Love Me

by Olivia Cunning

  Chad resisted the urge to fight over the direction Kellen pushed his chair. He’d struggled in boot camp because he had such a hard time letting go of control, a hard time relying on his team. That might have been why they’d agreed that he’d make an excellent Dawg. He could focus his need to be in charge on a canine instead of getting himself in trouble by mouthing off to his CO.

  It was a challenge not to think about the men and women in his platoon as he and Kellen traveled the halls of the military hospital. It didn’t matter the age of the veteran or the branch of service, the military was a family of another caliber, and being around other wounded soldiers reminded him that he’d never be an integral part of that family again, no matter how accommodating and welcoming his fellow wounded veterans were. He returned their greetings, acknowledged them all with a nod, but inside he wanted to hide from the reminders of everything he’d lost.

  Outside, Kellen located a sunny bench and parked Chad beside it before taking a seat. Chad tilted his face toward the sun and closed his eyes, breathing deeply to clear his thoughts again.

  “Do you want to talk about what’s going on between you and Owen?” he asked after a long moment.

  “No,” Kellen said. “Do you want to talk about what happened in Afghanistan?”

  “Not at all.”

  So, the two of them sat side by side in comfortable silence, knowing the other was there if or when needed, and it was enough.

  *~*~*

  Maybe Chad should have just stayed in the hospital, but two weeks of that hellhole had been far worse than being deployed. Getting into Owen’s Jeep that morning had been a chore, even with the assistance of two strong orderlies, but he was determined to get out of the vehicle at Owen’s house without falling on his face and looking weak in front of Lindsey. His brother had installed a long wooden ramp at the back of the house so at least Chad didn’t have to navigate steps to get inside—scooting up the porch stairs on his ass would be his only option until his shoulder was better and he could handle crutches. And he could hop now, so maybe he could have hopped up the steps one by one. But Owen had gone to all that trouble to build him a ramp, so the least Chad could do was get himself into the goddamned wheelchair to make the work that had gone into building the ramp worthwhile.

  “Are you ready for this?” Owen asked as they sat in the car and stared at the ramp as if it were a Rube Goldberg machine.

  “Yeah,” Chad said. He sounded confident, but it was a ruse.

  The back door opened, and Lindsey emerged. A bright smile lit up her face. As stupid as it sounded—even to himself—Chad was there for her. He liked her more than he cared to admit. Thinking about her took his mind off any regrets over his past and lessened his worries over the future. When she was near, he could live in the moment. He just didn’t want her to witness any of his moments that were embarrassing and showed his weakness. She gave him a reason to be strong. He needed a reason—even a simple reason—to move forward without falling into despair.

  “Can you ask Lindsey to wait inside?” Chad asked.

  “She’ll be crushed that you want her to go away,” Owen said. “Look how happy she is to see you.”

  She did look happy with one hand on her large belly and the other waving enthusiastically at the Jeep. She waddled down the ramp at an expedient clip.

  “It’s not that I want her to go away,” he admitted. “I don’t want her to see me floundering about as I get into the wheelchair.”

  “But we might need her help.”

  “I don’t want her help.”

  “Then why did you have the nurses explain your care procedures to her instead of to me?”

  Hell if Chad knew. Thinking about Lindsey taking care of him and having her do it were entirely different.

  The little argument between him and Owen had taken too long; Lindsey was on Chad’s side of the Jeep and opening his door.

  “You made it!” she said, wrapping her arms around him.

  She smelled of peaches and sunshine. His heart quickened as he wrapped his good arm around her and pulled her closer. God, he wanted to kiss her, but didn’t want to make their growing friendship awkward. He was undeniably attracted to her, but he knew it was impossible for her to feel anything more for him than camaraderie. She likely felt sorry for him even though he strove hard not to encourage that reaction. She never treated him like she pitied him, but in the weeks he’d spent recovering in the hospital, he’d never let her see him struggle. She had witnessed his weakness for a few minutes when she’d caught him mourning the loss of Josie, but not since, and he vowed she’d never see it again. He’d be strong. He’d be strong for her.

