haven’t long found out, have you?” she asked him gently.
Nate glanced her way, made brief eye contact before fixing his stare forward again. “I wasn’t contactable for a while, so I won’t lie and say the news didn’t come as a shock when they finally tracked me down and told me.”
Sarah swallowed, uncomfortable. “Not everyone knows, but I’ve seen a lot of your family lately, and Ellie and I have become great friends. She’s wonderful, Nate. I think if you gave her a chance you’d really enjoy her company. Maybe not as your sister straightaway, but as a nice friend at least.”
He laughed. A cruel laugh that she didn’t recognize. “Right now I can’t even spend time with the siblings I grew up with, so what makes you think I’d do any better with a stranger?”
“Don’t talk like that, Nate. Just don’t.” Tears flooded Sarah’s eyes but she refused to let them spill over. She’d promised herself years ago that she’d never shed a tear over Nate Calhoun ever again, and just because the circumstances were different didn’t change anything.
“I think we should head back,” he announced, turning his horse in the direction they’d come in.
Sarah halted her horse and paused a moment before following him, whistled to her dog to call him over. This wasn’t the Nate she’d known, and it sure as hell wasn’t a Nate she could ever have imagined returning home. Sarah tried to quell the anger rising within her, anger toward Nate that she’d long held in check.
If she wasn’t on a newly broken horse she would have cantered off with her head held high and left him, but with the way her mount was starting to dance on the spot beneath her, she wasn’t going to push her luck. Not on her first ride.
Sarah trotted after Nate’s retreating figure and contemplated pushing him clean out of the saddle. A smile played across her lips. Returned wounded soldier or not, a slap across the cheek and a shove off his horse was probably exactly what Nate needed. Not that she’d ever be that game.
“Nate, wait up!” she called.
He didn’t stop, but she could see the slight turn of his head telling her he’d heard her.
“This is stupid,” she told him.
“What is?” he asked, a scowl crossing his face. A face that even with a more weathered appearance, with soft crinkles alongside his eyes and faint dark marks beneath his bottom lashes, was still ridiculously handsome.
“You behaving like this, us acting like nothing has happened one minute, then you clamming up the next.”
She could see the tautness in his jaw, that he was probably grinding down on his teeth, a hollowness in his eyes that she wished wasn’t there. “I’m not the man I used to be, Sarah. That’s the truth of it, and there’s nothing I can do to change that.”
Sarah shook her head, sadness flooding her again. “I don’t believe you, Nate,” she told him. “I know you’ve seen awful things, that you’re struggling with something right now and that you’ve been injured, but I believe the old Nate is still in there. Somewhere.” She sighed, forcing herself to continue. “I don’t know what happened to you over there, Nate, but don’t give up on yourself yet. Okay?”
Nate didn’t respond and she was too choked up to say anything else. So they rode in silence. Him on his borrowed mount, her trying to keep up, and her dog running along beside them without a care in the world.
Nate knew he’d been rude to Sarah, and she didn’t deserve it. But he was all out of apologies, of trying to figure out the right thing to say. When all he wanted was to be left the hell alone.
He cleared his throat, knowing he needed to say something before he lost his chance and she walked from the barn and out of his life again for good. He’d already pushed her away once, and he didn’t need another black mark on his conscience.
“Sarah,” he started, running a hand through his longer than usual hair.
She stopped and turned to him, her face tilted up to look him in the eye. Next to him she seemed tiny, fragile. In reality she was tall and willowy, but in flat boots she seemed much shorter than he remembered.
“I, well, I’m not myself right now, Sarah. I didn’t mean to snap at you before, but I can’t deal with any of this. Okay?” Nate knew it was a terrible apology, but it was the best he could come up with right now.
“I know you’re hurting, Nate,” she responded, closing the distance between them to touch his arm, to tighten her fingers against his skin.
He looked into her eyes, into deep amber eyes that had haunted him for years … in his sleep, while he was awake, when he had nothing else to do but think about what he’d left behind in his determination to fight for a greater cause, to serve his country in the absolute best way he could.
If only it was someone as sweet as Sarah who haunted his nights now. No longer dreams, but nightmares that relentlessly kept him awake night after long night.
“Nate?” Sarah was still touching him, her grip heating his skin.
He untangled himself. He had no other choice. Sarah touching him was too real; he didn’t want to feel human again, preferred the dull deadness he’d become used to. He didn’t want to acknowledge how kind she was being to him when he knew how badly he must have hurt her.
“I’m here for you, Nate. If you want to talk, if you need anything, don’t be a stranger.”
Sarah’s eyes were kind, the smile kicking up her lips so pure that he wished he had the guts to grab hold of her and not let her go. To fold her slender body against his and cradle her, to remember what they used to have, the man he used to be. To make him feel less like damaged goods and more like a human being again.
“Thanks,” he managed, his voice a husky octave lower than usual.
Sarah’s fingers skipped across his upper arm and she left, walked from the barn leading her young mare, ready to turn her out in the field again.
Nate stared after her until she disappeared, eyes caught by the softness of her silhouette. Slim-fitting T-shirt, worn jeans that she obviously found comfortable to ride in and that darn dog sticking close to her like he viewed Nate as an imminent danger.
Would she still use her maiden name? Nate forced the question from his mind, trying to refocus on the horse he was supposed to be brushing down.
So she was single again? What difference did it make to him? Nate had made a choice six years ago, and as far as he could tell, there was no going back from that.
Not now and not ever.
Sarah pulled out a chair from the table and dragged it across the room. She stood on it, rummaged around in the high cupboard and yanked out what she’d known to be hidden there.
She shouldn’t be looking at it, not after all these years, but seeing Nate had brought back a flood of memories that she couldn’t help but want to revisit. When she was married to Todd, she’d done her best to put the past behind her, but now …
Sarah smiled as she flicked to the first page. Hearts doodled in pink pen, Nate’s name written in
