“Come here, Princess.” I opened my arms. Bridget hesitated for a beat before she finally closed the distance between us and buried her face in my chest, her shoulders shaking. “Shh, it’s okay.” I kissed the top of her head and stroked her hair, a heaviness sinking into my bones at the sound of her soft sniffles. I’d weathered artillery fire, nighttime missions in subarctic temperatures, and more broken bones and near-fatal injuries than I could count, but Bridget crying came closer to breaking me than all those things combined.
