Curving her fingers a little more firmly around his forearm, she said, “What happened next?” Inwardly, Shay held her breath because so many vets resisted going any deeper than what they were able to give voice to. She saw Reese struggling with her question. Felt it around him. Shay knew he trusted her and the only question was, how much? If Reese trusted her enough, he’d divulge more of his painful past.
“My dad and I had a talk out at a trout stream we always fished, about a week after I got home.” Reese’s voice grew strained. “I told him that after I came home from deployment, I took it out on Leslie. She was the innocent in all of this. I trashed our marriage because I couldn’t handle the symptoms ripping through me. I projected them on her. I verbally used her as a daily whipping post.”
Moving her fingers lightly up and down his arm, Shay held his grim gaze. “What did your dad suggest you do?”
“Get help. Therapy. Said he’d pay for it. So I tried it. The therapist was a civilian who’d never been in the military. Never saw combat. I lasted three sessions and told my dad I couldn’t do it. I’d failed him again . . .”
Heart aching for Reese, she soothed, “No, you didn’t. PTSD plays out differently in everyone. It’s never the same in two people. And I’ve seen you up front and close for two months, Reese, and if I didn’t know you had PTSD, I’d never have guessed. So you are internalizing a lot of it, whether you realize it or not.” Her fingers grew firm on his hand. She saw the amount of suffering in his green eyes.
“I’ve had two years of different kinds of therapy to work on my symptoms,” he replied wryly. “Over time, some of them have dulled or turned down in volume. And that adaptogen that your doctor, Taylor Douglas, gave me a while back, has stopped my anxiety completely. That’s been a huge turnaround for me. I’m not irritable, jumpy, or see everything around me as a potential threat. There’s peace inside me, not the monster that used to prowl around making me ready to overreact to the slightest setback.”
“Yes, that usually happens when you take the adaptogen. It did the same for me, thank goodness,” Shay said.
“They say time heals everything,” Reese said, “and since taking the adaptogen, all my hypervigilance, paranoia, and anxiety have gone.”
Nodding, Shay said, “Yes. And I’ve never been so grateful as I am for her help. Taylor Douglas has done a lot of time in grade working with vets who have PTSD. The adaptogen isn’t widely known about, but because she did an awful lot of research on it, she started devoting part of her practice to it. She discovered a small company in Washington that was manufacturing it. They didn’t make any claims about what it could do, but she did some trials with it and found it made a remarkable difference in vets’ lives when it came to high levels of cortisol in their bloodstream, which causes that horrible anxiety feeling.”
“Well,” he murmured, “those particular symptoms have stopped. It’s a miracle.”
She didn’t want to release his arm. She saw desire replace the grief in his eyes. Her mind told her to let go, but her heart clamored to remain in contact with Reese, that it was healing for him. Important.
In her dream last night, Reese was holding her. Kissing her. And he’d made love to her. She’d awakened at 2:00 A.M., shaky, needy, and realizing that her body was no longer dormant because of her own PTSD symptoms. She was starting to come alive once more after being numb for so long. Being around Reese triggered that part of her, a vital part, blossoming to life within her. Searching his eyes, Shay felt that wonderful cloak of protection and desire settle around her shoulders.
“Tell me more about yourself, Reese. Please?” She saw his cheeks grow a dull red. It was an endearing reaction, telling Shay that he was far more reachable than she first thought. So many vets were armored up like an Abrams tank. But Reese wasn’t. Or at least . . . not with her?
“There’s not much else to share, Shay. I’m no one special.”
She held his gaze, realizing the shame of his PTSD was making him think that way about himself. “I don’t buy that, Reese. My father respected you the moment you walked into his room. He rarely gives anyone that kind of deference. Charlie looks up to you, too. I saw it. And the vets here all look up to you.” Her fingers tightened for a moment on his arm. “Stop thinking of yourself as a failure, Reese. Because you’re not. Not to me.” She touched her heart. “Not to the vets or anyone else who meets you here in Wind River Valley.”
Reese gave her a wry look. “Shay, I’ve had two years of being shunned, ignored, cursed, and kicked around.”