Page 11 of Chased By the Mountain Man

I think for a moment, figuring it will be easiest to start from the beginning.

“What made you want to join the military?”

Trent blows out a breath. “I wanted to make my grandparents proud. And I thought it might help me feel less guilty.”

“Guilty?”

Trent groans. “You sure you want to hear this, Jasmine? It’s not a pretty story.”

“I’m sure.”

I squeeze his arm, and his eyes flicker down to my hand. He stares at it as he continues talking.

“My mom died giving birth to me, so my brother and I were raised by our grandparents. Great people, both of them.” He grimaces. “They told me my mom died in a car wreck. Didn’t want me to blame myself, I guess. But when I was seventeen, I came across her death certificate hidden away with my grandma’s things and found out the truth.”

“Oh, Trent.” I swallow back a rush of emotion and say, “I’m so sorry. But you must know it wasn’t your fault. You were only a baby.”

He nods. “I know. I get that it wasn’t my fault, but it doesn’t stop it from eating away at you, knowing that your mom died because you were born. It messed with my head for a long time, so I joined the military. I wanted to get away from all the damn guilt. I figured if I could serve my country and do some good, maybe it would balance out my mom’s death somehow.”

“Did it help?” I ask.

Trent smiles slightly, his eyes glazing over with reminiscence. “Yeah. For a long time, it really did. I met some incredible people, and I was a damn good soldier. I felt like I’d found my calling, and I devoted my life to it. It was the only thing I cared about for two decades.”

“But something happened?” I prompt him gently. “Something changed?”

I have a feeling that Trent has never opened up about all this before. Now that he’s letting the words flow, I don’t want to interrupt him.

“Yeah. Iraq was tough, but Syria…” He flinches, his hand stroking the length of the scar on his face. “That’s where it all happened.”

There’s silence for a moment, but I don’t say anything. Trent is obviously gearing up to tell his story, and I wait patiently, my hand still touching his arm.

“We were evacuating civilians from a city in northern Syria,” he mutters eventually. “The city was pretty much destroyed already, and our orders were to get people out. It was hell on earth: smoke and rubble, people screaming. I was part of a task force trying to evacuate a marketplace when a bomb went off.” Trent’s fists are clenched tight, his eyes staring into the distance like he’s still there in that war-torn city, looking around at the carnage. “I won’t go into the details of what I saw, but it was…bad. Really fucking bad. Forty-six dead civilians along with three men from the task force.”

I press my lips together, tears welling in my eyes. “I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine…”

“Good. I don’t want you to.” When he sees the tears in my eyes, he rests a hand over mine, and I swallow down my emotions, mentally pulling myself together.

“So that’s how you got your scar?” I ask.

He nods. “Shrapnel. Tore up my chest, mostly, but a bit caught me in the face too. Missed my eye by a whisker. I was very lucky.”

“You must have been so brave.”

Trent shrugs. “No more than anybody else who was there that day. I chose to be there; I chose to serve, but the people living in that city didn’t have a choice. They had to be brave whether they wanted to or not.”

I squeeze Trent’s hand and we lapse into silence, his story hanging in the air between us, leaving us lost in our thoughts. It’s impossible for me to truly understand what Trent went through—all I know is I respect him more than ever. He’s brave and strong, but he obviously didn’t leave the military unscathed. And I’m not just talking about his physical scars. It sounds like Trent has a lot of trauma to work through, and even though I’m just some random girl staying in his cabin for a night, I already care about him. I want him to find some peace. He deserves it.

“Well, I think it’s your turn to tell me something now,” Trent says after a while, raising his eyes to meet mine. His expression is still glassy, but he manages a small smile.

“Like what?”

“Like why you changed the subject earlier when I asked about your job.”

Crap. I knew asking for that extra slice of cheesecake wasn’t subtle enough.

“You mentioned that you majored in psychology because you wanted to be a counselor?” Trent says, raising an eyebrow as if to say come on now, your turn. And after the deep and personal things he just shared with me, I suppose it’s the least I can do.

“I did want to be a counselor,” I say quietly. “It was my dream for a long time, and I studied really hard to get my degree.”

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