"Yeah, you can get a lower recoil with a larger gun than a small gun. The accuracy of a small gun sucks. It's why in the movies when someone shoots ten rounds and misses with a small gun, it's kinda believable,” I told her.

"Plus, it’s hard to hit the ninja hero with his invisible hero force field around him."

I laughed. "That too."

We pulled our headgear back on and Sam tried out a few more of the handguns. Mentally I made a note that she gravitated toward the sub compact Beretta. If I was going to buy her a gun, that’d be a good one. After we’d torn through about sixty rounds and ten guns, Sam looked to be done in. Her hand was shaking from the unfamiliar exercise of holding five pound weights extended from her arm.

“I can’t believe they feel so heavy. It’s only a few pounds,” she complained.

“When you’re in boot, you have to hold a piece of paper in front of your face, both arms extended. After an hour, that’s the heaviest fucking thing you’ve ever held.” Sam giggled and we spent a few minutes of companionable silence picking up the brass casings around the target we’d set up fifteen feet away. Anything farther and Sam wouldn’t have been able to hit even the outer edge of the paper. "Not that I'm complaining, but why'd you bring me out here?"

She didn't look up immediately but fingered one of the bullet holes that she’d made in the black area of the target, a hit but not a kill. "Do you know the seven stages of grief?"

Not the topic of conversation I would've picked, but if she needed to work through some issues, it didn't hurt to listen. "No, but are they real and not just made up?"

"Not everyone experiences them in steps. Sometimes they run together and sometimes they overlap but yeah, you do feel the seven stages at some point. Or at least I did."

"Where are you now?"

"I think I'm a mix of four and seven. Loneliness and wanting to move forward. What about you?"

"Me?" Surprised, I fumbled with some of the casings I had picked up, the brass making clinking sounds as I recaptured them and walked swiftly back to our prep area. Packing things up, I told her, "I'm not suffering any grief."

"Sure you are. Over the loss of your trust, your first love. Your belief in a happy ever after."

I stopped my busy tasks all together and leaned my hip against the table. Folding my arms, I gave her a repressive look, signaling the end of the conversation but Sam was undeterred.

"Didn't you at first refuse to believe that your girlfriend—what’s her name?"

"Carrie." I said curtly.

"Didn’t you try to convince yourself that Carrie wasn't doing anything wrong? That she was showing up around base to be part of the wives’ support group? And at first, when you sat outside your lieutenant's apartment, you believed that it might be a waste of your time?"

"Yeah so?"

"And then you got sick drunk?"

I nodded cautiously. Feeling a little like I was being led down a dangerous path, I chose to just let Sam do the talking.

"So you have shock and denial, followed by pain. You probably had some thoughts that maybe if you didn't go on that second tour you'd still be together. That she wouldn't have cheated?"

Her spot-on analysis of my post-breakup thought process was unnerving. Quickly, I returned to packing up the firearm paraphernalia and took it all over to her SUV. She hadn't stopped talking, though, following me to the Rover and then back to the tables, which I swiftly dismantled.

"Don't look so surprised. After hours of actual therapy, I feel that I could be an expert. Also, I feel a lot of guilt about not moving to Alaska, so maybe I'm still working through stages two through seven," she mused.

Deciding she wasn't going to stop until she'd gotten everything out of her system, I shoved the two tables into the cargo space, shut the door, and leaned against the bumper. Crossed arms and a scowl on my face didn't faze her.

"And now you've got a lot of anger. You don't want to have relationships. You just want to have people you have sex with."

"Wanting to be safe and sensible isn't a product of anger. It's a product of good decision making."

Sam stepped in between my legs and placed her soft hands on my chest and her sweet scent mixed with gunpowder drained away any anger I'd felt toward the subject matter. Maybe Sam was feeling guilty about having sex with someone other than her husband. I’d noticed she’d taken her ring off, but I hadn’t said anything. Sliding my hands up her arms, I wrapped my fingers around her shoulders and tugged her a little until she fell against me.

“I don’t know if you really want to stay in or get out, but I suspect you want to stay in,” she said. Everything about her was surprising me. “You’d make such a great officer, because you truly care about what happens to those you lead. You aren’t in it for the power or the status.”

I opened my mouth to protest but a single finger against my cheek shut me up. “I also think you’d be surprised at how the right girl would not only be true to you while you were gone but would make your time with her so amazing that it would last you both through those long, lonely nights.”

When she opened her mouth to start talking again, I crushed her to me. Sliding my tongue between her surprised lips, I closed my eyes and savored the taste of her. I couldn't wait until I could fill myself at the buffet of Sam. Her fingers wrapped around my shoulders and when she kissed me back, I knew our conversation was over. I knew grief. I'd felt it when I'd lost friends outside the wire. What had happened between Carrie and I hadn't left me with grief but an education. Women and men couldn't stand long separations and the military was full of them. Temporary connections conducted in a safe manner was what I had going for me until I retired. If I felt a pang in the region where my heart sat, it wasn't because I longed for something deeper.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Samantha

WE DIDN’T TALK ABOUT WHAT happened at Finn’s farm, but Gray came home with me that night. In the morning he was gone with a note that he was going to run with his boys. Noah liked to run at what Gray referred to as the ass crack of dawn. I thought it made more sense that it would be the crown of dawn, like the crown of a head, but he’d said no. It was definitely the ass crack. Later he texted me that he was filling in for Bo at a city league softball game and did I want to come? Was knitting the best hobby ever? Of course I did. Packing some dark blue yarn into a sling and my 16-inch circular needles, I headed out for the park.

