“I tried everything but I was best at bareback bronc riding. I stopped when I decided I needed a different career. I was good but not good enough to do it for a living. Besides, it’s a tough life and the money is anything but dependable.”
“Do you miss it?”
“At first I did. But I was living on the ranch at the time and taking care of the horses and the ranch, plus riding whenever I wanted helped. It took me a while, but I figured out I wanted to be in medicine. Logan wanted me to be a doctor, but it wasn’t in the cards for me, for which I’m grateful now. I’d never have made it through med school. Hell, I left college after a year. After my dad died money was tight. So supporting myself as quickly as I could was important. That’s when I decided to quit college and enlist. I could be trained as a medic and get paid at the same time. So I went through training to be a medic and then a combat medic.”
“How long did that take?”
“Six months. Ten weeks of basic and sixteen to be combat-certified.” He tilted his head, considering her. “Why the sudden interest in my past?”
“It’s not sudden. I’ve always been interested. We’ve just never talked about it much. Was it hard transitioning to be a civilian paramedic?”
“Not hard. Time-consuming. I had to take some college courses first. My medic training enabled me to skip some of the civilian training, but it still took about six months to certify as a paramedic, then I had to have further training to become a flight paramedic.”
“You never talk about your experience as a combat medic.”
He shrugged. “There’s not much to talk about. Parts of it were rewarding. A lot of it was brutal.”
“Brutal in what way?”
“Losing people. Losing friends. Trying to save someone when you’re under fire. Watching people in a Humvee getting blown up in front of you, then trying to save them while you’re being shot at. It’s pretty fucking scary.”
“But you did two tours, didn’t you? Why?”
He shrugged. “Seemed like the thing to do at the time. It was a steady job, steady paycheck. And I felt like I was helping. Until I didn’t.”
“Did something happen to make you decide not to reenlist?”
He got a faraway look in his eyes. “Yeah.”
He didn’t say anything else, and she could tell he wasn’t going to. So she changed the subject and was rewarded by him looking like the Connor she was used to. Not the brooding, intense man she’d never seen before.
Clearly, there was a lot more to his service than he was willing to talk about. At least for now. She wondered if he ever would.
*
“Coming!” Sierra calledout when she heard a knock on the door. She’d been back at work for a week now, Connor for a bit longer. She was going out with Connor tonight, but he was early. Hopping on one foot, she tried to get her other shoe on. She wore pants with short boots that should have been easy to slip on. “Damn it.” Stupid shoe. She gave up, answering the door with one boot on and the other held in her hand.
“You’re early—” She stopped mid-sentence and stared at the man on her doorstep. Dark brown hair, blue eyes, a face that had made more than one woman sigh. Including her, once upon a time.
“Phil? What are you doing here?” She hadn’t seen her ex-husband since she left Texas months ago. He was the very last person she’d expected to find on her doorstep.
“Hi, Sierra. You look great.”
He said that as if he’d seen her last week, rather than months before. As if the last time she’d seen him hadn’t been to sign divorce papers. She simply stared at him wondering what was going on. Phil was here, in Marietta? She couldn’t wrap her head around it.
“Can I come in?”
Still shocked, she stepped aside, and he walked in. “Why are you here?” She’d thought if or when she saw her ex again she’d be sad. Instead she was surprised. And wary. And annoyed. What the hell did he mean showing up at her apartment out of the blue?
He’d been looking around the apartment with interest, but at that he smiled. “I wanted to see you.”
“Why?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“How did you know where I live?” She hadn’t told a lot of people. Certainly none who would have told Phil.
“Mind if I sit?”
