"This is my sister." Todd rolls his eyes. "She's the one who won't let me take karate classes."

"And who feeds and clothes you," I point out.

"Whatever. Claud, this is the guy from school today." Todd's face lights up again. "He only has one leg!"

"Todd!" I snap, startled my brother is being so rude. "Please excuse my little brother for being an ass." My face is hot as I look at the stranger.

"When she's upset, she curses," Todd informs the stranger matter-of-factly. "I've been trying to curb that habit."

I slap him on the back of the head.

The stranger is grinning. "I live in constant fear of my sister, too."

I don't know why his broad smile and sparkling eyes make me feel flustered, but they do. "Go do your homework, Todd."

"It's done."

I level a cool look on him.

"Fine." He sighs loudly. "Nice talking to you Petr. One day you'll have to show Claudia your leg."

I have no idea how to respond in a way that won't offend the man named Petr and instead, return to the counter.

Todd retreats to his booth, but I can tell he doesn't want to be there. He keeps glancing at Petr.

I want Todd to be happy. I haven't seen him this excited about someone as he is this guy. His face glows like the prematurely displayed Christmas lights displayed in the windows. But I also don't want my brother around a stranger. At least, not until I'm certain this Petr wasn't sent to find us by the man who's tormenting us.

The stranger eats his pie, and I find myself looking between the two of them. It's not fair that Todd can't have friends or be happy or be normal. I don't get any weird vibes from the man named Petr. If anything, my stomach flutters when he looks at me.

I want so much for this town to be the last stop on our wild ride. I'm trying to make that the case in what ways I can. Todd deserves so much more. I may never really recover from all that's happened, but I'm desperate to ensure he does.

He's gazing at the stranger as if he's debating approaching him again.

Whatever it is about Petr, Todd likes him, and that puts me in an unexpected position.

Chapter Three: Petr.

Todd's sister returns to clear my table. I lean back and watch her. She's unnaturally pretty with elfin features, hazel eyes and the same dirty blonde hair color that Todd has. Her long, straight hair is in a loose ponytail. She smells like French fries from working here, and her frame is toned and shapely.

After the mess with Brianna, I kinda feel like I need to talk to someone, even if I don't directly discuss what happened. I'm extroverted by nature, and it's still a difficult adjustment not being able to call my brother Mikael whenever I want to chat. If I tell my sister, Katya, that I saw Brianna ...

I'll never hear the end of it. I'll save that discussion for later.

Claudia isn't the warm type. She operates with absent-minded detachment, not quite cold, but not overly friendly either. I can't quite figure out if she does it on purpose or is naturally standoffish.

"Todd's a good kid," I say.

She glances at me, her expression softening. "Yeah. He is. Sorry if he's bugging you."

"Not at all. Kids ask what adults are afraid to about my leg," I smile. "It doesn't bother me. I think it's cool to have a war wound."

"You think your bionic leg is cool?" Her nose wrinkles, as if she isn't certain what to think of that.

I laugh. I have to admit I enjoy messing with people about my leg. It makes everyone uncomfortable, with the exception of my father, who shares my childlike fascination with the prosthetic limb.

Claudia is blushing. "You've got good ... um, spirit about it, if nothing else."

"Did you ask her?" Todd hisses. He's creeping towards us.

Claudia's gaze sharpens. "Ask me what?"

He eases back. "Nothing."

"Todd." Her cool look moves from him to me.

Sensing my danger, I manage not to smile. "I offered to take him to karate classes. I planned on asking you for your permission," I tell her.

"You don't ask a complete stranger to take you places," she scolds her brother.

"I know, but "

"Homework. Now."

Todd slinks off.

I give him a sympathetic smile. Claudia is calmer than my fireball of a sister, but I still know what it means to be on the receiving end of an angry sister. "I'm not a complete stranger," I try.

She glares at me and snatches the napkin from the table.

"Okay. I crossed a line." I hold up my hands. "My apologies."

Claudia strides back to the counter and deposits the dirty dishes in bins.

Todd appears crestfallen. I shrug at him. The kid has an issue, one he's skirting despite talking to me about learning to fight, since I wouldn't answer his earlier questions. I'm not seeing anything that leads me into the direction of what his issue might be, and his sister isn't the kind to open up easily.

A glance at her reveals her troubled eyes are focused on her brother.

It shouldn't matter, I guess. I tend to go a bit overboard trying to help others when I'm hurting, which I am right now. The talk with Brianna was a disaster. I don't even want to think about it let alone acknowledge the barrier between us wasn't as thick as I had thought it to be.

What if no other woman will want someone broken like me?

I hate these kinds of thoughts. I was blissfully confident my whole life. I had no idea such crippling emotions existed before the incident overseas, and I'm constantly fighting them off. It's getting better easier to dismiss them the more time passes.

But my injury forced me to re-evaluate everything I took for granted in my life. I had never thought twice about the future I had assumed was mine. I assumed I'd eventually meet a woman I couldn't live without, get married and continue going on missions until the day I either retired alongside Mikael or was killed alongside Mikael in battle.

Everything about my life is different. The clear path is gone. I'm left questioning everything from why Mikael is gone and I'm not, to what I really want to do with my life now that I can't go into battle anymore, to why I shoot down my own impulse to ask out a woman as pretty as Claudia because I can't get Brianna's reaction to my leg out of my mind.

I have the urge to call Mikael and meet him at the running trail that winds through the forests on my family's property or the paintball center. Whenever one of us had girl problems, it's what we did. Everything seems better after some quality time working out with a best friend.

"Henry vouched for you."

I look up as Claudia pauses beside my table once more. She motions to the old man seated at the counter. He waves a gnarly hand at me. I don't know him, but I'm guessing he's a long-time resident of Glory Glade. Everyone in town knows my family and most of the town turned out for Mikael's wake.

