Ash Reynolds released both her white-knuckled grip and the breath she’d been holding as the plane touched down and slowed to ground speed.

She didn’t mind flying. Had been all over the world as part of her military career. But she hated landing.

“All right, boy?” she asked her flying companion.

Atlas, the huge German Shepherd Dog lying at her feet glanced up, panting. One of his ears cocked to beautiful attention. The other was only half-there, a visible reminder of the terror they’d survived. Just like her empty shirt-sleeve.

She was looking forward to her homecoming today. And she was dreading it. She wanted to see her parents. Her mom had been there in the early days after Ash’s amputation and had told her it was time to come home. Her dad’s Alzheimer’s was getting worse, and they needed Ash.

She needed the direction. But things with her parents were…difficult.

After high school graduation, Ashley had found out the truth. She’d been adopted as an infant. The fact that her parents hadn’t told her after a lifetime of opportunity had broken her heart. How could they keep something so important from her?

Over several months, that hurt had festered until she had seriously questioned her identity. Who was she, really?

She’d found herself in the Marines. As a soldier, as a MWD handler. She and her partner, Atlas, had been responsible for saving countless lives.

And now she’d not just lost an arm, she’d lost that identity—Ashley the soldier.

Her parents needed her. Maybe she could help in the family feed store.

Was that who Ashley was now? Small-town girl.

The moniker fit like a coat two sizes too small.

And…

Everything would be different now.

Everyone in Redbud Trails—people she had known all her life would look at her. And have questions. She dreaded the questions.

She’d started to come to terms with her condition. Her handicap. She was an amputee.

It didn’t mean she was less of a woman. She just had to work harder to do certain things than the two-armed population.

Sometimes, in the dead of night when she couldn’t sleep, when the arm that wasn’t there anymore ached, she got a little bitter about it. Why had this happened to her? Why did she have to fight so hard for everything? As a child, she’d worked so hard to fit in, not knowing why it felt so difficult. As a soldier, she’d struggled to get her counterparts to accept her in a male-dominated field. Then, for survival. And now, sometimes just getting through the day was a battle.

It was a battle she would fight, though. And win. She was no quitter.

She just had to figure out what to do with her life now. Before her injury, she’d thought she would be career military. That dream had disappeared with her arm. In combat situations, her amputation prevented her from both carrying a weapon and controlling her dog—and she refused to put her partner in danger. So here she was.

Back home, where everything had started.

She and Atlas were on the emergency exit row, so he’d have more room at her feet. As a MWD, he was allowed in the cabin. But he was retired now, like her. Discharged because he’d lost hearing in his injured ear.

At least she’d been allowed to keep him. He’d been a big part of her life for the last several years. They’d trained together, been at war together. Those kinds of things bonded you. And… almost dying together? They were linked, that was for sure.

The seatbelt light blinked off, and it took twice as long to unbuckle her belt with only one hand to release the mechanism. She stood, and took care to settle her carryon bag over her shoulder and adjust the strap before she picked up Atlas’s leash and moved into the aisle. If it started to ride down her arm, she would have to completely stop and settle the dog before she could fix it. Limitations.

In the terminal, passengers streamed along in an unchoreographed dance. Businessmen in suits with rolling luggage. Soccer moms trying to corral their kids. Young people with backpacks slung over their shoulders. None paying a bit of attention to the returning veteran.

Until Ashley stepped out of the secured passenger area and into the public terminal. A crowd had gathered around. Several people were waving flags. She wasn’t three feet beyond security when they started clapping and whistling. Her face flared hot. Her hand tensed on Atlas’s leash, and he looked back at her, waiting for instructions, just like always. Asking her with those warm brown eyes if this was a situation they needed to control.

She reassured him with a smile. This wasn’t dangerous—not in the way he understood danger, anyway.

In front of the crowd was a tall figure holding a handmade sign written on poster board that read, “Welcome home, Ashley” and was signed “Love, Cowboy.” Her heart sped up for one intense moment. But the incorrigible grin and dancing eyes beneath his brown Stetson made it hard to believe anything Ryan Michaels said—or wrote.

She spared a thought for the packet of letters she’d tied with a ribbon and stowed at the bottom of her bag. Unopened.

She should’ve known he was behind this fanfare. Her parents never would’ve done something like this.

Her feet moved toward him on autopilot, Atlas at her side. She was still scanning the gathered crowd for her parents when she reached him.

“Where are Mom and Dad?” She almost had to shout to be heard over the still-applauding group.

