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“What else is there to do? Go home. Tell her to get out. Pick up the pieces.” I put my head down on my pillowed arms on the bar. The thought of sending Riley away stabs at me. Even though I know she’s just using me. Even though I know she doesn’t love me, I still love her with every inch of my being. Still want to help. And if it was just me, maybe I’d shrug it off and stay married so she could receive health insurance to get better. It’s something I could offer, something that would improve her life. And if she stayed for a few months, I’d try to enjoy those few months as much as I could.

But it’s not only me in the world anymore. I have to think about Mason. He’s already attached to Riley. She’s his guardian angel. I can’t let him get any more attached when she’s going to leave us once she gets into the trial. Or gets better. Or even finds someone else who can take care of her better... like a doctor. How do you explain to a little boy that the nice lady who stuck up for him with his teacher doesn’t really give two shits about him? That it was all an act?

“Well, if you need a place to stay, we’ve got a guest room. Inara wouldn’t mind. Some days I think she actually prefers your company to mine, being she thinks you are more mature. Even though you were also responsible for instigating the pillow fight that lead to the broken vase incident. No way Mason throws that hard.”

I snort. Never in a million years would I guess someone thought I was actually more mature than my teammate. Least of all his wife.

Martinez scrubs his face with his hand. The exhaustion is creeping back up on him. It’s creeping back up on me too. I need some rest. “Thanks. But I’m good.”

I’ll sleep in the back of the truck before I do that. The idea of watching Tony and Inara spark and glow at each other while my heart still lays in the wreckage left by Hurricane Riley is too much. I’m happy for my friend, but I don’t want my nose rubbed in it right now.

I finish my beer and pay our tab, then head out. Tony pulls up to the side of my truck with his Durango and lowers his passenger-side window. “Call if we can do anything. Anything. Really.”

And I know he means it. He’d lay down his life for me. He’s already done it more than once. “I will.”

I drive home, rehearsing in my head what I’ll say to her, what I want to say to her. My feelings, my heart, and my son’s feelings were not something for her to play with. Granted, she wasn’t the only one with ulterior motives for agreeing to the match. While I’d signed up hoping to find someone, the benefit of having a person there for Mason to make his life better was the reason I’d agreed to be assigned to Riley specifically in the first place.

So, maybe we both came into this with the wrong agenda. But things changed for me. She was so great with Mason. She really tried to fit in and get involved with not just our family, but the community. Helping those families who’d lost someone in war is important to us all. I admire all those things about her.

It just doesn’t make sense why she’d get so involved, especially with my son, if she intended to leave. Why she’d allow him to be collateral damage?

But it ends up not mattering, though. I come home to a dark house and a note on the table. Riley is gone.

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