I MUST HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP FAST because I didn’t remember it happening. All I knew was at some point I woke in the darkness and lay there, staring at the ceiling, feeling the soft mattress beneath me and Cass’s curving body beside, feeling tired. Not exhausted-but-jesus-don’t-shut-your-eyes tired, just…tired. Normal tired. Like I could close my eyes and not worry about the nightmares tired.

I wanted to hold it off a bit, enjoy it, so I shoved my hands behind my head and lay there, eyes half closed, staring at the ceiling, listening to Cass breathe, not even thinking about leaving.

Last time I’d been with a woman had been quick and dirty, and I’d left right after. The woman hadn’t cared. Neither of us had cared.

I hadn’t cared about anything for a long time. Caring was dangerous and stupid, because no matter who it was, they were going to leave in the end. They’d either up and walk away, or get shot, or die while you were dragging them to the helicopter waiting to extract your team, or maybe just eat a bullet they put in their own mouth.

God, it pissed me off that the old man had done that. I wasn’t sad; I was red-hot furious.

Who the fuck did he think he was, giving up like that, when so many others were fighting for every breath? Pussy. Coward. Trash dick.

And so, once again, everything circled the drain, and I could feel the nightmares coming for me again.

Cass’s breathing shifted. She pushed up on her elbows. Her eyes were tiny gleams in the pale light as she looked at me. “Mr. Dante?”

“What?”

“You okay?”

“Why?”

“Your body just went into rigor mortis,” she said, and squeezed my arm to prove it.

I looked down at her fingers on my bicep.

“Whatcha thinking about?” she asked softly.

“Nothing.”

“That’s a bad nothing.”

Our eyes met. “War. My dad.”

Propped on her elbows, she nodded. “So…everything instead of nothing.”

I laughed a little. “But still bad.”

“I remember your dad.”

“Everyone did.”

She nodded. “Earl Dante was a memorable man. I think I hated him. I remember the nights you’d come over—”

She stopped short. I knew why. A lot of the nights I came to their parent-emptied house, I’d rolled in pissed off and ready for a fight, different parts of my face and body bruised by another schooling by Pop. They got worse as I got older, until I got stronger than him and I learned, reluctantly, to back off so I wouldn’t kill him.

Then he did the deed himself. Asshole.

“Maybe it was better not having a dad,” she said quietly.

I tugged my hand out from under my head and skimmed it down her back. “I don’t remember your dad.”

“No one does.” We smiled at each other, telling the polar opposite, exact same stories of our childhood. Her bio dad had left when she and Ben were young, just took off, never to be seen again. “But he surely was an ass,” she said.

I stroked my hand up the curve of her body, hip to armpit. “Someone did something right. Look at you and Ben.”

“That would be Ben. It sure as heck wasn’t mom.” Their angry, work-hardened mother, who’d never been around because she was working three jobs and doing drugs, fighting the good fight and practically destroying her kids. “Thank God Child Protective Services in our county was crap,” she reflected.

I laughed and took another stroke along her body. She felt good. It felt good, not needing to hide anything from her.

“The only reason I’m half normal is Ben, and him having to look out for me is the only reason he’s okay,” she said. “Although I did scare him the night I got this tattoo.” She turned her head and tapped her shoulder with her chin.

I trailed my fingers over the colorful Celtic knot. The reds and greens were still bright thirteen years on, even in the dim light of the room. “It looks good.”

She smiled at me. “Thanks for taking me. And for keeping Ken’s stabbed eye off my back.”

Sitting across from Cass that night had made her real to me. She’d always been Ben’s little sister, part of the mix but peripheral, hovering in the background like a hummingbird. But that night, her sweet sixteen to my about-to-squeak-out-of-high-school-and-get-the-fuck-out-of-dodge eighteen, she’d been a little flame of innocence and righteous fury.

Sometimes downrange, when the sky was lit with tracer bullets, I remembered that night, Cass’s smile coming for me across the grubby tattoo parlor like a beam of light.

“My pleasure,” was all I said.

“It was hard for me, but I think it was harder for Ben. He stood like a sentry between me and the world.”

She bent an arm and trailed her fingertips across my chest, tangling then in my hair. Her voice was quiet. “He took taking care of me very seriously. For a while I thought that’s all he’d do, look out for me. Never meet anyone, never give himself over that way. So even though Amber has money—”

“Can’t really hold that against her,” I murmured.

She laughed. “I love her because she made Ben start his own life.” She swallowed. “And what a life. I mean, he’s amazing. Look at where we came from, and now…now he’s got it all.”

“He loves you.”

Cass looked up quickly. “I know. We’re family forever. Him and me…and you. It was always us three.”

“Against the world.”

“And now we’re out in the world.”

“Scary stuff.”

She smiled a little, then turned to the side and rested her head on my shoulder. “Not so scary right now.”

I knew what that meant.

I didn’t think I had what that meant.

She was quiet a second. “Where are you going when you leave here, Trey?”

I looked up at the ceiling. “Destiny Falls. Finn’s there.”

The mattress dipped as she shifted beside me. “I remember Finn. He was a couple years younger than us. He got in a lot of trouble.”

I smiled. “Yeah, he did.”

“Ben and I moved before he graduated. He went into the Army too, didn’t he?”

I nodded. “We were both Ranger regiment, different battalions.”