"But I have questions." Claudia slides into the booth across from me.

"Shoot," I tell her, unconcerned.

"Who are you and why do you want to take my brother to Karate class?"

I chuckle. She's dead serious, and I sense she'll make her decision based on how satisfied she is with my response.

"I'm Petr Khavalov. I'm in the Army, currently assigned to the local recruitment division. I visit schools, show the kids my leg, tell them my story, and hope they make smart choices about their futures," I begin. "I was a special operations soldier Green Beret up until an ambush took off my leg and killed my twin a little over a year and a half ago. When I'm not on duty, I do charity work and try not to let my mercurial sister find my stash of chocolate or my father's Russian cook beat me with a wooden spoon when I sneak in and grab dinner early. My favorite color is green, and I tend to ignore my doctor's advice about my leg."

She's listening. I can't quite tell which way she's leaning, though she appears to be trying not to smile.

"As for your brother ..." I formulate my next words carefully. "He's afraid of something. Maybe learning to defend himself will help him learn not to be."

Her features turn to stone at these words.

Whatever it is, it's not just Todd who's afraid. Sensing my delicate position with the woman in front of me, I keep quiet and study her. I sense more than see that she's reliving something. I can't imagine what kind of nightmare a civilian might have. My thoughts go instantly to ambushes, unfriendly allies and the bad guys I was sent into war zones to hunt down. None of those conditions exist here. I want to think whatever their issue is, it can't be nearly as bad as avoiding sniper fire.

To me, a bad day is realizing the evacs aren't coming, and I'm trapped in a hostile environment with a single canteen of water and one MRE to tide me over while I make my way to a new rendezvous point three days away and try to avoid being discovered, beaten and beheaded. I haven't yet adjusted to the civilian mindset where bad days occur for such reasons as heavy traffic, poor weather and undercooked food.

Of course, I know better than to say such a thing aloud. I focus on what I do know: that Claudia and Todd bear a burden they shouldn't carry, no matter what it might be. This disturbs me more than anything. I don't like the idea of anyone suffering, but a damsel in distress provokes the code of honor I learned from my father.

It means I'm doomed. There's no turning away now.

Finally, she blinks out of her thoughts and focuses back on me.

"I'll think about it," she says and stands.

"You want to call me or something?" I ask.

"No. You can come back here tomorrow. In the meantime, here's your check."

I take it. The pretty woman is rattled, and I'm sure it's not because of my cheeky self-description. She goes to her brother's booth. I can't hear what she says, but he rolls his eyes in response.

Entertained, I leave her a generous tip, one of my business cards and head out.

I arrive home half an hour later. The massive house is quiet, and I go to the second floor, where the family lives. The first floor is for entertaining and the kitchens.

"Hey, Baba, I'm home!" I poke my head into my father's study. The bear of a man is next to a stone fireplace with a cheerful fire. He's reading a book through glasses perched at the edge of his nose.

"Did you recruit anyone?" he asks in a thick Russian accent, lowering the book. An ardent supporter of the military despite losing a son to it, my father asks the same question every day.

"Not today."

"You should try harder, Petr."

I laugh.

"You should not take this so lightly," he chides me. "A country is only as "

"- great as its military. I know, Baba. I did hook up another wounded vet with the Mikael Foundation," I say, referring to the charity the family established in my brother's name to help other soldiers and vets.

He smiles. "This is good. We will collect them all and help them."

I sit down at the other end of the leather couch where he's reading.

My father is a rare man. Born into relative poverty in Russia long ago, he managed not to let my mother's obscene wealth change him after they married and instead, urged her to create and support charities. He co-manages half a dozen and is on the board for another ten, everything from Mikael's Foundation to community and local programs to wildlife preservation.

I think that's part of what made Mikael and me go into the military. My father, like our mother before her death, maintains a strong sense of public service. Mikael and I graduated from Harvard and had the option of never working a day in our lives, thanks to our trust funds, but chose instead to channel our boyhood adventure seeking ways into an avenue that could potentially help a lot of people.

The other reason we joined: we were both diehard risk seekers. This edge is tempered on me now, though I do still love skydiving and scuba diving and any other sort of physical activity that lets me become an adrenaline junkie once more, even if only temporarily.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I miss Katya," I muse.

"She has gone on to make the life of another man interesting."

I snort. Married this past summer to my old commander, Sawyer, I'm half afraid to call my sister Katya and find out how she's adjusting. She went from a mansion to military housing, and I'm not entirely certain what mood she'll be in if I ask.

Thinking about it makes me grin. I don't doubt Sawyer is taking care of her. He's like a brother to me now, the man who helped Mikael save my life.

"They'll be back for the holidays, right?" I ask my father.

"Yes. I told Sawyer, if he needs to leave her here, he can."

"I think he says he has to do the cooking when he's in town." I laugh again. "That and something about how she borrowed his truck and he can't get the glitter out of the nooks and crannies."

The two are complete opposites Katya emotional with a huge heart and quick temper, and Sawyer, who is chilly enough to make ice shiver. They're a perfect match, in my opinion. I was happy to push them toward each other and even happier to realize I'd done a fantastic job. I never have to worry about either now that they've got one another.

"That reminds me. She sent us cookies." My father picks up a glass container from the stand beside him.

"Oh, no. It's your turn to choke one down and tell her they're great," I say. My sister is a notoriously bad cook. "I just ate."

My father grunts in response and sets the cookies down. "I told them I want grandchildren. Two boys and a girl."

"When they're ready, Baba. They just got married."

"I want two boys and a girl from you, too, Petr."

I grimace. "Just tell Katya you want four boys and two girls. Then I'm off the hook. It's a little harder to date women when you're half metal." I tap my leg in reminder.