The Returning Hero Read Free

he’d taken so long to come back. It hadn’t just been about his injury, it hadn’t just been because he was struggling to come to terms with losing his best human friend and his canine best friend, it was because when it came to Jamie, he didn’t trust himself. He could have all the best intentions in the world, but without Sam here, he was screwed.
    * * *
    Jamie watched as Brett moved across the grass, Bear running along beside him and then bounding ahead to catch the ball.
    “You just need to have fun with him,” Brett called out. “Let him know you love playing just as much as he does.”
    She couldn’t help but laugh at them as they charged around her small lawn.
    “It’s not about the space, it’s the quality of time you spend with him. He wants you to guide him, to be his leader and his equal, too. He will always look to you for direction, because that’s what he’s been trained to do.”
    “So in other words he wants me to be his wife?”
    They both laughed and she watched as Brett nodded to the dog to follow him.
    “You must miss your dog,” she said, wishing she could take the words back the moment they left her lips.
    Brett’s mouth fixed in a hard line, his jaw clamped before he took a visibly deep breath. “Every goddamn day,” he told her, running a hand through his short brown hair. “Teddy hardly left my side in four years. It was like he always knew what I was thinking before I’d even thought it myself. And then…”
    Jamie felt like her breath had died in her throat, her lungs refusing to cooperate. The day Teddy had died had been the day Sam had died, too.
    They stared at one another. She watched as Brett swallowed. Neither of them wanted to talk about that day, because somehow Brett had made it home and her husband and Brett’s dog had been killed. She wished the comment had never come out of her mouth, but it wasn’t like she could take it back.
    “Have you had any ongoing veterinary care for Bear? I’m hoping after all he did for the army that he’s on a full pension.”
    He’d changed the subject but only just, although she wasn’t complaining.
    “When I collected him he was pretty much healed, on the outside at least,” Jamie told him. “He had a bandaged paw still and lots of missing or singed fur, but they made sure he was almost back to health before letting me take him. And they seemed to look after him pretty well when he was quarantined.”
    “I was the one who carried him back to the truck,” Brett told her, his voice low. “He managed to come toward me, but the ringing in his ears must have been as bad as it was in mine because he couldn’t even walk in a straight line, and his paws and legs were badly burned. There was no part of me that could have tried to get away without helping him, and it was like he wanted to do the same for me.”
    Jamie refused to look away, no matter how uncomfortable the conversation was making her, because she knew how hard it must have been for Brett to talk about what had happened, even just a little.
    “I can’t believe you even managed to lift him, after what had happened to you,” she said softly.
    Brett dropped to his haunches and slung his arm around the dog. “If it hadn’t been for this boy,” he said, stroking the dog’s fur as he spoke, “everyone in that truck would have died that day. It wasn’t until I collapsed that I realized why my body was burning so bad, what a mess my leg was, and then I passed out from the pain and shock. Bear was braver than any of us.”
    Brett was staring past her now, and Jamie didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. It was so nice having him here, having a familiar face to chat to, that she wanted to make sure he stayed for the afternoon.
    “What do you say we take him for a walk?” she suggested.
    Brett smiled, clearly relieved she’d changed the subject completely.
    “Do you usually take him out?” he asked.
    She grimaced. “It’s not that I don’t want to, but he’s