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“You said you did something that got Forest killed. What was it?”

* * * * *

The last thing that Colton wanted to discuss with Meadow after what they just shared was what happened the day Forest lost his life.

The deep pain he carried with him everywhere had seemed to grow and swell over the past few weeks since he arrived at the Gracey. Now that he knew the people his command had hurt—no, wrecked—he couldn’t bury it as deep.

If at all.

“Meadow—”

She cut him off. “You’re going to have to tell me sometime, Colton. Why not now?”

“Because you’re not ready.”

She rolled off him onto her back, staring at the ceiling. A fierce determination blazed on her face, some inner glow lighting up her features as though she was just as mad as he was.

Hell, she might be.

He pushed out a sigh. There seemed to be no way around what she was asking of him.

The story that had been scattered in segments all over his brain now came together. It hovered like a cloud in his mind. The words, when they did come, came slow.

“There was a woman.”

She tensed.

“Not a woman like that. A villager. She lived in the village we attacked. After the battle was all over… Well, she was begging for us to take her with us, to save her. She’d just watched enemy fire take out her family. But we couldn’t take her with us.”

“Go on,” she said softly.

“Forest and I walked away and knew she was going to be taken hostage and probably wouldn’t survive it. After we left, that night we made a plan to go back for her.”

“Oh god.”

His throat clamped off with the memory of that fated day.

At his side, Meadow fell silent, listening with all of her ability, as if she’d miss something or he would leave it out. Not that she’d ever know. He could make up some story now.

But he wouldn’t.

She deserved to know what he’d done. What he was.

“I had a direct order not to leave my post that night. Yet I did. And I took Forest with me.”

His throat worked on a hard swallow. “We got back to the village pretty quickly. The enemy had come back to reclaim their dead. Slipping past the guard was easy. Finding the woman was not. We stayed too long. Next thing I knew, a gun was pressed into my temple and Forest was…dead.”

He could never share the detailed memory of how it happened with her. He’d already said too much.

Meadow’s eyes were so large and luminous.

Meadow brushed her hand over his shoulder, down his arm. “It’s all right. It’s okay, Colton. You were trying to help that woman.”

He fisted his hand on the mattress. “If I hadn’t disobeyed, Forest would be alive. He would never have taken that hit.”

A rough noise barked from him, like a wounded animal, as the terrible guilt and pain poured out of him for his friend, at long last. Meadow made a sound too, one of empathy and understanding. She wrapped her arms around him, drew his head down on her chest and held him while he struggled through his emotion.

His lips twisted in an effort to hold in a sob. With extreme force of will, he held the noise trapped deep inside.