What do you think?
Rate this book


200 pages, ebook
First published May 5, 2014
“There’s something you could do for me,” Ned said, breaking into her thoughts. “That envelope over there has some information about feed supplements we need to order for the cattle. I don’t have time to look through it today. Think you might take a look? It’d be a help.”
Understanding broke over Fila. He wanted her to read through it because he couldn’t.
It hadn’t taken her long to discover Ned’s secret, once she’d come to live with him. It had been the clue to all that anger and ill-temper everyone else talked about. Ned was a proud man, just like the village men had been back in Afghanistan, and just like them he hated to feel at a disadvantage in any way. Just like many of them, he couldn’t read.
She knew what a man looked like when he couldn’t read but wanted to pretend he did. She’d seen Ned act the same way soon after she arrived on the ranch. It didn’t take long to put two and two together. While many Afghan village men might be illiterate, few American men were. She realized the disadvantage Ned was under. Saw how hard he worked to cover it up.
Understanding his secret made the rest of his behavior easy to decipher. And since she didn’t expect Ned to read, she didn’t inadvertently put him into embarrassing situations.
“They took away…everything. My family. My home. My country. They kept…saying I was wrong. Everything I did was wrong. Everything I felt was wrong. Everything I thought was wrong. Until I didn’t know what was wrong or right anymore.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “It was like being peeled away layer by layer by layer until there was nothing left. Until I became nothing. Until I disappeared. I thought when I came home I’d get it all back again, but—” She shook her head. “There’s nothing to get back. Who I was—” A tear trailed its way down her cheek, despite her best efforts. “It’s gone.” Her voice cracked and she fought for composure, her fingers entwined so tightly together they ached.
Ned didn’t need to know all this. She didn’t want him to know it. The words still spilled from her lips, though. “Now it’s just the same here as it was there. Everything I do is wrong. Everything I say and think and the ways I react. The way I look—it’s all wrong. I don’t fit in here any more than I fit there. They won!” Her voice spiked upward as she put voice to her worst fear.
Ned tried to reach for her, swore when the motion jostled his leg, put down his bowl and finally touched her hand. “They did not win.” His voice was nearly a growl. “You got away from them. You didn’t become one of them. If they’d won you’d have a suicide vest strapped on and be marching into some crowded building. All that’s happening right now is you’re readjusting to coming home. Soldiers go through the same damn thing, you know. That’s what you’re like—a soldier coming home. A prisoner of war.” Fila scraped the wetness from her cheeks with her sleeve. She hadn’t looked at it that way. He touched her again. “You’ve been to war for over a decade. Give yourself time.” He patted her knee. “And for God’s sake, go ahead and scream once in a while. Cry. Throw things. Let it out.”
“By the way,” Ned said casually. “The way you look is not all wrong. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Fila quickly darted to the kitchen and spent far more time than necessary spooning more soup for each of them from the pot on the small cook stove. The knowledge that Ned thought she was pretty—beautiful, actually—warmed her all the way through.