A shadow shifted behind his expressive brown eyes. Blond curls peeked from beneath his hat. “They sent me to get you.”

It wasn’t the whole story. But maybe now wasn’t the time to push for answers, not with all these people watching.

And chanting.

Chanting?

It started low, with only one or two voices calling out, but then the crowd picked up the refrain and the hum became audible.

“Kiss her! Kiss her!”

Ash’s face flamed even hotter—burning like the hot sands in the desert where she’d been stationed.

“Don’t you dare,” she growled at Ryan.

The shouting might’ve drowned out her voice, but she would bet he could read her lips. He grinned and shrugged, affecting a what can you do? air. He stepped closer, and Atlas looked up at her again, probably confused by her uncertain body language.

She used a hand command to make the dog sit but the moment of lost focus meant that Ryan was that much closer when she looked back up at him.

“Kiss her! Kiss her!”

His hands came to rest gently on her hips. She held up her arm to fend him off, lips parted to protest, and that’s when he did it.

Kissed her.

Right there in public.

His lips were cool, and she felt the very faint scrape of stubble when his chin rubbed against hers. His Stetson brushed the top of her hair, and he smelled so good—like man and leather and cowboy…

He smelled so good that for a moment, she got lost in the kiss. Somehow her hand tangled up in his shirt—she hadn’t really clenched her fist to hold him there, had she?

And then he was looking down on her, his brown eyes dancing.

Though she couldn’t hear him over the cheers and wolf whistles of the crowd, she saw his lips move. “You wanna get out of here?”

The military had trained her to make quick decisions. Working with Atlas on missions where discovering explosive devices happened too often to count, sometimes she had only a fraction of a second to decide a course of action. The way she saw it, she could pay a very large sum of money to take a taxi back to Redbud Trails—if she could even find one that would drive that far. Or she could ride back with the man who’d just knocked her socks off with that kiss.

If she had had cash on her, she would’ve opted for the taxi.

As it was, she sighed and muttered an assent.

Ashley had steamed him up with that kiss.

She’d kissed him back.

And judging by the way she was marching ahead of him toward the baggage claim, she was steamed at him. At least she’d been polite to the assembled crowd, shaking hands and accepting well wishes before the small group had dispersed.

“I didn’t tell them to say that,” he told her.

She iced him with a glare.

“That’s not how I pictured our first kiss,” he tried.

Now her expression turned incredulous, and he hastened to explain. “I mean, I have thought about it a few times…”

She shook her head, a cute blush on her cheeks. “You always did have a crazy imagination.”

“So when can we do it again?”

Her glare came back, but he laughed. He was thrilled that she was finally here. He’d been planning this homecoming for a week, ever since her mom had told him about it. It couldn’t have gone better, not in any of the dozen ways he’d imagined it.

“Let me take your bag,” he said.

She kept juggling the leash and her duffel, without a second hand to help her adjust. “I’ve got it.”

Well, maybe in his imagination, she’d been a little happier to see him.

“Really, I’d like to carry it for you.”

“Really, I’ve got it.” She sighed. “I’ve got some checked luggage, though. You can get a cart.” Her grudging allowance maybe wasn’t all he’d been looking for, but he had a two-hour drive with her in the cab of his truck. And a couple of surprises up his sleeve.

He loaded her huge suitcase and two good-sized boxes onto a cart and pushed it through the sliding doors into the sultry, Texas summer air. It was only the beginning of May, but temperatures had hit the nineties yesterday, and today looked to be the same.

She walked slightly behind him, the dog between them, and he heard her huff of surprise as she crossed the threshold out of the air conditioning and into the outdoors.

“How was your flight from San Antone?” he asked conversationally. He knew she’d gone back to an on-base apartment after the military hospital had released her.

She grunted.

Maybe if he tried another tack…

“Your mom and dad are really excited to see you,” he said. “But I have some bad news.”

He waited until she looked up at him.

“They’re throwing you a welcome home party. It’s supposed to be a surprise, but I know how much you like those, so I thought I’d give you a warning now.”

He was rambling. That’s how excited he was. He was like a little puppy, tail wagging and begging her to love him.

Love him back.

She hadn’t even commented on his sign. Had she recognized the reference to how he’d signed the dozens of letters he’d sent her while she’d been stationed overseas?

She looked at him askance. “You’re kidding, right?”

He shook his head. “Sorry, Sweet-Pea. They’ve invited pretty much the whole town. Closing the store an hour early. Food. Big banner. You’re the guest of honor.”

She groaned, and her dog’s ears—both the good one and the one that was only half-there—stood at attention.

