Read Online To Have and to Hold by Serena Bell - Free Book Online Page B

Nate grinned.
    They took their beers out into the backyard and sat on the patio chairs in a half circle, facing into the woods. “How’d you know I was home?” Hunter asked Nate.
    “Stopped by the base, asked about you and the team, heard the whole gory story. Am
nes
ia?”
    Hunter nodded and sketched out the medical situation for them. Earlier this morning, he’d gone to the base to see if there was any new information from the front. Captain Carmichael had encouraged him to reach out directly to his squad mates, which he’d done, in a series of emails—but given how scarce communication had been even through official channels, he wasn’t optimistic.
    “That fucking sucks,” Jake said.
    There was a short, awkward silence while Hunter thought about that. About Jake’s sympathy for him and what Jake himself had been through. Whether it would be better, if you had to choose, to lose pieces of your mind or pieces of your body. That was no fucking choice, for sure.
    “Could be worse.” Hunter wouldn’t complain to these guys. “No big unpaid bills or paternity challenges or anything like that.”
    Nate eyed him doubtfully. “I call bullshit.” Nate had endured weeks of traumatic brain injury symptoms, then months more of unexplained pain, until he’d gone to R&R and met Alia, who was filling in as the physical therapist there. And she’d—well, to hear Nate tell it, she’d healed him. “That sounds pretty fucking unsettling.”
    Hunter shrugged. Thinking of the shredded wheat, of the gas can, of the lawn mower. Of what he knew about Trina in the daylight and what he felt at night. Fucking unsettling was a good assessment.
    “What does Trina have to say about it?” Nate shot him a quizzical look.
    “You met her?”
    “The four of you came to Seattle to hang with Li and me,” Nate said. “Damn. We had some good conversations, too.” He winked at Hunter. “I’ll fill you in some time. Short version: You were into her, she was into you, but nothing had happened yet. You weren’t sure it was going to, weren’t sure you wanted it to. I told you life was short and you should fucking go for it. Couple days later, I got a text message from you, said something like, ‘Thanks, man. ’Nuff said.’ ”
    “Did I tell you anything else?”
    Nate shook his head. “You didn’t have to.”
    Hunter looked out toward the wooded area behind the house to the tree house he’d built for Clara a few years back.
    “Hunter?”
    “I don’t remember,” he confessed.
    “Jesus,” Nate said. “So…?”
    “So, nothing.”
    “Nothing?” Nate raised an eyebrow.
    He couldn’t look at his friend. “She’s going to L.A. Her baby daddy’s out there.”
    Jake leaned in at that, and a deep wrinkle formed at the bridge of Griff’s nose.
    “And, what, you just let her walk away?” Nate asked.
    “What else am I supposed to do? She’s in love with me. I’m not in love with her. You know where that goes.”
    “You know, Hunt, this is
not
that different from what you were saying to me a year ago. ‘I think she’s in love with me. What if I can’t get there?’ Yeah, what the fuck happens then? You say, ‘I screwed up, I took a chance and it didn’t happen, and I’m sorry, but I did the best I could.’ ”
    Jake laughed darkly. “Do not, I repeat, do
not
take romantic advice from this asshole.”
    “Hey, I’ve done okay for myself.”
    In fact, Nate did have the self-satisfied look of a guy who was getting some regularly and thoroughly. So did Jake, for that matter.
    Griff, however, had the twitchy look of a guy who could use a change of subject matter. “You build that?” He gestured with his chin in the direction of Clara’s tree house.
    Hunter nodded. “Yeah. Couple years ago.”
    “That’s a pretty fucking nice tree house.”
    “Hell, yeah,” Nate said. “You guys should take a look.”
    “What’re you? Like the tree-house guy? On that reality show? What’s it called?” Griff’s