Ever since Winnie learned she was pregnant, Robyn had been adamant that Winnie needed to tell Max he was a father. And it wasn’t that Winnie disagreed. The timing had been hell, with Max headed to war. She’d planned to tell him when he returned, but then his deployment was extended.
Risking such a huge emotional upset to a man at war was not something Winnie would ever do.
Shivers of apprehension chilled her as she looked out the back window of her fiber studio onto Penn Cove. The gray sky covered the white-capped bay and she knew the waves on the western side of Whidbey would be even more powerful.
A spring storm was coming in from the Pacific. She hated making the drive up to the Naval Air Station on the slick black road, but her volunteer time at the base was one of the few sacrosanct commitments in her life, besides the girls.
She loved her daughters and wanted to cherish each moment with them. But she also relished her work and needed time alone to think about how to manage her burgeoning career without the neediness of a teen and toddler weighting her every move.
As she prepared to leave the studio, she paused in front of the window that overlooked the street. Her building sat in between the rocky narrow coast and a side road off Coupeville’s Main Street. Winnie watched the rain begin to fall. When she came back from this afternoon’s therapy visit, everything would be different.
She leaned her head against the studio’s front door and closed her eyes. She tried to let the rain pattering against the window panes of the century-old building soothe her.
It hadn’t been her choice to be a single parent to Krista. A mishap on an aircraft carrier had dealt a devastating blow to her life when it killed her husband and Krista’s father, Tom, more than five years ago.
She’d had a choice, however, in how she made a family for Maeve, her baby. She’d deliberately refused to tell her family, except for Robyn, who Maeve’s father was. Her parents had wondered if she’d used Tom’s frozen sperm. She’d assured them that wasn’t the case, but as they became more persistent she let them think whatever they wanted.
She’d told Robyn about Maeve’s father—with instructions to tell Max if anything happened to her. But she needed to tell Max herself; he deserved to know before anyone else did that he was Maeve’s father. Unfortunately she’d learned that a life can end with no notice, and that included her own.
While her parents had no idea who’d fathered Maeve, it was pretty clear soon after she was born—with dark, straight hair—that she had a different father than Krista, who shared Winnie’s curly blond mane.
Maeve’s father had moved back to Whidbey Island two months ago. In spite of her best intentions to tell him he was a father as soon as she could, she’d still procrastinated.
It’d been two years, three months and five days since she’d last seen U.S. Navy Commander Robert “Max” Ford. It seemed more like three minutes.
Especially when she looked at her beautiful baby daughter.
* * *
COMMANDER MAX FORD, United States Navy, sat on the deck of his dream home and stared out at Dugualla Bay. The Cascade Mountains were snowcapped, as they’d remain for most of the year.
As a junior officer, J.O., he’d idolized the Commanding Officer of his squadron who’d owned this place. When his Commanding Officer got divorced and the house was sold as part of the settlement, Max bought it. He’d rented it out while he was stationed in Florida, and eagerly returned to his prized home just under two years ago, when he took the Executive Officer/Commanding Officer, XO/CO, job in his squadron. He’d had his Change of Command party here last year and the world seemed to be his to conquer.
He’d been so much younger only a year ago. His Aviation Command of Prowler Squadron Eighty-One had been in front of him. He’d led over two hundred men and women into battle over Iraq and Afghanistan. They’d all come home intact.
Except him.
He raised his arms overhead to stretch his back, as the physical therapist had taught him. The shrapnel had been removed and the scars were healing.
Too bad his brain couldn’t get stitched back up so easily.
“You have PTSD. You know the drill, Max. You’re one of our Navy’s finest. We’ll get you a great job on Whidbey, shore duty, and give you time to heal. Then we’ll see where it all falls out for an O-6 command.”
His boss, the Wing Commander, had done everything Max would have done for one of his own charges. He’d been compassionate, honest, strong.
But having been a commanding officer himself, Max saw beyond the clichéd promises.
Max had seen the look of resignation in his boss’s eyes. He didn’t expect Max to return to a real Navy job. His operational days were done. No one came back whole from what he’d seen—the monster who’d appeared in the form of the suicide bomber he’d prevented from killing hundreds of fellow servicemen and women.
Instead of preparing his squadron for another deployment, during which they’d become the well-honed warriors they’d signed up to be, he was sitting on his deck, staring at the Cascade Mountains, waiting for some volunteer social worker to bring over a dog.
A dog.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like dogs. Max planned on having several once his Navy days were over. Hell, since he was on shore duty indefinitely, he could even consider going to the animal shelter in Coupeville and adopting himself a real dog. Something big and furry. He’d never been a tiny-dog fan. If the dog handler showed up with anything smaller than a bear cub he wasn’t going to work with it.
His problem wasn’t with the dog per se. Max’s problem was with still needing therapy. He’d accepted the weekly meetings with the on-base counselor. He’d met with the PTSD support group and shared his feelings. Yet his therapist thought he’d benefit from some dog time. Dog therapy time.
He blamed himself for asking what else he could do to help the other sailors. It was getting too painful to go back to the base day after day and not be able to walk into a hangar that he’d practically owned. Not to face a squadron of courageous young men and women and know that he was leading the best team on the planet. Know that he was the CO they could count on to lead them through hell and back.
His therapist had suggested canine therapy.
“Do you mean so I can give therapy to other vets?”
“No, Max. So you can get some healing from the dog. The caretaker isn’t a therapist, just a handler. You and the dog form the bond.”
“But you mean I’ll do this so I can then provide the same service to others, right?”
Marlene Goodreach, his therapist, had shifted in her seat. Her face was lined, no doubt because of the countless tales of horror she’d helped sailors like him unburden.
“Max. This is about you. You’ve done brilliantly—your physical wounds have healed, your memory is back. But you’re still resistant to facing your own anger and disappointment over the change in your career plans. I think working with a therapy dog would help the tension you still have in your gut.”
Max had learned that the price of throwing himself into his recovery and hoping to eventually help others was that his therapist got to know him too well. He didn’t have the option of keeping his emotions from Marlene.
At least the counselor had agreed to let him meet the dog and its handler on his own turf, away from the looks of pity on base NAS Whidbey Island.
He clenched his hands around the porch railing. Only when his grip became painful did he force himself to breathe and release his grip. He despised the well-meaning comments, the compassionate glances, the fatherly pats on the shoulder.
“Take