Heart of a Hero. Anne Marie Winston

of the day had been responsible behavior and protection. Not to mention morality.

      He’d never mentioned his feelings for Phoebe to his parents, never really had the chance, given what had happened with Melanie’s death. And then, after the funeral, after things had gotten so wildly out of control, he hadn’t had the chance. He’d had to leave the next morning. And Phoebe hadn’t answered her phone, although he’d tried half the night to contact her.

      He could have simply walked down the street and banged on her door. Should have, he amended. But he’d known she was grieving, and he’d felt he had to respect that. And he’d felt guilty, taking advantage of her trust when she’d been so vulnerable. He should have stopped her.

      In the end, he’d given up, promising himself that he’d get in touch with her in a day or two. But he’d been deployed to Afghanistan earlier than expected, with barely twenty-four hours to prepare and he hadn’t had time or opportunity to do anything more than think about her.

      A month or two later, he’d learned from his mother that she’d left town, that no one seemed to know where she’d gone. The East Coast, someone thought, so he’d made up his mind to visit her the next time he came home. He’d e-mailed her at the same address he’d used for years now—and to his shock, it was returned as undeliverable. And then his mother had had the stroke and all Wade’s phone calls and e-mails with his dad had been filled with medical concerns. He’d only been home twice during that hectic time, once not long after his mom’s first stroke, the second after her funeral.

      He’d come home for that on a three-day leave and gone right back again afterward. He wouldn’t have had time to look up Phoebe if she’d just moved to the next town, much less across the continent. Just days after that, he’d watched one of his buddies die when he’d stepped on an unexpected land mine. Others had been dragged away by insurgents operating out of the Afghanistan mountains. He’d barely been able to conceal himself, but he’d managed it. And then unexpected help in the form of an Afghan villager had saved his life and gotten him back to his own troops. On a stretcher, but alive.

      He’d had plenty of time to think about her then, while he’d been recuperating. He’d needed her, had finally admitted to himself that he wanted to see if there was any chance that they might have a future together. He’d considered trying to find her, but he didn’t really want to call her and tell her he was lying in a hospital bed. So he’d waited until he was well enough to look for her in person.

      But he’d never stopped thinking about her, about any of the all-too-brief time they’d spent together. The revelation of his feelings—and hers, he was pretty sure—at the dance. Which had promptly been put on indefinite hold when Melanie had been killed.

      And then Melanie’s funeral. Or more specifically, what had occurred right afterward. God, if he’d relived that once he’d been through it a thousand times. And that was probably a conservative estimate. He would never forget making love to Phoebe for the first time, no matter the circumstances….

      “Are you okay?”

      Phoebe looked up, clearly surprised. She’d been sitting on the swing under the rose trellis at one side of her uncle’s home. Just sitting and staring.

      Her eyes were red and puffy as she looked at him, and Wade realized what an inane question it was.

      “I mean, I know you’re not okay, but I didn’t want to…I couldn’t leave without talking to you.”

      Her nod seemed to take enormous effort. Slowly, she said, “I just needed a break from it.” Her voice trembled. “I can’t go back in there and talk about her anymore.”

      The graveside service was complete; Melanie’s family and friends had gathered at her mother’s stepbrother’s home to console each other, to share memories and simply to visit. It was a terrible thing that it took a funeral to bring everyone in a family together again. Phoebe’s father had never been in the family picture, as far as Wade knew. And her mother had passed away the second year the girls were in college. Mrs. Merriman’s two stepbrothers lived in the same area, although Wade had never heard either Phoebe or Melanie talk much about their extended family; he’d gotten the distinct impression at the funeral that the family hadn’t really approved of Phoebe’s mother.

      He looked down at Phoebe and a fierce wave of protectiveness swamped him. God, what he wouldn’t give to go back to the night of the reunion. He’d almost said no to Mel when she’d asked him to go. If he had, they might not be sitting here today.

      But if he hadn’t, he might never have realized or appreciated his feelings for Phoebe.

      Wade cautiously sat beside her, waiting for her to tell him to get away from her. When he’d first gotten the news about the accident, he’d waited for his doorbell to ring. Waited for Phoebe to come scream at him for sending her twin sister off in such a rage that she’d wrapped her car and herself around a tree as she’d sped away from the reunion.

      But Phoebe hadn’t come. She hadn’t called. And he hadn’t dared to contact her. He could hardly move beneath the weight of the guilt he felt; if Phoebe piled more on him, he might just sink right into the ground.

      His mother had heard about the funeral arrangements before he had. And it never occurred to her that he might not be welcome. Wade didn’t have the heart to explain it all, so he’d gone with his family to the service and tried to stay as far away from Phoebe as he could. God, she must hate him now.

      Still, when he’d seen her alone, he’d known he had to talk to her, no matter how she felt about him.

      But she didn’t seem to hate him. Instead, she leaned her head against his shoulder. “I wish it was last week again.” Her tone was forlorn.

      “Me, too.” She felt as fragile as she sounded. He put an arm around her.

      Phoebe sighed and he felt her warm breath through the thin fabric of his dress shirt and t-shirt. “Could we take a walk?”

      He nodded. “Sure.”

      He rose and held out a hand. When she curled her small fingers around his much larger ones, he felt like bursting into song. Entirely inappropriate—and insensitive—under the circumstances.

      He led her through the apple orchard and into the forest above the house, following a well-worn path that both wildlife and human had helped to create. They simply walked for a long time. When the path narrowed, he helped her over roots, up steep rises and around boulders, and across a small creek.

      They came to a small cabin, a tiny rustic structure. “What’s this?” he asked.

      “My uncles occasionally use it when they hunt up here.”

      Along one side was a large pile of wood that looked to him like a grand place for snakes to be hanging out. When Phoebe started forward, he stepped ahead of her, scanning the ground. Most Californians went their entire lives without seeing a rattlesnake; he’d just as soon be one of them.

      He pushed open the door of the cabin and stepped inside. When Phoebe followed him, there was barely room for two people to stand in the small space. It held a woodstove, an ax in surprisingly good shape, two wooden chairs and a tabletop that folded flat against the wall, a bunk bed with a mattress nibbled to shreds by squirrels or mice, and two shelves above the table. One shelf was crammed with an assortment of canned goods and a couple packs of matches. The other held a kettle, a large pot and a scant, mismatched pile of dishes with a few spoons and forks thrown in. There was no electricity, no light. An oil lantern and a bucket hung from pegs on the bunks.

      “Wow,” he said. “I guess this is just for emergencies. But it’s got everything you’d need.” Indeed, he’d seen much worse in some of the homes in the Afghan villages he’d been through.

      “They come up here and clean it out before hunting season each year. They stock it and add a couple of towels and blankets.” She rubbed an absent circle in the dust on the table. “We used to play up here. Thought it was the best playhouse in the world.”

      We,