But that was what he needed. She needed him to leave her alone. He got that.

  At least she had Jedi there with her. Greg had never been so thankful for a dog in his life.

  And before bed, he looked up Marine First Lieutenant Michael Steven Alvarez. Found an obituary, first for a Michael Alvarez, in Raleigh, at about the right age and time of death. From there he found that the man was survived by a sister named Wendy, that he’d been a lieutenant in the marines and that his middle name was Steven. From there he found a very old social media post, too, back from the days of one basic service for such things and read about how a fourteen-year-old relative had come home from school and found him dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Apparently the relative had been keeping him company every afternoon since his medical discharge months before.

  She’d only been fourteen years old...

  Her mother—she’d told him that she’d been sixteen when her mother died.

  And a picture started to form.

  Based on the look on her face that day at the beach, the tone of her voice as she’d talked about her brother throwing her up in the air to land in the water and splash him, she’d been the baby in a seemingly solid family. And then at fourteen, she had lost any sense of innocence she’d ever had.

  Followed by the slow, tragic loss of her mother.

  And her father, Steve Alvarez...he’d lost enough to make any man lose his mind. But he’d had a young daughter left at home.

  One who’d needed him so desperately...

  Greg got it all loud and clear. Whether or not Wendy would ever be able to open her heart up fully to anyone again still remained to be seen.

  But opening it to Greg? An injured vet who still suffered from violent nightmares?

  It wasn’t going to happen.

  But more than ever, he knew that he had to be her friend. To be one person in her life who was always there when she called. Even if the calls were just to fly dogs up north.

  Pets for Vets. Her dedication to the organization all made sense now.

  And he knew he was going to have to tell her the truth about himself. To tell her the real reason he hadn’t dared stay in her home the previous night.

  To let her know that it wasn’t because she wasn’t enough.

  But because she was.

  He couldn’t tell her, though, until he’d done all he could do to make his own life right. He couldn’t go to her as another broken man with hidden issues but, rather, a man who was doing all he could do, who would always do all he could do, to accept who he was and make the most of the life he had.

  That thought firmly in mind, he loaded Jedi in the plane with him on Monday—he’d let Wendy know by text that he was taking the German shepherd up while she was at work—to have the requisite lunch with his family, take a better look at the actual sonogram his sister had texted him an image of and, then, to have a talk he should have had years before.

  * * *

  Monday morning, Wendy was finishing up the second-quarter books for a chain of secondhand clothing stores when she got a call from the one paid employee with Pets for Vets, Victoria. Hired by the volunteer board, Victoria’s official position was executive director of the nonprofit, but she served the organization in every capacity from receptionist to supply manager.

  One of their veterans had passed away over the weekend, leaving the dog they’d placed with him, a nine-year-old golden Lab—aptly named Goldie—without a home.

  Goldie’s age made her more difficult to place as her future years of service were limited. The owner’s family had talked of sending her to a shelter, but if they did so, then, again due to her age, her chances of adoption would be limited.

  “I said I’d take her while everything is sorted out,” Victoria relayed from her car phone. “I’m on my way to Winston-Salem to get her now,” the director continued. “But with Jasmine, I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep her for more than a day or two.”

  Jasmine was a rescue who’d been too skittish for service. Unfortunately, she was also unable to get along with other dogs as she’d been trained nearly from birth in illegal dogfighting.

  “I’ll take Goldie.” The words were out of Wendy’s mouth before she considered any part of their consequence. She’d find a place for her—definitely not in a shelter. Goldie deserved better. “Do you need me to come get her? I have an appointment at four, but I can drive out after that.”

  She listened as Victoria, who was relieved to avoid any possible run-in with Jasmine, told her she’d bring the older dog to Spring Forest. After they hung up, Wendy wondered what in the hell she was doing. She couldn’t take the dog to Furever Paws. Not with all of the puppies and the dwindling funds.

  But she was already responsible for a dog. Thankfully, Goldie got along well with other dogs—as did Jedi. But her house...

  Seriously, what was wrong with her all of a sudden? Opening her home, her life up first to Jedi, then Greg, and now Goldie, as if letting others in was what she did.

  While Wendy’s thoughts were rambling toward Panic Road, Victoria confirmed that she’d be at Wendy’s office no later than three and rang off.

  And just like that, Wendy had a dog that wasn’t on loan.

  * * *

  Lunch at his older sister’s house had been...the usual. Loud. His sisters and mother all vying to control the conversation, finishing sentences for each other, cutting each other off. Him nodding or shrugging while he filled his stomach with culinary delights. And his father, also eating heartily, smiling in between bites.

  “Bunny and Birdie told me they thought you were favoring your leg a little bit when they saw you,” his mom said just as he’d filled his plate with a second helping of...everything. “I was worried the crash had caused more damage, but you seem to be walking normally. Is the leg giving you any—”

  “Mom!” His youngest sister cut in. “It’s not as if he’d tell you if it was. He always says he’s fine so let him eat...”

