Free Turn on a Dime - Blane's Turn by Tiffany Snow

seventies.
    After kicking off his shoes, Blane briefly considered turning on the television, but he didn’t see a remote. Besides, his head was still killing him. He should’ve asked her if she had any medicine.
    The sofa was too short for him to stretch out on, so Blane rested his head against the back and closed his eyes. He’d learned a long time ago to sleep wherever and whenever he could, despite the inconvenience or discomfort. It was a trick that served him well, and he was asleep within moments.
     

     
    The sound of a scream woke him. Blane was instantly alert, on his feet with his gun in his hand before he’d even processed where the scream had come from.
    Kathleen.
    Blane glanced at the front door, but it was still firmly shut and bolted. No one had entered.
    Of course. Nightmare.
    Setting the gun back down, Blane hurried to Kathleen’s bedroom, hesitating only briefly before opening the door.
    A dim glow from the streetlight outside filtered in through the blinds on the windows, illuminating the figure on the bed. Kathleen thrashed, kicking the sheets and covers away, and the cat leapt to the floor. She screamed again, a sound that tore through Blane the way a baby’s cry would his mother.
    Grasping her shoulders, Blane tried to wake her.
    “Kathleen!” he said, but the word didn’t seem to penetrate. She began fighting him.
    Blane sat on the bed and wrapped his arms around her, hauling her upward and imprisoning her against him. “Kathleen!” he tried again. “Wake up! You’re okay. It was just a nightmare.”
    This time, she seemed to hear him. She stopped fighting, going abruptly still. Her chest heaved and she shook like a leaf.
    Blane relaxed his grip as another hard tremor shook her. A pang of sympathy made him turn so he sat with his back to the wall, pulling Kathleen onto his lap. He remembered very well the first few times he’d seen what war could do to the human body, to his friends. Nightmares had been par for the course until, God forbid, a man grew accustomed to the horrors.
    Kathleen didn’t protest, just curled against him as though wishing she could crawl inside his skin. It felt good to be able to help her, bring her some kind of comfort. No one had needed him, at least not in that fashion, for a long time.
    He needed to get her mind off it. Blane thought for a moment, remembering a particular story from when he had taken Kade diving. “My family used to vacation every summer at a lake in New Hampshire, Lake Winnipesaukee,” he said. “We had a summer home there and every May I couldn’t wait until school was out and we could go. The days were filled with things young boys love to do. Hiking through the woods, hunting, tracking bears.”
    Blane made it sound much more idyllic than it had been. He left out the part where his father had worked nonstop, completely ignoring Blane and his mother. But Blane had still loved the place, and had taken Kade there, hoping he’d love it, too.
    “I still went after my father died, taking my brother with me. We used to take our boat out on the lake. We’d water-ski or dive. The water was always cold, but we didn’t care. The trees were deep green, the sky a brilliant blue, and the water ice-cold.” Kade had taken to diving as though he were part fish.
    Half of Blane’s attention was on talking, the other half was on Kathleen. She’d stopped shaking, his story effectively distracting her. He rubbed her back lightly, wishing it was her skin he touched rather than cotton.
    “One time we were diving and I wasn’t paying enough attention to my brother,” he continued. “He wandered away. I was frantic, trying to find him in the dark water. Nearly exhausted my air supply.” The little shit. It hadn’t been the first time and wouldn’t be the last that one of Kade’s close calls would terrify Blane. And those were just the ones Blane knew about.
    “What did you do?” Kathleen asked when he didn’t continue.
    Blane pulled himself