Comprehension hit her like a tidal wave. “Damn,” she murmured. “He’s ex Special Forces, isn’t he?”

Garrett preceded his confirmation of that with a resolute jut of his jaw. “When I was a kid, Wyatt was larger than life. I didn’t watch the Transformers or the Ninja Turtles or fucking G.I. Joe; I had a real-life version of them rolled together in my uncle. He upped when he was nineteen and was damn near plucked out of Basic for the Special Forces track. A lot of folks said they’d never seen anyone like him. The guy loved being a soldier. He was stationed with the fifth SF group, down in Kentucky, before getting sent to Ranger School and graduating top of his battalion.”

A grin peeked through his lips, turning back the clock on his face by at least five years. “They threw this wild-ass party for him when he made Triple Canopy in record time.” He broke out in a full chuckle, making Sage break into a grin as well. “Not every day a town had a guy who kicked ass in Jump School, the Special Forces funnel, and the Ranger course, right? The bash went on for days, and they used a cleared field on the west side of the farm for what was quite possibly the biggest mud football game ever played. I was only eleven, but I could’ve died that day thinking I’d hit heaven.”

Sage laughed softly. “I can imagine you had.”

The faraway haze in his eyes got a little thicker. “For a bunch of years, we didn’t see him a lot. His deployments were long. But man, when he got a chance to make it home…it was better than Christmas. I’d beg Mom to let me skip school. I’d spend the days at Wyatt’s heels, worse than a damn puppy, drinking up his charisma, letting him kick my ass in mock ‘training battles.’”

“Oh boy,” Sage murmured. “The dynamic duo, Hawkins style.”

“Yeah.” Garrett laughed. “Yeah, it was…well, it was awesome.”

She repositioned one of her hands to run her fingers over his coiled knuckles. With the same care, she studied his face. His rugged features had never snagged her breath more. Finally, he was letting her see everything—a landscape of emotion as years of memories bombarded him.

“So what happened?” she asked at last. When he gave her only a tighter scowl, she pressed, “Garrett, what happened?”

The dark haze in his gaze went as thick as grenade smoke. “Iraq happened.”

Sage nodded. “And he was likely in the thick of it.”

“No ‘likely’ about it.”

She winced. “How bad?”

He took in a heavy breath. “I’m not sure. He never talked about it in full. From what I can snap together, he survived at least three roadside attacks. The one that sent him home for good took out everybody in his unit but him.”

“Whoa.”

His face, now in profile, settled on a strangely serene expression. It was almost like he prepared to bow his head and pray. It scared her. She knew that look. It happened when someone went on agony overload and had to detach from what they talked about in order to remain sane. She’d never seen it on Garrett’s face before, even after he returned from missions that had been brutal to his body and psyche. But right now, recalling how the war had taken his beloved hero from him, the grief gouged deeply.

She squeezed his fingers harder to let him know she was still there—with everything she was worth.

“By then, it was no secret to any of us that the war was carving bigger pieces out of him. But I was thirteen and filled with all the never-surrender bullshit the man himself had filled me with. I thought that as soon as Wyatt was home for good, I’d single-handedly turn him back into Soldier-God Hawkins. Only this time, it would be better. There’d be no deployment to take Wyatt away from me. We could just—” The church-worthy expression dissolved off his face. He huffed heavily and closed his eyes, revealing the tears collecting on his lashes. “Well, we didn’t. Wyatt decided the National Geographic channel and Jeopardy marathons were more exciting than hanging out with the kid who still remembered the night he’d scored five touchdowns in the mud.

“Slowly, he realized he was pretty much being a broke dick. He started helping Dad run the farm, but he picked all the one-man jobs that didn’t require him to speak to anyone. He also told Mom not to let me play hooky anymore, because by that time I’d made it damn clear to anyone who’d listen that I wanted to make SF when I grew up.”

Sage unhooked a hand long enough to give a reassuring stroke down his arm. “I’ll bet he was really proud when you did.”