  “We need to ask,” older sister piped in. The birth order mattered, he’d determined, on how much weight the others gave each other’s comments. “If we don’t ask, it’ll seem like we don’t know, or notice, or care...”

  Greg, with an eighth of his plate already re-emptied, glanced at his dad, who was sitting back, coffee cup in hand, smiling as he glanced from one speaker to the other.

  And so it went.

  Jedi was introduced as what he was, a service dog in training that Greg was helping with as part of his Pilots for Paws program. The pup ate up all of the attention given to him, wanting to be in the middle of everything, greedily snatching up every piece of table food offered to him, and sitting quietly anytime anyone wanted to pet him. He ran in the yard and then came over to be a part of things when Greg’s sister showed everyone the sonogram. It was too early to determine the sex, but everyone was happy to toast to the future of the firstborn Martin grandchild.

  By the time Greg left his sisters and mother, Dianne, in the kitchen baking chocolate chip cookies for him to take back with him, he heard them both talking about getting dogs.

  He’d told his father he’d like a word. The old man was waiting in the den.

  Greg left him waiting there while he went out to the rental his mom and dad had driven out to the airstrip to pick them up. He’d left Jedi’s service vest—his cue that he was working—in the bag on the back seat.

  And he wanted a moment to look at his phone without an audience. If Wendy had texted...

  She had not.

  A couple of minutes later, when he entered the den in his sister’s home, he walked in with Jedi, vested and on his leash.

  “Time for his training session?” the elder Martin asked, looking at Greg over a pair of readers as he set aside the book he’d been reading.

  “Well...yeah, actually, it’s training time,” he said. He’d already told his father, in a phone call, about the training schedule. And the older man had just given him a last-minute out.

  A reason to be walking in with a working dog.

  It was an out he wouldn’t be taking.

  “But that’s not why I wanted to talk to you—with Jedi.” He sat down on the end of the couch closest to his father’s chair.

  His father’s steady gaze didn’t waver. It never did. The old man just looked at you, and you knew you had to be perfect or you’d disappoint him. And good luck trying to sneak anything past him, because he never missed a thing. Not one iota of a thing.

  Which was why Greg had never spent a night in the man’s vicinity in the years since his discharge.

  “It’s been suggested to me that I could use a service dog,” he said. “I’ve slowly begun to suspect that I was offered this chance to work with Jedi as a not-so-subtle way to get me to see how he can help me. And I further suspect that if I want him, he will be with me permanently.” He was going on pure conjecture there, but he hoped to God he was right on that last part.

  If not Jedi, another dog. But Jedi...

  No, if he was actually going to consider having a dog, he really wanted Jedi. The abused animal trusted him. Was secure with him. Did his best work when Greg was around—and Greg trusted him, in turn. Trusted his instincts and his dedication. Jedi was committed to service, just like Greg. They understood each other.

  Randolph Wesley Martin showed zero reaction. None. Zip.

  How did a guy live up to expectations that couldn’t be met?

  “I’m pretty sure I have PTSD, Dad.”

  Horror filled him as he heard what he’d said. There was a part of him that felt like he had to get out of there. To get up in his plane and fly away. But before that feeling could take over, Jedi’s nose filled his palm. Just a slight movement. Someone who didn’t get it wouldn’t even have noticed.

  Another small nudge from Jedi, and he found his air. And with it, he found the strength to keep talking.

  “Ever since I got home, I have moments... Well, they aren’t a big deal, the moments, because I can control them. If I distract myself, they disappear.” Just like the fear. The confidence that filled him as he spoke the truth dispelled some of the otherworldly darkness that had descended seconds before.

  “But the nightmares...” He shook his head. “I can’t control them.”

  “Are they still as bad, son?”

  What? Openmouthed, he stared at his father. He’d just made two very huge announcements, and his father could have been reading his book for all the change in his demeanor.

  “On and off.” A somewhat irritated shrug accompanied his answer. “Worse since...the incident a couple of weeks ago. I got caught in a storm, had to make an emergency landing...”

  No telling if his father had actually heard the details, even if his mother had shared them.

  Randolph nodded, chin jutting. “I’d imagine that’s the kind of incident that would bring them on.”

  Shaking his head now, Greg stared at his father. “I don’t get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “I’ve just bared my soul to you, told you this monumental thing, and you just sit there...”

  “If I coddled you, would it make you feel better?”

  “Hell no!”

  “Exactly.”

  Oh.

  “And while this conversation has been a long time coming, the information isn’t a surprise.”

  “You knew?”

  “You don’t get to be a general in the army without recognizing signs, or without acquiring acquaintances and friends who talk to you.”

  Of course not.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” He had to ask the question, but he knew why. The same reason Greg hadn’t brought it up before now. His inability to handle the stress of disappointing his father had frozen the words in his throat. He’d believed—and maybe his father had believed, as well—that if they didn’t talk about it, they could pretend there wasn’t this rift between them.

  “It had to come from you, son.”