She made some kind of kssh noise in her throat and the dog relaxed again. If just a little groan could get that kind of reaction from the dog, what must it look like facing a real threat? More importantly, how had the dog learned to read her so well?

She and the dog were that attuned to each other.

Ryan was a little jealous.

He nodded to his truck, glad he’d parked in the more expensive terminal lot so she didn’t have to walk quite so far in the oppressive heat.

“You’re still driving this old rust-bucket?” she asked incredulously.

“It’s a Ford,” he said. A little defensively. “They last a lifetime. Or so.” He patted the side of the truck comfortingly.

She made a funny face at him.

But that’s just the kind of guy he was. He drove the same truck for ten years. Worked at the same job he’d had in high school—although with vastly different responsibilities now. Loved the same woman for a good twelve years.

Yeah, he was a little stubborn.

Her dog was standing stiffly, nose pointed up slightly, and Ashley looked like she might be inclined to back away.

“What’s the matter?”

“Atlas got a hit on your truck,” she said, like he ought to know what that meant. “Do you have something illegal in there? Drugs, bomb-making supplies?”

She looked so serious that he laughed. “Real funny.”

“Look at him.” She jerked her chin toward the dog. “He smells something.”

“Yeah, something good.” Ryan reached over the side of the truck bed and pulled out a plastic bag he’d tucked down there.

Ashley looked like she wanted to bolt, but her eyes were glued to his hands as he unwrapped… a couple of foil-wrapped treats.

“They’re pumpkin dog biscuits—basically pumpkin and molasses,” he told her, crouching down to the dog’s level and offering one on the flat of his hand.

The dog looked back at her, its tail wagging a slow whuff through the air.

She still looked skeptical.

“I baked them myself.”

She nodded to the dog, who zoomed forward and took the thing before Ryan had even registered the slide of its tongue across his palm.

“Thought I might need a bribe for your partner here.”

When he tilted his head back so he could get a clear view of her face without the brim of his Stetson in his way, she was looking at him like he’d told her he was an alien from another planet.

Like she didn’t understand him at all.

Maybe she never had.

He gave the second biscuit to the dog, who snarfed it down in two bites. Ryan stood up, wiping his hands on his jeans.

Ashley was looking into the truck bed, eyes focused on the extra-large dog crate he’d borrowed from the store. He’d secured it in the back of the truck with numerous industrial-strength bungee cords.

Then she looked back at him like she still couldn’t figure him out. Her eyes narrowed in on his chest.

“Are you wearing…?” She started to say something, and then her voice faded out. “You don’t still…?”

“Work for your parents?” he finished for her. He’d left directly from work and hadn’t changed out of his T-shirt that bore the logo for the feed store. Did she really not know? He was surprised her parents hadn’t mentioned him—or maybe Ashley had steered the conversation away from him if it ever came up.

Her expression turned chagrined, like she was embarrassed she’d asked or embarrassed for him, but he wasn’t ashamed of it.

“Did you read any of my letters?” he asked.

“What letters?” She said the words flippantly, and for a moment, he wondered if something had gone wrong and somehow he’d sent all those letters to someone else.

But her hand tightened on the leash, her knuckles flashing white.

Why would she lie? Maybe she didn’t want to talk about it right now.

“I do still work at the feed store,” he said. He worked to keep his voice easy and his expression mellow—he wasn’t looking to scare her off by pushing too hard. “I’m the manager now.”

“Hmm.”

Oh, that sound! Like she had something else to say. “What?” he asked.

“I thought… seems like I heard you’d dropped out of college, too.”

This time he had to work to make himself sound easy and relaxed. Not to grind his back teeth. “I guess not everybody’s cut out be a traditional student.”

She hadn’t really asked a question, and he didn’t correct her.

Maybe she really hadn’t gotten his letters. In them, he’d told her all about switching from a full-time student to a non-traditional night student, taking only part time classes. Back when her dad had started having a hard time keeping things straight at the store.

Was that really how she saw him? A deadbeat in the same job he’d had since high school, a college dropout?

If so, he didn’t sound like the kind of guy that would attract someone as smart and well-traveled as Ashley. If he was going to win her, he had his work cut out for him.

And how was he going to tell her everything he’d done for her family while she’d been overseas? He sure wasn’t about to go bragging. But she was a smart cookie.

Once she started seeing things around the feed store, she’d understand. He hoped.

And then what about her parents’ farmland? Would she understand why he’d leased it? That was another situation entirely, separate from the feed store. Maybe he’d better wait to bring it up.

