Page 56 of Branded By the Cowboy

The steady hands. The quiet belief. The love that held me up, even when I didn’t know how to stand.

And I think—I’m not ready to leave this.

Not when I’ve finally found home in my husband’s arms.

And then?—

A crash.

A voice.

“LUNA!”

Angus.

Chapter15

Angus

The smoke hits me before I see the flames.

By the time I round the tractor shed, the barn is half-eclipsed in rising smoke, thick and mean, pouring into the wind.

I run

“Fire!” Tom’s voice cracks across the yard. “The barn! Get water!”

I don’t hear the rest.

Because I see the flames. Smell the fuel-soaked heat.

My body goes ice-cold in that split second before the panic detonates.

My wife said she’d feed the goats this morning.

“LUNA!”

It’s not a shout. It’s a roar. A gut-deep, blood-boilingbellow.

Henry’s shouting. Dad is on the radio. Tom sprints for the water pump. Horses scream in their stalls.

And me?

I’m back in Kandahar.

A blinding flash.

Smoke. Screams. Heat blistering my gear.

The compound burning, my body buried under rubble.

I shake my head.

Not again.

I’m not losing someone in the fire again.

Not someone. Mywife.

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