Cross to Bear

I survived a deployment because of her letters, so there's nothing I wouldn't do for her now...

I was fully prepared to come home in a box. In the dust of Afghanistan, I’d accepted that my life was worth exactly as much as the brothers standing beside me. But then the packages started arriving. My buddy's little sister quickly became my only tether to a world that made sense. And her letters kept me from losing my mind when the world went dark.

Somehow I managed to trade the battlefield for the Knightdale Charter, and since I've been home I've used the club’s business to drown out the echoes of war. I've never stopped thinking about her, but I've kept my distance from her world of soft edges and quiet dreams. We are opposites in every way. The only thing we have in common is her brother.

Then one phone call changes everything. She's drowning in grief and caught in the chaos that follows every soldier home from war. The moment she whispers my name, I'm done for. Now I can't stay away, but I can be the stoic shoulder she can cry on. Yet the moment she collapses into my arms, every instinct I have starts screaming a single truth: she's mine. And I don't just want to comfort her, I want to make her forget the pain.

She thinks she has to face this darkness on her own, but this woman's love carried me through a war. I leave no man behind, so she's not shouldering this burden alone. We'll get through this together, no matter what it takes.