  Owen got out of the car and freed the wheelchair from the back. Chad forced himself to let go of Lindsey when she started to pull away.

  “You look better,” she said, cupping the side of his face and studying him.

  “It’s the sunglasses,” he said. They’d unbandaged his eye, and though it was irritated due to the scratch on his cornea, his vision hadn’t been damaged. The eye was especially sensitive to bright light, though, so he was wearing a very unattractive pair of wrap-around sunglasses that optometrists were so fond of making patients wear after eye surgery. He still had the bandage on the side of his head where he’d almost lost his ear. It was probably healed enough not to need the bandage, but the covering looked far less terrible than the jagged scar that was forming.

  “They’re very Terminator,” Lindsey said.

  They’d watched that film together—squashed side by side in his narrow hospital bed—a few days ago. Well, she’d watched it. He’d mostly sat there thinking about how much he wanted to kiss her.

  She scrunched up her nose and asked, “You didn’t rip your eye out and throw it into a sink, did you?”

  “Kind of feels like it,” he admitted, but he lowered his shades to show her both eyes were fully functional.

  Her smile turned dreamy. She oughtn’t do that. It gave him hope.

  “They’re both gorgeous blue,” she said. “I was starting to worry you had a glowing red robot eye under there. Does it hurt?” Her fingers traced the healing scratch near his temple.

  “I sense injuries,” he said in a wooden Schwarzenegger accent. “The data could be called pain.” He wondered if she’d seen the second Terminator film. He was ready to binge-watch them all again and hoped she’d join him. Cozying up with her on the sofa and making her laugh as he repeated lines to her sounded like the only piece of heaven he had any interest in.

  “Are you ready?” Owen asked. He stood with the damned wheelchair directly behind the passenger door.

  Chad gave his brother a searching look before he pushed his shades back into place. Owen licked his lips. “Say, Lindsey . . . Could you go hold the back door open for us? I know how slow you walk.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him but headed away from the car. “I made lunch,” she called over her shoulder. “Your mom is coming over to eat with us. I told her I’d call her when you got here. James has to work.”

  “She just fits right in here, doesn’t she?” Chad said, gripping the handle near the Jeep’s open door and turning in the seat so his left leg would catch him when he found the courage to push out of the vehicle. He hoped his leg could support his weight. His hospital physical therapy had gone well. Surprisingly well. But he’d been determined to show the doctor that he was ready to go home. His only motivation now was to drop himself into that wheelchair without breaking his neck. There’d been a therapeutic rail on either side of him when he’d pushed himself out of the chair and stood for the first time. More recently, he’d taken a few hops forward, turned, and gone back. That was when they’d put the sling on him to keep him from overusing his shoulder until the torn muscle healed. They’d worried that he’d overdo it in his determination to prove that he’d been broken but not beaten.

  “She tries really hard,” Owen said quietly. “She wants a family. More for the baby than for herself, I think. Aren’t
we lucky she picked ours?”

  Owen sounded sarcastic, but Chad thought they were exceptionally lucky that Lindsey had picked them. It was good to have someone around who didn’t remember the “old” Chad. Someone who would see him as he was now without comparing him to what he’d once been. Someone who wouldn’t celebrate every miniscule milestone as he sought his new normal. He didn’t need that. He was sure his mother would fill that role if he wanted a trophy for wiping his own ass. What his soul needed was someone who laughed at his lame impressions, teased him about his ugly sunglasses, told him his eyes were gorgeous, and held no expectations, just acceptance. So far, Lindsey was the only one who came even close to fitting that description.

  “Are the wheels locked?” Chad asked, taking a deep breath and trying to think of this as just jumping out of a car on one leg because he wanted to, not because he had to.

  “Yep.”

  “Here goes nothing.”

  Owen reached out to grab him, but Chad shook his head. “Let me try it on my own first.”

  “If you fall—”

  “Then I’ll drag my sorry carcass off the ground. Don’t help me.”

  “But—”

  “Owen.”

  At Chad’s stern look, Owen dropped his hand to rest on the wheelchair handle. “Mom will kill me if I let you fall.”

