The Marine's Family Mission. Victoria Pade

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      When that dot of light had finally grown bigger, the first thing she’d seen had been Declan Madison’s face.

      Relief had flooded her, followed by more stress as he tried not to cause a cave-in while working at opening a space to pull her through.

      He’d been diligent, assuring her that everything was going to be okay, that he’d get her out.

      He’d barely made a two-foot gap in the wreckage when something overhead shifted more drastically. Acting quickly, he’d shoved his upper half in to grab her under the arms and had yanked her free just as a collapse did occur, dragging her out of harm’s way a split second before she would have been crushed.

      As he’d helped load her onto a gurney, then into an ambulance, she remembered thanking him—again and again and again—before she was rushed to a hospital. It was only later, after she’d been treated, after she’d been diagnosed with a concussion and had been given a bed so she could be watched overnight, that her appreciation had been eclipsed by something new and terrifying.

      Declan had shown up at the hospital, and at first she’d only heard his voice asking where she was. That alone had caused uneasiness in her, but when she’d glanced in his direction and had actually seen him, the simple sight of that face had mentally thrown her back into the dark, dusty cranny amid the crumbling rubble.

      And rather than associating Declan Madison with the relief of being freed, instead, in her mind, he instantly became a fast ride right back into the heart of her terror.

      Mandy—who had been outside the school with Topher and Declan and hadn’t been hurt—had been with her in the hospital, at her bedside. Emmy hadn’t wanted her sister to know what she was feeling. In fact, she’d been ashamed of it—children and teachers had died in the attack, others had been scarred or maimed for life, there were little kids in beds around her stoically accepting their irreversibly changed lives, while she’d suffered nothing but a headache and a few cuts and bruises. Yet she was ready to crawl out of her skin with one look at the very person who had saved her. Thankfulness should have been the only thing she’d felt, and instead she was fighting terror.

      Hiding it, she’d told her sister that she was tired and needed to rest. She’d asked Mandy to leave and take Declan with her.

      So Mandy had left without knowing about that first distress, and Emmy had kept every other incident of it to herself ever since—except for telling Carla.

      “So that’s stuck—no panic attacks when you saw him at the wedding and none yesterday either,” her friend said.

      The wedding had been six months after the bombing. By then Emmy had reset her career. She’d talked poor Carla’s ear off about her nightmares, her problem with small spaces, the flashbacks and anxiety, and she’d been doing much better. But she hadn’t been sure what would happen if she had to see Declan Madison’s face again.

      Then she had. And while it had raised some memories, it hadn’t made her hyperventilate, it hadn’t caused all-out panic. In fact, worrying about it had been worse than anything that had happened when she had actually seen him.

      Partly in order to celebrate that, and partly to control the worry that the panic still might hit, she’d had a whole lot to drink—beginning with champagne while the wedding party dressed and continuing at the reception. The more she’d had to drink, the calmer she’d felt, until she’d found the courage to approach Declan, to thank him again the way she knew she should have before leaving Afghanistan.

      “No, no panic attacks yesterday either,” Emmy confirmed.

      “No symptoms of the PTSD at all?”

      “I hate when you call it that. That isn’t what it is. I’ve taken pictures of the kinds of things that cause PTSD—they’re big and devastating and life changing, they aren’t just a few hours being scared until somebody finds them and everything is okay again.”

      “I know that’s how you see it, but—”

      “That’s how it is,” she insisted, refusing to accept her friend’s opinion. “What I have is just fallout from a bad experience, and it hardly ever even happens anymore.”

      “Okay—it hardly ever happens anymore, you’re over the Afghanistan thing and seeing Declan Madison at the wedding and again yesterday didn’t cause anything bad,” Carla repeated as if she was temporarily conceding to Emmy’s arguments. “But what about what did happen at the wedding? Do you want to be under the same roof with a guy who seemed interested in you and then spent the night with somebody else right next door to you?”

      “That’s definitely the other half of why I was hoping I might not ever have to see him again. But I guess going into this knowing I’m not his type is something,” she said facetiously.

      “So spending time with him now won’t send you out into the arms of another Bryce?” Carla pressed.

      Emmy laughed humorlessly. “There definitely won’t be another Bryce. Ever. And as for this guy? I’m a whole lot tougher and smarter than I was four years ago at the wedding. He will not get to me.”

      Not even with those incredibly blue eyes or that face that could have been carved by the gods or that hella-hot body.

      Besides, this wasn’t a Las Vegas wedding, with wine flowing and inhibitions discarded. Now there was Topher’s death. Mandy’s death. Now there was the farm and hail damage. Now there were two kids she was suddenly a single parent to, and she had so much to wade through, to get used to. She was in no mood for anything but getting some control and order back into her life.

      And unless she was mistaken, the changes she’d seen in Declan Madison made her think that he wasn’t in any mood for anything either.

      They’d just do what needed to be done and then move on in separate directions.

      “I know we have some weird history—” she said then.

      “I’d say,” Carla agreed. “All good and cheery in Afghanistan at first, then really, really not good. Then sort of good again for a while at the wedding, until you were thinking one thing was going on between the two of you and—”

      “It wasn’t. Like with Bryce...” she added derisively. “But it’s all in the past and this is now,” Emmy concluded.

      “And you think you can just do the now without any of the past poking in?”

      Emmy sighed and wished she was in any other position. But she wasn’t. “I hope so,” she answered her friend honestly. “I know I can’t do everything here on my own.”

      “Then I guess you kind of have to take him up on his offer of help,” Carla said. “At least the faster you can get the hail damage cleaned up, the faster I can hopefully find you a new leaser and the faster you can come home.”

      “Oh, that would be good...” Emmy said earnestly.

      “So that settles it.”

      “Yeah,” Emmy agreed.

      But for some reason she still didn’t feel at all settled when she thought about letting Declan Madison anywhere near her.

      And СКАЧАТЬ