The Returning Hero

by Soraya Lane

  “I just wanted to write about a fun little world that was a happy place. So I could escape each time I sat down at the computer or sketched the illustrations. Although I can’t say the topic of the book has compelled me to work on it for any decent stretch of time.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to escape reality,” Brett told her, kissing the top of her head when she leaned her cheek against his shoulder. “We all have to do what we have to do.”

  “Which is why you didn’t want to tell Logan,” she remarked.

  “Look, we can deal with Logan. Let’s just not let it ruin this, okay?”

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” she said. Because she had no intention of letting anyone or anything ruin what was happening between them.

  * * *

  Jamie stood up when she saw Logan enter the restaurant. They were sitting outside so Bear could be with them, and she didn’t think he’d see them. Brett hadn’t bothered to stand—he seemed more interested in shredding his sugar packet into a thousand pieces than looking out for his friend.

  “Hey!” she called out when she spotted Logan.

  He wrapped her in a big bear hug, holding on tight. “We don’t see each other in months and now twice in a week. How lucky am I?”

  She gave him a kiss on the cheek and stood back as Brett rose and the boys did some handshake-backslap ritual.

  “You two hanging out a bit?” Logan asked.

  Brett cleared his throat and she jumped in to answer for him. She’d hoped for a relaxed coffee first, that they could just hang out and enjoy catching up, but it seemed they were diving straight into it.

  “Brett’s actually staying with me, keeping me company,” she said. “It’s nice to have someone in the house again.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Logan answered, waving over a waitress and ordering a latte before picking up the menu.

  “So you’ve been working? How’s your dog?” Brett asked. “Jamie’s doing really well with Bear.”

  Jamie frowned at him, not wanting to change the subject yet. She just wanted to get everything out on the table, deal with the two most important men in her life by being honest. Then they could get back to chitchat and food, but they needed to get this out in the open now, especially since they were already on the topic.

  “We should let the dogs get together for a play, take them to the beach or something,” Logan said, before turning to Brett. “And you can stay with me if you need a place to crash once Jamie kicks you out, because we both know she’ll be sick of you soon, right?”

  Both guys laughed, but she didn’t. Jamie tapped her fingers on the tabletop, trying to figure out how to get what she needed to say out there without Logan completely losing the plot.

  “I thought you’d be staying at the barracks?” Brett asked.

  “I’ve rented a place not far from there, and no one seems to mind me living off-site. They’re putting me on some local work, security and bomb checks for the celebrities they have coming in over the next few months as part of the Visit Australia tourism campaign.”

  “Logan, there’s something we need to tell you,” Jamie blurted, interrupting their talk about Logan’s work. It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in what he was saying, about what he did, but she couldn’t sit here pretending like they didn’t have something major to discus with him.

  He put down his menu, looked from her to Brett and back to her again. “Is everything okay? It’s not Bear, is it?” he asked, diverting his gaze to study the dog sitting at her feet, before reaching down to pat him. “You look good, boy. Jamie looking after you, huh?”

  “We didn’t mean for this to happen, especially not so soon after Sam passing away, but Brett and I are, well, we’re close. We’re, um, well we’ve become more than friends, and we wanted you to be the first to know.” Damn it! That hadn’t come out well at all, not as she’d planned, not like she’d practiced in her head. She didn’t want to stuff this conversation up, and that was exactly what she’d managed to do.

  Logan’s fists had clenched on the table and she could see a tick at his temple.

  “Logan, I can explain…” Brett began, before Logan cut him off straight away.

  “Our friend dies, and instead of looking after his wife, like we both promised to do, you decide it’s okay to sleep with her? To just slot into Sam’s life like you can take his place?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Jamie told him, reaching for Brett’s hand. “This wasn’t planned, it’s just…”

  “So you are sleeping together?” he demanded.

  “Logan, I can explain,” she stuttered, emotion clogging her throat and making it near impossible to speak.

  “Jamie, this is between me and Brett. You’re a widow and we promised Sam we’d look after you, and instead he’s has taken advantage of you?”

  Her hands were wet, clammy from the tension at her table, and she was starting to flush hot. This was not good. There was no part of this that was good. Brett had been right, they should never have told Logan, they should have just stayed in their own little bubble of happiness.

  “Logan, I didn’t want to tell you, but we…”

  Logan laughed, but it was a harsh sound that made Jamie cringe. “Please don’t insult me or Sam by using the word we when it comes to Jamie, Brett.”

  Jamie didn’t know what to say, hated that they were starting to have a conversation about her as if she weren’t present, as if she couldn’t hear every single word they were saying. She’d known pain, plenty of it lately, but this cut straight to the bone.

  “Logan, why don’t we go and talk about this somewhere private?” Brett asked. “Leave Jamie out of this.”

  “Oh, I have every intention of leaving her out of this,” he said, seething.

  Jamie watched as they both stood. They were big men, tall and muscled, and the testosterone surrounding her was enough to make her head spin. She knew this wasn’t looking good, that at least one of them was about to explode, but she’d never seen either of them be violent before. Surely they wouldn’t…

  Jamie’s mouth went dry. She swiveled in her chair to watch them as they walked down the steps. It seemed too calm, too orderly, but the heated exchange that began when they were on the footpath was anything other than calm, and deep down she’d known it was coming. As soon as she’d seen Logan’s expression, when she’d told him, she’d known. Her hand dropped to Bear, kneading his fur as she stayed seated.