  Chad snorted. “You’re a grown-ass man. Don’t tell me you’re still scared of your mommy.”

  “Hell yes I’m scared of her. You’d be scared of her too if our roles were reversed.”

  Chad took a deep breath and pushed/pulled himself out of the front seat, landing solidly on his left foot. He teetered for a moment, holding on to the car door for balance. What he was doing did not feel the same as landing on one of two feet. The counterweight of his right lower leg was missing. But he’d managed and eventually he’d get used to having to compensate for his missing parts. Not today. Today it felt weird and unsettling that he couldn’t put his foot down even if he wanted to.

  Chad hopped to turn his butt in the general direction of the wheelchair, concentrating on staying on one foot and trying to ignore the instinct to take a step. Even with physical therapy, his uninjured leg had weakened from the days spent in that damned hospital bed. He needed to build up the strength in that leg again and concentrate on strengthening his upper body too. Maybe Owen would take him to the gym once he got out of the dumb sling. And speaking of dumb sling, how was he supposed to hold on to anything while he sat? He ended up flopping gracelessly into the wheelchair, glad Lindsey was out of sight for that bit of shame. At least he hadn’t eaten pavement.

  “You did it,” Owen said, raising a hand. “High five.”

  Chad grinned and accepted his brother’s congratulations by slapping his hand. So maybe he did want the trophy, just not from Lindsey.

  Chad had already discovered that he couldn’t maneuver his wheelchair with one arm unless he wanted to go in circles, so he tried not to feel too useless as his little brother wheeled him up the ramp and into the house.

  “Welcome home!” Lindsey said. She blew into a party blower. The coiled paper unrolled and bumped him in the nose.

  He chuckled and batted the party favor away. “Thanks. It’s good to be home.” What he wouldn’t give to be able to tug her down onto his lap and kiss her breathless. Those kinds of thoughts had no place here, however. He needed to get them out of his head immediately. If he was lucky, Lindsey would continue to be his friend. She’d never be someone he could kiss on a whim.

  “Your mom said beef stew is your favorite,” Lindsey said.

  Chad laughed. “I’m a meat and potatoes kind of guy.”

  “Well, I hope I didn’t screw it up.”

  “You made beef stew?” he asked, suddenly breathless. “For me?”

  “Not just for you. I get some too,” Owen said, pushing Chad’s wheelchair up to the kitchen table.

  The wooden chair that usually occupied Chad’s appointed side of the table had already been removed and was tucked out of sight somewhere. Someone had been thinking ahead.

  “Lindsey’s a great cook,” Owen said.

  “A passable cook,” Lindsey said.

  The doorbell rang, and she turned toward the living room. Chad couldn’t help but admire her profile. God, she was beautiful.

  “That’s probably your mom. I’ll let her in.”

  As soon as she was out of the room, Owen said, “Do you have a thing for her?”

  Chad hardened his features into his emotionless Marine mask. “What do you mean?”

  “You look at her like she’s some grand prize.”

  “She is a prize.”

  “She’s pregnant,” Owen said, as if her condition was contagious, even to men. “And she doesn’t even know who the baby’s father is.”

  “I don’t care about that,” he said, but to make himself feel less vulnerable, he added, “But no, I don’t have a thing for her. She’s your liability, not mine.”

  “Lucky me,” Owen said, dragging bowls out of a cabinet.

  The scrape of nails against Owen’s refinished hardwood floors made Chad sit up straighter. He’d know those scrambling paw treads anywhere. “Hawn,” he called to the family’s golden retriever—she’d been his dog until he’d gone into the military and left her behind. “Where’s my girl?”

  A bundle of wriggling fur burst into the kitchen and landed all four paws directly on his lap. Hawn wasn’t a small dog, but she somehow squeezed herself between the table and his chest and gave him a very thorough tongue bath. He wrapped his good arm around her, squeezing her tight—not minding the doggie slobber on his face or the flying fur which she shed nonstop or the loud thumping of her tail on the table or the back paw digging painfully into his thigh. Mom had less patience with her, however.

