Page 54 of The Wounded Warrior

“I probably could. I’ve taught lots of folks. Bet we’d have to have them wear helmets, though. Insurance and shit.”

“Sure. I mean, we can always start out with just the guys with PTSD on the riding. The injured guys can do grooming and feeding and stuff.” Luke’s heart swelled with pride and love for his twin. Matty never even thought about saying no to him on this. His brother was in, all the way, just because Luke wanted it. Just because Luke needed this. “Thanks, Matty.”

“For what?” He got a curious look for about half a second. “We’ll need like a decent house for people to stay at. Having enough bathrooms for folks is gonna be a challenge there, as houses aren’t made to be equal that way.”

Luke chewed his lip. “Let me talk to Rory. He has a ton of properties. Maybe he has something we can use.”

“Tell him we want the land connected to us here. I know he’s got it.”

“He does. He’s got us mostly boxed in.” Luke chuckled. “I like to think he was protecting you from Harris. He sure seems to think that was it.”

“I don’t need protection, but that’s still kind, I guess.”

“Uh-huh.” Luke bit back a grin because Matt sounded more chagrined than grateful. “I’ll holler at Momma tomorrow morning, make sure it’s okay to come to lunch on Sunday?”

Matty rolled his eyes. “Because she’s going to tell your happy ass no. Dork.”

“Hey, they might have plans. Preacher does actually work on Sundays sometimes.” Not much. He was mostly retired after the stroke he’d had.

“Yeah, yeah. So you want to work with rescue horses, huh? We might could get grants or something. Folks love that shit.”

“I bet we’d get more grants for the horses than we would for soldiers.” Luke wasn’t bitter about that, really. He got it. Animals didn’t have a voice, and folks figured humans had people to care for them.

“There’s way more horses here than soldiers, Lu.”

“You think?” he teased. “I guess that’s totally true in Texas.”

“Least this part. In Killeen, I reckon not so much.”

“Right.” That was a big base, Fort Cavazos. He’d been Navy, stationed mostly in California when he wasn’t deployed. He’d loved it out there too, but this was home, and he knew now it always would be.

Luke grabbed a cookie so he could dunk it in his coffee. “You want to grab my laptop? I can do some research, let you get back to your paperwork.”

“Ew. Paperwork sucks, man. This is way more fun.”

“Cool. Then you can sit and brainstorm with me.” He beamed at Matty, so tickled he might as well have had a feather up his ass.

“That works. You want another Oreo?”

“God, yes. But give me two so I can make a double.”

“Save the other sides for me.”

“This is why we’re twins.”

Matt nodded, happily taking the crispy cookies from him when he peeled them away from one side of the cream.

Maybe, just maybe this was gonna work.

Hell, between him and Matty, it didn’t have a choice.

Chapter Seventeen

The message came in about 2 a.m.

You awake?

Huh. Rory was a night owl, but as far as he could figure, Luke LeBlanc was so not. A little chill raced over him.

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