style="font-size:15px;"> “A lot has changed,” she said quietly. “And I don’t even know if you’re glad to be back or not, but I’m glad.”
“Are you?” She looked like the same old Kaitlyn—gentle, sweet, doe-eyed—and yet she was different, too. She was stronger, more confident somehow. Situations had changed, but so had people.
“I am.” She fixed him with her direct stare. “So you go ahead and be mad at this whole blasted town because I’m happy you’re back in once piece.”
“Give or take,” he said with a wry smile.
Kaitlyn smiled and shook her head. “I’m going to get your prescription for pain meds refilled, and over the next few days we’re going to get you walking.” She looked down at his medication log. “You’re due for another dose in an hour.”
“The sooner the better on those meds, Kate. It hurts pretty bad.”
“Okay.” She looked as if she wanted to say something more, then gave him a nod and turned back toward the kitchen.
Brody gritted his teeth and gently lowered his leg to the floor. The pain was so intense that it turned his stomach, but he wasn’t about to lie around bemoaning his tattered state. He needed to recover, because once he was back in shape again, he knew exactly where he was going.
This ranch and this town didn’t hold anything for him anymore. He was going back to the army to finish what he started. In the army the truth had been ugly, but no one had lied to him.
* * *
WHEN KAITLYN RETURNED from the drug store with Brody’s pain prescription, Dakota opened the door for her. Kaitlyn stepped into the warm kitchen, fragrant with baking bread. The last time she’d been in this room, they’d been having a meeting of sorts—the Mason family and the Harpes. That was the evening when Mr. Mason outlined the plan to get Brody home safe. Nina and Brian had already moved to the city, so Kaitlyn’s father, Ron, filled Nina in on her part of the deal later—to keep her relationship with Brian a secret and to answer Brody’s emails so he wouldn’t suspect anything. It had been an order, not a request. Nina hadn’t wanted to go along with it—she was about to get married, after all, and she wanted to announce it to the world. But if she announced it, then Brody would hear all about it, and that could be devastating. Brody had to be the priority, and Nina would just have to get married quietly.
Kaitlyn hadn’t been back to this ranch since that solemn meeting of minds, but she and Dakota had run into each other around town a few times, and a tenuous partnership was born. They both wanted Brody home safe—which he was. Kaitlyn could only hope that the deception had been worth it.
“Hi,” Kaitlyn said with a quick smile. “I’ve got the pills.”
“How’s his leg?” Dakota asked. “He wouldn’t let me see it. Said he’d wait for a medical professional because I didn’t know squat.”
Kaitlyn smiled wanly—that sounded like Brody, always the tough guy. Maybe he’d been trying to protect his sister—that leg wasn’t pretty.
“It’s...not great.” His leg, from thigh to calf, was covered in jagged cuts and stitches. Some of the wounds had already healed over—more or less—from his first surgeries, but others were fresh from retrieving the deeper, harder-to-reach shrapnel. She could tell how much pain Brody was in, and if his leg got infected again, it could be fatal. He’d been right about one thing—proper medical care was a necessity if he wanted to walk again.
“He’s mad,” Dakota said. “About Nina and all that.”
Kaitlyn was still angry with her sister about her infidelity. Brody was strong, sweet, handsome, kind... He was the perfect guy, and Kaitlyn had been in love with him from afar for a couple of years before he asked out her sister. But he was two years older than Kaitlyn, and she hadn’t even registered on his radar. He’d made his choice—a perfectly understandable one. Nina was the beautiful sister—a redhead with soft green eyes and a voluptuous pinup-girl figure. She turned heads everywhere she went, and Kaitlyn hadn’t, at least not when her sister was anywhere near. Kaitlyn was confident in her own looks—she was beautiful, even—but she’d been quite solidly in her older sister’s shadow.
So why couldn’t Nina wait for him? Kaitlyn had been through it a thousand times. If it had been her, she’d have waited as long as she had to...but Brody wasn’t hers. He’d never seen her that way, and there were lines that Kaitlyn would never cross.
“So who had to tell him about Nina?” Kaitlyn asked. It was the conversation they’d all been dreading.
“Me.” Dakota winced. “Just before the wedding. He kept asking where Nina was, and I think he suspected. I mean, how many fiancées do you know who don’t bother visiting their wounded man in the hospital? When I told him, he just sort of deflated. He didn’t look surprised, just...silent.”
“Imagine if that had happened over there,” Kaitlyn reminded her. “Nina’s such a selfish—”
“It’s done, it’s done...” Dakota shook her head. “And Nina isn’t your fault. We’re all just trying to pick up the pieces, and this was the plan, right? He needed to find out here, so we could get him through it.”
“He’s mad that we hid it.” Kaitlyn lowered her voice further.
“I know.” They exchanged a long look, then Dakota nodded in the direction of the sitting room. “He’s waiting.”
Kaitlyn got a glass of water from the sink and headed into the sitting room. Brody was sitting forward, leaning toward the fire. He didn’t hear her at first, and he was so close to the flames that they reflected against his face.
Brody had changed since he left—there were lines around his mouth that weren’t there before, and his eyes had lost that boyish twinkle. There was nothing boyish left in him—he’d hardened, stilled. If Nina could see what she’d caused... But this wasn’t all because of Nina. This was also because of the war. Soldiers saw things that civilians couldn’t even imagine, and when they got home again, it sure didn’t help to return to a nasty surprise.
Should I have told him?
How could she ever be sure? What she knew was that Brody was home, and her job had just begun.
“Here are your pills,” Kaitlyn said, setting the glass of water next to him and unscrewing the cap to the bottle. “Now, it’s important that you never take more than the recommended dose of these. They’re strong.”
“I’m not suicidal.” Brody held out his hand for the pills, then tossed them back with a sip of water. “Thanks.”
“I was more concerned with addiction,” she retorted.
Brody laughed softly. “I’m not an addict, either.”
“Good.”
He turned toward her, dark eyes locking on to her face. “Did you think I’d change that much?”
Brody had been a fun-loving guy with an infectious laugh. He’d been tall and muscular, but he’d bulked up even more since he left, and his lean muscle had turned hard and thick. His hair had been a tousled mess of glossy curls, and now he had that standard-issue army buzz cut—but it didn’t hurt his
