Leo returns home as a veteran with serious baggage, but the woman he left behind, Jessica, is battling demons of her own. Together, maybe they can beat them.
*****
Leo Villeneuve...
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I ran my fingers through the warm sand, scooping the grains into one cupped palm, then letting them pour into the other.
My shoulders, normally somewhere near my ears with tension, eased downward with each rhythmic scoop. This was the best I'd felt in months, though I still didn't feel all that great.
With both hands, I piled the sand into a little mountain in front of my knees, then picked up the pencil and began to sketch an idea for a sculpture. With each pass of the pencil, my muscles loosened. Maybe Palmira's warmth had been exactly what I needed to help erase the pain of Afghanist—
Oh, screw that. I was running—from my past, and possibly, probably, something so hideous, I didn't want to even contemplate the consequences.
My hand went instinctively to my beard, but my fingers found only the smooth skin of my chin. I'd shaved and cut my hair right after that night in the park, right before I packed my shit into the truck, strapped the Harley onto a trailer, and hauled everything to Florida.
My father's plans to open a business on Palmira had been well-timed, at least. Leaving the luxury of my family's Garden District mansion was for the best, even if it meant being alone with tortured thoughts for weeks.
I preferred being nearly a thousand miles from everyone in Louisiana and their happy, well-adjusted, socialite families. I didn't need a reminder of how much shame I could potentially bring to my family name back in New Orleans. I'd wanted to annoy my old man, not ruin him.
Well, here I could zone out on the beach and no one would notice. Hell, I'd been doing it all afternoon as I moved sand around, stopping only to swim and float in the crystal-clear water.
At least that soothed my soul: the blue Gulf of Mexico.
Something about hearing the ocean instead of city traffic—or worse, bomb blasts—made me nostalgic for that previous trip to Palmira five years ago. If only I could return to the past, to before joining the Marines, to before Afghanistan.
I wanted to be the happy eighteen-year-old on a Florida beach on New Year's Eve again, kissing a beautiful girl without a care in the world. In the moments when I treated myself kindly, I almost allowed myself to believe I could reclaim that innocence.
The rest of the time, which was most days, I knew otherwise. I was too damaged and jaded to feel like that again. Too physically and mentally ruined.
Still, I had to try like hell not to think about that previous trip. Or Jessica. Memories of her had come roaring back when I first saw the island's tall palm trees and drove by her family's hotel. What had happened to her? Was she still here?
I smoothed the sand with my palms and patted it down, praying an anxiety attack wasn't imminent. Those episodes always lurked in the shadows now that I'd gone off my medicine. Taking a deep breath, I filled my lungs with ocean air. Just breathe. That's what the therapist had told him. Breathe. I closed my eyes, and sunshine touched my cheeks. Breathe and be in the moment.
