sides, and it was all he could do not to groan at the sight of her breasts beneath her long-sleeved thermal top, just inches away from his face. 'It's just one of those things I don't hassle with until I absolutely have to.'
'You were definitely overdue for a haircut,' she said with a smile in her voice. 'And I promise not to cut it too short so you don't feel like a jarhead again, but it already looks and feels much better.'
He grinned at the use of the military term. 'Did you learn that lingo from Zach?'
She ruffled her fingers through his hair and sent more snipped strands falling all around him before cutting the longer length off the back. 'Yeah. Right after he joined the Marines, when he was calling me on a regular basis before he shipped off to Iraq, he'd always complain about the haircut the barbers gave him, and how he looked like a jarhead.'
'Yeah, that's about right,' Joel said with a chuckle. 'It's far from a stylish haircut, but I have to tell you, when it's one hundred and twenty plus degrees in Iraq during the summer, the less hair you have on your head, the better.'
She was quiet for a few moments as she continued to cut and trim, then finally she spoke. 'Joel, there's something I've been wanting to ask you.'
'Okay.' Her comment made him both curious and wary, because he had no idea what was currently going through that mind of hers.
She came around to stand in front of him again and met his gaze, the scissors no longer active. 'The night I was attacked behind the bar, after Zach called and you told me about what he'd done with the insurance policy and how he'd asked you to watch over me, you said something about owing Zach for saving your life in Iraq. What did you mean by that?'
He easily recalled that conversation, and he also remembered how he'd brushed off her question in favor of more important issues. Then there had been the time at the spa when she'd been giving him a massage and had asked about the scar on his leg, and he'd managed to evade the discussion there, too, and Zach's involvement in that harrowing mission.
'Why does it matter?' he asked gruffly.
'I guess I'm trying to understand my brother a little better,' she said with a small shrug of her shoulder. Obviously done cutting his hair, she set the scissors on the table, then went to the sink to wash her hands. 'I mean, if he's capable of saving someone's life, there has to be some good in him, right?'
Ah, hell. As much as he wanted to wring Zach's neck for what he'd done to his own sister, and how he was wasting his own life with booze and gambling, Joel could see that Lora was desperate to believe something positive about her brother. To know that, despite putting her life in jeopardy for his addictions, Zach wasn't as damaged and corrupt as he seemed.
As Joel stared into her soft green eyes, he decided that it was time to tell her about what had happened, to let her know just what kind of man her brother had been, and still had the potential to be. Joel firmly believed that with the right kind of help for his addictions, and with the support of his sister and friends, Zach had the ability to recover and be a man with integrity, honor, and a sense of right and wrong.
'He was a real good man, Lora,' he said, his voice ringing with sincerity and truth. 'And he was someone I was damn glad to have watching my back during our missions.' Especially the one that nearly cost Joel his life.
'Tell me about it,' she beckoned once again. She leaned against the counter behind her and crossed her arms over her chest. 'Please?'
He exhaled a deep breath. Joel hated taking that particular trip down memory lane, but for Lora, he knew he'd do it.
With effort, he mentally put himself back into the situation and tried to make the story as succinct as possible.
'Our unit was on its way to conduct a search operation of a known terrorist ring in east Baghdad, when a young boy came running up to our Humvee, which is never a good sign. Three of us jumped off the vehicle, including Zach, to assess the situation and make sure the boy wasn't part of some suicide attack, and that's when one of the Humvees in our convoy was hit by a roadside bomb, followed by an immediate insurgent attack.'
He combed his fingers through his now-short hair, which felt odd after months of dealing with the unruly, longer strands. 'I was hit by a piece of shrapnel in my right thigh, and just as the guys in our unit started taking cover where they could, another blast went off nearby, which knocked me on my ass.'
He watched as Lora pressed her fingers to her lips, her eyes wide with horror as she listened to his grim tale. 'I ended up in the middle of the road, without any protection, and gunfire going off all around me from both sides,' he went on as his hand absently rubbed at the scar on his thigh. 'I tried to get up, but my right leg kept giving out on me, and just when I thought I was as good as dead, your brother ran back out into the open fire while the other guys covered him the best they could. He grabbed me beneath my arms and literally dragged me back behind one of the Humvees, where it was relatively safe.'
'God, Joel,' she said, her voice hoarse. 'I had no idea.'
Most American civilians never knew just how bad things could get in Iraq, that every day for someone in the military could be their last. Joel never took for granted just how lucky he'd been to get out of that attack alive.
'It could have been much worse,' he said, eternally grateful that his injury hadn't been life threatening. 'I could have died like a few other of our men did that day, and I have Zach to thank for saving me.'
There was no doubt in Joel's mind that if it hadn't been for Zach's bravery and spontaneous rescue, he would have ended up dead, too. But it was that tight band-of-brothers mentality that always had men risking their own lives to save others. Like one of their guys who'd thrown himself on top of a grenade during another mission in order to save the entire group. That had been just one of the many devastating acts of courage that Joel and Zach and his other comrades had witnessed.
'That's the kind of shit we dealt with, Lora, every single day,' he continued. 'And it takes men who are loyal and you trust implicitly to watch your back and do the unthinkable if necessary. And that's exactly the kind of marine and man that Zach was.'
'Then what happened to him, Joel?' Lora's gaze was troubled and her voice trembled when she spoke. 'What made that loyal, trustworthy man turn on his own sister?'
Her emotional turmoil was nearly tangible, and it twisted in Joel's gut like a knife. In no way did Joel absolve Zach of the mistakes he'd made over the past few years with his life and his sister's, but he tried to make Lora understand things from a military perspective.
'The war, and seeing the worst in humanity, and witnessing some of your good friends dying right in front of your eyes without any way of saving them, is enough to send anyone off the deep end.' Leaning forward in his chair, he clasped his hands between his spread knees, his gaze holding hers as he recounted some of those situations. 'There's a lot of pain involved in war, and not all of it is physical. There's guilt and remorse and regrets for things you should have done, or things you could have done differently. There's the anguish of watching innocent people die, and the guilt of not being able to save an eighteen-year-old fresh out of boot camp who ends up getting killed in the line of fire.'
Joel did his best not to dwell on the ugly, tragic aspects of the war, but he knew that some people had a tougher time blending back into civilian life than others. Like Zach. Then there were the too-high statistics of depression and suicide that had afflicted some veterans of Iraq once they returned home from the war.
'Everyone deals with that emotional upheaval in different ways,' he said, and he highly suspected that Zach had some form of combat post-traumatic stress disorder, which would explain a lot of his choices and actions since being discharged. 'For Zach, maybe it's the gambling and drinking that keeps him from remembering and dealing with what he'd endured. But those addictions are just a temporary Band-Aid for the real underlying issues and problems he needs to work through.'
She nodded in understanding, then tipped her head, regarding him in a speculative way that made him uncomfortable. 'What about you, Joel? How did you deal with what you saw on a daily basis?'
He shrugged more casually than he felt inside. 'Honestly, I try not to think about it, or the split-second choices I had to make.' Because if he did, he knew he'd go insane and allow the mental distress of some of those wrong choices to lead him down a destructive path, much in the way that Zach had gone. 'I keep myself busy with work and don't dwell on the past.' And he kept himself emotionally detached, too. That part came easily. Since his mother's death, other than Mia, he'd managed to distance himself from everyone else in his life.
Not wanting to dredge up any more of the past or his time in the war, he stood up and brushed off the bigger chunks of hair still on his shirt and jeans. 'If you'll get me the broom and dustpan from that closet over there, I'll
