"And then I joined the MC, June."

"You had your reasons, I'm sure," I said. "It was a place that fit. It wasn't all bad, from the beginning, right? You couldn't have known."

"June," he said. "You need to stop. Stop defending me. It's not worth it. I'm not worth it."

"Don't say that," I said. "It's bulls.h.i.t. And, besides, I'm not defending you. I can think for myself."

"Do you know what I did for the MC?" he asked.

I shrugged. Nothing good, I was sure. "Probably a whole bunch of criminal stuff. I'm not naive, Cade. Give me some credit. I just think that you feeling ashamed of what you've done is pointless. Just because you've f.u.c.ked up in the past doesn't mean you're f.u.c.ked up forever. There's always a way to right things." I listened to myself say the words, the person who believed people couldn't ever change.

Did I really believe that, or was I just naively hoping Cade could change?

"June." He brought his face up, looked at me, unblinking. "I was the enforcer for the MC."

"So what?" Enforcer. I had an inkling of what that meant.

"So," he said. "It's not just because I was good at throwing punches, June."

"It's because you were a sniper," I said. "So you killed people for the MC." I wasn't asking. I was listening to how it sounded, the statement coming out of my mouth.

"On occasion," he said. "Still think I'm not f.u.c.ked up forever?"

I couldn't answer.

"Yeah," he said. "I thought so." He exhaled, his eyes down, looking like he was deflating as he sat there. My heart ached for him, for the pain he carried. I wanted to tell him I couldn't answer because I was the one who was permanently f.u.c.ked up. How could I judge him, when I was just as bad? It's not like I hadn't ever killed anyone.

"Cade," I said. I couldn't take it, watching him hurt like that. I crawled over to him from where I sat, moved across from him, put my fingers under his chin and tilted his head up. He shook his head away, and I took his face in my palms, made him look at me. "You're not f.u.c.ked up."

"Don't, June," he said. "You don't know all of it. Not everything."

"What else is there?"

He took my wrists, pulled my hands off his face. "June. There's something..." His voice started to crack. "s.h.i.t, I can't even say it."

"What is it?" I pulled back, already tense. What could be that awful that he was so ashamed?

"June," he said. "h.e.l.l, I don't even know how to say it. Your sister- the ranch hand, it's all my fault, what happened."

"What are you talking about?"

"I knew about the two of them. I caught them together once, in the barn. I threw him out, sent her home. I should have done more, but I didn't. And it was my fault. If I would have kicked his a.s.s, told someone..."

"This is your big secret? The thing you're so ashamed to admit?"

"June, I don't even know what to say..."

"Cade," I said, taking his head in my hands again, "I knew about them too. That night? I knew my sister was going out to party with him. She snuck out of the house."

"You knew about it," he repeated slowly.

"Yes," I said. "Have you been beating yourself up over this for all these years?"

He didn't say anything.

"Oh my G.o.d, Cade," I said. "We were kids. We didn't know any better." I leaned forward, kissed him lightly on the lips. He didn't push me away. So I kissed him again, gently, and his lips parted. Then he kissed me back. Wordlessly, I climbed on his lap, sat on his crossed legs, wrapped my legs around his back, held his head to my chest. I breathed in, feeling my heart rate settle and come down low as I held him tight against me. I kissed his forehead, breathed him in.

And felt warmth spread throughout my body, in response to the smell of him.

How wrong was it that I was thinking about how much I wanted him inside me? Cade was sitting here, feeling ashamed and horrible, and all I wanted to do was ride him.

As if he could read my thoughts, Cade looked up. "Come here," he said, his hand at the base of my neck, pulling my hair, pulling me into him. He kissed me, roughly, and I felt my nipples harden to his touch, need washing over me.

It wasn't slow and gentle, not like the way he'd made love to me this morning. This time, there was no time for foreplay; it was all I could do to rip myself away from him in order to grab a condom. I didn't want to talk anymore, and I didn't want to think about who Cade was or what he might be a part of. h.e.l.l, I didn't want to contemplate those questions myself.

I guided him inside me, rocking against him, my movements intense from the very beginning. There was no build-up, no gentle rhythm. We were both consumed with need, too caught up in the moment to worry about anything else.

But when we did explode together, not more than minutes later, just before I came, I thought, he's going to make me fall for him - and then he's going to leave.

