Vince’s heart gave a small surge when he saw Calliope waiting, on the top step of Lulah’s porch. His deep feelings for the dog amazed him. Last night, the house had been an empty echo without her.

Lulah sat at the porch table, and when she saw Vince, she gave him a wave and a big smile, making that small surge swell like a king tide. He took a moment to watch her, enjoying the smile because that wasn’t for keeps.

Whatever he owed her for letting her down, for being less than honest and forthcoming, he could repay by keeping his feelings for her in check. They could be friends, he would allow that, but that was all he had in him. He certainly wasn’t going to create another train wreck like his relationship with Taryn and Gable to haunt him.

He left the truck and braced for Calliope’s whirlwind, shin-thumping welcome, steeling himself at the same time for whatever criticism Lulah launched his way. She must be really pissed off with him. He dealt with Calliope and stepped up onto the porch.

“You look like shit.” Lulah grinned at him.

“This,” he spread his arms wide, “this is awesome. Yesterday I was the dung heap.”

“Adam mentioned something like that. Bad, huh?”

He pulled up a chair and sat across the table from her. Time to be honest; he owed her that. “Yeah, right up there with about the worst it has been. Can we talk?”

“Sure, buddy.”

How do I do this? I don’t talk, that’s the problem. Which bits do I tell her? Heat rushed through him, his heart hammering, fingers tapping the tabletop in time with that insistent thud-thud-thud in his head.

“Breathe, Vince, take your time.”

“Thanks.” He looked up and right into her gray eyes. Jesus, just breathe. “I’m married; well, Taryn and I are separated. I guess you know that now. Did Adam tell you?” Wow, rambling. She’s nodding; keep going. “I have a daughter, Gable; she’s precious.” I scared the crap out of her. I hate myself. He concentrated on his breathing, because right now, it was the most he could manage.

“How old is Gable?”

He looked up. God, Lulah’s smile should be compressed in an aerosol can so I can pull it out and spray it around when I feel this way. “Oh, she’s three, nearly four. She’s so bright and clever; she paints and wants to be a dancer. She has this little plush donkey called Donkey, which she tucks under her chin in this cute way.”

Lulah nodded. “Sounds adorable. I bet she is, too.”

Completely adorable. He crumbled, turning in on himself like a tall building surprised by a demolition blast. “Yeah, she’s...God, I really lost it, Lulah. What’s wrong with me?”

“You’ll have to tell me, Vince, because if you leave stuff like that for people to guess, they usually get it wrong. And that’s a total piss-off, because your friendship’s doomed before it started.”

Damn, where’s her mind-reading skill when I need it? Why can’t I sit here while Lulah pokes about a bit in my head and finds out what she needs to know without me having to explain? Even thinking about it became visceral—the grip on his chest, gravel in the throat, and the big word-jam in his head. He shrugged, not intending to dismiss her but trying to explain that he was grappling for stuff here.

“A shrug? Is that the best you can do?”

His head snapped up, ready to defend himself. Jesus, Lulah! But she smiled at him. “I’m struggling here, okay?”

“Absolutely fine with struggling, so long as you let me know. Like I said, I don’t do that second-guessing stuff.”

“I want to be the person I used to be. I want to feel normal.”

“You know, normal is just another word for average, and from where I sit, I can see you don’t want to be that. As for being the person you used to be, well, you’ve had some sucky life experiences, buddy, so you’re not going to go back and be the old Vince, either. You have to be a new person, now. But it can be much better than this if you want it to. Better and different.”

Vince gave a small laugh. “Usually people are...”

“Let me guess,” Lulah broke in. “Sympathetic?”

“Yeah.”

“And how’s that worked for you so far?”

Vince shrugged.

“You see—there—that shrug, I don’t have to second-guess what that one means. Although it goes against all of my instincts to make the call, I’m quite certain that’s a cover for ‘it’s not working at all.’ Am I right?”

His fingers started tapping the tabletop again. “Most of my life isn’t working right now. When it’s bad, I take off to the mountains to center myself, because there is this chaos in my head.” Like now…right now I want to run far away from here and never come back because you’re showing me stuff I can’t look at.

“Fair enough. Do you want to keep going with the story about your wife and daughter?”

No, he didn’t. “Okay. Taryn and I separated at the end of my last tour. I haven’t seen Gable for six months. I don’t want to be the invisible dad, but I don’t want to damage my daughter, either, emotionally. You know?”

“Sure.”

“There’s this research done about a sort of transmission of my own stress to other family members, particularly children. I’d never intentionally harm Gable, but Taryn’s latched onto this ‘secondary stress’ thing, and she’s managed to block my access to her. Taryn was going away overnight, and her parents couldn’t sit, so I finally had an opportunity to spend a night with my daughter.”

“Big breakthrough, huh?”

“Huge. To have the chance to do normal things with her, read her a couple of books, put her to bed, knowing we’d wake up in the morning and have breakfast together was fantastic. We did some painting together. She painted all these herb pots that sit along the sill in the kitchen. She’s pretty talented in the way she paints details. I was like that as a kid, too.” He skirted around stuff, hoping that if he kept talking about Gable he could skip the bad part.

“So what went wrong?”

He should have known Lulah wouldn’t let him off easily. She had that calm but no-bullshit look about her, the same way when she dealt with a dog acting up. “It went wrong after breakfast.”

Lulah waited patiently while he gathered his thoughts.

