Pain.

All caps—P.A.I.N.

All the synonyms rolled through Owen’s aching brain over the course of the next few hours, days, and weeks.

Agony.

Torment.

Suffering.

And along with them . . . guilt, misery, despair.

The full fucking Monty.

As Owen lay staring up at the ceiling of the fourth hospital he’d been admitted to since the firefight—this one the VA in Lexington, near his hometown, post-millionth surgery to try to save his left leg—hot tears burned his still-healing face. Which pissed him off. Not only was he now an official amputee, but he was a crybaby on top of it all.

“Hey, I brought your favorite,” a deep, gravelly voice broke into his pity party. Owen swiped at his eyes, anger filling the places where sorrow had gouged deep, unfillable holes. Antony Love stood in the doorway, holding up a greasy brown bag. “The one and only barbecue pulled pork from the Love Pub kitchen. Slaw too.” He dropped the bag on Owen’s rolling table next to a full pitcher of water and an untouched plate of hospital slop that passed for lunch.

“Whatever,” Owen said. But his grumbling stomach gave him away. He watched as Antony set the food out for him, snagging several of the fried potatoes the Love Pub had perfected with a secret set of spices. Locals called them ‘crack fries’ and they had garnered national coverage in recent months, thanks to an article about ‘America’s Best Hidden Brewpubs’ in some fancy food magazine.

Owen picked up the sandwich and took a bite of the rich, tangy sauce combined with the warm, melt-in-your-mouth pork. He groaned in satisfaction even as the taste sent him hurtling back to his life before all this shit—before Paul got killed—when they’d eat this amazing food on a regular basis, usually sitting on beer kegs in the kitchen of the pub itself under the gaze of Lorenzo Love, Antony’s uncle who was in charge of the pub. When he regarded his empty hands, Owen was surprised that he’d eaten the thing so fast.

“I know, right?” Antony grinned at him and took another handful of crack fries. “I don’t know what we’d do without Susan. She’s turned that damn pub around in so many ways. You know, before she came on board, Daddy was ready to close the place down. But Uncle Lorenzo insisted that they re-invent it and appeal to the asshole hipsters that’ve overrun Lucasville, and he found himself the perfect chef.”

Owen grunted and devoured the rest of the fries before Antony could steal any more. “Wish I could have a beer,” he said, wiping his lips with a Love Pub labeled napkin. “But these pain meds . . .” He gestured toward the empty space in the bed where his lower left leg used to be.

Antony nodded but averted his eyes. “Rosie wants to visit and bring Jeff. That’s what she named her and Paul’s boy—Jeffrey Paul.”

Owen winced and tried to readjust his position in the bed. His ass was sore as hell from all the sitting around he’d been doing. “I’m not really in the mood for company, other than yours if you keep bringing me this kind of grub.” He closed the cardboard carton and tried to ignore how fast his pulse raced at the thought of seeing Rosie and Paul’s little boy in the flesh.

“Okay, maybe once you get your prosthetic, then.”

“Yeah. Okay. Whatever.” The thought of that particular torture made his gut churn and threaten to give back the delicious barbecue. The fittings and therapies had been exactly that—pure torture. He’d been fighting an infection at the time too, which hadn’t helped.

The darkness was closing in on him again. It had become a familiar theme. He’d spend a few hours each day feeling a modicum of hope that he might be able to live a normal life. Hell, they’d even said he could re-up once he’d adjusted to the fake leg. Then, out of the clear blue, depression would roll in like afternoon thunderheads, slow moving, ominous and pitch black. They kept trying to give him more medication for it—anti-anxiety, or anti-sadness, or some other anti—but he’d rejected them. He didn’t need any more chemical assistance. It was going to be hard enough weaning himself off the painkillers.

“Go on, beat it. I’m sure you have real work to do. I don’t need a fuckin’ babysitter.” He slumped down, closed his eyes, and ignored his friend until he was sure the man had left. Then the hot tears burned their way down his face once more.

His dreams were of beer, or more precisely, brewing beer. Something he’d spent years learning along with Dominic Love, one of Antony’s younger brothers. Antony and Dom’s father, Anton, had founded The Love Brothers Brewing Company with his brother well in advance of the craft beer craze that currently captured American fancy. He’d taught Dom and Owen both how to perfect batches of ales and lagers, how to refine strains of yeast, when to filter the final product, or not. Owen had adored the process, and he’d missed it these past years.

He jerked awake when he heard someone calling his name. Wiping the drool off his chin and trying to shake the vivid dream memories of water, malt, hops, and yeast, he rolled over and saw Rosie Norris, holding the hand of a solemn-looking little boy who was such the spitting image of his father, it made Owen shiver.

“Uh, I’m sorry. I’m not really at my best.”

Lindsay Love materialized in the doorway then, her familiar green eyes and freckled face like a balm to his rattled psyche. He sensed the darkness lurking on the periphery, but he fixed his eyes and concentration on Lindsay as she walked over and touched his face with one work-roughened hand.

“Oh, Owen. I’m so happy you’re home safe.”

He took in a ragged breath, ignoring Rosie and the kid for the moment. “Yeah. Thanks. Not so ‘sound’ though.” He touched his left knee. The lack of leg below it hurt. It hurt like a motherfucker, and that made him honestly believe he was insane. Even though phalanxes of doctor types had assured him that phantom pain was normal.

