To her right was the Wilson Mountain Range rising out of the flat plain west of the one-hundred-mile, oblong-shaped, Wind River Valley. They were covered with snow on their blue granite flanks, and then surrounded with thick evergreens from ten thousand feet downward and flowing onto the flat of the valley. The no-kill shelter had been built on the southern end of the town. The parking lot was gravel and with a wooden corral around it except for the entrance and exit points. The tires made crunching sounds as she backed out and headed toward the ribbon of two-lane asphalt that went through the valley.
Since discovering this small town nestled between the Salt Mountain Range to the east and the Wilson Range on the west side of it, she’d found some level of peace. Her money was running out, although she knew her parents would give her more if she asked. They’d done so much already, trying to help her with her devastating PTSD symptoms.
Driving slowly through town, she parked at Kassie’s Café. Kassie had given her a back room in the large restaurant, free, to land until she could find a job. She, like Maud Whitcomb, was partial to military vets and had married one, Travis Grant.
Lily left the pickup and walked around to a side door. The little apartment had a bathroom with a tub, which she loved to soak in. Water always calmed her. The bedroom had a queen-sized bed and a purple comforter that was cozy and warm for the freezing nights that occurred even in June around here. There was also a small kitchenette. She discovered either Kassie or one of her military women vet waitresses had thoughtfully put a bowl of fresh fruit on the table for her. When she opened the fridge, she found in there three complete meals wrapped in Saran-wrap.
Lily didn’t know how she managed to luck out, but Kassie and Travis had been saviors to her. She’d come here two weeks ago, low on money, low on morale and questioning if she’d done the right thing by leaving her home in Blackfoot, Idaho. She was looking for a job that had low stress, something that would pay her some sort of salary that she could live on. As a vet with PTSD, she knew her career as an RN was pretty much over. She didn’t have the ability to stand the stress of working in a busy hospital. Or even a doctor’s office. Sometimes, crowds of people, noise and the combination of the two, made her mind blank out and she was paralyzed for moments, unable to think or react.
During therapy, after breaking emotionally over what she’d witnessed in an Afghan village, her therapist gently told her she would never be the same person again. Lily found those words disheartening, but Major Ann Dawson showed her the strength that was still within her, and helped her to understand how she could call upon it to heal. That, too, was a part of her.
The first three months after her breakdown out in the field were the hardest. They’d put her on medications that made her feel out of her body, her mind didn’t work and she was in some kind of cottony cocoon that she couldn’t wrestle out of.
Only after the medication was slowly withdrawn and she started therapy sessions with Major Dawson, did she start to come alive once more. And as she recounted the horrific attack by the Taliban at dawn, the murdering of innocent men, women and children, she broke down and wept until she had no more tears to shed. But the pain, the anguish of watching people systematically beheaded with swords, stabbed with knives, shot in the head, still peppered her dreams nightly. Dawson had urged her to remember, not push away what she’d experienced. It had been so hard. It was still hard but her emotional reaction to it had diminished in intensity. Her therapist said that with time, it would lose its grip upon her and Lily believed her and wished that would hurry up and happen. Unfortunately, the therapist told her, it would be many years before it slowly took place.
Lily went to the kitchen counter and made a pot of coffee. If she took certain anti-anxiety meds, she’d calm down. But they interfered so much with her need to feel connected to life that she finally refused to take them anymore. Lily would rather suffer and feel alive than be anesthetized and slog through a day robotically disconnected from everything. Truly, the meds had turned her into a zombie.
Glancing at her watch, she saw it was afternoon. Because Kassie had given her this space to live until she could get back on her feet, Lily wanted to help out where she could. The dishwasher room, where dirty plates and flatware were cleaned, was too loud and jarring to her sensitive nervous system. Noise would actually bring on a flashback of that dawn morning in the village. And getting a flashback made her curl into a knot, her head buried against her drawn-up knees, arms tightly wrapped around them, unable to do anything but remember to breathe in and out until it passed. It could take an hour, but then the rest of the day or a sleepless night followed.
She felt helpless. Alone. Broken. Too fragile to live in this rough and tumble world that civilians easily dealt with day in and day out. At one time, she could do it, too. But no longer. Major Dawson had told her to find a low-stress job at something that made her look forward to working daily. The no-kill shelter here in Wind River was perfect for her. Dogs barking didn’t bring on a nasty reaction within her. The dogs and cats loved her and she wallowed in their unselfish adoration, lapping it up like the starving emotional being she’d become. These last two weeks had been heaven for her because she was the only human with all the animals. Things always went better when there wasn’t a crowd of people around her.
She sat down at the table that had two chairs around it, and ate a tuna sandwich that she’d made last night. Luckily, she’d slept well, a rare night, but so welcomed. Dawson told her that over time, years, the anxiety, the hypervigilance, the nightmares and those dreaded flashbacks, would begin to ease. Lily took it as a good luck sign that Wind River was a place of healing for her. In the last two weeks, she’d had seven nights of solid, unbroken sleep. A new record! Attributing it to her beloved dogs and cats, she remembered that her caring therapist told her she would find a place, people, an environment that would support her healing. It would be a journey that would consume her lifetime to come, but a worthy one.
Well, she’d found it. Kassie and Travis Grant were her guardian angels. Just as Maud Whitcomb had been by hiring her part time at the animal shelter. Yes, this place, the kindness of so many people who lived here, was the medication she needed . . . and in an hour, she’d find out what new challenge was in store for her on Wind River Ranch.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Lindsay McKenna is the pseudonym of award-winning author Eileen Nauman. With more than 135 titles to her credit and approximately 23 million books sold in 33 countries world-wide, Lindsay is one of the most distinguished authors in the women’s fiction genre. She is the recipient of many awards, including six RT Book Reviews awards (including Best Military Romance Author) and an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award. In 1999, foreseeing the emergence of eBooks, she became the first bestselling women’s fiction author to exclusively release a new title digitally. In recognition of her status as one of the originators of the military adventure/romance genre, Lindsay is affectionately known as “The Top Gun of Women’s Military Fiction.” Lindsay comes by her military knowledge and interest honestly—by continuing a family tradition of serving in the U.S. Navy. Her father, who served on a destroyer in the Pacific theater during World War II, instilled a strong sense of patriotism and duty in his daughter.
You can visit Lindsay McKenna at
www.LindsayMcKenna.com.
Also available from Lindsay McKenna:
Her new military series, Delos!
Nowhere to Hide
Tangled Pursuit
Forged in Fire
Broken Dreams
Secret Dream
Unbound Pursuit
Secrets
Snowflake’s Gift
Never Enough
Available from your favorite e-tailer.
For more information,
please go to:
www.LindsayMcKenna.com.
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