Free HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1) by Lexie Ray Page B

I thought that joining the Marines was the worst mistake I’d ever made in my life. Well, maybe the worst one was choosing that road to patrol that day, running over that certain patch, and getting us all blown up in the process. But if I’d never decided to join the Marines, I wouldn’t have been in Afghanistan to begin with. So there was that.
    “You didn’t strike a nerve,” I said. “Do you have any siblings?”
    “No. Only child.”
    “Well, you’ve never had to fight to stand out then.”
    “I fought to distinguish myself from my family, from my hometown.”
    “Then maybe you can understand.” I capped the empty bottle of water and set it back down on the porch floor. “I wanted to try my own thing. I’m the youngest of the family, and everything when I was growing up was always so fully invested in the ranch. We lived, breathed, ate, and drank this damn place. It’s what everyone talked about—keeping this place going. It was really important to our parents, to our family. It’s a legacy, a living, breathing memory, a way to keep our parents alive.”
    “That’s a really difficult thing to handle,” Hadley said thoughtfully. “For all of you.”
    I shrugged. “We did what we had to do. We didn’t have any family other than each other. We had to stick together and keep on doing the thing we knew best.”
    “So all of you always worked the ranch.”
    “We all came back,” I said. “We’ve all had tours of duty off the ranch, but mine was the only literal one. I wanted to be different from the rest of my brothers, and I did it with the Marines. For better or for worse.”
    “You regret it.”
    “You bet your ass.” I shook my head. “No, no, I don’t regret it. I don’t know. It was formative. It was important. I felt strongly about doing it—beyond differentiating myself among us ‘Corbin boys.’ But every action has a consequence.”
    Hadley chewed on that a while. “I hope you’re not suggesting that your injury was somehow a consequence of leaving the ranch.”
    “You think I would’ve lost my leg if I stayed here?”
    “Well, you never know,” she said. “But it wasn’t some cosmic recompense, losing your leg in Afghanistan for leaving the ranch. That’s a silly way to think.”
    She could tell me that, and I could nod my head at her, but it was what I believed nonetheless. I’d turned my back on the ranch, on my parents’ dream, on my hardworking brothers, and I’d lost my leg in the process as punishment.
    “Are you happy to be back here on the ranch with your brothers?” Hadley asked.
    And what was I supposed to say to that? I’d meant to leave the ranch, sure, at least for a while, so I could explore my own identity. But I’d always meant to come back. I loved this place. I wanted to see it succeed. I wanted to help everyone succeed. Instead, I’d come back to the place where I grew up as half a man, shattered in my mind and spirit, and a detriment to my brothers. They had to help me and run the ranch, and I didn’t know if any of them would ever forgive me for dragging them down like this—let alone if I would ever forgive myself. Lately I’d taken to believing that the drought was somehow my fault, too, that I’d brought it back with me—cloudless skies for months on end.
    “Hunter?”
    I looked at Hadley and remembered her question. “I don’t know if happy quite covers it,” I admitted quietly.
    “I understand. There are a lot of things there. Squats.”
    I rolled my eyes at her and began. I understood that I had to get the leg I still had back up to strength. It was doing twice the work, now, of course. But squats reminded me the most of what I lacked, and I was sure I looked stupid doing them.
    “Your turn,” I said, already breathing hard even though I’d just started.
    “My turn for what?” Hadley looked surprised. “I’m not doing any squats. That’s your job.”
    “Your turn to spill your guts.”
    She pressed her lips together.