I woke with a start, fear gripping my chest like a vise, and it took me a moment to even register what had woken me. Beside me, Cade was thrashing in the bed, talking to himself.

"No, no, no," he yelled, followed by a string of something that was unintelligible. From her bed on the floor in the room, Bailey whined.

"Cade," I said. Then, louder again. "Cade!" He flailed wildly, and I had to move back to avoid being hit.

He jerked awake, gasping for air, looking at me.

"Are you ok?" I asked.

He didn't say anything, didn't acknowledge me. I wasn't even sure if he heard me, and I wasn't quite sure whether he was awake or still asleep. He leaned forward, his head in his hands, his breath more and more shallow, choking.

Panic attack.

I definitely recognized those.

I slid close to him, put my hand on his back. "Just breathe," I said. "Breathe."

I kept my hand there, still, until his breathing began to slow, then got a cool washcloth from the bathroom and dabbed it on his forehead.

"Here," I whispered, taking off his tee-shirt. "You're soaked."

"June," he said. "I'm sorry."

"It was a panic attack," I said. You have nothing to feel sorry for. "I get them too."

He wrapped his arms around me, slid into bed behind me, his skin warm against mine. "The nightmares don't happen every night," he said.

"It's okay, Cade." I closed my eyes. "You're safe."

Before I drifted off to sleep, I thought, It's my heart that's in danger.

Axe Safe.

I lay there, holding June, not daring to move, listening to her breathing get deeper as she fell asleep in my arms. I wanted to avoid having to talk about what had just happened. I didn't need to play twenty questions with her about this s.h.i.t.

The f.u.c.king nightmares, the panic attacks...they were old hat for me now. I'd had them for years, and it wasn't like June could do anything about them. Right after I'd gotten out, I talked to someone at the VA, made it through a couple sessions before I decided dredging up my past was about the most useless s.h.i.t ever.

I didn't want to relieve that s.h.i.t with June.

She was in that convoy - the explosion. She'll understand.

I squelched that f.u.c.king voice in my head. I'm sure June didn't think I knew, but I'd looked her up. I knew about what had happened, how she was in Afghanistan, attached to one of the medical battalions who'd gone out on an easy humanitarian mission. Teaching doctors from a local Afghani hospital. As soon as I started reading the article about her, I knew she would have loved that, volunteered for it. One of the vehicles in their convoy had hit an IED and the convoy had taken fire - a whole f.u.c.king group of doctors. June had dragged her wounded corpsman out of the line of fire, but he'd died anyway. The article had called her "the hero surgeon."

If anyone would understand this s.h.i.t, it would be June. She'd said she had panic attacks. I knew from experience that was probably the tip of the iceberg. But June, she dealt with things differently. f.u.c.k, she channeled her s.h.i.t into opening a bed and breakfast. Her big act of rebellion was quitting her job as a surgeon.

I channeled all my s.h.i.t into becoming better at being a murderer. There was a big difference between us.

All the bulls.h.i.t, the nightmares, the waking up in cold sweats...it was just easier to not talk about it. I'd learned that much. All the s.h.i.t I'd seen - there was just too much of it to put into words anymore. It had become part of me, part of my soul. Killing for the club just confirmed what I already knew about myself - that I was too far gone to do anything else.

I wasn't always like this, though. The Marines do a pretty good job of putting you through the ringer before you become a sniper - psych evaluations and all that bulls.h.i.t. They have to be sure you're not a f.u.c.king psychopath before giving you a weapon and asking you to act like one. Most of the guys I knew were just like me - good guys, guys with families, guys from ranches or small towns who knew their way around rifles.

And after what happened with June's family, the secret I had kept, I told myself that doing this was the only way. It was my path to redemption. I was part of something bigger than myself, something n.o.ble.

So I deployed, five times in as many years. Volunteered for missions. I was s.h.i.t hot, and it felt good to be good at something. But I was a sniper during the first five years of the war, when s.h.i.t was bad. I pictured myself lying in a field, shooting targets from a half a mile away. Sometimes it was like that. But mostly, it wasn't. It was protecting a squad on foot in Baghdad or in Ramadi, taking out targets in buildings. It was always business, never personal. I never felt bad about any of the targets I killed - they were always armed, always the enemy.

The guys I was protecting, the ones I lost...those were the ones I felt bad about. Those were the deaths I couldn't get out of my head. Those were the guys I would feel responsible for failing, until the day I died.

