“And that’s terrifying because…?”
I pulled on the shirt and turned to face him. “Because individually, I can be charming. I can focus. I can remember names and details and seem like a functional human being. But all of them? At once?” I pressed my hand to my stomach. “What if I call someone the wrong name? What if I forget who’s married to whom? What if?—”
“It’s not a quiz.” Coop crossed the room in three strides and caught my face in his hands. “They’re going to love you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.” He kissed my forehead. “They know I have exceptional taste in women.”
I rolled my eyes. Two weeks. It had only been two weeks since I’d arrived in Garnet Bend, half dead and terrified and clinging to hope like a lifeline. Two weeks since Coop had carried me out of Travis’s house and brought me home.
Home. The word still felt foreign when I applied it to myself.
But these past fourteen days had changed something in me. Yesterday morning, I’d been in the barn at Pawsitive helping Lark with the feeding rounds when Audra—Beckett’s fiancée—had appeared in the doorway, two steaming mugs in her hands.
“Coffee break,” she’d announced, Jet, her German shepherd, by her side as always. “Nonnegotiable.”
We’d sat on hay bales outside Al Pacacino’s pen, the alpaca watching us with his perfected scorn while we drank in comfortable silence. Audra didn’t ask questions. Didn’t pry. She just sat with me, and after a while, I’d found myself talking anyway.
“Does it ever stop feeling like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop?”
She’d considered the question, turning her mug in her hands. “Not completely. There are some days when I’m still expecting to look over my shoulder and see my stalker coming after me.” She reached up and touched the burn scar on the back of her neck—agift from the man who had terrorized her for months. “But it gets quieter. The waiting.”
“How long did it take?”
“I’ll let you know when I get there.” A small smile. “But it’s better than it was. That’s enough for now.”
We’d finished our coffee watching Al Pacacino terrorize a barn cat that had wandered too close to his fence. The cat had hissed. Al Pacacino had spat. Audra and I had laughed until our sides ached—the first time I’d laughed like that in longer than I could remember.
My camera equipment had arrived three days ago. The feds Coop had been working for had come through, just as Coop said they would. I’d spent an entire afternoon just holding my camera again, relearning its weight in my hands.
That evening, I’d wandered out to the paddock where the therapy horses grazed. The light was golden, syrup-thick, and one of the mares had lifted her head as I approached. I’d raised the camera on instinct. Clicked the shutter. And felt something crack open in my chest.
The creative spark I’d thought might be dead forever had flickered back to life. Tentative. Uncertain. But there.
So yeah, Garnet Bend felt like somewhere I could belong. I was just terrified to trust that feeling.
“Ready?” Coop asked, pulling me back to the present.
I smoothed down my shirt. Took a breath. “Ready.”
When we arrived at the Resting Warrior Ranch a short time later, I couldn’t stop staring. The property spread across the valley like something from a dream—rolling pastures giving way to sturdy fences, barns weathered to silver, mountains rising in the distance. The lodge sat at the heart of it all, timber and stone, smoke curling from the chimney, warm light spilling from every window.
I’d heard the stories, from both Coop and others. How former Navy SEALs had built this place as a sanctuary for veterans. How it had grown into something more—a community, a family, a home for people who’d seen too much and needed somewhere safe to heal.
Standing in front of it now, I understood even more why Coop had made this area his home.
“Breathe,” he murmured, taking my hand.
“I’m breathing.”
“You’re holding your breath.”
I let it out in a rush. “How can you tell?”
“Your shoulders were up around your ears.” He squeezed my fingers. “Come on. They don’t bite.”
The front door opened before we reached it, and chaos spilled out. A toddler barreled past, shrieking with delight, followed closely by a golden retriever and a harried-looking woman calling, “Zeke! Zeke, we don’t run near the?—”
