A soldier’s homecoming
Mariah Conrad has come home. Badly wounded on active duty in Afghanistan and finally released Stateside, she has no family to call on and nowhere to go—until Quinn Walker arrives at her bedside. Quinn…her brother-in-arms, ex-lover and now maybe her future.
Quinn brings Mariah to his log cabin in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky to rest and recuperate both physically and emotionally. While she’s incredibly grateful, Mariah is also confused and frustrated. She’s always stood on her own two feet, but now even that can literally be torture. She’s having flashbacks and blackouts, hearing helicopter noises in the night. She wants to push Quinn away—and hold him closer than ever.
But will she get the chance? Those helicopters are more than just post-traumatic stress; they’re real—and dangerous. Bad things are happening on the mountain. Suddenly there’s a battle to be fought on the home front, and no guarantee of survival.
Praise for the novels of
“Vivid, gripping…this thriller keeps the pages turning.”
—Library Journal on Torn Apart
“Sala’s characters are vivid and engaging.”
—Publishers Weekly on Cut Throat
“Sharon Sala is not only a top romance novelist, she is an inspiration for people everywhere who wish to live their dreams.”
—John St. Augustine, host, Power!Talk! Radio WDBC-AM, Michigan
“Veteran romance writer Sala lives up to her reputation with this well-crafted thriller.”
—Publishers Weekly on Remember Me
“[A] well-written, fast-paced ride.”
—Publishers Weekly on Nine Lives
“Perfect entertainment for those looking for a suspense novel with emotional intensity.”
—Publishers Weekly on Out of the Dark
Don’t Cry for Me
Sharon Sala
Soldiers are trained for battle—trained to fight to the death for country and their fellow soldiers. They are trained to be tough—and to follow orders without question. They accept that when they go to war they may not come back and they are willing to pay the sacrifice to keep their country free from tyranny.
They are trained to die—but no one has told them what to do when they come home in pieces, shattered in body, mind and spirit. They come home forever changed by what they’ve seen and what they’ve done in the name of war, and the only other people back home who truly understand how they function have either been cremated and scattered to the winds or lie buried six feet under.
I dedicate this book to the wounded warriors of our great nation, who have come home from one fight to fight again every night in their dreams.
I do not know your names, but I do cry for you.
You are my heroes.
Contents
One
Rebel Ridge, Kentucky
April
“Sniper at three o’clock. Get down! Get down!”
Bullets ripped through walls. Someone screamed. Someone was praying to God to let him die.
Quinn was on his belly, crawling toward an opening to get a bead on the sniper, when the world exploded.
One minute Quinn Walker was back in Afghanistan watching PFC Wooten’s head explode all over again and the next moment he woke up. He sat straight up in bed, his heart pounding, his body covered in sweat.
He threw back the covers and staggered to the window overlooking the high mountain meadow. Less than an hour until sunrise. The sky was already showcasing the imminent arrival of a new day.
Why did this keep happening? Why couldn’t he let it go? He leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes, willing the nightmare back to hell, and wondered if there would ever come a time when that horror faded—when he was able to accept that he was back home in Kentucky?
The little something called PTSD he’d brought home from the war had an ugly habit of recurring just when it was most inconvenient. It wasn’t like sand fleas, which fell by the wayside after a good dose of tea tree oil. There were no meds, no vaccines, no magic wand to wave and make it go away. It was the gift that kept on giving, night after night in his sleep, and in the bright light of day when he least expected it. A word, a sound, even a scent, was all it took to yank him back. It was the son of a bitch on his back that wouldn’t go away.
Too