Run To You

plan to come back. He really didn’t plan to see her. Which was for the best. Her eyes pinched and watered. Even if it felt like the worst.
    “I’m thinking of going back to school. Part-time.” A sad smile touched her lips as she ran her hand over the filly’s soft mane. “Maybe taking a few core classes until I figure things out.”
    “That sounds like a great idea.” Sadie ran a brush down Maribell’s side and looked at her over the horse’s back. She asked cautiously as if she was preparing herself not to like the answer, “Where were you thinking of enrolling?”
    Stella answered just as cautiously, “West Texas A&M.”
    From across the horse, Sadie’s eyes smiled. “In Amarillo?”
    “If that’s okay with you.”
    “I’d love that. You can stay here with me.”
    Stella shook her head. No way was she going be the third wheel at the JH. “I thought I’d get an apartment in town.” And a car. The PT Cruiser would never make the trip from Florida to the Texas panhandle. She’d have to sell it.
    “No one is staying in Vince’s place and his lease isn’t up for three more months.”
    The apartment where she’d given Beau her virginity? “No. Thank you.”
    “I understand.” Sadie cleared her throat. “I’ll help you find a nice place.”
    Tesora bumped Stella’s palm with her unbelievably soft nose. “First, I need to fly to Miami.”
    Sadie’s brow wrinkled. “I thought you were afraid of flying.”
    Oh, that’s right. She’d lied about that. A lie that had changed her life and cost her a chunk of her heart. She made a vow to herself not to lie anymore.
    She looked down and scratched the foal’s forehead. Well, not as much.
    “W hen I see you again, you’ll probably be a surfer.” Beau raised his hand from the steering wheel of the rented BMW and made the hang loose sign.
    “Probably,” Blake agreed. “I’ll have a long ponytail and zinc oxide on my nose.” He pulled a few oranges from a bag of fruit they’d picked up after they’d left the airport that morning. “Probably say ‘dude’ a lot like Trevor Mattis. Did you ever meet Trevor?”
    From behind his sunglasses Beau glanced at his brother and the ocean beyond as they drove down the Pacific Coast Highway toward Malibu. “Nah.”
    “He was a surfer dude. A real good frogman from Team One, Alpha Platoon. Laid back. Real cool under pressure. The kind of guy you want in the comms center.”
    Beau turned his attention to the road. He didn’t say anything. Just let Blake talk if he felt like it. It had taken him almost a week to get him this far.
    “Played everything from Nirvana to Neil Diamond on the guitar.” Blake paused and tore at the orange peel. “Until a Toyota packed with explosive rammed his Humvee in Mussayab and took him out. A paratrooper and John Kramer from Delta were killed, too. Along with about twenty-seven civilians just trying to make their annual pilgrimage to Kerbala. Poor bastards.” He dropped a large peel on the leg of his jeans. “I heard they had to scoop Trevor up with a spoon.” He shoved several orange sections into his mouth. “Does this rehab place have a lap pool?”
    “I think they have several.” He’d spent the past week sitting on his brother, sometimes physically, at his home in Nevada before Blake had agreed to enter a private rehab in Malibu that specialized in PTSD and substance abuse.
    “This whole rehab thing probably won’t work,” Blake predicted, and hit the switch to roll down the window.
    “Give it a try. Who knows? Maybe you’ll seduce a hot nurse.”
    “If there is a hot nurse.”
    “It’s Malibu. I think maybe it’s a law.”
    “Maybe it won’t be a total waste,” Blake grumbled like he was only going to rehab to please Beau and their mother, but they both knew he wouldn’t have gotten his ass on the plane if he wasn’t ready for a change. He opened his window and tossed out the orange peels. “Expensive lay, though.”
    “What are you doing?” Beau looked at his brother, then back at the road. “You just littered.”
    “Orange peels aren’t litter. They’re biodegradable material.”
    “Orange peels lure animals onto the road.” His brows slammed together and he couldn’t seem to keep himself from adding, “That’s how innocent critters get killed.”
    Blake looked across the car as if Beau had grown fairy wings and sprinkled himself with glitter. “You sound like a girl.”
    No. He sounded like Stella, and he wasn’t even