Cathy Gillen - His Baby Bargain

She settled Charley in his high chair, persistent as ever. “And again I have to ask... Why is that, Matt? What’s changed?”

Annoyed, he watched her snap a bib around Charley’s neck. Wishing he didn’t want to haul her against him and kiss her again. Never more so than when they sparred.

Working to keep his emotional distance, he let his glance sift over her in a way he knew annoyed her, then challenged, “Why do you care?”

Especially after she’d already told everyone she was giving up on him. And walking away...

A fact that had somehow irked him.

“I don’t know.” She plucked a banana from the bunch. Looked over at him and sighed. “Maybe it’s because I feel disrespected by you.”

Disrespected! “In what sense?” He’d come here to extend the olive branch. Not drive her away with bad behavior the way he had a week ago. And yet here they were, bringing out the worst in each other...again...

Setting the peeled banana on a plate, she frowned and said, “In the sense that people tend to not tell me sad or upsetting stories since Anthony died.” She raked a hand through her hair, pushing it off her face. “It’s as if they’re afraid that I’m so fragile, if they say or do the wrong thing, they’ll push me over the edge.”

He lounged against the counter, opposite Charley. He empathized with her. “I’m familiar with the walking-on-eggshells part.”

She wheeled her son’s high chair closer to the breakfast table, sat down and began to mash the fruit with a fork. “Then you can also understand my frustration at having apparently been tasked with getting your help and yet simultaneously been cut out of the loop. Because there is clearly something more going on here than what I’d been told.”

He could see she felt blindsided, when all she’d been trying to do was help. The wounded vet, Alyssa Barnes. Him. Champ. And in that sense, he did owe her. So...he drew up a chair on the other side of Charley, sat down and said, “You want to know what happened?”

She nodded, expression tense.

Matt gulped. “I saw a dog get blown up right in front of me.” And worse... “His death was my fault.”

Chapter Three

Sara stared at Matt, hardly able to comprehend what he had just said. “And your family knows you were a part of such a terrible tragedy?” she asked, aghast. Or more horrifying still, that he felt personally responsible?

His expression closed and inscrutable, Matt watched her begin to feed her son. “I’m not really sure what they know.”

Sara spooned up a bit of mashed banana from Charley’s chin. “But you haven’t told them,” she ascertained quietly.

As he exhaled, his broad shoulders tensed, then relaxed. “It would freak my mom and dad out to know how close I came to dying. So no, I didn’t give them any specifics other than what was reported in the news. That our base was hit by suicide bombers in the middle of the night. And there were no injuries or fatalities among our soldiers.”

Thank heaven for that, she thought. Resisting the urge to jump up and hug him fiercely only because she thought such a move would be rejected, she asked, “Was it a bomb-sniffing dog who saved you?”

“No,” Matt said hoarsely. “Mutt was one of a half dozen strays we picked up over there and took in.”

Sara caught the note of raw emotion in his voice. She slanted Matt another empathetic glance, then rose and got two bottles of water from the fridge. “The army lets you do that?”

He tilted his head. “It depends on the commanding officer and the situation.” Matt relaxed when Charley turned and grinned at him. He stuck out his hand, and Charley latched on to his palm, banging it up and down on the tray. “Our CO thought having dogs around was good for morale. Reminded us of home. Gave us something other than the war to think about.”

Sara could see that. Relieved that he was finally confiding in her, she walked back to join Matt and her son at the breakfast table.

“So he let us keep them and train them, but no one person was allowed to adopt any one dog. The deal was the pets belonged to the unit, and we had to rotate their care,” Matt related. “Anyone who was interested could sign up, and on the day and night you were assigned, you fed and walked a dog, and got to sleep with that particular dog next to your bunk.”

Sara knew full well the healing power of animals. “Sounds nice.” Their fingers brushed when she handed him his water.

For the briefest of seconds, Matt leaned into her touch. “It was.”

Still tingling from the casual contact, Sara uncapped her water, took a sip, then resumed feeding Charley. She needed to hear the rest of the story, as much as Matt needed to tell it. “So what happened to make you feel responsible for Mutt’s death?”

Matt gently extricated his palm from Charley’s fingers. He looked away a heartrending moment, then took a long drink. “You really want to hear this?” he finally asked.

Her heart went out to him, and again, it was all she could do not to stand up and hug him. “I really do,” she answered softly. It was the only way she’d begin to understand him and what he’d been through. The only way he’d begin to heal, too.

Wearily, Matt scrubbed a hand down his face. He seemed reluctant, but began to relate: “I had Mutt that night. He woke up around two in the morning, and he was nosing my hand, signaling he needed to go out.”

Made sense.

“It seemed urgent, and I thought it was a routine potty break, so I stumbled out of bed and opened the door to our barracks. Then all hell broke loose.”

Sara’s heart lurched as she pictured the scene.

Matt shook his head, unable to completely camouflage his grief. “Mutt picked up the scent of whatever he’d heard and bolted away from me at top speed, barking his head off. Woke everyone and all the other dogs up.”

Sara could imagine that, too.

Matt jerked in a shuddering breath. “Turned out we had a dozen suicide bombers in the compound, ready to kill us all.” His voice caught at the unbearable pain of that memory. “Mutt attacked the closest one, and the guy blew himself up. And Mutt along with him.” Briefly, he couldn’t go on. His eyes glistened. “Just like that, they were both dead. And a minute or so later, thanks to the swift action of our soldiers,” he said hoarsely, “so were all the other enemy combatants.”

This time she couldn’t resist. Sara reached over to touch his arm, her fingers curving around the hard, thick muscles. “Oh, Matt...” she said, aware it was all she could do not to burst into tears herself.

Her attempt to comfort him, even a little, failed.

His forearm remained stiff, resisting. He shook his head, a faraway look in his eyes. In abject misery, he confessed, “The hell of it is, if I had just been a little more alert, or wary... If I would have had my gun, I would have taken out the bomber before Mutt got to him. But I didn’t.” He swallowed hard.

Aware her initial instincts not to touch Matt had been on point, Sara dropped her hand and went back to feeding a now sleepy-looking Charley the last of his mashed fruit. At least Matt was talking; she held on to that.

“What about the other dogs?” she asked softly, wanting him to get the rest of the story out, to have that much-needed catharsis. “You said there were no troop injuries...”

His glance still averted, Matt released a breath. “There were some injuries. Shrapnel. None of the other dogs were killed.” Hands knotting, he shook his head. “But it could have very easily gone another way,” he admitted rawly.

With multiple fatalities of soldiers and canines , Sara thought.

Matt drained the rest of his water. “That incident made me realize my time to be effective was gone.” Regret tautening his masculine features, he slanted her a look. “I’d already notified the Army I would be resigning my commission and heading back to the USA when my tour was up. And so, that’s what I did.”