“Of course not, Win, this is your home as much as it is mine!”
His hesitancy broke her heart, and she choked back the tears as she watched him. He seemed so hesitant. Unsure. Almost like he didn’t belong in his own home.
As though he thought he had no rights.
This had to be what Hall had meant when he’d said Winston was a changed man. She could only imagine what had happened to him to strip him of his confidence. A shard of anxiety curled through her, and she shook it away. He needed her strong. Capable.
But...what had they done to him?
Watching his straight back as he walked down the hall, wanting to follow him and sensing that she had to let him make the journey on his own, she couldn’t help noticing that he looked neither right nor left, didn’t glance into their office, the spare bedroom or bath, went right past the wedding photos on the wall as though they weren’t there...
Whatever had happened, she didn’t have to know right now. In his own time, he’d tell her. For now, her job was to love him. To help him find his way back. To show him the way, if she had to. To let him know that whatever had been done to him, whatever, didn’t change him and her, fighting their way through life together. Didn’t change them.
He’d been given back to her. That was all that mattered.
Their love would do the rest.
Chapter Six
How could he have walked into this without a plan? Everything was about the plan. Without a plan, there was chaos.
Chaos was unacceptable.
Walking to the back of the house, Winston worked his mind toward a plan. For that, he needed a goal. He had two. Active duty. That was clear.
And Emily’s well-being. No more pain for her. She needed to be free of him.
Very clear.
And not so clear at all.
In her bedroom, he stopped, half concerned that she’d follow him. He had no plan for that, either. But knew he didn’t want it to happen.
When he was certain he was still alone—there was no movement of air that indicated otherwise—he took a quick glance around.
Nothing about the space had changed. The wedding ring he’d dropped on the nightstand on the side of the bed he’d used to sleep on—a ritual any time he left on assignment, their symbol that he’d be back—was still right where he’d dropped it, in a small circle thick with dust. For more than two years, she’d dusted around it. She’d never picked it up.
That was to have been his job. His promise that he would be back. That she wouldn’t get the ring back from a uniformed official. Or hear that it had been lost with him at sea.
So here was a fact. Emily was still living in their past. He had to free her of him so she could move on and be well. Happy.
Just leaving her alone, living somewhere else, wasn’t going to do that. Two years of living as the husband of another woman in an Afghan desert hadn’t done it—holing up in the barracks in San Diego certainly wasn’t going to. Not that she knew about poor Afsoon—the woman who’d been made to marry him sight unseen who had shed tears when she’d had to share his bed.
But even if he told Emily about Afsoon, he knew what she’d say—the same thing his superiors all said. He’d done what he had to do to save lives.
They were all right.
But finding out that he was capable of... He shook his head. Coming back served no purpose. He knew what he knew. About himself. About life.
And didn’t believe in any of the things Emily’s house proclaimed. The love she’d thought she’d been keeping alive didn’t exist. Not in the form they’d always thought. Hard to fathom how he could ever have believed it did.
They’d been kids, pure and simple. Naive.
He’d made promises he hadn’t kept. Taken vows he could no longer honor. He had to be accountable for that. Had to set her free. It was all about her freedom. Yes. He could do whatever it took for the freedom of others.
And sometimes plans were fluid. They had to be. Spur of the moment, even, based on what the enemy put before you. The unseen and sometimes unknown.
You simply had to assess the hurdles. Which was him. Yes, he was the hurdle to Emily’s freedom. To her eventual happiness. A happiness based on truth, not the lies of youth.