Garrett shrugged on shoulders taut with bitterness. “I have no idea if he was or not. Frankly, I stopped caring—especially after one pretty memorable summer night.”

Until now, the conversation had clearly been uncomfortable for him. But his uneasiness took on a new strand of tension with that statement. Sage had the distinct impression that the celebrity confessional was about to get an R rating. Or worse.

“Memorable…how?”

For the first time since they’d sat down, Garrett looked like the words in his mouth were chunks of something vile.

Oh, yeah. This was going to get awkward.

“We all pitched in and got Wyatt a new Nintendo console for his birthday. He’d play on it at night when the flashbacks from Iraq kept him up, which was pretty much every night. When I couldn’t sleep myself, I’d sneak down the rain gutter and join him for an hour or so. It was barely a connection, but I clung to it. I hoped we’d work our way back to at least a friendship.”

“Of course you did,” Sage assured.

“Well, that night…I only got as far as the barn.”

She accessed more memories. “The big brown storage one, between the two houses, right?”

“Roger,” he confirmed.

Sage’s instinct started kicking in. There was no way it couldn’t. The nervous flicks of his gaze, the color climbing his neck, the finger he drummed on a knee… Oh, yeah. This wasn’t just uncomfortable for him. It was torture.

She tried to ease things for him with a thoughtful tone. “You only got to the barn…because Wyatt was inside?”

He took a prolonged second before answering. “Yeah.”

“Was he alone?”

He rolled his head as if she’d punched him. “No. Josie was in there with him.”

She could’ve filled in that blank too. With that new slice of the image, she started filling in details for herself—but didn’t voice them aloud. Garrett needed to tell her himself. The words needed to come out of him, if his perception of them was ever going to change. If he was ever going to heal.

“What were they doing?” She rubbed his knuckles again in a gentle coax.

“They—he—fuck.”

“It’s me, Garrett. I’m not going anywhere. Tell me.”

He pulled in another hard breath. “Josie was kneeling over a hay bale. Her wrists were hooked together, locked in leather cuffs. She was dressed in this corset outfit, also black leather…with panties that might as well have not been there, and a…a collar that was attached to a chain.” He twisted his hand against her and shoved a foot so hard that the rug bunched up. “Wyatt had his wife on a goddamn leash! And he was—”

“He was what?”

He looked away. “Shit. No. Forget it.”

“No way, Hawkins.” She clung to his arm like it was a parachute rip cord. “Spill it, or I’ll call Josie myself for a little girls’ chat.”

He swung a hot glare at her. She jabbed her chin out, not surrendering even a blink.

“You’re not kidding, are you?”

“I’ve had to eat bugs to survive, Sergeant. Do you think I’m kidding?”

His head fell against the cushions. He dragged his hand down his face. “He had a riding crop, okay? And he was striking her ass with it. Repeatedly. And hard.”

“Okay,” Sage answered evenly. “And was she liking it?”

“Hell, Sage. I wasn’t in a position to take a survey.”

“You remember a hell of a lot of details already. You want to tell me that you didn’t notice whether Josie was begging, ‘Get me out of here now’ or ‘Get inside me now?’”

“Did you really just ask me that?”

“Are you really still avoiding the answer?”

He threw her another glower. “Fine. Okay, she was…enjoying things…I suppose.”

He lurched off the couch and stormed to the hearth. Sage rose, too. He didn’t turn when she did. She lifted a hand, yearning to touch him, to make sure he knew she hadn’t suddenly turned to dust at his illicit revelation. Truthfully, she felt the opposite. For the first time since they’d returned from Thailand, she felt clear about her connection to him. This was them, tearing down walls together. This was them, forging into new territory together.

Together.

It felt wonderful to hear that word ringing in her consciousness. Better than wonderful.

“I’ve never told that to anyone.” Garrett dropped his hands as he muttered the confession. “I was afraid of it. Afraid…of what it had done to me.”

“What did it do to you?”

“You’ve been the firsthand witness of that, sugar. A couple of times now.”