“What makes you say that? You were born into ranching, weren’t you? Your family had a small spread near Bozeman.”
“It’s not about the work. I like the work. It’s familiar.”
“Then what is it about?”
Jonah swallowed, the movement visible in his throat. “I don’t have anything to contribute here.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Walker has a vision for this place. Boone keeps everything running. The horses need care, the fences need mending. But I’m...” He trailed off, fingers flexing against his knees. “I’m just taking up space.”
“You feel useless,” she said, naming the feeling he couldn’t.
He flinched as if she’d struck him, then gave a single, sharp nod.
“You spend hours with the horses. That’s contributing.”
“That’s just... maintenance. Anyone could do that.”
“Sunshine doesn’t seem to think so.” Johanna gestured toward the window where the palomino pranced in the lightly falling snow like a child trying to catch snowflakes. “She wouldn’t let anyone near her before you came.”
“She just needed patience.” A flicker of pride crossed his face, but it was quickly suppressed. He was still trying to convince himself that nothing here mattered, even as he spoke about that horse like she was his.
“Hmm.” Johanna made a note on her pad, the scratch of pen against paper loud in the quiet room. “Let’s talk about what ‘contributing’ means to you. What made you feel useful before?”
His jaw tightened. “I had a purpose in the Marines. Aplace. A mission. I loved it… until I didn’t. And then I found my own personal mission.”
She set her pen down, recognizing the shift in his tone. This wasn’t casual conversation anymore. This was the heart of whatever drove Jonah Reed. “Tell me about that.”
Outside, the snow fell faster now, blanketing the paddock in a thin layer of white. Sunshine shook her mane, scattering snowflakes, then turned and trotted toward the barn for shelter. Jonah watched her go, and his shoulders tensed when she disappeared from view.
Yes, he was very attached to that horse. And that might be the key to helping him stay.
Silence stretched, and Johanna waited. She had no other patients on her schedule and could wait him out all day if she had to.
“There was this group of veterans who’d fallen through the cracks,” he said at last. “Guys who couldn’t get the care they needed from the VA. Spent hours in waiting rooms just to be told to come back next month. Some couldn’t afford their meds. Others needed treatment the VA wouldn’t cover.”
His words came faster now, as if a dam had broken. “Mason—my squad leader from my second deployment—he had shrapnel in his leg that the docs couldn’t get all of. Constant infections. Pain so bad he could barely walk most days. VA kept bouncing him between departments, saying it wasn’t their responsibility. I watched him deteriorate for months. He lost his security guard job because he couldn’t stand for eight-hour shifts. Lost his apartment after that, and his car was repossessed. Then his wife left and took the kids.” He shook his head. “The system that sent him to war couldn’t be bothered to fix what broke over there.”
“That must have been difficult to witness,” she said, choosing her words carefully so as not to spook him into shutting down again. She already knew where this wasleading—his file detailed the crime, but not the motivation behind it—but she also knew he needed to say it for himself. “How did that make you feel?”
“Angry. Helpless.” His eyes finally met hers, and there was a flicker of something raw in them. “I tried everything. Went through my chain of command, called my congressman, filed petitions. I even took him to appointments and fought with administrators. Nothing worked. He got worse. I watched him lose everything that mattered to him, piece by piece.”
His hands curled into fists on his knees. “So I did something about it. I was logistics. Medical supply chain. I knew the system inside and out. I knew which paperwork could be fudged, which supplies went unaudited, which warehouse managers looked the other way if you greased the right palms.”
“So you started taking supplies from the Marines,” she prompted when he paused.
“Just antibiotics and pain meds for Mason at first. Nothing that would be missed. A few bandages, some prescription-strength anti-inflammatories.” A bitter smile twisted his mouth. “But word gets around when you can help. Soon, I had Teixeira from motor pool, who needed insulin for his son that he couldn’t afford. Then Robinett, who had third-degree burns they wouldn’t treat properly because they were from a bar fight after he got back, not from combat.”
Johanna made another note, her pen hovering above the paper. “How long did this go on?”
“Two years.” He met her eyes directly for the first time since entering the room. “Two years of redirecting medical supplies, falsifying inventory records, bribing supply sergeants. By the end, I had a network across three bases and was moving tens of thousands of dollars worth of supplies every month.”
The matter-of-fact way he described his criminal enterprise sent a chill through her. Not because she was shocked—she’d worked with enough veteransto understand the desperate measures trauma and injustice could drive them to—but because of the complete absence of remorse in his voice.
“And you built all this yourself?”
“I had help. Other guys who’d been through the system and got fed up. A couple medics who trained people to administer basic care. Even had a discharged pharmacist who helped distribute meds safely.” Pride crept into his voice despite his efforts to remain detached. “We set up a makeshift clinic in an old VFW hall. Helped over two hundred veterans in those two years.”
