“Yes. She seemed very nice, and friendly. How do you know her, Ethan?” Sarah was a beautiful woman, and charming in conversation. I recalled her seemingly genuine interest in how Ethan and I had met. She’d asked about my due date, but it had all felt socially normal to me, nothing weird.

“She came to the wedding today to pay her respects I suppose, but she had to leave because it was too hard for her to see Neil and Elaina, and you and me, living our happy lives with people we love.” His hand at my hip began to rub in a slow motion. “Sarah Hastings was married to someone who served in the SF with Neil and me. He didn’t…m-make it out of Afghanistan.”

“Oh…that’s horrible. I imagine you and Neil were close to him…”

“Yeah. He was under my command—in my squad.”

Ethan appeared calm as he talked, but I felt that he was harboring some deeply held grief or guilt about this man’s death in the war. I could only imagine whatever the experience had been for him, was horrific.

“You cared about him,” I said gently, not wanting to ask questions that would hurt him further. It was better for me to make statements of fact, rather than ask for more than he felt comfortable sharing.

“Mike Hastings was the very best of soldiers. Strong, loyal—a fighter to the bitter end. The kind of soldier you want at your back when the shit goes FUBAR,” Ethan said, in a faraway voice, weighted with respect and honor for his fallen comrade.

“I—I’ve heard you call out his name once…when you had a bad flashback…” I swept my lips to his chest and kissed right over his heart. I laid my ear there so I could hear his courageous heart beating against me. My heart.

He brought his hand up to the back of my head and rubbed into my hair, keeping me against him, allowing the comfort. “Mike. Yeah. That…m-memory about Mike is—is the worst one.”

“You don’t have to talk about him, Ethan, if you don’t want to. Baby, please don’t put yourself through it again just for my benefit.”

“No, you should know. You’re my wife, and you should know why—why I’m this way.”

I closed my eyes and braced for the explanation, knowing it would be something truly dreadful. “I love you, Ethan,” I whispered.

“Mike was taken prisoner along with me. He suffered what I suffered for just twenty days instead of my twenty-two. Then they ex-executed him in front of me. They used him as a—a p-practice run f-for what they were planning to do to me.”

I felt him swallow but his voice didn’t change. He sounded eerily calm and I tensed as I imagined how Mike Hastings had met his death. I remembered very well what Ethan had told me once. The Taliban were going to behead him and show the world a video of them doing it.

“They used a big f**kin’ knife and forced me to watch. They told me if I closed my eyes or looked away, they would make Mike suffer longer, cutting off parts of him that wouldn’t kill him, but lengthen the agony and prolong the inevitable. This was amusement for our captors, in their senseless, f**ked-up, pious war they are so fanatical about.”

I cried silent tears as he told me of his experience, unable to say anything, unsure of what to do except hold onto him and be whatever he needed me to be.

“But I failed Mike. I tried—I tried so f**king hard, Brynne, not to flinch away, but I couldn’t help it—”

He stopped talking. The silence grew deafening above the steady pounding of his heart against my cheek, now drenched by my hot tears…for him, for his friend, for the helpless guilt he carried over things beyond his control.

“I love you, and I always will.” There was nothing else to say to him.

He breathed in my hair at my temple and seemed to relax somewhat. After a time of quiet he asked me a question. It was painfully difficult for him to get the words out. I could hear the fear as he struggled to force the words past his lips. “Do you think there’s a place, or a person somewhere that may help me?”

“Yes, Ethan, I know there is.”

CHAPTER 12

23rd November

Somerset

MY office was the best room in all of Stonewell Court. I was convinced of it. Rich oak panels on the walls framed the most magnificent window view of the ocean. It reminded me of All Along the Watchtower, Hendrix's cover of Dylan's song. What princess kept her view here? How many servants did she have? I surely felt like a princess in this house.

The Bay of Bristol stretched out before me, and on a clear day you could see all the way to the coast of Wales at the other end of the bay. Somerset had stunning country in every direction. I’d discovered that the inland landscape had commercial lavender fields. Miles and miles of purple flowers scenting the air, and so beautiful, your mind could barely accept what your eyes were seeing. I loved coming here for the long weekends, and I knew it was good for Ethan, too. He thrived in the peace of the place.

When Ethan and I had searched through all the rooms of the house figuring what we would use them for, I’d known the instant we’d come into this one, that I wanted it. And the amazing thing was the impressive desk already in the room, confirming that others had thought of this room as excellent workplace long before me.

The desk was the second best part, after the view. A massive, English-oak, carved beast, but perfectly balanced with artful carvings that softened its bulk, making it perfectly designed in my eyes. I liked to imagine myself sitting in front of this splendid window view of the sea and working on my projects for the university, or just as a place to take a phone call, or surf the net.

Sheer perfection.

I sipped my pomegranate tea and indulged in the deep flashing blue of the ocean under the sky right out my window. I could sit here for hours I realized, but that wouldn’t help me get anything accomplished—and I had plenty of stuff to do. I think I was moving into pregnancy “nesting” mode a little early. Ethan teased me about my nesting when he read about it in the What to Expect When You’re Expecting he kept on his bedside table, and studied religiously. And my husband was not a pleasure reader like me. He read world and sports news, and trade publications, but not fiction. He read to learn and inform. I thought it was adorable the way he followed the website and read the book so he would know what my body was up to and what was coming. Ethan was so good at preparation and planning, and pretty much everything, but especially at taking care of me.