AnnMarie waved me over, and I climbed up to join them on the bleachers. Out in the field, Gray was jumping from side to side. My heart flipped over. Oh no. I was falling so hard for him, and he was leaving. In less than two weeks, he’d be returning to San Diego. I cupped my hands in front of my face and tried to cover up my sudden distress.

“You look blue,” Bo commented. One arm was slung around AnnMarie’s shoulder and the other he held gingerly to his side. Maybe Bo could give me some insight. Perhaps Gray had talked to him about separating. Maybe they’d even talked about Gray staying here, going to Central with his friends.

"I'm just not sure—” Before I could get my whole sentence out, Bo held up his hands in a T formation.

"Hold on. I was just making conversation." He turned and let out a piercing whistle. Everyone to the left of us—and some to the right—stared in our direction. He waved to the beautiful blonde and yelled out, "Lana, you're needed."

She shook her head but he whistled again. I ducked my head and covered my ears. She came huffing up.

"What the hell?”

"She needs advice." Bo pointed to me. I kept my head between my hands so that I didn't wrap them around his neck and choke his brains out for embarrassing me like this.

"How many times do I have to tell you I'm just a fucking student?”

"No need to curse," he tutted. "But think of all the practice you’re getting." He nudged me. "She's better at this than all of us but her bedside manner needs work."

She sighed and sat down next to me. AnnMarie mouthed "I'm sorry" as she was dragged away by Bo.

"What's up?"

"Psychology student?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I guess you're better than nothing since he’s run off."

"I don't think he does feelings unless they involve AnnMarie." We looked down at them. He was now delicately probing AnnMarie's mouth with his tongue as they leaned against the back of Gray’s team’s dugout. Bo had claimed a gimpy arm, which is why Gray was filling in, but I think he just wanted to feel AnnMarie up.

"He's certainly exploring those feelings now,” I remarked dryly.

"So you’re the widow." Lana looked at me speculatively.

"Geez, is that how everyone knows me?”

"Pretty much."

"Thanks.” I shook my head in disbelief. “Does everyone come to you for advice?"

"Not everyone." Her gaze drifted to Gray's team. "But if they do it’s because I’m the most fucked-up person everyone knows."

"You say it with such pride and cheerfulness."

"Years of therapy and resignation. Lay it on me."

Oh why not.

"Gray’s got me all confused."

"In a bad way?"

“Is confusion ever good?” I countered. Lana shrugged, the motion lifting one golden curl and settling it back on her shoulder. The crowd behind us sighed with appreciation. She was just so beautiful you couldn’t help but stare.

"You ever been to therapy?" The jump in conversation topic made me blink but I just went with it.

"After Will died, my parents made me go."

"What’d you learn?"

"That grief is a process; everyone goes at a different pace; it's okay to move on; no feeling is wrong except if you want to kill yourself and in that case I should call the ER." I turned and looked at Lana. "I never felt like killing myself."

"And even that made you feel guilty."

Too surprised to be embarrassed by her insight, I said, "You get this, don't you?"

"Years of therapy myself, honey. Told you I was fucked up." Again her gaze strayed to the field. "Too fucked up for some, I guess. But enough about me. Why not just see where it takes you with Gray. Do you have to have answers?"

"No, I guess not. But he's leaving and I’m—I guess I'm afraid of losing something I value again."

“Because he’s going back to San Diego?" Lana asked.

I nodded.

"So you'll bury yourself for love but you won't move a few states to pursue it?"

“I—ah—” I gaped at her like a beached fish. Snapping my mouth shut, I bit my lip. "I don't know."

"I guess that's the question you'll have to answer when the time comes. The answer you have to provide for yourself now is whether you're willing to open yourself up to the possibility of loving again. You, of all people, know how short actual life can be. What do you want to fit in before life is over?"

Lana patted my hand and left me stunned on the metal bleacher. That's what Will had tried to do—cram in as much living as possible. It wasn't that he didn't love me, but that he wasn't letting his fears hold him back from trying everything. If there was anything I should do to honor his memory it would be to start actually living.

I didn’t share my discussion with Lana with Gray. We’d never talked about our future because our time had always been temporary. I just held her words of advice inside me and thought about it. Later that night, after he fell asleep, I let myself envision living in sunny San Diego and it didn’t feel wrong at all.

“Get up, sleepyhead.” A large hand I’d come to recognize as Gray’s—just by the feel—cupped my cheek. Without opening my eyes, I traced that hand up the forearm to the biceps and tugged. I gave a sleepy smile when his weight came down to settle over my body and I burrowed more deeply into the covers, satisfied that all was perfect in the world.

A nose nuzzled my hair, and Gray molded the blankets around my body. After the long hours of sometimes tender, sometimes fierce loving, I ached pleasantly all over. My nipples were a little sore from being sucked and bitten, but the sensation only reminded me of how amazing it’d felt to have been brought to an orgasm by just the sucking alone. Well, the sucking and the pressure of his hard thigh between my legs. The memory of that made me tingle even more. “Don’t want to. Snuggle up to me.”

I felt the curve of his lips against my neck as he smiled. “No, I have a surprise for you.”

“I have a surprise for you too,” I replied. “Under the covers.”

He let out of sound that was half moan, half laugh. “Keep that thought.”

Realizing he wasn’t going to allow me to continue to sleep, I flipped over on my back and peered up at him. He was already dressed in a form-fitting exercise shirt. Over the most impressive part of his body, he wore gym shorts. I pushed out my bottom lower lip in an extended pout. “I have a sad that you’re already dressed.”