“I eat meat, but I also like a good PB&J.”
Chad stopped a few feet away, his easygoing trademark grin in place. “I knew we had a lot in common. Ready to check out my favorite picnic spot?”
“Do we need to walk far?” She’d completed one hike today and had no intention of attempting a second.
“Nope.” Chad turned and headed for the open field in the backyard. “Just past the clearing there is a good spot by a creek. Brody, Josh, and I camped out there when we were kids. Katie was too chicken to sleep in a tent all night.”
“What was she afraid of?” she asked, following Chad across his backyard.
“Bugs mostly.” He held back a low-lying branch and waited for her to step into the forest. “Don’t worry, I brought spray.”
“I wish there was a repellent for the things that scare me.” She paused by a tree and waited for him to lead the way. He stayed true to his word, stopping not far from his backyard and pulling a blanket out of his backpack. She helped him spread it out on the ground, took a seat, and accepted a sandwich. “If I could pull out a spray bottle and erase my fears . . .”
“Your dog would be out of a job,” he said, nodding to the golden retriever who’d claimed a corner of his blanket, content to chew on his toy.
“True. But he might enjoy retirement.”
“What frightens you, Lena?” He stretched his long legs in front of him, easing down on the blanket.
She let out a mirthless laugh. “I have a laundry list of triggers. Loud noises, people getting too close, intimate situations. My ex wasn’t fond of that last one. He didn’t like the fact that I braced for hugs as if insurgents were about to storm our house, or that I shied away from his touch.”
“That’s why he gave up on you?”
“Yes. But it wasn’t his fault,” she said before Chad joined his sister in labeling Malcolm a jerk.
“It doesn’t sound like anyone is to blame, Lena. Some things just happen. Like my little brother getting hit in the head while helicopter logging. It was an accident. Sure, there were a million ways to prevent it. He could have stayed home that day. The pilots could have flown a different route, or the copilot could have paid better attention to what was happening on the ground. But you can’t think that way.”
He handed her a bottle of water. “I try to save my energy for the problems that I know are my fault. Right now, I can’t fly until I fix my reputation or start a serious relationship.”
“Relationship?” Lena focused on keeping her voice steady. She’d struggled with reading people even since she’d returned home. Her life while deployed had been drawn in black and white. Home felt more like a rainbow with the colors constantly shifting. But she’d come a long way in the past few months, far enough to know that helicopter logging and relationships did not go hand in hand.
“I was under the impression you’d banned that word from your vocabulary,” she added.
“You’re right.” He smiled as if every word out of his mouth made perfect sense. “But it turns out, I need a girlfriend.”
She listened as he explained how his position at Moore Timber, and his dreams of helicopter logging, meant he needed to appear serious about one woman.
“Now I’m aware of the fact that this crazy situation is my fault. Hell, you saw the proof last night that I’ve earned my reputation,” he added. “And fixing it? That’s on me too. But what you’re going through? You were just doing your job, Lena. The way I see it, the fears following you now aren’t that much different than Josh’s short-term memory loss. And I haven’t met a single doctor or nurse who expects my little brother to solve his problems on his own.”
Lena froze, the peanut butter from Chad’s homemade sandwich stuck to the roof of her mouth. She’d spent months surrounded by people pushing her toward an imaginary timeline as if she could check the boxes one by one—therapy, service dog—and become the person she’d been before. She had the tools, now it was up to her to do the rest, to fix her troubled mind.
But out of all the people in Independence Falls, the man with the panty-melting smile didn’t see it that way. Sitting here, eating a sandwich that desperately needed more jam to justify the label PB&J, her dog relaxed at her side, she felt as if who she was might be enough.
For now.
Tomorrow? She’d like to wake up one step closer to normal.
A plan formed in her mind as she took a sip of water. “Are you going to do it? Settle down?”
“I’m not interested in leading someone on who is hoping for a ring in a few months,” Chad said. “But I need to do something.”
“Helicopter logging means that much to you?”
“Yes.” There was passion and fire behind that one word. “I told you about my dad, right?”
She nodded. The man had been his hero. His words stuck
with her because her father was a Hero, capital H, to most people, but he’d never been hers.