He uttered a bitter laugh. “Find me a therapist who’s seen what I’ve seen—done what I’ve done—and I’m there.”

“Therapists deal with issues they’ve never experienced all the time.”

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t quite work with guys like me.”

She’d read about the difficulties of treating veterans with PTSD. They’d been trained to be guarded, and even the ones who knew they needed help were reluctant to open up, especially to a civilian. Their warrior mentality made treatment problematic.

“One guy I served with … He’s spilling his guts, right? Next thing he knows, the shrink’s turning green and excuses himself to throw up.” He headed toward the window. “The doctor I saw was different. She was a specialist in PTSD, and she’d heard so many stories that she’d learned to detach. She detached so much that it felt like she wasn’t even there.” Some of the anger seemed to leave him. “Pills and platitudes aren’t enough to fix that kind of crazy.”

She started to tell him it was all in the past, but that was obviously untrue, and he had more to say.

“Look at this house. I bought it during one of the manic times. My adult revenge for Curtis. Some revenge, right? Remington had been dead for years. Who the hell knows what I was thinking?”

She knew. All those trips to Grosse Pointe to spy on the family he hated … and the family he so much wanted to be part of.

He gazed out the window at nothing. “This guy I know … His wife touched him in the middle of the night, and he woke up with his hands around her throat. And a woman I served with … She grabbed her baby from day care, convinced the kid was in some kind of mortal danger, and took him on a five-hundred-mile road trip without telling anybody, including her husband. Nearly ended up in jail for kidnapping. Another guy … He and his girlfriend were having an argument. Nothing important. But out of nowhere, he slammed her into the wall. Broke her collarbone. Do you want that to happen to you?” Bitter lines bracketed his mouth. “Luckily, time took care of the worst of it for me. I’m okay now. And that’s the way it has to stay. Now do you understand?”

She locked her knees, braced herself. “Exactly what am I supposed to understand?”

He finally looked at her, his expression stony. “Why I can’t give you any more than I already have. Why I can’t give you a future.”

How did he know that was what she wanted when even she didn’t?