“Mad? What the hell did I do?”
“You’re alive.”
“Of course I’m alive.”
“There’s no ‘of course’ about it. Almost a year in a combat zone and I didn’t hear from you more than two or three times. I had to learn that you were back in town from one of the newbies.”
Chase fought down a wave of guilt at that. It was true. He really hadn’t kept in touch with anyone back home while he was gone. He hadn’t wanted to. What could he tell them? How unbelievably appalling war conditions could be? How he’d made decisions that had cost men and women their lives?
He hadn’t written home because there was nothing worth telling.
“Don’t take it personally, man. I barely wrote to my mother and sister either.”
His mother and sister had e-mailed him on a regular basis but…it wasn’t like they’d exactly been a close-knit group before he’d left for Iraq. His mother and sister had always been close…closer still after his parents’ divorce. They’d had a mother-daughter bond he hadn’t ever been a part of. Chase had been left with no one when his father disappeared from their lives.
So, no, they weren’t close. They were simply family.
“Cut me some slack. I’m not even settled yet. I would have called you in a few days.”
“Yeah, right.”
Marching into his kitchen, Jackson pulled a beer out of the fridge, plopped down onto the sofa and dropped his feet onto the coffee table—the two lone pieces of furniture in the entire room.
“So, how was it?”
Hell. Chase stared across at the other man. “God, it’s good to see you.”
“Now you get all mushy. You aren’t gonna cry, are you?”
“No.” Grabbing a beer of his own, Chase sat down beside his buddy. “Look, I’m sorry. I really didn’t think it would matter. I never thought you’d expect weekly reports.”
“Yeah, I know.” Jackson pulled a face before brushing the subject aside. “It doesn’t matter. So, I hear you’re a war hero.”
“Not really.”
“The air force doesn’t award the Distinguished Flying Cross for nothing. I’m getting an invitation to the ceremony, right?”
Between coming home, joining the squadron and seeing Sabrina again, he’d almost forgotten about that mess. Or maybe it had been convenient selective memory.
He didn’t want the honor. He didn’t deserve the damn medal. Somewhere along the way the media had gotten and run with a skewed version of the events of that night that the world seemed to accept at face value. He had no idea where the misinformation had come from…not that it really mattered. People believed what they wanted to believe.
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