Jake had met his share of vets. Some bragged about their time overseas, exaggerating or making light of things they’d done. Then there were the others. The quiet ones who would change the subject. They might not have killed anyone or even fired their gun, but their haunted eyes all carried the same four words—the s**t I’ve seen.
Jake saw those words in Thea’s eyes now.
But Thea couldn’t have known that Becca had decided if one patch was good, two would be better. Or three. No one knew that except Jake and his dad. Jake stared at the photo. Becca gazed back—forever young and smiling at him over her fiddle. Forever gone. She would always be that Becca for him. Not the one who had died hooked on those damn pain patches. That Becca hadn’t smiled much. Not after the wreck.
“Mom didn’t want t