“You never deployed together?”

I shook my head. “Kept in touch, though. He almost got blown up. His dog lost his leg.”

“Oh shit.”

“Better than losing all of him. He still has the dog. Max.” Finn had sent me pictures of three-legged Max. I wanted to see Max.

I wanted to see Finn more, but I also wanted to see the dog who’d saved my brother’s life.

“So you’re going there to start over,” she said quietly. “Destiny Falls sounds like a good place to do it. And you have family there, so…”

I figured it was as close as I could get. “It’s a start.”

“Starting’s good.”

“It’s all I got.”

I felt her watching me. She was going to ask me something hard. Something I didn’t want to answer, or didn’t know how to answer.

I reluctantly looked over.

She moved her hand so her palm rested right over my heart. She met my eyes and whispered, “Are you hungry?”

I blinked and gave a bark of laughter. “Fucking starving.”

She grinned and rolled away from me, reaching for the phone. I watched her move, feeling tension flow out of my body. Her dark hair swept over the pale skin of her back, trailing onto the mattress and the sheet hooked in the curve of her hip as she put the phone to her ear.

“Hey, yes, hi. I’d like to get room service.” Silence. “Two cheeseburgers…” She glanced back at me. “Make it three.”

I pushed up on my elbows. Was she…was she ordering us burgers?

“And three orders of fries,” she said into the phone. “Lots of ketchup. Like, lots. Seriously, I’m not joking about the ketchup.”

I let myself drop back onto the bed and shoved my hands under my head again, watching her order us burgers and fries at oh-one-hundred.

Fucking. Perfect. Woman.

This might be more than bed-and-wall sex.

“And milkshakes,” she was saying. “You use real milk, right? Okay. Yes, two of them.” Her waist rippled as she turned to look over her shoulder at me. “Both chocolate…?”

I nodded.

A beat, then she hung up and flopped down beside me, reached out and brushed the hair back from my face, and I didn’t pull away.

“Twenty minutes,” she announced, smiling.

“You’re my fucking dream woman.”

There it was, the flush on her cheeks. This woman could do bad things to me. Good, bad things.

“Yeah, I know, I’m perfect. Burgers and sex; what more does a guy need?”

“About nineteen minutes,” I said, rolling to my knees. I pushed her legs apart and slid the sheet down and thanked her the best I could for making burgers normal again.

For making me normal again, at least for one night.

I spread her wide and lapped her slow, until her head was back, her spine arched, her fingers tight in my hair, pulling on me, and then she came on my tongue, crying my name.

I let that wash over me, her orgasm, her fingers in my hair, her gasping my name like it was more than just coming, hoping it could stand in for whatever else I didn’t have inside me.

TREY FINISHED HIS WORK ON MY BODY just in time. Trust a Ranger to be on point.

The room service knock came on the door and the guy entered, carrying a tray covered by expensive, high domed lids that hid burgers, shakes, and fries. And lots of ketchup.

Trey tipped him a lot of money, then reached for his boots as the door slammed shut.

“Be right back,” he said, sweeping the hotel key card into his pocket and the ice bucket off the table.

“What? Where are you going?” I exclaimed, staring at the food. “It’s going to get cold.”

“Dig in,” he said and strode out the door.

Jeez. Always on a mission, that guy.

I RODE THE ELEVATOR DOWNSTAIRS and stalked the hallways for twenty minutes, looking for that fucking puppy.

I found him in an offshoot hall, near the pool, huddled in a corner, all alone, his nose resting on his fat little paws.

I slid my ass down the wall at the end of the hallway and kicked my boots out. He watched me warily, not moving.

“Hey bud,” I said quietly.

His tail thumped.

“You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but Cassidy thinks you’re pretty worth saving.”

He looked at me, head still down on his paws.

“It’s not a big deal, you know,” I told him. “Just for the night.”

His tail thumped again.

“You should know, we’re getting burgers.”

His head lifted.

“With cheese.”

His head tilted to the side, like he knew what that meant. Smart pup.

“But you gotta come now,” I told him, “because Cass is probably going to eat everything if we don’t hurry.”

He got to his feet, his furry little body shivering way down there in the dark.

“Come here,” I murmured, patting my thighs. “No one’s going to hurt you here. It’s all gold tonight.”

He sat back on his haunches and gave a high-pitched puppy bark.

“Right,” I said. “That’s what I’m saying.”

He ran at me, a dark little furball tumbling down the hall.

I SAT ON THE BED, on the gloriously crumpled sheets for what felt like a long time. I glanced at my phone. Yep, a long time.

I looked at the burgers then tipped forward and inhaled their greasy, fatty fragrance. And oh my lord, the fries. The ketchup sat in a high, shimmering red mound, waiting to be desecrated. My mouth watered.

I folded my hands in my lap and looked away. If Trey wanted ice, then jeez, the least I could do after what he’d just done to my body was wait a few minutes while he got it.

Apparently from the first floor. Maybe the basement. Or perhaps from an empty lot down the road a few miles.

What was taking so long?

I looked at my phone again. How good could this ice be?

Suddenly the door rattled and it swung open.

Trey, dark-eyed and grinning, stood in the opening, ice bucket in one hand…puppy in the other.

“Merry Christmas,” he said.

My jaw dropped, then I flung myself at him and the puppy.