  Logan was in Brett’s face, and he wasn’t doing anything to stop him. Until he said one sentence. One sentence that Jamie heard even from where she was sitting, her hand now resting on Bear’s head as she stared at the pair of them arguing. Her heart was thumping so hard she could hardly concentrate, a ringing in her ears making her head pound.

  “I love her, Logan.”

  She froze, her hand stopping its back-and-forth stroke of her dog’s head. There was nothing that could have prepared her for that moment, the second that she heard Brett say those three little words that sent her mind spiraling, that made it almost impossible for her to breathe.

  He loved her.

  Only the moment was shattered by the crack of Logan’s fist hitting Brett square in the jaw. Jamie screamed, or at least she thought it was her because all she could hear was the ringing of a scream in her ears as she watched Brett stagger backward and Logan stand there, staring down at him, disgust written all over his face. Brett stood, not moving even as Logan raised his fist again, obviously deciding he wasn’t going to engage, that he didn’t want to fight his friend. In less than a minute, Logan stormed off down the footpath without a backward glance, disappearing before she even thought to call out to him. Before she was even capable of acting. Before she could do anything to right the wrong that had just happened because of her. Because she was as much in shock from what Brett had said, not just because of what Logan had done.

  She flew down the steps and reached for Brett, gasping at the blood pouring from his nose and drippin
g into his mouth.

  “Brett? Oh, my gosh…” The words came out like they were all connected, a complete jumble. “I don’t, are you…?”

  This couldn’t be happening. Her hands were fluttering in the air with no idea what they should be doing to help him. And she still couldn’t stop thinking about how it had felt to hear those words—he loved her.

  “I’m fine,” he insisted, wiping at his face then cursing when he covered his shirtsleeve in blood.

  “No, you’re not fine,” she managed to say. “I’ll cancel our lunch and then we can…”

  “No,” he said, staring down at her with a coolness in his gaze that sent shivers down her spine. This was not the same man she’d made love to, the same man whose hand she’d held as they strolled through the park earlier. The man who’d just confessed his love for her. “There can be no us, Jamie, don’t you get that now? This is why I didn’t want to meet Logan, because I knew that he’d tell me what I already knew, what I’ve been trying to ignore this whole time.”

  She stood dead-still, feet rooted to the spot, unable to move even if she wanted to. “Just because Logan didn’t understand doesn’t mean this is wrong. He’ll get his head around it, eventually. We knew this wasn’t going to be easy for him to digest, Brett, we knew it was going to be tough.”

  “It’s not about Logan accepting us or not, Jamie, it’s about him being right. Maybe this is me taking advantage of you, doing something that is so wrong it shouldn’t have even crossed my mind that any part of it was okay.” He stared at her. “Sam was my best friend, Jamie, and he trusted me like he trusted no one else. Except for Logan. And now I’ve lost both of them, because I did something that I’ve known was wrong every step of the way.” He stared at her, his expression empty. “It doesn’t matter how I feel about you, Jamie. I should never have let this go so far between us. I shouldn’t have told you about looking for you, about seeing Sam with you. None of it.”

  Jamie stared back up at him, digging her fingernails into her palm, determined to stay strong.

  “So what are you saying, Brett?”

  He looked at her then looked away, like he couldn’t even make eye contact with her anymore. “I need to think,” he said, walking a few steps backward, putting enough space between them that it felt like they’d never be close, that he’d never hold her in his arms or kiss her ever again. “I’ll see you later.”

  Jamie stood and watched him—the man she’d just opened herself up to, the man who’d only moments earlier said he loved her—walk away. Instead of fighting for her, fighting for their right to be together, he’d just given up and left her. And she had a feeling that he wasn’t just walking away from lunch, he was walking away from her. For good.

  She squared her shoulders and forced herself to walk back up the steps and into the restaurant, hating that the other people seated outside in the courtyard had witnessed the scene and no doubt heard some of what was being said. Bear’s wagging tail made her smile, though, and she dropped a kiss to his head before sitting back down again, trying to stay calm. Her dog was at least loyal, would never leave her side unless she wanted him to. Bear was the only constant in her life right now, no strings attached.

  “Ma’am, would you like to cancel one of your orders?”

  She nodded bravely. “Yes, just the eggs benedict for me, please. And another latte. Make it strong.”

  There was a newspaper at the empty table beside her, so she reached for it and started scanning the articles. She wasn’t interested in reading, but she was interested in doing anything she could to take her mind off Brett. To try to keep things normal and pretend that everything was okay for a little while.

  If that meant sitting alone with her dog to eat brunch, then that’s what she’d do. She needed to be grateful for her life, for the fact that she was sitting here, alive, in the sun. She could go home and cry later, but right now she was going to eat her eggs and drink her coffee.