  “You didn’t say anything because then we’d have to deal with the fact that I’m your biggest disappointment,” he said. “A hundred years of Martin lifetime service ended with me.”

  Randolph’s eyes sharpened, almost into slits with pinpoints, and they were trained like a perfect shot on Greg. “Don’t you ever, ever, put words like that into my mouth.” The older man’s tone was succinct, biting, sharp, without his raising his voice at all.

  It was a tone Greg had never heard before. And for a second there, he pitied any man under Randolph’s command who’d ever had it directed at him.

  He stood up to it, though. He was going to be the best he could be—even if it was so much less than he should be, less than he and his father had once thought he’d be.

  “I can’t keep hiding from the truth, Dad. I’m sorry if it upsets you, but...”

  The look in his father’s eyes softened noticeably. As did the tightness around his lips. Randolph was shaking his head even while Greg spoke. The older man leaned forward, bringing his face just inches from Greg’s as he looked him in the eye.

  “Listen to me, Gregory. I have never, ever been disappointed in you. Not ever. And most definitely not since you’ve returned from Afghanistan. I thank God every single day for the man you were, the man who helped pull his friend out of ashes, who risked his life to give his brother a chance to live. And I thank him for the man you’ve become.”

  Stunned, Greg just sat there. Completely lost. After a full minute, he admitted, “I don’t get it. I’m nothing I was meant to be. I’m not serving and protecting my country. I’m not fighting those who are threats to our nation. I’m not giving my life for my country. I manage money. And get lost in the clouds...” He stopped. Then continued. “And I didn’t do such a hot job of saving my friend’s life, either. It should be me in that facility, not him...”

  Randolph didn’t move, pat Greg’s knee or take his hand, but the look in his eye, his closeness, felt like a touch. “It wasn’t your life, son,” his father said as quietly as ever. “I couldn’t be prouder of how you served in the army, but it wasn’t where you belonged. Not your calling. Everyone has their own purpose. I like to believe you’re living yours.”

  “But...” He couldn’t fathom his father’s words. Couldn’t accept them. Couldn’t let himself stray from what he had always accepted as the truth of what he was. And what he wasn’t.

  Sitting back, his father watched him, with no undue emotion. Just watched.

  As he always had.

  After a long moment, while Jedi sat unmoving beside Greg, Randolph just started to talk. Calmly. Evenly. “They say that oftentimes an accusation aimed at someone else covers the fact that the accuser is actually guilty of the deed himself.” The words sat there. Niggling. Not getting in. “Did you ever consider, Greg, that maybe you’re the one who’s disappointed in you?”

  Hell yes, he was disappointed in himself. He was disappointed that he’d failed his father. And probably his grandfather in his grave. Who wouldn’t be? He’d let down the Martin family name...

  And...there.

  Truth landed.

  Feeling lost, like he didn’t know himself, Greg wasn’t sure what to do next. So he sat. Quietly. And his father sat with him.

  After a lot of minutes passed, Greg started to pet Jedi. And another while later, looked at his father. “You’ve known all along.”

  One nod was what he got in response.

  “And you’ve been keeping an eye out, waiting...”

  “Hoping.”

  “Because you knew I had to get here before I could be helped.”

  “Maybe.”

  He sat silently for more long minutes. Not ready to move.

  “In full disclosure,” his father finally confessed, “I will admit that some of your mother’s nagging was a result of my suggesting that we needed to know what you were up to now and then...”

  The chuckle that came up out of Greg didn’t hold much humor, but there was some. And for the moment, it was enough.

  Eventually he stood, feeling like a different man. He was not healed, but maybe he was finally heading to a better life. At the very least, a better understanding of himself. “I have to get back,” he said, wrapping Jedi’s leash around his hand as the young dog stood at attention beside him. Ready to learn from him. To...serve him?

  Reaching out his free hand to his father, he held on to the tight clasp, realizing where the real wealth in his life lay. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He was flying back down to take his father up for an hour—something they’d decided while waiting for his mother and sisters to call them to the table for dinner. Randolph had always wanted to be a pilot, but his army and family responsibilities hadn’t given him time.

  Greg had become what his father couldn’t be. The army, Duke’s fate—they weren’t his life. Flying and managing nonprofits were.

  Randolph picked up the book he’d been reading. “Hooah,” his father said to him.

  “Hooah,” Greg said back, feeling more like the man he’d once thought himself to be—even walking out of there more broken than he’d wanted to believe he was.

  Hooah. That stood for loyalty. Always. He’d always had his father’s loyalty and always would.

  It was time he had his own.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I don’t know who’s going to be at the house when we get there,” Wendy said, glancing over at the sixty-pound golden Lab sitting on the seat beside her.

  Jedi’s seat.

  Goldie’s seat.

  Whoever-needed-it’s seat.

  “I texted Greg about you, but he hasn’t replied, and I don’t know if he and Jedi are back in town yet.”

  The Lab was watching her, her ears twitching. So Wendy kept talking. She wanted the dog to feel comfortable. Secure. Cared about. Losing her owner of many years... Goldie was grieving.