Harper brought her gloved hands to her lower back and lifted her face to the sky. The morning sunshine held a hint of humidity. A sure sign that summer was on its way.
Her phone signaled an incoming call from the railing of the porch. It was Luke’s ringtone. She sprinted across the back yard like an Olympian and pounced on the phone.
“Harper?” Luke’s voice crackled through the connection.
“Luke!”
“Harper, can you call me back?”
“Yes. I have the phone card here. Give me ten seconds, okay?”
“Hurry. Please.” He disconnected.
Something was wrong. Harper’s heart pounded in her chest as she dashed inside to grab the phone card out of her purse. She misdialed twice before she was able to calm her fingers enough to get through.
“Luke! Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“Baby, I’m fine. But Aldo —” Luke’s voice cracked on his friend’s name.
Harper felt her heart clutch.
“Aldo’s hurt pretty bad. It was an IED. They medevacked him to Bagram. I don’t know his status.”
She heard him take a breath. Heard the catch in his throat.
“Oh my God, Luke. Honey, I’m so sorry.”
He cleared his throat and she knew he was pulling it in, tamping it down.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.” A tear trickled down her cheek at the pain in his voice. “Everything here is fine.”
“Please keep talking, Harp. I just want to hear your voice.”
“The dogs miss you. I keep coming home and finding your running shoes at the door. Max and Lola go into the closet every morning and carry them down there.”
She knew she sounded like she was being strangled, but she pressed on. She told him about Ty’s new police cruiser and how they got the bid on the Greek restaurant.
“That’s great, Harp. Thanks.”
“I love you, Luke.”
She heard his sigh, knew he needed the words.
“Can you do me a favor, baby?”
“Anything.”
“Go sit with Mrs. Moretta. She’ll be getting a call soon. Maybe take my mom?”
“Absolutely. If I hear anything I’ll email you and you do the same. Okay?”
“Thanks, Harper. I ... don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Anything for you, Luke. I love you so much.”
“I ... miss you.”
“Miss you, too. Call as soon as you can.”
“Will do.”
***
Luke hung up the phone and dropped it on the pillow next to him. The cot creaked with the motion.
He stared listlessly out the dusty window at the gray mountains looming just beyond base.
He needed that glimpse of home that only Harper could give him. Needed the reminder that there was a life waiting for him beyond the dusty, dry heat of the desert — that right now painted red with his friend’s blood.
He reached for his laptop and opened his email.
Luke thought that fixing Harper’s car had been a good going away gift. Harper had him beat. When he opened his email for the first time in Afghanistan, he saw she had sent him close to thirty pictures. Many of them ones he hadn’t known she took. There were shots of the two of them, of the dogs, pictures of his family, and his home. She even included a few of his employees. He opened the files almost every day.
Tonight, he took his time clicking through each one. His favorite was one that the newspaper had uploaded online. The paper had run the picture of Harper and Linc coming out of the water on the front page, but in the photographer’s album of the event, Harper had found a shot of the two of them at the bar. Luke’s arms were wrapped around her from behind, pulling her into his chest. His hand was splayed across her stomach and she was looking over her shoulder at him. They were both laughing.
He loved the expression on her face. Harper’s eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed. Her hair hung in damp waves that framed her face. He could see the excitement between the two of them and felt the corner of his mouth turn up at the fortunate fact that the photographer had failed to capture the raging hard-on he had pressed against her at that exact moment.
It was the night of their first time together. The night he stopped fighting and let go.
He kept the picture open and clicked the next one.
Aldo’s cocky grin filled the screen. Harper must have taken it with her phone. It was the night Aldo and Gloria came for dinner. Aldo was manning the grill and arguing with Luke about something. They were both grinning. Brothers without the blood.
Luke shut the lid of the laptop.
He braced his hands against his knees, fingers digging into the dried blood and mud caked to his fatigues.
He closed his eyes and let the plywood walls of his eight by eight room close in on him.