Page 156 of Buried Too Deep

“Yeah,” he said roughly. “Not a very unique story. Our Humvee hit a mine. I was manning the turret and got thrown from the vehicle. The mine was in a backpack in the road. I saw it too late to warn the driver.”

She thought about the scars on his chest and the one that slashed across his back. One of those scars was round and she thought that might have been where he was shot in the bar fight he’d mentioned. The others on his chest were scattered in an uneven pattern.

Shrapnel, she’d thought when she’d traced them with her fingers before they’d had sex. The scar across his back looked like a burn.

Oh, Phin.

“What happened to your friends?”

“Most weren’t really friends. Colleagues. I didn’t let many close enough to be a friend. Still…” He drew a breath and let it out slowly, his hand reaching for the dog again. SodaPop leaned into his touch, licking his hand.

Cora kept up the massage, both to make him feel better and to give herself something to do. She had a feeling this story, while not unique, would be hard to hear.

“They were…” His voice broke and he cleared his throat. “They were blown to bits. I was lucky. Getting thrown saved my life.”

She traced the burn scar lightly before resuming the shoulder massage. “But?”

“But I was surrounded by…them.”

Cora swallowed hard, imagining what he’d seen. “Did anyone else survive?”

“No.” He choked out the word.

“Were any of the friends you did let close among the dead?”

He was quiet for a long moment. “Yes. He was hurt, but not dead. I crawled over to him and he was…bleeding. I tried to help him. Tried to stop the bleeding. Didn’t work.”

“What was his name?”

“Jamie. Jamie Darnell. He was twenty-six. Had a wife and a daughter. He was from Dayton, so we’d talk about Ohio. Sports and ice cream and Cincinnati chili.”

“Cocoa and spaghetti noodles,” Cora murmured.

“Library trivia?” he asked.

“Yep. Cocoa in the sauce, served over spaghetti. Always wanted to try it.”

“Maybe someday…” He trailed off.

Maybe someday she could go to Ohio with him and try the chili. She hoped that was what he’d planned to say, but she wasn’t going to push him.

“Maybe,” she said, leaning down to brush a kiss over the scar on his back.

He shuddered. “I still see them. Blood and bone. Hands and feet. Arms and legs. All over the place.”

Her hands faltered for a moment before resuming the massage. “I guess you would. Not something easily forgotten. Did you have to go to the hospital afterward?”

“Yeah. That was awful, too. I hate hospitals.”

“Me too. Spent a lot of time in them with John Robert. Did you feel guilty that you survived?”

He nodded, his expression miserable.

She pressed a kiss to his temple, her hands still working his shoulders, but more lightly now. She was just keeping up the skin-to-skin contact at this point.

“So did I. Not the same, of course, but John Robert was my little brother. He wasn’t supposed to get sick and if he did, I was supposed to be able to fix him. None of that worked out like it should have.”

“Sucks,” Phin muttered.

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