went there too,” Vince announced, leaning against his husband, who put his left arm around his shoulders and tucked him into his side.

“Yeah,” Carson said. “Me and Vince met there right before I got banged up.”

A couple of beats of time passed before Vince took a step away and looked up into Carson’s face.

“Steady now,” Carson cautioned him.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Vince asked him pointedly.

“Love—”

“Did the words ‘right before I got banged up’ just come out of your mouth?”