The Soldier's Homecoming. DONNA ALWARD

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      “There was a time when we weren’t uncomfortable with each other at all. I don’t know why we are now. That’s all in the past. I didn’t even know you’d still be here after all this time.”

      His words contradicted his cold manner of their first meeting and she wondered at it. “I stayed,” she answered, hitting the door with her hip to push it open.

      Jonas held the door and then followed her out, putting his white pizza box down on the hood of his truck. “I just go where they tell me.”

      Shannyn paused, the heat from the pizza warming her fingers. That had always been the problem. He was at the mercy of wherever his superiors sent him next. He’d done his training here, at Base Gagetown, finished when he was twenty-two. Still so young, full of energy and determination to be the best shot in the Army. Then he’d gone to Edmonton, and who knew where he’d been since then. Who knew how long he’d be stationed here? Despite his injury, it was obvious he was staying in the military, not looking to be discharged. That meant more moving around.

      “And where would that be?”

      He smiled but it seemed grim, a thin line. “Here and there. Doing what I do…what I did,” he corrected himself. “I went where I was needed.”

      The very level of danger she’d worried so much about lent a sense of the mysterious to him, and Shannyn felt a glimmer of awe. He would have performed each task as it was assigned, no questions. For some strange reason, despite his aloofness, she knew what she’d always known. There was something heroic about Jonas Kirkpatrick. Something that made her feel safe. That was odd, because right now he was her biggest threat and he didn’t even know it.

      “What are you doing on base now? When you left you’d just finished sniper school.” She looked up into his eyes. That had been a bone of contention in the end, too. An extra degree of danger that he’d relished and she’d feared. And it looked as though she’d had good reason to worry. He was only wounded. How many hadn’t come back alive?

      His jaw hardened, only slightly but enough that she saw it. Saw his eyes cool until they seemed to shut her out completely. In a matter of a few seconds, he had fully withdrawn into himself.

      “I’m back at the school.”

      “More courses?” She couldn’t imagine what else they would want him to do; he’d already accelerated through basic and had set his eyes on Special Forces. He’d obviously done his job and done it well.

      “I’m instructing, sniping and small arms.”

      Her eyebrows lifted. Now he was in charge of training the next generation of sharpshooters? No more active duty? Had his injury caused that? How had it happened? She had so many questions and no right to ask. No right to pry. They were exes only, as far as he was concerned.

      And truth be told, curious as she was, even though she still felt that pull to him, she knew it would be better for everyone if they kept things very impersonal. Getting involved in his life meant he’d get involved in hers, and she couldn’t let that happen. For all she knew instructing was a temporary position until he could return to active duty. The last thing she needed was Jonas temporarily involved in anything and then leaving. She’d been through that enough in her lifetime.

      “Do you like the new job?” She asked the question to fill up the awkward silence that had fallen.

      His eyes didn’t warm, just seemed to assess her distantly.

      When they’d met six years ago, he’d been outgoing, fun, ebullient and full of life. It was hard to reconcile that energetic youth to the hardened man before her. The gulf between them now was wider than it had ever been.

      “It has its good points.”

      Despite his earlier attempt at lightening the atmosphere, it was clear Jonas wasn’t in a social chitchat sort of mood anymore, and it was just as well.

      “Then I’m glad. I should get home.”

      “See you around.”

      She gripped the pizza box with one hand and looped her key ring around the index finger of her other. “Goodbye,” she replied, surprised to feel her throat tighten.

      It would have been easier if he’d just stayed away. She could have kept the memories of their idyllic months together untarnished. Now they were bookended with an image of a colder, harder man who seemed familiar yet a stranger.

      She didn’t need a man. She’d proven that. But if she were to choose one, it would be someone devoted, dedicated and, above all, present. Committed.

      She couldn’t imagine Jonas as any of those things.

      

      The leg press moved smoothly, up, down, up, down. Jonas grimaced at the weight on the bar. Ridiculous. It was half of what he’d been able to press only a year ago. He had enough reminders of what had happened to him without dealing with his body giving out.

      He set his teeth and stubbornly added five more reps to his set, until the muscles quivered all the way up to his hip.

      Tomorrow was his next physio appointment, and he was determined to have made progress. Everyone said his expertise and experience were beneficial to the training program here. But he knew the real reason he was back. He could no longer work out in the field. People called him a hero. He knew better.

      He knew it was his fault.

      Jonas slid off the black vinyl seat and sat on the mat, his legs spread out in a vee. Slowly he leaned forward, stretching out the muscles he’d just worked, gritting his teeth against the pain.

      He hadn’t expected to see Shannyn, that was for sure. Even so, he’d done nothing but think of her as the transport flight came in on final approach. He’d only been here in the Fredericton area for basic training, then sniper school. A small wedge of his life so far. But during that time…Shannyn had been a big part of that, and he wasn’t immune to remembering happier days. She’d never been far from his mind.

      But that was before. Before war, before deployment, before everything. Before the pervading taste of dust and blood. He could offer her nothing now, and he didn’t want to. That part of his life was over, and he was moving on in the only direction he knew how. Within the Army. His home.

      He lay down on his back, crossed one ankle over his knee, and drew the knee in, stretching out his hip. They’d run into each other twice already, and he’d been back less than two weeks.

      Switching legs, he sighed. Tomorrow he’d go to his appointment, and then he’d see about switching therapists, go to another office. The less they saw of each other the better. For both of them.

      CHAPTER TWO

      JONAS arrived for his appointment a few minutes early, providing the blond receptionist, who wasn’t Shannyn, with a letter before seating himself in the waiting room.

      “Shannyn?”

      Shannyn, just entering reception, shook her head, diverting her gaze from the back СКАЧАТЬ