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134 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 5, 2013

"Well, seeing as I'm a captain, I outrank you."
"If you're falling, trust me to catch you, Sergeant."
"I hate this." His jaw flexed. "I want to keep you safe."
Giving him a smile, she picked up his other hand, opened it. She bent his middle and index fingers inward, leaving the other fingers straight. Tapping those two fingers on her chest, she curled her hand over his. Her fist barely covered his, but she squeezed him hard nevertheless.
"That's the sign language for heart. You'll hold my heart safe until I see you again." She swallowed, whispered the next word, "Master."
"I've cared for many soldiers since my husband. I have no degree in psychology. Sometimes I think all that learning can interfere with seeing with your heart, using your common sense. But I do know when they lose interest in everything, turn so deep inside themselves that not even the ones who love them most can reach them, they're already in the grave." Her voice wavered, old shadows rising in her eyes, but she firmed her chin.
"Dana is like that in so many ways, except for this. You are her one lifeline, Peter. For the chance that it can save her, I will risk throwing that line to you, a man I only know through these letters, but who has come to me and spoken from his heart."
"I don't want to win the battle, Dana. I want to take the field, win the war. When I make love to you in this bed, it's going to be because you've accepted you're with the man and the Master you want for the rest of your life."
"Damn it, I can't…"
"Yeah." He touched her neck carefully, cupped the side of it, then squeezed, hard. "Yeah, sweetheart, you can. But you need help."

"It's all right, sweetheart," he said roughly. "I've got you. I'm not letting you go."
"You can't…I'm already gone."

"Heart and head. That's all you need to heal, Dana. The rest doesn't matter. It's just skin. You're beautiful to me, inside and out."
"You can't see, or hear as well as you could before. But you can smell, taste…touch. If you've been dreaming about me the way I've been dreaming about you, I know exactly what you've been thinking about. We're going to start there."

She was broken into a hundred pieces, and couldn't see to pick any of them up. But he could see every one of them. He would figure out how to bring them back together. Pressing his face into the side of her head, he squeezed his lids tight, not wanting to let unmanly tears fall when her screams became sobs, a keening wail of pain.

"You've lost your sight, some of your hearing. You haven't lost your brain, your sense of touch, smell, your inner strength. Your soul."
(…)
"Every time a soldier goes into battle, he's believing in something more than his physical body. Whether he calls it God, luck or his own damn gut, he does. The body's a crutch, sweetheart."

If I told you I started falling in love with you the first moment I saw you, the kind of fall that could turn into a long, spiraling lifetime of love worth having, it would scare you to death, wouldn't it? So I won't say it. I'll just think it.

"If I'd known it was going to be the last time I was going to see you…"
"It wasn't." Cupping her hands, he pressed them harder to him. "If you let me into your soul, let yourself be inside mine, you'll always see me more clearly than anyone."

"I'm honor bound to stand by the woman I love," he responded.






