Her Lone Cowboy. Patricia Forsythe

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      Taking a painkiller before he slept almost always triggered the nightmares, but they came more often when he took nothing at all.

      Caleb rubbed his palms over his face, shoved his feet into the worn-out slip-ons he kept next to the bed and then stood cautiously, waiting for his leg to become accustomed to his weight once again, before walking through the house to work out the stiffness. Down the hall, past the two empty bedrooms, he moved into the living room, where he stood in front of the big window—uncurtained because he had no clue how to go about buying drapes and had no desire to learn.

      As he stared out at the yard, he heard coyotes, the bothersome pack that roamed the area and had probably been responsible for the disappearance of many domestic animals. No doubt, the predators had dens in the nearby Mule Mountains, where they hid out, waiting for some unsuspecting cat or jackrabbit to happen by—

      A sudden scream split the air, sparking a shiver up Caleb’s spine. That sound wasn’t made by a coyote, but he didn’t know what had made it since he’d never heard it before.

      It came again, high and sharp. It wasn’t human, but it ignited a memory of a fire fight, of Mack, wounded, fallen, clutching his side as he tried to swallow cries of anguish that would attract more enemy fire to their position.

      Memories overwhelming him, Caleb rushed to the door, grabbing his rifle on his way out. He didn’t know where the attack would be coming from, but he was ready. Crouching, moving stealthily, he slipped off the porch and hunkered down into a shooting stance as far as his bad leg would let him. His gaze swept the yard then the area beyond.

      He saw something ahead of him, moving through the low bushes, too fast and steady to be a man doing the belly crawl. What was it?

      The creature turned its head. Caleb saw the flash of yellow eyes. It wasn’t human. But what was it? Confused, he stepped forward. The crack of a stick breaking under his foot snapped in the air and jerked Caleb back to reality.

      Whatever he’d seen in the yard disappeared with a gentle whoosh of sound.

      He shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs, working to recall why he was standing out in the yard in his underwear. He glanced down. He held a piece of one-by-two-inch board, the one he used to prop open the living-room window.

      Hands falling to his sides, he stood for a minute, concentrating on his breathing, letting his waking nightmare dissipate as he shoved the memory back into the mental vault where he kept it under lock and key.

      His gaze moved out past the yard and the barn to the pasture where he’d encountered Sam and Laney earlier, then beyond to their house where a porch light speared the darkness. He couldn’t even see the outline of the house, only the glow of the light, a faint beacon of reassurance.

      Reassurance? He didn’t need reassurance. He needed to be left alone.

      He lifted the board, holding it up in front of his face. He’d thought it was his rifle; that he was going to protect his home with it.

      No. He couldn’t be a neighbor. It wasn’t time yet.

      He turned back to the house with a sound of disgust, returned the board to the sill of the window, which he double-checked to make sure it was closed and locked.

      Bertie, asleep on his favorite rug, raised his head as if willing to commiserate, but then apparently decided that Caleb was doing a good enough job of being miserable on his own. He dropped his head on his paws and sighed.

      Caleb looked down at the old dog. “Yeah, buddy, that’s how I feel.”

      He wandered into the kitchen and poured a glass of water. Leaning against the sink, he drank it down, grateful for the miracle of clean, good-tasting water, so unlike the filtered, never-quite-right stuff they’d had in Afghanistan.

      Like all the other military personnel, they’d consumed bottled water by the gallon, along with electrolyte drinks. When he’d come back to the States, he’d never been able to get enough clean water into him and he still drank more than he ever had in his younger years. He set the empty glass down and stood with his hands gripping the edge of the sink. The memories were close tonight and he couldn’t seem to shove them away as he usually could. He’d been back for more than a year and a half, but as his mother had said, he’d left the war but he’d never really come home.

      Pushing away from the sink, he wandered back to the living-room window and stood, arms crossed over his chest, staring into the darkness while he thought about his new neighbors.

      “What do you think, Bert? You think she ever had a husband?”

      He glanced down. Bertie’s gentle snores told him that this man’s best friend couldn’t have been less interested.

      In spite of that, Caleb continued with his speculation. “Did the guy abandon her and Sam? Didn’t care that he had a wife and kid?”

      Caleb’s eyes narrowed as he thought it over. “Maybe she was impossible to live with.” He straightened, his arms dropping to his sides as another thought came to him. “Or did she always want to be a single mom so she got some clinical assistance?”

      He ran his thumb along the stubble on his chin. “Nothing wrong with that, Bert. But, nah, I don’t think so. I think...that I’m losing my friggin’ mind.”

      Caleb admitted he was out of his element and had been for a while.

      At one time he’d had an unerring sense of direction, a built-in compass that could point him the right way even if it was pitch-black outside and only safe to move a few inches. Now he tried to defend his home from night noises with a stick and stood staring at his neighbor’s house.

      And he didn’t even care about his neighbors.

      He turned, headed back to bed, giving in to the twinge in his leg that told him he’d been on it too long and ignoring the one in his gut that told him he was a liar.

      * * *

      BY THE NEXT afternoon Laney thought she may have convinced her son that he wasn’t to visit Caleb, or Bertie, until he was invited. She had left him inside to play with a building set he was using to make a replica of Caleb’s place.

      Sam had only seen the yard and the house, but in his imagination it contained endless corrals made of snap-together pieces of plastic fencing, as well as a barn of cardboard and masking tape.

      With a few minutes to herself, she decided to take a break from organizing her house and get her turn-outs ready for the coming fire season. During the summers when school was out, Laney was a wild-land firefighter, a member of Fire Team 8, currently an all-woman group that fought wildfires during the summer. There had been men on the team in the past and there probably would be again, but right now, it was all women who, like Laney, had families and additional jobs. The money from fighting fires paid for both necessities and luxuries.

      She spread her coat, pants and boots out on the patio attached to the back of the house and examined them closely for damage. Her fire boots appeared to be in good shape, as did her coat, but there was a rip in her pants caused when she’d fallen over a log last summer and snagged them on a broken branch. She thought she could mend it.

      Laney stepped back into the house for her sewing kit, calling out to Sam as she went.

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