Scars and Stripes

Love heals even the deepest wounds.

-West

After giving twelve years of my life to the service, I didn’t just lose my leg. I lost everything, including my career. When the dust settled, the only person still standing by my side in the rubble was Brandt —the single lifeline I had left to a world I didn’t want to live in anymore.

With painstaking care, he healed my body and my mind. When he eventually started healing my heart, I realized I didn’t just need him in my life, I needed him in ways I’d never wanted him before.

-Brandt

Watching West struggle every day was tearing me apart. If he could only see what I do, he wouldn’t see flaws and hopelessness. He’d see a courageous, selfless, brilliant leader. A guy with no filter, who always makes me laugh. Someone who never asks questions before offering to bail my ass out of trouble.

He’d see the man I’ve come to love as more than just my best friend.

You can’t give your heart away until you first learn to love yourself. 

Nash 

A mission gone sideways. My world turned upside down on a dime.

Held prisoner in the dark tunnels below ground, cut off from the world, I was hanging onto life by a thread. Wanting to end my suffering, but afraid to let go.

And then I was rescued. Dragged into the light. My first breath of freedom in twenty-two days. But I was still trapped in my nightmare, inside my head. 

A prisoner of war.

Brewer 

His mind may be broken, but his soul is still intact, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. As his sponsor, I promised to help him find his way, to show him how to love himself again. I'm breaking all the rules of recovery by falling in love with him. But when you find the person you’re meant to spend the rest of your life with, you don’t want to waste another day apart.

Fate only takes an instant to play her hand.

Rhett Marsh

When my leg shattered, I thought my whole world was shattered.

Riggs pieced both back together again, and then he disappeared.

I never expected to see him again on the other side of the world.

Navarro Riggs is a lot of things…

Devastatingly hot.

My savior.

A brave warrior.

But, my physical therapist? Yeah, I didn’t see that coming.

I’d consider it a gift from the universe, if only he wasn’t trying his damndest to stay far away from me.

Navarro Riggs

We met on the battlefield under a hail of bullets and blood.

Our bond was instant, forged in trauma. Unbreakable. Everlasting.

He wasn’t just my patient, he was mine.

I trust Rhett with my life, but can I trust him with my heart?