“Hey there, handsome. How are you?” Harper sat back on the couch, hugging a pillow to her chest.
“I’m okay. How’s my girl?”
“I miss you.” She fought back the tears that welled up. Seeing him intensified everything. “I’m worried about you.”
He sighed under the weight of the world. “Baby, I’m fine. Everything’s okay.”
“Look, I know you’re not much of a talker. But I can’t have you stumbling around half a world away fucking things up because you’re distracted by a misplaced sense of responsibility and guilt.”
He blinked. Luke’s mouth opened and then closed.
“I see I have your attention,” Harper said primly.
“I would say so.”
“Luke, do you think there is any way that Aldo blames you for what happened?”
He sighed. “No.”
“In fact he’s probably already told you that you’re not to blame.”
Luke stared off. “Fine. Yes.”
It was like trying to get answers out of a brick wall ... or a basement. “Great. So did you place the IED there?”
He rolled his eyes at her. “No.”
“Did you tell Aldo to drive over it?”
“No.”
“Did you know it was there and not tell him?”
“No. Harper —”
“Not done, yet. So logically you can agree with theentire rest of the worldthat you are not to blame.”
He sat stoically without moving for a few seconds. “Was that not rhetorical?”
“Luke, it hurts me to see you hurt like this. I don’t know how to help you.”
“Harper, baby, you can’t make it better. I get what you’re saying. I know that I’m not to blame. But I feel responsible for my friend. His life and the lives of everyone in this unit are in my hands. If I don’t lead responsibly, people can and do get hurt. People die.”
“Aldo didn’t die.”
“No, but others have.”
The men he lost before, Harper remembered.
“I lost good men because we had bad intel. Ultimately that responsibility lies on my shoulders.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Am I to blame? No. But I’m the leader of this unit, and that makes me responsible for everything that happens within it.”
It was Harper’s turn for silence.
His sigh was heavy. “All I know is I can’t get the blood out of my head. I saw it happen and we started running towards the truck. He was just laying there in a fucking river of blood.” Luke stared down at his hands as if seeing it again. Harper shuddered.
