Free Heart of a Hero by Sara Craven Page B

“I’m a mother. It’s in the job description.” Then she heaved a sigh and headed for the car as he closed the front door.
    It had taken some fast talking on his part, but yesterday she’d agreed to let him keep Bridget this week without anyone stopping by to check on him. And even better, she’d informed him that she’d worked out her schedule so that they could go to see his dad in just a few weeks. She had to clear it with the principal of her building, but she hadn’t anticipated any trouble. So he’d make the plane reservations as soon as she came home and gave him a green light tonight.
    His dad. How in hell was he going to explain this to his father? From the time he’d enteredadolescence and his dad had sat him down for their first big “talk,” the watchwords 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, someonethought, 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 hewas 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