Escape to Morning by Susan May Warren

of their futures? Lew’s always included Bonnie, and Will had painfully endured many soliloquies of love and longing from his best friend.
    Lew had things that Will envied. Still envied. Honesty. A relationship with a woman that went beyond expectations. Bonnie had believed in Lew, had let him free to serve his country, knowing that Lew’s heart stayed at home. Bonnie’s love had given Lew a strength that Will couldn’t understand. Or maybe that strength came from something more.
    Will put his hand to his chest, as if pushing away the burn inside. Memories of Lew always seemed to stir up longings and attune Will to the vacancies in his own life. He knew he’d made choices that left him empty, with regret pinging in his heart. But he’d given his life over to God a few years back, and somehow he thought that would change everything. That God might smile on him like He had smiled on Lew Strong.
    Obviously God’s smile on his life was too much to ask for a guy like him. At least, Will never felt like he deserved that smile. He wasn’t a man like Lew and never would be.
    He considered that his inability to latch on to a real relationship might be in his genes. Will Masterson hadn’t exactly had a firm foundation in the area of family and commitment. Buck Masterson’s idea of family night was taking Will out to the nearest field, shooting back a bottle of whiskey, and instructing his son on the finer points of target practice. Sloppy drunk, the man could hit a prairie dog at a full run from one hundred yards.
    He had even better aim when it came to finding his son with his fists.
    Will exhaled, blinking away the past, the rush of pain. No, he hadn’t learned to love from his father. Rose Masterson, however, had lived on love. She loved music, nature, the earth, and every man in town freely. Will learned to ignore the jabs and instead focus on the truth. His mother had loved him, and when she decided to come home, she made cookies, drew pictures, and showed him what a hug felt like. As a child he blamed his father for his mother’s absences. As a teenager, he had a taste of love and betrayal, and for the first time he saw Buck with sympathy.
    The Green Berets taught Will that he was responsible for his own behavior, regardless of the circumstances.
    God had helped him forgive the past. Still, scars ran deep and the thought of cracking open his heart for anyone to take a good peek had kept him moving, dodging, never speculating on a second date.
    Until tonight. Something about the way Dani Lundeen had teased him—no agendas, no coy innuendos, just pure friendship felt … exhilarating. Sweet. Like freshwater over parched soil. For a moment he let himself wonder what it would be like to rub all that dirt off her cheek with his thumb, to see the smile in her eyes when he kissed her.
    Okay, at any time, common sense could start waving flags and wake him up. Sanity, which had obviously decided to take a vacation, would say, let her go. Keep your distance. He had no business cultivating anything with Dani or any other woman that he couldn’t follow through on. And that follow-through would be done God’s way. Which meant no visions of kissing, no thoughts of running his hands through her unruly hair.
    Only why had Dani fled as if he might be an ax murderer instead of the local scribe? Then again, he wasn’t the local scribe. Not only that, but he’d lied to her, not once but twice: first by letting her think he might be a cop and second by maintaining his cover. One that freaked her out more, perhaps, than if he’d told her the truth. Which, of course, he couldn’t do and keep his real job in national security.
    The hard facts only made him feel as if he’d bathed in a fine layer of sand. Gritty. In his eyes, mouth, under his fingernails. Grinding against his heart.
    He sighed, suddenly painfully aware that if he spent any time with Dani Lundeen, those