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It was another bad night, full of dreahtmares were commonplace She’d had the same dream so many times, yet it still rocked Bree to her core with the same intensity as it had the first time
In it, Zack was reaching out to touch her face, tears in his eyes She could handle the horrific i her husband’s tears It only ht tossing and turning, unable to sleep
She hoped a change of scenery would make a difference, but she knew better Noin common with the previous one—Zack wouldn’t be there He wouldn’t be anywhere He was gone
Jace Rice was gone, too Not in the saone Every day, Bree told herself she shouldn’t think about him It wasn’t Jace she missed, it was Zack Jace was a distraction, someone she allowed herself to think about when her subconscious refused to let her mourn her dead husband On an intellectual level, she understood that the way she felt about Jace wasn’t real; it was sirief over Zack’s death
Zack Fox had been the light of her life The word “soulmate” was thrown around too often, but in this case, there was no better way to describe hih He made her feel safe, secure, confident, ss With Zack by her side, Bree could do anything she set her mind to It had never occurred to her that, one day, she’d be forced to find out what she could accomplish without him
Bree had just graduated with hershe’d started when Zack was still alive He hadn’t pushed her into it, but he had encouraged her He told her it was the right time to do it, before they started their family He convinced her she’d be happy she’d done this for herself later, when there wouldn’t be time for it Now she had all the time in the world
Maybe she’d consider getting her doctorate It wasn’t as though having a family was still in her future
Bree had offered to babysit her nephew, Cochran, while her sister Blythe and Tucker, her sister’s husband, attended the opening of his show at a local art gallery
Tucker was an artist orked in s, and block prints Watercolor was his current passion
Earlier this year, he’d painted landscapes in Black Forest, outside of Monument, Colorado, before a massive fire destroyed much of it After the fire, he continued to paint the sas in the shoere both co Many of the vistas he’d painted days before became charred remains of what they’d once been
She hadn’t seen Tucker’s recent work, only heard about it She was afraid seeing it wouldthe Black Forest landscape, Bree would see Afghanistan Her ies of the burned-out forest with those of a charred convoy destroyed by an IED, like the one Zack had been a part of
“Where’s that sweet baby?” she asked Blythe as soon as she walked in the back door of her sister’s house
“Still sleeping, which ht He’ll be wide awake for his Auntie Bree”