Prologue
April 2002
The aircraft rattled. The wheels ground out beneath Travis Dixon’s feet, preparing for landing, and vibrated through the metal flooring. Turbulence shimmied the Air Force C-17, as if bouncing Ping-Pong balls inside a tin can. Travis swallowed, bracing himself for the impact and the inevitable braking that always felt like a roller coaster making his stomach drop.
Despite the turbulence, the landing was military smooth. His chest harness slung across his pectorals hugged him like a tight glove, and soon, the plane had slowed its roll and was taxiing toward Lackland Army Base’s deboarding zone, the ending to a two-month rescue.
Two months ago, he hadn’t thought this would happen. He’d thought as he’d lain out in that hellhole, baking in the sun, ears ringing and shrapnel cuts digging into his skin, that he wasn’t coming home. He’d been glad he’d gone into shock. A smaller injury would have hurt so much worse. But the reality was still crashing down on him. He ought to be happy. He’d see his brothers in just a minute. Little pissant Toby; tall, smart Tyler; his momma who’d fought so hard to bring him home; and his pops. He harrumphed, eliciting a glance from another private strapped into the seat two spaces down along the wall of the cargo hold. Yeah, he was glad to see his pops again, he supposed.
And Skylar…
Would she be here today? Fuck, he hoped not. His family had lost touch with her and hadn’t been able to tell her he was coming home. Nerves bunched in his gut, coiling through him. Could he ever look upon her as he once had? Hold her as he once had? Dance with her and make love to her like he had after prom and practically every day thereafter, or give her that whole mess of babies and animals and dreams they’d once conjured tangled in each other’s arms, the wide nighttime sky twinkling with stars, enveloping them in hopes for the future? After the things he’d seen and done, prom seemed like a different lifetime. He wasn’t that innocent eighteen-year-old anymore. He sure as hell didn’t feel nineteen, even though he was.
Slipping a photograph from his fatigues, he gazed down at the most gorgeous, sexiest, prettiest girl. His girl. Man, he’d been so damn lucky, it ached. Tracing a finger over her smiling face and long, blowing sunshine hair, he ignored the fresh-faced boy beside her with his arm slung around her and a grin a mile wide, always on his face when he stared at her.
If someone as hot as Skylar Rivers was on your arm, you damn well smiled about it—
Shit, Sergeant Reyes was in front of him, shouting something over the thrumming noise filling the cavernous cargo hold. Heels banged firmly together, his hand rose in a firm, practiced salute. Travis hadn’t even noticed.
“It’s time to disembark!” Reyes continued.
Wearing this fancy medal as a private first class clearly had its perks. It garnered salutes from all sorts of ranks, including one from a colonel while transferring in Washington, which had been just another stop since leaving Germany on this journey that never seemed to end. He didn’t want the perks, just wanted to forget. Hell, but he wanted to get this reunion over with. His family knew he was arriving. But he’d bet his pops’s millions of bucks that they didn’t know what they were getting, and he could already imagine his momma’s keening.
The plane had apparently stopped. He disentangled from his harness and straps. A grinding noise reverberated through the metal as the hatch was lowered, angling the floor ramp down to the ground. Light filtered in. Tarmac—Texas soil—became visible.
He looked once more at the photograph, feeling his chest pinch so painfully, he wished he’d never remembered any of this as he’d lain in that British field hospital behind enemy lines, the ones who’d found him in Kandahar province and saved his life. He couldn’t do this to his pretty Skylar. He thumped his chest with his fist to dislodge the pinch. He couldn’t saddle her with a life of pitying him, babying him, carting him to medical appointments. He couldn’t stifle her promising future or ask her to give it up, now that she was finally free of her daddy’s rat trap of a trailer—because that was exactly what she’d do. If there was a society for bleeding hearts, Skylar Rivers, with all her volunteering at the animal shelter, would be the poster child.
He couldn’t bear for her to see the person he’d become. Couldn’t bear to disappoint her. No more horseback jaunts through the desert. No more dreams of a horse sanctuary. No more ranch. Call it pride or ego or whatever the fuck. He just couldn’t. And with his night terrors? What if he hurt her in his sleep? He tried to take a deep breath, his lungs squeezing so hard. Nodding once to himself, he ignored the thickness in his throat and pulled open his wallet, tucking the photo into the ripped lining, way in the back, the planets feeling as if they were spinning out of alignment and he, unable to stop them.
He could hear Toby whooping somewhere in the distance now, cursing up a storm of happy shouts while their dad barked a rebuke at him to watch his mouth, could hear his momma calling out to him, could hear Tyler shouting with excitement, could hear applause, and noted the soldiers at either side of the bottom of the ramp, at attention, ready to salute him as he passed.
The sun was bright. He squinted, his eyes needing a moment to adjust, chewed his cheek, desperate to get through this moment.
If he truly loved Skylar, he’d do the noble thing. He’d let her go. She sure has hell deserved someone who could give her the kind of life she’d dreamed about. She needed someone to set her wings free, and now? He’d only weigh her down.
He refused the sergeant’s offer to help him, grabbed the wheels on either side of his chair, and began propelling himself with his arms down the ramp. He couldn’t look down at where he sat—in this wheelchair. If he did, all he’d see was the place where his left foot and calf should’ve been but weren’t anymore, and he’d finally lose it.