Honor Bound by Joey Hill (speld decodable readers .txt) 📕

shooting U.S. soldiers, and this situation made all those extra grueling hours of practice worth it, even if her heart was pounding up in her ears.

Think about the targets, and a gorgeous captain who will be so pissed if you don’t comehome and take that cross-country trip with him. Nap in that boat together. He’d probablychase you to the Pearly Gates with those alligators just to beat your ass.

She stumbled over something, saw a Pepsi bottle roll away wildly. A second later, the world exploded in bright light and pain.

Five

ONE YEAR LATER

Peter got out of the taxi and breathed deep of the bayou that backed up to his Baton Rouge home. Jon had been coming here regularly while Peter was on tour so it didn’t get an empty feeling to it. While that meant he’d probably burned some weird incense or had one of his tranquil and oh-so-centered bedmates chant over the front door, that was okay.

Whatever he did, Peter had no doubt it would feel as comfortable as when he left. This time it was going to feel better than it ever had. Not only because it was home, but because now he could go after Dana.

Fourteen months had gone by, and his feelings ran as strong for her as they had that night. Worse, even. It was the damnedest thing, but why should he be surprised? Matt and Lucas had known the minute they met Savannah and Cass, respectively. He’d seen it happen, but hadn’t realized it felt like this.

He couldn’t believe he’d agreed to her terms, satisfying himself with a one-way stream of letters until the end of their tour. As he’d told her, sometimes he’d felt like a lovesick fool, putting his thoughts in that vacuum. But he kept himself going by reviewing, again and again, every detail of their short time together. Particularly how she’d seen him in the airport and run to him like water in the desert. She’d surrendered to him that night at The Zone, and not merely her flesh. When she kissed him, there’d been forever in that girl’s grip.

The second he got stateside, he’d called Jon, asking him to find out where she was and have Matt’s admin make travel arrangements for him. He didn’t care if she considered that cheating. His tour was done. He was going to have a shower and a nap, but twenty-four hours weren’t going to pass before he was on his way to her. Thank God for the Taliban and dangerous missions. They’d kept him from going crazy this past year.

Smiling wryly, he opened the front door, and found Jon sitting in his living room. With Matt, Lucas and Ben, suggesting they’d all ridden together in Jon’s car out front.

Peter stopped. They would have met up tonight for beers and celebrated his return, but they wouldn’t have come like this. Not unless . . .

When Jon rose, the expression in his somber face twisted Peter’s gut. “She’s dead.” Peter forced out the words, but a heartbeat later cursed himself for being the one to say what he least wanted to hear. “That’s not possible. The letters didn’t come back.”

“They were forwarded. She’s not dead, Peter.” Jon took a step forward. Peter held his ground, his fists clenching. Waiting. “She was injured in southern Iraq twelve months ago. She’s been stateside ever since.”

“Is she . . . What happened to her? Is her family . . .”

He should have done everything to keep her off that plane, sacrificed a lifetime of principles and patriotism to keep her safe. He was going to shake Jon like a rag doll if he didn’t start talking. Now.

“It was a firefight, a pretty bad one,” Jon said, holding him with his steady gaze as Lucas moved to Peter’s side. “She got caught in an explosion when she was laying down cover fire.”

Damn it, Sergeant. You’re not supposed to be in combat. But women never did as they were told, did they? He’d seen the jut of the stubborn chin, the firm muscle of that lean, prepared body. She wouldn’t walk away from a fight. No more than he would.

“What’s happened to her?”

“She’s blind.” Peter closed his eyes, but Jon pressed on, knowing him well enough to give him all of it, fast as possible. “She lost the ability to hear in one ear. The other has diminished capacity. She’s badly scarred, but my understanding is most can be repaired with reconstructive surgery. Some of it has already been done. But the main thing is she’s alive, she can walk and she has all fingers, toes and limbs. . . . Focus on that.”

“Okay.” Peter nodded, his lips folded together tight. While he told his heart to stop thundering, the other men drew closer, forming a half ring around him. That, plus the hesitation in Jon’s voice, tipped him off to the fact he hadn’t heard it all.

“Tell me the rest.” Peter shifted his gaze to Matt, standing directly in front of him. Years ago, Matt had been the one to come and tell the younger man his parents had been killed in a car crash. The steady look in his gaze had been the same then, despite the fact Matt had barely been out of college himself. Kensington would do whatever it took to get a job done. To make things right. He’d honed the same quality in Peter.

“Dana has no living family,” Matt said quietly. “She had no support system to deal with this.”

“You tell me she’s on the street talking to herself, living out of the garbage, and I’m going to have to kill somebody.”

“No.” Lucas put a hand on his shoulder. “She didn’t have much in the way of a bank account, but she got full disability and benefits, enough to rent a small place near a VA hospital and cover her living expenses. She’s not going to be vacationing in Tahiti every year, but she’s not starving. She’s high up on the