LITMIR.BIZ

      In memory of Lydia Bustos, who was called home sooner than any of us expected.

       I’m rejoicing for you, Tia—but missing you, especially during the holidays.

      Contents

       Cover

       Introduction

       Title Page

       About the Author

       Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Epilogue

       Extract

       Copyright

Chapter One

      Brighton Valley, Texas, was the last place in the world Joe Wilcox had ever expected to step foot in again.

      Well, not when it came to the good ol’ U.S.A. He sure as hell wouldn’t look forward to another deployment to Afghanistan. But he’d made a promise to deliver a letter for a friend, and if there was one thing that could be said about Joe—he always kept his word.

      So he’d packed a few belongings, rented a car just outside of Camp Pendleton and left California. He’d stopped in El Paso long enough to spend the night with Red Conway, a retired marine he’d met on a bus ten years ago. Red had taken Joe in when he’d been a down-and-out teenage runaway, hell-bent on leaving everyone and everything he’d once known behind.

      The two men had shared a couple of beers, a pizza and a few stories. The next day, Joe had continued on for another nine hundred miles, finally arriving in Brighton Valley exhausted and hungry.

      The first thing Joe did after checking in to a cheap but clean room at the Night Owl, a motor lodge that catered to travelers who were low on funds and just passing through, was to shove his duffle bags under the bed. There was a closet he could have used, but that had never felt like a safe place when he’d been a kid determined to protect his valuables from an uncle who might not have enough cash to buy a pack of cigarettes and a pint of Jack Daniels.

      He probably should have shaken the habit years ago, but being back in town brought back all kinds of weird memories, leaving him a bit unbalanced.

      Next he took a long, hot shower, slipped into a comfortable pair of worn jeans and a black sweatshirt and hoofed it across the highway to the Stagecoach Inn.

      In spite of the seasonal chill in the air, a cold beer would really hit the spot right about now, but he wasn’t looking for a drink or any entertainment. He was on a mission. He had a letter to deliver to a blonde cocktail waitress named Chloe Dawson.

      Once he found the coldhearted woman who’d broken Dave Cummings’s heart, he’d give her the letter Dave had asked him to deliver.

      Now, as he stood on the side of the busy highway, waiting for a lull in the traffic so he could cross, he pulled out Chloe’s photograph, the one Dave had always carried. He studied the photo in the flickering streetlight overhead. The snapshot was a little grainy, so her facial features weren’t especially clear, but it was easy to see that the platinum blonde had long, wavy hair and a dynamite shape.

      To be honest, when he and Dave had been stationed in Afghanistan, all Dave could talk about was the woman he’d placed on a pedestal and the dreams he’d had for them. Joe had been a little envious. He’d never had a family—well, not one he’d wanted to claim—so he’d never dared to consider a white-picket-fence dream. But his buddy had grown up as an only child, adored by his parents. So why wouldn’t he expect to have that same life for himself?

      Joe had to admit that he’d wondered what such an

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