LITMIR.BIZ

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in copter support and aimed his M16 at the figures multiplying in front of him.

      He cursed. Intel had said there was only a small group of Taliban here. One of their high-level couriers was supposedly passing this way.

      He fired steadily but the enemy kept coming as his own men fell around him. The smell of gunpowder and the deafening sound of explosions filled the cold night air.

      He glanced around. Four of his ten men were down. To his right he heard a steady return of fire. Dave? What about the other four?

      Eric was down. Trying to crawl for cover. Gotta go after him, get him behind rocks.

      Move. He sprinted toward his wounded teammate. His leg exploded in agony and he went down as more bullets ricocheted off rocks around him. Everything was burning. He reached for the M16 he’d dropped.... Too far...

      Someone lifted him. Dave. “No,” he screamed. “Leave me!” Then he fell again, Dave falling over him, shielding him. He heard the sound of helicopters as everything went black....

      Josh Manning jerked awake, the battle still alive in his head.

      He reached for his gun. It wasn’t there.

      Then the adrenaline ebbed as his surroundings came into focus. Not a battlefield. A room. Familiar now after a few days. The rapid beating of his heart eased. He sat. Breathe. Slowly. In and out. His face and body were wet with sweat. So were the sheets.

      Another damned nightmare.

      Beside him, Amos whined and tried to inch under the narrow bed.

      Knocking. That was what had woken him.

      What time is it? He glanced at his watch. 1000 hours. Later than he thought, but he hadn’t fallen asleep until dawn. He shook his head, trying to erase the remnants of the nightmare that so often cursed his few hours of sleep. Another knock at the door. Insistent. Damn it.

      Whoever it was apparently wasn’t going away. He looked to the floor. What he could see of Amos’s hindquarters was quivering.

      Josh knew he was in no condition to answer the door. He was still wet from the nightmares, and he hadn’t shaved in several days. He was wearing only skivvies in the warmth of summer. But more knocking would only exacerbate Amos’s terror. He pulled on a pair of jeans, limped painfully to the front door and threw it open so hard it bounced against the interior wall.

      He did not feel welcoming. He’d been beset with unwanted visitors since he’d reached the cabin a week earlier, and each one seemed to make Amos more fearful. Didn’t make him happy, either.

      A middle-aged lady stood at the door with an aluminum tin held out to him and a determined smile on her face. All he could think of was Amos’s frantic retreat and the bone-deep pain in his left leg when he’d first put weight on it.

      What in the hell did it take to be left alone?

      He scowled at her.

      Her mouth formed a perfect O. Then she thrust the tin in his hands and practically ran from the porch. She didn’t look back as she scurried down the broken pavement that served as a driveway.

      He must look a hell of a lot worse than even he thought. He went back inside, set the damned tin on a counter and grabbed a beer from the ice chest. He slugged it down and tossed the bottle in the garbage can. He reached for another, then stopped himself. Drinking in the morning! Damned bad habit to form. He’d never been a big drinker. No one in his unit had been.

      But then he wasn’t with the Rangers any longer. He wasn’t with anything.

      He swore in the silence of the room. He’d behaved badly. He must look terrifying with his scruffy face, uncombed hair and large size. A bare chest with scars probably hadn’t helped.

      All he wanted was to be left alone. He and Amos.

      Amos. He went into the bedroom and called his name softly.

      No audible response. No wag of a tail. Not even a whine. Just heavy panting.

      He gingerly lowered himself to the floor and started talking to Amos. “It’s okay. Nothing there to hurt us. Just civilians. No enemy. No explosives.”

      He stopped, his breath caught by grief that was still raw. He continued in a low, rough voice. “I know you miss Dave. I do, too. But he wanted you safe. That’s why he asked me to take you.” He touched Amos’s butt, the only part that wasn’t under the bed. The dog gradually relaxed and finally eased from under the bed.

      “Breakfast,” Josh announced.

      Amos was not impressed. He put his head between his paws.

      Josh braced himself on the side of the bed to get up. He’d shed a cast six weeks after a third operation and threw away the cane two weeks after that. His left leg resembled Humpty Dumpty’s after the fall, a result of the explosion that killed Dave. He could live with the injury, but he ached every time he looked at Amos. Amos had been his best friend’s canine partner, uncanny in finding explosives, unflagging on missions and ecstatic to play with his reward ball. He was a shadow of himself now.

      Maybe it was a mistake coming here. Hell, he didn’t even understand why Dave had left it to him, especially since he’d never mentioned it in the years they’d been friends. Dave had talked about Colorado and how they might start a camping and fishing business since their skills outside the army weren’t much in demand. But a cabin? No. He’d racked his brain since an attorney contacted him in the hospital and said he was the sole beneficiary of Dave’s estate.

      From what the attorney had said, Josh had thought the cabin was somewhere deep in the woods, somewhere he and Amos could heal quietly and on their own.

      He hadn’t expected a parade of people invading his life and scaring the hell out of Amos. Perhaps a big No Trespassing sign would help.

      He went to the door and looked at the deep royal blue of the lake that was several hundred feet from the cabin. It was the reason he’d decided to stay. At least for a while. That, and the mountain behind the cabin.

      The small town of Covenant Falls snuggled on the side of a pristine blue lake and against forested mountains. The cabin was the last structure on a road that ran alongside the lake and dead-ended at the mountain. Shielded by towering pines and underbrush, the cabin was in dire need of repairs. It was apparent no one had used it in years, except maybe partying kids.

      The attorney had told him a trust had paid the taxes and a certain amount of upkeep.

      Not very much, from his point of view. Flaking paint, missing and broken appliances and rotting floors. The area in back was knee-high in weeds. But then he hadn’t expected much. He’d mostly lived in on-base bachelor quarters or tents or slept on the ground these past seventeen years.

      He had gone through the cabin, trying to decide what to do. It had good bones. Maybe he could fix it up. He didn’t have anything else to do, and he’d learned a lot in the military about fixing things. When he finished, maybe he could sell the cabin. Find some someplace else to go.

      He hoped it would be someplace without, God help him, curious neighbors.

      His gaze caught the cheerfully painted tin on the cabinet. Now he did feel...chagrined.

      Despite himself, he found himself taking off the lid. An enticing scent filled the room as he stared at rich, dark brownies that looked as if they’d just come from the oven. How long since he’d had homemade brownies? Not since some guy in the unit received some from his wife. They’d been stale and broken, but they’d been like manna from heaven.

      He succumbed.

      * * *

      “THAT...MAN IN the Hannity cabin. June went over there to welcome him. He was practically naked, and he scared her to death.”

      Covenant Falls mayor Eve Douglas tried to pacify the caller. Marilyn Evans wasn’t the first one in the past few days. Others had expressed concerns about the newest resident of their small community.

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