that road together.
“So,” Joe said quietly, “you’re really coming home to stay?”
“Yeah.” Rick nodded. “It’s time. Hell, past time, probably.”
Joe set the butt end of his pole down against a rock and reached into the cooler for another couple of beers. He handed one to Rick and said quietly, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”
“Yeah?”
“That last letter you sent me …”
Rick frowned and took a long drink. Then he stared at his beer as if looking for something to say. He didn’t find anything.
“You said your friend died on a patrol.”
“Yeah,” Rick said and in a split instant, he was back there. Searing heat, gunfire erupting all around him, men shouting, screaming. He heard it all in his sleep. Saw it all in his dreams. He rubbed his eyes as if he could wipe away the memory, but he knew it would be with him forever.
“He saved your life, didn’t he?”
“He did.” Rick took a breath, stared out at the lake again because he couldn’t look at Joe’s friendly, concerned face and talk about what had happened to Jeff Simpson. Hell, he didn’t want to talk about it at all. But he knew Joe wouldn’t rest until he had the story. And, because Rick was moving back home permanently, best to get it out and done now. He steeled himself against the pain and dove in.
“It was an ambush,” he said simply, knowing that there was no way in hell Joe could ever understand what it had been like. No one could who hadn’t been there. “I was on point, first man into the village. Unbelievably hot. Sweat rolling down your back under your gear, raining into your eyes until your vision blurred and burned.
“Goats and chickens were scrabbling in the dirt and a couple of kids raced by with a battered soccer ball. Everything looked normal, but I just had a … feeling that something was wrong. A second later, I spotted a shooter in a doorway and turned to take him out.” He paused for a sip of beer. “Jeff was right behind me. He spotted a sniper on the roof taking dead aim on my back. Jeff reacted fast. Took me down in a flying tackle. In a heartbeat, I was facedown on the street eating dirt while gunfire erupted all around us—and Jeff took the bullet meant for me.”
Joe gave a heavy sigh, then slapped his hand against Rick’s back. “I can’t know how hard that was for you, buddy. Nobody can. But I’m grateful to Jeff.”
Rick turned his head to smile at his old friend. “Yeah,” he said. “So am I. Doesn’t make it any easier to live with though.”
“Can’t imagine it would.” A second later, Joe whooped and grabbed his pole. “Finally got a bite. Looks like fish for supper.”
Rick watched Joe reel in a huge bass and thought that there was more he hadn’t told his old friend. But what was said in the last few moments of Jeff Simpson’s life was nobody else’s business. In his mind, Rick heard his friend’s strained whisper. Saw the pleading in his eyes and mentally added bricks to the wall he had built around his own heart that day.
Looking around him again, Rick felt the peace of his home ranch slide into him once more, easing the tattered edges of his soul. He took a breath of hot summer air and smiled to himself as he thought that, yeah, he was especially grateful to Jeff Simpson. And maybe that’s the main reason Rick was going to leave the Corps. He didn’t want to waste the life that Jeff had made possible.
He had a chance here, for more than he ever could have hoped for.
And he was going to take it.
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