“You want the dog in the back or up front?” he asked.

She looked at him with her eyes somewhat narrowed. Maybe he’d surprised her in some way by not arguing or being embarrassed about who he was. He didn’t know.

“It’s pretty hot out. He’d probably prefer the A/C,” she murmured.

Ryan shrugged. “Fine by me. Means you’ll have to sit in the center. Next to me,” he added, in case she didn’t get what he meant.

He quickly loaded up her boxes and bags, securing the whole thing with a few more ties, since they’d be on the interstate.

She and the dog were already in the cab when he got back from returning the luggage cart, and it wasn’t Ashley’s sweet-smelling breath that hit him in the face when he slid into the driver’s seat.

The huge shepherd sat in the middle seat. On his haunches, he was easily as tall as Ryan seated. And although he panted in an easy doggie smile, it wasn’t exactly who Ryan wanted to snuggle up to.

Ryan leaned around the dog to shoot her a disbelieving look.

She smiled a ghost of a smile.

Ah well. Maybe winning her smile was worth sitting next to the monster of a dog all the way back to Redbud Trails. As long as it didn’t bite.

Ryan had to be the most easygoing person alive.

It irritated the snot out of Ashley.

She was hot and sticky from the walk out to his truck—although the icy air blasting in her face was helping with that—and though she hated to admit it, she was still flustered from his impromptu kiss.

Aside from that moment when he asked if she wanted something to eat—she didn’t—they were both quiet as he navigated the city traffic. He tuned the radio to a country station, and she found herself relaxing. Which was dangerous. She didn’t know what to expect from this grown-up Ryan.

In high school, he’d asked her out all the time. It had been a running joke between them. She’d always said no. The one time she’d actually contemplated going on a date with him, she’d dismissed the idea. He was two years her junior. He’d been immature. She’d been thinking about college and her future, then blasted by the news of her adoption.

It had all been a joke. Right?

After they’d made it out of the city and the traffic had spread out some, he stretched one arm across the back of the seats, his fingertips brushing her shoulder and sending a cascade of sparks down her spine. She threaded her fingers into Atlas’s fur.

“So you said you wanted to talk to me. Is there something going on with my parents?” Or had the warning about the surprise welcome home party been his only motivation for coming? With Ryan, she never knew. Back in high school, he’d always been the jokester.

He tapped his fingers on the seatback, and they brushed against her again. She straightened her spine, hoping to put some centimeters between her shoulder and his touch.

“I just wanted to explain that things have changed around the store, are different than you might remember.”

“How so?”

“Lots of things. New timecard scanning system and computerized—”

Atlas must’ve decided he’d had enough of sitting, because he lay down with am exhaled whuff. He was so big that his rear pushed into Ashley’s thigh, and he set his paws into Ryan’s lap and rested his head on top of them.

She’d never seen anything like it. Atlas was her dog. She’d trained him since he’d come into the program. He’d never had another trainer and had never really responded to others, though he would occasionally accept affection from some of the soldiers where they’d been stationed overseas. He bore it more for their sake than for his own.

He’d never rested on someone else’s lap before. What had Ryan put in those dog treats?

Ryan looked a little unsure about having the dog so close.

“I’ll make him sit up,” she offered.

Atlas cocked one ear, like he knew they were talking about him, but otherwise he didn’t move. Traitor.

“He’s fine, I guess. Long as he doesn’t bump the steering wheel.”

She’d been surprised that Ryan had thought about putting a crate for Atlas in the truck. Some irresponsible people might’ve just put a dog loose in the truck bed—which was a recipe for disaster as the animal could get hurt or killed—but Ryan had thought to secure the crate, and she’d even seen a cushion when she’d glanced inside it. And he hadn’t balked at all when she’d suggested Atlas sit in the cab.

She didn’t want to think about him making special overtures for her dog.

“You were saying something about computers,” she reminded him in a murmur.

“Yeah. Your pops put in a POS—point-of-sale system. It’s easier on the cashier and has the inventory right on the computer—”

“My dad put in a computer thing?”

Interestingly, pink crept up into Ryan’s neck and bled into his cheeks. Was he blushing? “All right, it might not have been your dad’s idea, but having the records on computer has been much easier. Even he would tell you so.”

“Whose idea was it?”

“Ah. Mine.” He seemed uncomfortable admitting to it. The question was why?

“So you’re the manager now, and you’ve installed some new systems. What else?”

He shifted his shoulders—his hand along the back of the seat bumped her back. “Your dad doesn’t spend as much time in the store. It’s been hard for him. He’s probably a lot different than you remember, too.”