“This next bit’s difficult, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Taryn wanted me to clear all my stuff from the shed at the back of the property. Before my last deployment I’d stored my grandfather’s woodworking tools, a restoration project I want to do, stuff like that. My old wagon from childhood was in there, and I dusted it off and gave it to Gable to tow around while I loaded the pickup. She put little things in the wagon so she could help, and we trundled back and forth. She loved it and filled it with her toys. She was so happy until she went into the shed alone and got this splinter in her foot.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, well, more than ‘ouch’ as it turned out. Of course she cried and wanted her mom, but I settled her down and managed to pull half the splinter out before she really went for it, kicking and crying. Then it happened…full-blown flashback.”

Stay grounded; focus on Lulah.

“Do you want to keep going with this?”

He didn’t really. It would be easy to tell her it was difficult. Lulah wouldn’t push, she’d understand. Telling Lulah was hard, but he didn’t want to hide stuff from her anymore. He’d keep going.

“You see, suddenly, it wasn’t Gable, but another kid. I was back there, you know, the same smell, the same sounds, and the crying kid. When I came out of the flashback—of really being there—I still couldn’t pull myself together. I knew we were safe, yet I couldn’t shake the intense fear. My priority was to protect Gable. So I found some blankets and pillows, toys and books for Gable, and some water and a bit of food. I made a camp. Waited, breathed, held it all together the best I could. I sent you that text and had no idea how to respond when you replied. I’m sorry about that, truly.”

“Wow, okay. Then what happened?”

“Adam called, and he sort of broke through at the right moment. I gave him the address, and he came right over. About twenty minutes later, Taryn and her boyfriend arrived home. Cue a total shit-fight.”

“It would have been scary stuff for everyone. How is Gable?”

“I hope she’s okay. I tried to make it into a game, sort of like camping in the house, but she knew something was wrong.” He could picture Gable clearly—wide-eyed, asking for Mom, and telling him this wasn’t how it was when they went camping. His heart hammered again, and he watched a point on the table in front of Lulah’s hands, trying to stay present as he breathed long, deep, and slow.

Something warm and heavy hit his lap, and he jerked, then settled. Calliope must have read his mood, and that calming pressure of the dog’s warm, damp chin on his thigh grounded him. He placed his hand on the top of her head and, in doing that, drew another breath when he thought he couldn’t. He raised his head, and Lulah watched him, her face gentled in a way that said she was there for him but not going to step into his space.

“I’ve worked on that with her.” She indicated to Calliope.

He nodded while his ability to speak and engage slipped away. Now he was back in a state of watching and not experiencing, as if he were a CCTV camera in the corner of the room. He felt sedated, that it wouldn’t matter what occurred around him because nothing could affect him. And although he hated the feeling, he couldn’t switch it off because it started and stopped on its own timetable.

Something pawed at his lap. He could feel it, and in that instant he came back. Calliope added a paw alongside her head and Lulah was speaking.

“You’re a vet with PTSD. I don’t know how bad it is, what you experienced, the things you saw, but I presume it was freakin’ awful. I’m not going to badger you for your story, but one day, if you want to tell me, I’d be honored to hear it. Maybe we’ve gone far enough already tonight, because you zoned out there for a bit, huh? I’m always here to help you, to listen, to share a meal and a laugh, but be assured I won’t join you in some sort of self-destructive downward spiral. I have a father who provides me with enough of those trips.”

If her father dragged her down, she wouldn’t want someone like him around. Vince eased himself from Calliope, pushed his chair back, and stood. “I need to go.”

“I know you do. Good night, Vince. Tomorrow I’d like help with my assignment if you can spare me time. I also want to talk to you about Calliope. Don’t forget to take her bed; it’s over there by mine.”

“Oh, Lulah, your assignment, I’m so sorry. I’ll be here to help you tomorrow.” Jesus, could he be any more selfish? Over the past few months, he’d helped Lulah with paper writing for her course work, except lately he’d let her down.

“Sure, it’s due in a week.”

He paused when he reached Lulah’s bed at the far end of the porch. The exhaustion he’d fought almost won when the pattern on the comfortable-looking old quilt beckoned to him. It reminded him of the one on his grandma’s bed when he was a kid. He would happily have lain down for an hour or two. He might even sleep. Then he imagined Lulah beneath the covers.

“You okay there?”

“Sure, I was thinking. Do you think it’s safe sleeping outside, out here? You’re pretty isolated.”

“Safer here than in town.”

Now he could picture her, curled beneath the quilt, head on the pillow, arm thrown above her head, her lips parted in a soft happy sleep. Something inside him stirred, and he shook off the feeling as he picked up the dog bed and set off for his truck.

“Vince, are you sleeping much right now?”

Sleep, hell, since when did that simple act of lying down and closing his eyes become such a difficult activity? Mostly he didn’t sleep beyond a couple of hours on a good night. “Not a lot,” he answered in a thin voice.

“Take anything for it? Sleeping pills?”

“I don’t, and you’re prying.”

“Sorry about that. I’m feeling for my boundaries.” He could hear that smile in her voice now. “No self-medicating, okay? If you want to do that, you phone me, and I’ll help talk you through it.”

He raised his hand in a small wave, because allowing any more would have him back on the porch begging for her touch. In that moment, he was certain that the warmth of her fingertips would heal him and he would feel human again.

Fucking dreamer.

Calliope glued herself to his side, determined she wouldn’t be left behind this time. When he opened the door to his pickup, she scooted in and squeezed in the passenger footwell.

He drove home cloaked in the darkness of the unlit back roads. In the back of the pickup, he still had the old carousel horse, his tools, and his childhood wagon he wanted to fix up for Gable. The co-op where he shared space wasn’t large enough to do that sort of woodwork.

He needed to find a larger workspace, like a shed. Or Lulah’s barn.