  “Hawn, down,” she said sternly. “We talked about this before we left the house. You promised you’d behave.”

  Hawn tilted her head back, tongue lolling to one side, and barked loudly. She sniffed at Chad’s bandages, scrapes, and ear, which made a shiver race down his neck, before she licked Chad’s face again. With a few swipes of her wide tongue, she managed to lick the sunglasses clean off. He winced slightly in the light, but the discomfort was tolerable. Hawn shifting so that her paws pressed into his nuts was not.

  “Hawn, down,” he said in a higher pitch than normal. The ever-exuberant dog remembered her training and hopped down to the floor, gave his stump a curious sniff, then set her head on his thigh and gazed up at him worshipfully. He rubbed her ears with his unencumbered hand, loving the soft texture of her fur against his fingertips. How many times had he stroked Jawa’s ears just like this? It had become a calming habit for them both as they waited for orders. First in, last out. That was just part of the job for an MWD and his handler. Ensure an area was free of threats before anyone else set foot there, and make sure no threats were left behind when they finished. He’d never stroke Jawa’s ears again. He’d lost him. Had it been the explosion or the resulting vehicle rollover? Chad wasn’t sure what had ultimately killed his furry brother in arms. He hadn’t asked for details. Didn’t want to know. He hadn’t let himself really feel Jawa’s loss until that moment. The memory of the dead weight of Jawa’s body lying across Chad’s chest suddenly crushed him. He couldn’t breathe.

  He’d lost Emerson too. The green Dawg had been scheduled to take over as Jawa’s handler when Chad returned to the States, but he hadn’t gotten the chance to even bond with the dog.

  Nineteen. The number—Emerson’s age—ate at Chad. Emerson had been telling him about his prom night—his fucking prom night—when Chad had triggered that land mine. Emerson and Jawa, both of them gone. And not instantly. They’d suffered. Suffered because he’d taken his eyes off the terrain. Missed the tells. And he’d missed the memorial services of his two comrades while he’d been in the hospital. Would he have even gone if he’d been able? He would have cried in front of everyone. God, he was a fucking coward. Afraid of tears
. Of feelings. Not afraid of enemy fire. But afraid of remembering them. Mourning them.

  Emerson.

  Jawa.

  His fingers curled into Hawn’s soft fur.

  Why was the room so small? And hot? Stifling. Worse than the desert heat.

  Didn’t Owen have air-conditioning?

  He couldn’t draw breath. Couldn’t breathe.

  “I’m going to have dog hair all over my house,” Owen said as he ladled stew into bowls.

  Such a simple statement, but it gave Chad something to focus on besides his grief. He sucked in a deep breath. The heat started to leave his overwarm flesh.

  Chad forced dark memories aside and looked down his chest. Jawa wasn’t there. Even though his weight had felt so terribly, horribly real, he wasn’t there.

  Chad’s shirt was covered with medium-length blond strands and one long blond hair that was most likely Lindsey’s. He picked that one off his army-green T-shirt and held it up to the light streaming in from the window over the breakfast nook benches.

  “I don’t think this one belongs to the dog,” he said.

  His mother was already coming at him with a sticky lint roller. He didn’t doubt that she carried it around in her pocket when she had Hawn with her. The dog was a hair machine. With a decent spinning wheel and loom, they could start a sweater factory and use her shed fur to clothe all of Iceland.

  “I miss my dog,” Lindsey said. “More than I miss my parents.”

  A smile wobbled across her face as she sat on the bench to Chad’s left. Sitting between them, Hawn shifted her head onto Lindsey’s knee to get a new scratch before returning her attention to Chad.

  “What kind of dog?” he asked. Jawa had been a Belgian Malinois, though he’d often been mistaken for a German shepherd. Chad didn’t voice his memories of Jawa. Someone might have pressed him for details, and he wasn’t ready to share them with anyone.

  “Just a mutt,” she said. “But really sweet. Her name is Muffin Top.” She laughed.

  “Like a fat roll?” Owen asked, setting a bowl of stew in front of Chad.

  Chad’s mouth watered as soon as the savory scent met his nose.