Page 41 of Haystacks and Hoaxes

“The truth at last!” She tossed the pillow she’d been clutching at him. “I think we both know you have nothing to lose here.”

He caught the pillow and dropped it on the floor. “Other than my dignity.”

“Oh, please! This isn’t about your dignity.” She jutted her chin at him. “The only thing keeping you from ditching that cane is between your ears.”

His jaw dropped. “Mila!” He was pretty sure he’d just been insulted. Or goaded.

“Chanel turned in earlier,” she continued, “and Decker is reading Gwen a bedtime story.” Mila clapped her hands impatiently and beckoned at his wounded leg again. “Come on! You’ve already seen me at my worst. All it’ll take is one whiff of your smelly dogs to make us even.”

Telling him he had stinky feet was such a far cry from flirting that he decided to stop overthinking her offer. Instead, he slid off his boot.

She pretended to choke on his stench while he propped it on the sofa between them.

He shook his head at her. “Are we even yet?”

“Almost.” She made a big show of rubbing her hands together again before lowering them to his ankle. “Pull up the hem of your jeans, cowboy, so we can do this right.”

He silently complied. The next thing he knew, she was pulling his sock off and digging her cool fingertips into his cramped calf muscles. It wasn’t nearly as painful as he’d been expecting. On the contrary, it felt good. He held her gaze, not saying anything, just breathing.

“It’s okay that you survived your last deployment, Rock.”

He jerked back a little, as the familiar guilt flooded his chest. “You have no idea what you’re?—”

She talked right over him. “It’s okay that you were one of the fortunate ones who got to come home.”

“Who told you what happened to me?” He couldn’t imagine his brother talking behind his back.

“Nobody. I looked up the story online.” Her eyes grew glassy with unshed tears. “I read about the soldier in your squad who came home in a box, and about the other guy who will never walk again. According to the only soldier willing to sit through an interview, none of them would’ve survived without your bravery that afternoon.”

His insides churned with emotion. “It’s easy to Monday-morning quarterback stuff like that.” Which didn’t change the fact that war was an ugly business, and winning always came at a cost.

She acted like she hadn’t heard him. “The last thing the soldier said to the reporter was a quote from the Book of Romans. ‘All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.’” She drew a shuddery breath. “Which means you were meant to live to fight another day, Rock. Maybe not with your comrades on the battlefield, but right here in Heart Lake.” She grimaced at him. “With a messed-up partner whose life is currently in shambles.”

Her words moved him deeply. “Just doing my job,” he muttered.

“Are you?” A tear slid down her cheek. “Or are you still going above and beyond like you did for your Special Forces comrades? You have to be exhausted, Rock, but here you are. Present. Making sure I drink water and take my stupid vitamins. Then you keep my head so full of boring facts and numbers about the robbery case, that I have a lot less time to pontificate on how much my life may or may not have been shortened by a deadly pesticide. And whether my mother was the one who administered the poison.”

Throughout her impassioned tirade, not once did her fingers stop kneading the knotted muscles in his leg. It only took a few minutes to prove her point. His leg was better. He’d suspected it for a while, but he’d been afraid to test his theory. It was easier to continue leaning on his cane than risk being caught in a wave of muscle spasms that could drop him on the floor.

Funny how no one besides Mila had been able to see through his pride and fear. Not his physical therapist. Not his brother. Not his boss. Only her.

She lifted her hands dramatically and stood, making him miss her soothing touch. What she did next blew his mind. She jogged backwards, putting a good twenty feet of distance between them. “Get out of the boat, Peter.”

He chuckled helplessly. He couldn’t help it. Her reference to the apostle who’d walked on water caught him right in the funny bone. Even more importantly, it caught him in the heart. The fact that she believed he could walk again made him anxious to prove her right. She needed a win right now. They both did.

He stood, shaking his head in bemusement at her as he took his first tentative step. Then he shifted hisfull weight onto his injured leg. It held steady. Glancing down, he silently begged the leg to work right. Just this once. For her.

“Don’t look down, Rock.” Mila’s voice tugged his attention back to her. “Look at your messed up partner.”

“Quit calling yourself that.” He hated it when she did.

“I hate it just as much when I see you wrestling with your demons, Rock.” Her musical voice was like a tide, lifting him and carrying him ever closer to where she was standing.

He was only a few steps away when the truth hit him. The reason he hated hearing her refer to herself as damaged was because it was the same way he felt every time he looked into the mirror. It was a feeling he despised. A feeling that filled him with despair.

But no longer. His partner got him in ways no one else ever had. Where others could only see the falling leaves or rotting hay, she saw the dawn of a new season. She’d seen it at Chester Farm, and she’d seen it in the soldier standing in front of her.

He closed the distance between them one step at a time — with the light thump of a boot sole followed by the nearly silent fall of his bare foot. The best part was that he reached her without having to take a knee.

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