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He wanted it that way.

He’d spent the day driving around familiar mountain roads, and after talking to Fia Sullivan about coming to stay at Sullivan’s Point, he’d gone for a walk in the woods.

And there she’d been.

He had never seen a more beautiful woman. Not in his memory.

Granted, he hadn’t gotten laid in two years, but the truth was he hadn’t even wanted to.

Seeing that creature in the woods, her red hair long and curling. The sun had been shining behind her, making that demure dress transparent, showing the shape of her legs, her hips... She’d been perfect.

She was probably a Sullivan.

The Sullivans were all redheads; he remembered that much from when he had lived here all those years ago.

But he didn’t want to put a name to her. Not in that moment. He just wanted to enjoy that one thing finally felt normal.

His cock worked. Praise the Lord.

In the grand scheme of things, that felt like a mighty miracle.

The need to reach out and touch her had been... She must’ve seen it in his eyes.

That must’ve been why she ran away.

He had frightened her.

That wasn’t terribly surprising. He couldn’t be civil at the best of times, and when lust had grabbed him by the throat for the first time in years, he imagined he’d looked feral.

The people of Pyrite Falls would be surprised to see him now.

His sister had texted him about a parade of some kind, one marking his return. He didn’t want one. Maybe when the good citizens got a look at him, they wouldn’t want to throw one.

But he had nowhere else to go. No other ideas for how to climb back out of the pit he was in.

Rock bottom was an interesting place. And he had no real interest in staying there.

He was better. Better than he’d been, anyway. He’d been on the outcropping just above rock bottom for the last year or so.

He’d spared his family the worst of it.

At least, he’d tried.

He hadn’t managed to spare Cass the worst of it, but that was marriage, he supposed.

For better or worse, going down in flames together.

After the marriage had ended, however, his continued undoing was something he’d had to fight through on his own.

He was getting pretty damned tired of fighting, though. Truth be told, that was partly why he was back here. This was the last place things had been easy. This was the last place where they’d made sense. And he’d known who he was when he lived in Pyrite Falls, and he had no fucking clue who he was now.

He had a feeling he was never quite going to be able to get back to the man he’d been. Hell, he knew that.

He had the scars to prove it. Both physically and mentally.

But, maybe this would be easier. Something had to be.

Anything was easier than sitting in the hollowed-out shell of his military career, and the dissolution of his eight-year marriage.