“Antony tells me you’re gonna have a prosthetic this time tomorrow, and they’re discharging you. I’m here to tell you that you should plan on staying with us for a while. Until you get yourself sorted out.”

He blinked. The concept of getting sorted out, of getting discharged after the long months he’d spent lying around in hospital beds, had not occurred to him. Anxiety gripped his throat. It must have shown on his face because Lindsay leaned in close and put her hand alongside his scruffy cheek. “It’s all right, honey. You’re home now, and everything will be all right.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, determined once and for all to stop the damn girlie weeping. But in the face of kindness from one of the two women in his life who’d shown him nothing but during his chaotic growing-up years, he felt like he’d been shoved back to that life. Never knowing which, if either, of his shitty parents would be around. If they’d remember he needed to eat, and that he’d grown out of his clothes and required new ones.

“Thanks,” he croaked out. “I hadn’t really given much thought to next steps, I guess.”

“Well, then that’s settled.” Lindsay pressed her lips to his forehead, then stood up and shouldered her purse.

Of all the things he valued about her, his favorite was the matter-of-fact way she’d taken care of him. No big deal that he’d ended up sharing clothes with Antony and Kieran, Antony’s next closest younger brother. No problem at all adding a seventh mouth to feed three or four times a week. Paul’s mother Janice was no different. Between them, the two women more or less adopted him, treating him as if he were their own flesh and blood.

But his sense of being a stray, a mongrel runt puppy, never truly left him no matter how much energy Lindsay, and Anton through his non-commentary on the fact of a spare grungy kid at his dinner table, spent convincing him otherwise.

“Come on over here, Jeff, and let me introduce you to someone,” she said, startling him. Lindsay took the little boy’s hand and tugged him forward. Rosie stayed back, silently gnawing on the side of her fingernail, her eyes brimming with tears. The kid’s gaze was fixed on the empty spot in the bed where Owen’s left lower leg should be. Owen couldn’t tear his gaze away from Jeff’s mini-Paul face, complete with the cow-licked hair. The silence spun out longer than it should have.

“Where’d your leg go, mister?” Jeff demanded.

“Jeffrey Paul,” Rosie said, grabbing him and hiking him up to her hip. “You mind your manners.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s a good question.” Owen flipped the hospital sheet back to reveal the gauze covering the stump below his knee. “I’m not sure, little dude, but maybe a monster snatched it.”

Jeff gasped and wrapped his arms around his mother’s neck. But after a second or two, he leaned toward the bed, fascinated by the concept of a leg-eating monster. Brave little shit, Owen mused with a legit smile. Like his daddy.

“You can touch it,” he said when Rosie took a step away as Jeff leaned over farther as if he wanted to crawl into the bed with Owen to study the missing limb a little closer. The pain sensation lingered, but the kid was distracting him, so he smiled at the boy as he softly patted the gauze. “Wow,” Jeff said, leaning back against his mother’s neck.

“Yeah. That’s one way to put it.” Owen covered up his stump. “Good to see you, Rosie,” he said, his voice cracking a little. “I’m . . . I’m so sorry—”

Rosie shook her head. “You have nothing to be sorry about, so don’t apologize to me.” A single tear slid down her pretty face. She wiped it away, put Jeff on the floor, and then pulled her curly brown hair up in a ponytail. “I’m glad you’re okay. Someday, eventually, I’ll want to hear about . . . it. But not today.”

He nodded, his throat too tight for words. Antony appeared in the door, and Jeff ran up to him. “Let’s go fix a car!”

Antony chuckled and hoisted the kid up and onto his shoulders. For a moment, Owen was confused by the odd sight. Antony Love was the last man he’d figure for some little boy’s favorite uncle. He was gruff, a grumpy old man early in his life thanks to the blows he’d been dealt. Hell, he hadn’t been able to raise his own daughter after his wife’s fatal accident. Lindsay and Anton had taken her in, too.

Rosie patted his shoulder. “I’m fine. It’s fine. I mean, it sucks, but we’re . . .” She looked over her shoulder at her son on Antony’s shoulders, and her smile made Owen’s confusion take a turn toward the unhappy. “We’ll be all right. You get that leg all set, and we’ll see you at Missus Love’s tomorrow night for dinner. Antony said he’s picking you up.”

“Uh, yeah.” He plucked at his sheet. His confusion continued to morph into a strange kind of anger. The darkness took that as a high sign and began rolling across his horizon, booming and chuckling under its breath.

His chest tightened, and his heart pounded hard, echoing in his ears. When he looked up at them again, Rosie had moved to stand next to Antony, and he had an arm around her shoulders. Lindsay was standing and smiling at him as if whatever the hell was going on between her son and the wife of her son’s best friend wasn’t happening right under her nose.

He opened his mouth, but before something utterly ridiculous came out of it, a nurse bustled in. “We’ll go now,” Lindsay said. “I’m making your favorite dinner for tomorrow night, Owen. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, and key lime pie for dessert.” Lindsay blew him a kiss. He blinked, still wrapping his clanging brain around the fact of Antony . . . with Rosalee Norris. What in the name of God was the man thinking?

He glared at his friend, who smiled at him and said, “See you at four tomorrow afternoon with your new hardware.”

Owen intensified his glare, but it didn’t faze Antony in the least. If he wasn’t mistaken, Rosie was leaning into Antony’s large torso, her face serene. Owen shut his eyes, willing them gone. When he opened them again, he had his wish. And the darkness had nearly smothered him once again.