The Returning Hero by Soraya Lane Read Free Book Online Page B

sofa.”
    He shrugged. “Whatever’s easy for you. I don’t want to be any trouble.”
    Jamie poured herself another cup of coffee and gestured for him to pass his cup over for more. “You never did say how long you were back for? What your plans were?”
    Brett took the now full cup from her and looked at her over the counter. “I’m kind of done with the army.”
    She felt her eyebrows shoot up. “What do you mean by kind of? ”
    “I mean that I’ve served my time and now I’m retired. Honorable discharge.”
    “Wow.” Jamie hadn’t even considered that he might have left the army, that he was done with a role he’d been in for so many years. “Did it have something to do with what happened?” She didn’t want to bring it up again, but she also wanted to know.
    The relief that hit her body, knowing that there was no chance she could lose Brett, too, was like a physical weight lifting from her shoulders. The last thing she’d need was to worry herself silly the next time both Brett and Logan were deployed. She’d lost too many men in her life to deal with the possibility of losing another.
    “I was burned pretty bad on my leg and back, so my injuries were enough to put me out of action for a while, but to be honest I think I’ve given enough to the cause. I don’t think I could have gone back on deployment again after what happened, after what I went through. It’s changed how I’d react to a situation.”
    “So you’ll be staying with the army, though?” she asked. “Doing something with dogs still?”
    Brett shrugged. “I need to spend some time figuring my life out, what I want to do, where I want to be.” He took a sip of coffee, a thoughtful look on his face as he stared out the window. “Right now I can’t imagine a life that doesn’t involve working with a dog all day, being deployed or training for the next task-force operation. So I just need some time to process everything.”
    “Can you take your time deciding?”
    He nodded. “Yeah, I can. I need to focus on recovering fully, then I can figure out what I’m going to do long-term. Start over, I guess.”
    And he was going to be doing a lot of that figuring out here, if she had anything to do with where he would be spending his time while he was in Sydney.
    “So when you say you hurt your leg and back badly…” she began, not wanting to push him but desperate to know.
    “It means I should be doing physio stretches and exercises every day,” Brett confessed, “starting this morning.”
    “Well, it just so happens that I have a heap of work to do, so how about you do what you need to do and I’ll sit in my office and try to get this book finished.”
    Brett grinned. “Deal.”
    * * *
    Brett smiled at the physical therapist through the computer screen. It wasn’t ideal, but he’d been through rehabilitation and all the hard grunt as far as his leg was concerned, and now it was just a matter of gaining the muscle strength that he’d lost and getting his body back to full capacity.
    “So you’re not pushing yourself too hard yet?”
    He laughed. “Not doing enough is more the problem.”
    “Well, best I can advise you is to do your stretches daily, and start doing some light jogging if you’re up to it. Then you can slowly get back to the point where any type of exercise will be okay.”
    He gave her a salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
    She grinned. “Pleased to see you have your spark back. Obviously someone’s been looking after you now that you’re back home.”
    Brett glanced up, looked at Jamie working through the open window of her office. “I’m just pleased to be back,” he told her.
    “Okay, show me your leg stretches, both sides, and then you can get back to doing whatever it is that’s making you smile.”
    He was pleased he’d decided to use video messaging to contact her, because otherwise another day would have passed without him doing the exercises. Before he’d come to see Jamie, he hadn’t missed