And those were the scenes that replayed in my mind, over and over like a video stuck on a loop. Those were the images that haunted me during the day, popping up when I least expected it, when I caught a whiff of something in the air, or heard the sound of a car backfiring. Those were the nightmares that stole my sleep.

At night, I would close my eyes, and see it in my mind's eye...the flash of light, clouds of dust and debris kicked up around me, the billowing dust cloud that colored the air. I'd hear the explosion, followed by a moment of dead silence, and then the ringing in my ears. I'd feel the shockwave from the blast wash over me before I was thrown to the ground.

Every night, the same thing. And in my dreams, I'd see the men I failed to save.

I was stirring cream into my coffee, trying to force myself to wake up, my head still groggy, when I heard June pad into the kitchen, her footsteps light on the tiled floor. She slid her arms around my waist, and I felt myself stiffen.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing."

That wasn't true.

June stepped back away from me, touched my arm. "Cade," she said. "Turn around and look at me."

I turned, sighing. Exasperated. Not with her, but with myself. "What, June?"

"What happened last night-" she began. I cut her off. I didn't want her pity.

"What happened last night won't happen again," I said. I wouldn't let it. I told myself she would understand, but the truth was, we were different. She had so much s.h.i.t in her life, and she'd risen above it. I would drag her down.

"Cade, it's okay. I've had panic attacks, nightmares." Her hand was still on my arm. "It helps to talk about it."

I drew my arm back from her, sat at the table with my coffee. "I don't need to talk about it."

"I'm not saying you need to. I'm just telling you that it's fine if - "

I cut her off. "Leave it alone, June. It's not your f.u.c.king problem."

It was mean, what I said, and I immediately regretted it. The silence hung heavy in the air between us. I heard her clear her throat, and I didn't want to know what she was about to say. Probably kick me out. I wouldn't give her the chance.

I stood up, not looking at her. "I need to get back to the house. My dad's going to be wondering where the h.e.l.l I am. Crunch too."

"I'm pretty sure they know where you are," June said.

"Still, I should go."

"Just like that," June said.

Now I looked at her, standing, with her back to the kitchen counter, her arms crossed in front of her. I might not have been able to save some people, but I could save her from me.

"What did you expect from me, June?" I asked, knowing I was being mean. I steeled myself. It was for the best. "Did you think I was going to hang out here and play house with you, just because we screwed a couple of times?"

June's eyes narrowed. I knew I was hurting her, but she didn't need me around her. What did I think was going to happen here, anyway - June would ride off on the back of my bike, into the sunset? She didn't need to be involved in my life. I might be f.u.c.ked up beyond redemption, but I wasn't an idiot. June was way too good for me, and I knew it.

"No," she said. "I sure as h.e.l.l didn't peg you for the marrying kind."

I knew I wasn't that type, but hearing it from June, the girl I used to think I'd marry, still stung. "I was, once."

"Yeah, well, you're right, you know. The Cade I knew back then is long gone. I thought I saw a glimpse of him over the past couple of days, but I was wrong."

Part of me wanted to argue with her, tell her that Cade, the one from high school, was still there, that I wasn't completely lost. But that wasn't true. I was, and I'd been lost for a long time.

"Nope. You're right," I said. "That Cade is long gone." I turned away from her. I didn't want her to see my face. She'd always had an uncanny knack for being able to tell when I was lying to her. I started to walk away, toward the hallway, but stopped. I couldn't help but get in a parting shot. "I guess you'll have to find a new f.u.c.k toy now."

"Cade," she said, her voice cracking. For a moment, I thought about turning around, but I knew if I did I would be at her mercy. She already had too big a hold on me.

It would be better for her if she hated me.

It would be better for her if I were gone.

"I wondered when you'd be back," my dad said. His back was turned to me, and he ran a brush along the flank of one of the mares.

"You need some help with anything, Pop?" I lingered at the door of the barn.

"Need some help mucking out the stalls," he said. "Pitchfork is over there."

I worked silently, losing myself in the physical labor. Working the ranch had always helped me quiet my mind, no matter what the problem was. I was hoping it would work when it came to the thoughts about June. I just needed to silence what was going through my head.

"So," he said, finally turning to me when I'd made my way to the stall right beside him. "You've been at June's place for the past two days."