Love, Fallon thought as they rode off. Maybe that was the biggest miracle. Feeling it, giving it, knowing it.
She swung onto Grace and rode toward the school hoping to convince the tortured, the exhausted, the sick at heart to believe.
CHAPTER TWO
When Fallon arrived home, she spotted Ethan coming out of the stables, the dogs Scout and Jem trotting at his heels, as usual. His recent growth spurt still gave her a little jolt. She remembered, clearly, the day he’d been born, at home, in the same big bed where she, Colin, and Travis had come into the world.
He’d let out a cry that had sounded to her ears like a laugh. When she’d been allowed to hold him the first time, he’d looked at her with those deep, deep newborn eyes, and she swore—still swore—he’d grinned at her.
As the baby of the family, his sunny nature revealed itself in that first laughing cry and every day since. But he was, Fallon admitted with some reluctance, no longer a baby.
Though he remained slight of build, he’d put on some muscle. He had their mother’s butterscotch hair and lovely blue eyes, but it looked as if he’d inherited their father’s height, as he’d sprung up inches in what seemed to be five minutes.
She smelled the stables on him—he’d been mucking them out, no doubt—as she dismounted.
“How’s Colin?”
“Mom says good. He slept the whole time she and Dad were gone. Probably still is.” As he eyed her, Ethan took Grace’s reins while the dogs leaped, leaned, and looked for attention. “You should sleep, too.”
“I will. Travis?”
“He came home for a few minutes, just to check in. He’s taking Colin’s schedule with the recruits, so he had to get back.”
Her middle brother may not have lost his penchant for a good prank, but he stood up. Travis always stood up.
“Grace is happy you took her for a ride,” Ethan said as he managed to nuzzle the dogs and the horse at the same time. When it came to animals, Ethan understood their thoughts, feelings, needs. That was his gift. “Now she’s hoping for a carrot.”
“Is that so?”
Fallon imagined the garden, the rows of carrots, the orange spears in the ground, the springy green tops. Choosing one, she let the words form in her head, flicked out a hand.
And held a carrot, fresh from the ground. Beside her, Ethan laughed.
“That’s a good one.”
“I’ve been working on it.” Fallon swiped the dirt off the carrot on the thigh of her jeans, fed it to her sweet, loyal mare.
“I’ll cool her down, get her settled,” Ethan said. “Go get some sleep. Mom said to tell you there’s leftover pasta if you’re hungry. They’re conked, too.”
“Okay. Thanks, Ethan.”
He started to lead Grace away, paused. “When Eddie got back—when I was over helping Fred with the farm, and he got back—he said what they did to the people you rescued was an abomination. That’s his word for it.”
“It was. It’s exactly the right word for it.”
“He said there were little kids locked up there.”
“There were. Now they’re safe, and they’re free, and nobody will hurt them.”
Those lovely blue eyes, so like their mother’s, clouded. “It never makes any sense, you know? Being mean never makes any sense.”
For Ethan, she thought as she walked to the house, the first choice and the last would always be kindness. She hated knowing he trained every day for war.
She considered the pasta, decided she was more tired than hungry, so went straight downstairs.
And found Colin waiting for her in the family room. Obviously he’d woken with an appetite, as an empty bowl, plate, glass stood on the table.
A good sign, she thought, as was his color, the clear look to his hazel eyes.
“How’s the shoulder?”
He shrugged with the good one, lifted the other arm in its sling. “It’s fine. Mom says I have to wear this dumb-ass thing for the rest of the day, maybe tomorrow, so I don’t jerk it and screw things up. Pain in the ass.”
“She’d give you a bigger ass pain if you screwed things up.”
“Yeah.” He might be a fearless soldier, but he wasn’t stupid enough to take on their mother. “Hell of a fight, huh?”
She let him talk it out. He’d need to, she knew, as most of the men and women she’d visited in the clinic had needed to.
“We were basically on cleanup, you know? Man, we had them on their heels, Fal, on their fricking heels. This is when you were down in the torture chamber, right? Eddie said you were down there.”
He paced as he spoke—a nervous habit she understood, as she often did the same.
“So, a couple of the faeries are working on the locks on the cells because we’ve got it under control, right? You could hear some of them who were drugged to shit and back calling for help. And kids crying. Jesus.”
He paused at that. “Jesus, kids. You just never get over that part. Anyway, this guy drops down, put his hands up. I’m not going to neutralize some dude who’s surrendering, so I move in to take his weapons—he laid them down, for Christ’s sake. And, Jesus, Fallon, one of his own shoots him, and wings me before I could take him out.”
A soldier to the bone, one who’d formed a strong band of brothers—and sisters—in arms, Colin’s disgust came with a lacing of fury.
“He shot his own man. His own, unarmed, man. Who the fucking fuck does that?”
“True believers,” she said simply. “Don’t underestimate the true believer.”
“Well, whatever the son of a bitch believed, I believe he’s burning in hell now. He shot his own man, a man with his hands up. No threat. Anyway.” He gave her that one-shoulder shrug again. “We got them out. Did you talk to Clarence?”
“Yes. He’s doing fine.”
“Good. Good. I saw him go down, but I couldn’t get to him.”
“Most of our wounded have been treated and released. The others need a little more time in the clinic, but they’re going to be fine.”
“Yeah, Mom said. I think I’ll go into town, see how everybody’s doing anyway.”
“Tell Ethan so he can tell Mom and Dad if I’m still sleeping.”
“Sure.” With his free hand, he stacked the plate, bowl, glass, balanced them. Then his eyes met hers, warrior to warrior.
“It was a good mission. Three hundred and thirty-two prisoners freed.”
“Three hundred and thirty-three. One of them just had a baby.”
“No shit?” He grinned. “Good deal. See you later.”
She walked back to her room as he started upstairs. He’d been raised a farmer, she thought, one who loved basketball and bragging and finding little treasures. Once he’d claimed he’d be president. He wouldn’t, Fallon thought as she stripped to the skin. He was, and always would be, a soldier. And a damn good one.
She dragged on an oversize T-shirt she’d scavenged years before and used for sleep with a pair of boys’ boxers. After countless washings the image of the man and his guitar on the shirt had faded like a ghost. Her dad called him The Boss, said he’d been—or was, who knew?—a kind of rocking troubadour.