It wasn’t until a hand waved in front of his face that he paid attention.

“Earth to Bowie. Are you there, man?” Cannon said.

Bowie shook his head and turned his eyes from the door to where his father, brother, and Sage sat staring at him.

“I’m here.” It wasn’t where he wanted to be, but he didn’t dare run after Katie. That would give everyone the wrong impression.

“She looked great tonight, don’t you think?” Sage asked.

She had a knowing smile on her face, and Bowie wondered if it came from intuition or if Katie had told her about them kissing. Katie didn’t seem like the kiss-and-tell sort of person, but then again, he didn’t really know her.

“I didn’t notice.”

The hell he didn’t. That little dress of hers gave all kinds of mixed messages. With its short skirt, he couldn’t keep his hands from traveling across her skin. Soft skin that felt like velvet under his fingertips. Though the top of her dress came nearly to her neck, it hugged what he knew would be perfect breasts.

“Right,” his father said. “Not noticing Katie is like not feeling a nine-point-three earthquake on the Richter scale.”

“Seriously, who could notice what she wore when she smelled like oranges and chocolate?”

He took a quick glance out the front door and swallowed his disappointment. He’d been all set to make his move tonight. They could have had a glass of wine or a beer. He’d never seen her drink, so he wasn’t sure what she liked. Maybe they would have played pool. He’d even considered a dance or two to whatever played on the jukebox if it got his body pressed closer to hers. Now the only affection he had to look forward to was Sage’s three-legged dog or Cannon’s one-eyed cat, both of which had taken to him. Whenever Bowie was in the bar with both animals present, they stuck to him like gum to a shoe. He seemed to attract the special ones.

Dalton’s mom, Maisey, sauntered over to the table. “You want pie?” Although the question was for everyone at the table, she looked only at Ben. “I made that cherry pie you like so much.”

It was an odd feeling sitting in front of his father, watching a woman he’d known all his life get sweet on him. He’d never known his father to be with anyone but his mother. Then again, he’d never known himself to be with anyone but Brandy.

He sat back and watched the two talk about pie and adding ice cream to make it sweeter. There was something comforting about seeing his father move on. He didn’t want him to remain single and lonely for the rest of his life. Ben deserved to find joy and love after all these years.

Bowie glanced at his brother with Sage. It was also good to see Cannon find love. Feeling like a fifth wheel, he pulled cash from his wallet and set it on top of Katie’s ten-dollar bill.

“I’ve got inventory to take care of. I’ll stop by the bar later.”

Bowie left the diner and walked back to the bait and tackle shop. When he was a teen, he volunteered to run the shop because it was located next to the bakery, where the cookies and muffins weren’t the only sweet things. Back then, he and Brandy would steal kisses behind the store much like the kisses he coaxed from Katie.

Times had changed. Life had hardened his heart, wounded his soul, and scarred his body. It struck him as funny to realize that once again, there was something sweeter than baked goods at B’s Bakery. Maybe things hadn’t changed so much after all.

Katie Middleton had cast her line. This time it was baited with her sweet smile, soft lips, and kisses that made him crave her sweets. She’d reeled him in. For almost a decade he’d avoided being caught, but something told him he wouldn’t mind so much taking a bite at Katie. He knew he’d never be hooked for good. Even if he wanted to be, he didn’t deserve someone as sweet and kind as the little blonde next door. Eventually, she’d see him for the man he was—a man incapable of much more than a few hours of fun. She’d eventually cut him loose, but until then …

He was halfway finished with inventorying the bait when his phone rang. The screen flashed with the name “Trigger”.

“Trig. Where are you?”

Bowie had served two tours in Afghanistan with Trig Whatley. He left the service a year ago. The same IED that sent shrapnel slicing through Bowie’s gut had completely removed Trig’s leg. It had been a long recovery for his friend, but they’d stayed in touch.

“I heard you got out. You could have come to California, where the weather’s warm and the girls wear Band-Aids and string to the beach.”

The only people who knew Bowie had been released were the men from his unit and his family. It wasn’t something he broadcasted around. The shame of being considered unfit for duty chewed at his insides and ate up his self-esteem. If he wasn’t good enough to be dropped in the desert, what was he good for?

“I came back home for a visit. Haven’t seen my father or brother in years.”

“You staying there?”

Bowie looked around the bait shop. The inside resembled a cabin, with its knotty pine paneling. Stuffed fish hung from plaques on one wall. He still held the record for the biggest lake trout, which hung in the center of the smaller trophies.

“Nope. Just hanging out for a bit.”

“Any hot chicks?”

He thought about the town and the female population. There were quite a few single women in town, most of whom he’d known in high school, but when Trig asked about hot chicks, only one came to mind. That was Katie. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Nice rack. Small waist. Perfect heart-shaped ass.