  Because she’d put herself through enough, been through enough, to just take a moment for herself and pretend like everything was okay. Inside, she wanted to fall apart, but her mind was strong, and she wanted to keep it that way. Life didn’t get much tougher than losing a husband, but she’d survived that, and she would survive this. Just like she’d survived losing her dad when she was a teenager and dealt with a mom who’d been more interested in drowning her sorrows in a bottle of wine than comforting her only daughter.

  She was a fighter, and she wasn’t going to lose her strength, not ever.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  JAMIE WAS TIRED. She was tired of waiting, tired of thinking, tired of everything. She’d read through the final draft of her latest manuscript, played around with all of her sketches to send her editor, but nothing was inspiring her. And now here she was, curled up in her favorite chair again with a cup of coffee, staring out the window. She’d spent a lot of time sitting in the same spot and thinking after Sam had died, after the men had come knocking at her door and told her the news, and it was the only place she felt like sitting now. She didn’t know why, but whenever she looked out the window it helped her to relax.

  Bear’s low whine broke her trance, and she smiled over at him. He’d been through so much, which made them perfect companions, but she also knew that the only reason she was doing so well with the dog now was because of Brett.

  Brett. She couldn’t stop thinking about him if she tried. He was the only person who’d made her feel alive, who’d made her feel like her again since Sam had died, and now he’d gone and walked away. Not to mention the wedge she’d driven between him and Logan—a wedge she was worried might be irreparable.

  I love her. They were the words that had echoed in her head since the fight. Maybe she’d heard them wrong, maybe he’d said something else, but the way her heart picked up speed whenever she played that moment over in her mind told her that she’d been right. That there was no mistaking what he’d told Logan, before she’d heard the smack of Logan’s fist against his face. How could he feel that way about her and still walk away?

  It excited and terrified her in equal parts, because this was Brett. Her friend, Brett. Her husband’s friend, Brett. And he was also the man she’d made love to the night before and couldn’t stop thinking about. The only man other than her husband who she could ever imagine being with, and the only man she wanted to be with. But now he was gone, and she’d never have the chance to hear the words from his lips, or say them back to him.

  Jamie sighed again and reached for her phone, checking to make sure she hadn’t missed a call or a text. Eventually she was going to have to admit that Brett wasn’t coming back, at least not tonight. She was alone, again. Just her and Bear, and what she’d shared with Brett might be over for good, just a memory.

  “Want a cuddle?” she asked the dog. She moved to the sofa and grabbed a blanket to tuck around herself.

  He pricked his ears and watched as she settled herself, flicked on the television and patted the spot beside her. It didn’t take him long to decide to join her—he padded over and jumped up, taking up more space than she was. But she didn’t care. He was a warm body and he loved her, and that was all she needed right now. Bear was her oversized cuddly blanket—not to mention her protector at night.

  Her dog was someone who wasn’t going to leave her, someone who was supposed to be by her side, no questions asked. Someone who’d be in her life for as long as was possible.

  Someone she could love without feeling guilty about what her heart was telling her.

  * * *

  Brett leaned both elbows on the counter and stared down into his drink. The warm brown liquid didn’t have any answers, and it wasn’t a vice he’d ever indulged before, but after what had happened with Jamie, he’d decided a bourbon might help clear his head. Not that it was doing the pounding any good, or helping the purple swirl that was starting around his eye and across one side of his nose. He’d taken one look in the cracked bathroom mirror and decided that he was be
st not to look at the reminder on his face.

  He held up the glass and took a small sip, cringing as the liquid burned a fiery trail down his throat. It was only early afternoon, and he never drank straight spirits at the best of times, let alone on an empty stomach.

  Brett glanced around at the other people in the bar—all men. It was dark and dingy, an underground dive that made it almost impossible to remember that it was a bright, sunny day outside. The kind of day he should be enjoying, rather than sitting around feeling sorry for himself.

  He swallowed a larger gulp of his drink this time, finding the second taste smoother than the first.

  “You ready for another?”

  Brett looked up as the bartender spoke to him. “Ah, no. I think just one will do me.”

  He received a nod in response. “I haven’t seen you here before.”

  “And hopefully, at this time of the day at least, you won’t see me again.”

  The bartender chuckled. “You don’t exactly look like my kind of lunchtime regular. The type who only ever consumes liquid for lunch, that is.”

  “Heaven help me,” Brett said, tipping back the rest of the glass and closing his eyes as he swallowed it down. The drink had made his stomach swirl with a heat that felt better than the cold dread he’d been experiencing earlier, but he still didn’t want to be tempted by a second.

  “Woman trouble?”

  Brett nodded. “You could say that.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, that’s my advice. If you love her? Tell her you’re sorry and make it up to her. The guys that don’t do that…?” The bartender raised his eyebrows. “They’re the ones who turn into my regulars, and it’s a sad story from then on. Although women troubles are pretty good for business down here.”

  Brett stood and put his wallet into his back pocket. “Thanks for the advice. It’s not quite that simple, but you’re right.”

  He walked to the entrance, feeling like a desperate man as he stared at the light filtering through the door. Suddenly the confines of the bar, the darkness, even the smell, were all telling him that he needed to run, and fast. Before he turned into a depressed creature who needed bourbon and darkness to deal with his life on a daily basis.