She swallowed hard. “His Alzheimer’s?”

Ryan nodded. Serious, for once.

Guilt panged. She hadn’t made as many visits home as she could’ve. When she’d had leave, she’d often used the excuse of needing to care for Atlas to stay at Lackland.

Her parents had been older than many of her friends’ parents. It hadn’t made sense when she’d been a kid, but when she found out she’d been adopted, it all became clear. They’d been in their fifties already when she was a teenager. And now… her dad was slipping away.

“Your mom was bringing him to the store more, but after her attack, she’s been staying home more and more.”

Ashley’s heart stuttered. “What attack?”

He glanced at her, brows down over his eyes like he was puzzled. “You really didn’t read my letters. Your mom didn’t tell you when she was down at the hospital after…your arm??”

Her mom had stayed with her through those first agonizing weeks of pain. Ashley had been in and out of consciousness. She could barely remember those days.

And every once in awhile, she remembered the vivid dreams she’d had, that Ryan had come to her in the hospital.

Which was ridiculous, of course. Why would he have?

And although he sometimes joked about loving her, like he had with his poster board sign back in the terminal, he didn’t really think about her like that.

It must’ve been the strong pain medications they’d been giving her.

Ryan was silent as he pulled off the highway at an exit in the middle of nowhere. One lonely gas station interrupted the flat landscape. He pulled the truck into the parking lot, far from both the pumps and the tiny store, and shoved it into park.

Ashley’s heart thundered in her ears. Had something happened to her mom and no one had told her about it?

Ryan shifted, turned toward her a little bit. Atlas groaned at the insult of being moved out of his comfortable position, but he raised his head as Ryan did. Ryan moved his palm to cup her shoulder and she braced herself.

“Your mom had a mild heart attack in early March.”

Three weeks before Ashley’s near-fatal run in with terrorists. The information bomb burst with painful accuracy in her stomach and sent shards of pain through her.

Ashley could barely breathe through the tightness in her chest. “And no one told me?”

He shook his head, those brown eyes filled with compassion until she couldn’t look at him. She turned her face to the window, not really seeing what was outside. Her eyes burned, but she didn’t cry. She never cried.

Ryan didn’t move his hand from her shoulder. She should shrug off his comfort, but she didn’t.

“Your dad… maybe he wasn’t lucid enough to call. I don’t know. Maybe your mom told him not to. Maybe she didn’t want you to worry—she knew you were working in dangerous territory.”

“Who took care of them?” she whispered.

But somehow, she knew what he was going to say before he said it.

“Your mom had been working in the flower bed outside—overexerting herself. That’s what the doctor said—and her neighbor saw her fall. She called 9-1-1 and then called the store, and I came. Your dad was pretty shaken up. I sat with him at the hospital. And Pastor Philip came up and stayed the night with us.”

And she hadn’t been there.

“Why didn’t you call me? Or send an email or something?” Her voice was shaking but the accusation was clear.

“I wrote it in the next letter I sent.”

She shook her head. Whether she was denying the letters she’d never read or denying that he’d tried to do the right thing, she didn’t know.

“You never did give me your phone number over there. Didn’t feel right to snoop through your parents’ things. I wasn’t sure it was my place.”

She blinked several times to clear the hot film from her eyes. Finally, she had calmed enough to turn back and smile tightly at him. Maybe now they could go. She wanted to be home, to see her parents for herself.

To be out of this truck. Away from Ryan.

“I’m surprised her doctors let her come to see me, only weeks after something like that.”

Now he was looking at her funny again, forehead wrinkled. “They were concerned—that’s why she had a travel buddy.”

She went hot and cold as his words sank in. Travel buddy.

And then what she’d thought had been dreams or her imagination under medication and unbearable pain suddenly became very real.

Her eyes flew to his face. She shrugged off his hand out of pure self-preservation.

“You—?”

She couldn’t finish, because she didn’t know what she’d meant to say.

If he’d really been there, he’d…

He’d spent countless hours at her bedside while she’d sweated through phantom pains in her missing arm.

Read to her from a classic book, his voice soothing and low.

Told her funny stories from home, even though she’d been unable to muster a laugh.

And…

He’d seen her at her weakest.

She’d thought it couldn’t have been real, but now, looking at his frown, she knew she was the one who’d made a mistake. A big one.

She’d underestimated him.

“Yeah,” he said. “I was there.”

“I thought I’d dreamed it,” she whispered.

And felt a little like she was having a nightmare.