“No, man. There’s nothing worth getting excited about over here in Aspen Cove. No Band-Aids or string bikinis.” There was Katie, but he wanted to keep her his little secret. Besides, he wasn’t sure how he felt about her but he wasn’t interested in sharing.

“That sucks. Have you heard about Sledge?”

Bowie laughed. Sledge had been the newest guy in the platoon. Got his nickname from hammering every girl he could talk into his tent.

“No. What about him?” He hoped he didn’t fall by way of injury, like himself and Trig.

“He knocked someone up, and now he’s a baby daddy, but the kicker is, she had the baby, handed it over to him, and then left. He’s asses to elbows in diapers and formula.”

“You’re shitting me!” Bowie took a seat on the stool behind the counter. He dumped out a collection of flies that needed sorting. “Sledge is raising a kid?”

“Sure as shit, man. No help either. He blames it on the sand.”

“Blames what on the sand?”

“The pregnancy.”

What an idiot. “We both know sand mixed with an egg doesn’t produce a kid.”

“True enough. That’s not it. He says the heat mixed with the constant blowing sand undermined the effectiveness of his condom supply. Something about the foil packages getting blasted in the field.”

Bowie continued to separate the flies by type. “I used plenty of condoms in the field and never had a failure.”

“She’s a beautiful little girl. Named her Sandra.”

Bowie shook his head. “Perfect. And I bet he’ll call her Sandy as a reminder of his lame excuse.” He pulled out the plastic bin that held the flies and put the sorted ones in their corresponding sections. “What about you? How’s the leg?”

“Gone,” Trig said with his deadpan demeanor.

“No shit, Sherlock. I’m the one who tied the tourniquet.”

Bowie would never forget that day. It was on his list of the two worst days of his life. The first being the day Brandy and his mom died. The second being that day when the Humvee was cut in half by an IED. He’d been in the front passenger seat. Trig had been in the back. Two of their squad died that day. While Bowie’s gut bled like a fountain, he’d been more concerned with keeping Trig tied to Earth. Field training had him acting fast. He’d stopped the flow of blood before his buddy was emptied out, then took care of himself and waited for the medic, who was several hundred feet away in their caravan.

“Thank you for that. I wouldn’t be here without you.” There was a long pause. “As it turns out, I’ve got a slick new leg. Two, actually. One that looks more or less like my old leg down to the hair, and I’ve got a blade runner.”

“Are you running again?” Trig had been the fitness king of the platoon. He was always on the go. When he lost his leg, Bowie wasn’t sure if the man would recover. When you lose a limb, everything changes. He knew that to be certain. “I am. I’m thinking about giving the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon a go this year.”

“Damn, that’s awesome.” He’d seen a lot of soldiers bounce back from horrific injuries. In fact, the men who suffered physical injury fared better than those with emotional scarring. Bowie had both.

Although Brandy wasn’t one of his appendages, she was a part of him. They had been connected at the hip their whole lives, so when she was gone, he felt incomplete. How did he move on from someone he loved so much? The memory of her remained chained around his heart. Losing her love pulled at him so tightly, he couldn’t breathe at times. How could he pretend that love hadn’t existed? It was near impossible, but he tried.

“What about you? Are you healing?”

That was a tough question. He would recover from his physical injuries. His leg would always act up. His joints would hurt. By the time he was fifty, who knew what his back would be like? But he was certain Trig wasn’t talking about those. He had been the only one Bowie had confided to about his losses.

“I’m still here.” It wasn’t saying much, but it was all he could say.

“That’s something, for sure. One thing I learned when my life was hanging in the balance was there weren’t an infinite amount of minutes. Use yours wisely, my friend.”

They said their goodbyes, and Bowie sat in the silence of the closed shop. He pulled out the faded picture of Brandy and wondered what she’d look like today. Where would their life have taken them? She wanted to stay in Aspen Cove, close to her mother and the people she had chosen as a family since hers had been so small. Bowie had wanted to explore the world. Now that he’d done that, he’d come back to the place they’d both called home. It had changed. He had changed. Everything had changed. But somehow, it was still home. He hated it and loved it all the same. There was comfort in knowing a person could leave for years and never be truly forgotten.

Rather than tuck the picture back into his wallet, he pinned it to the corkboard that had been hanging in the shop since he could remember. At the top it read, “All Stars”. That seemed the perfect place to memorialize Brandy. He knew he had to let her go. Trig was right. There were only so many minutes gifted to a lifetime. What would he do with his?

Once the inventory was complete, he stood by the door and looked over his shoulder at the picture of Brandy tacked to the wall. She would have loved more minutes in her life. She would have traded anything for them, and here he was wasting his. That had to change. He flipped off the lights and walked out. Tomorrow was a new day.