The Edge of Courage (Red Team) by Elaine Levine

his eyes. “There was a courtyard full of insurgents, resting from the midday heat. I saw them. They saw me. An angel was there. With your voice. I knew I was dead, knew there was no way I’d get out of there alive, but I begged God to spare the Angel.”
    He realized, in that moment, if he killed himself here, God would not spare her.
    Mandy pulled a ragged breath. She forced her eyes away from Rocco, offering him the only kindness she could. Privacy.
    “Put your things away. I’ll go make you a sandwich, then you can get back to the work waiting for you in the pastures.”
    “I don’t need a fu—”
    “I know you don’t, but I need to do this,” she interrupted him.
    He looked at her. “Why?”
    “Because helping you is the only thing my brother ever asked of me. Ever,” she answered, with more vehemence than she wished. The last thing Rocco needed now was more emotion. “Everyone here failed him,” she said in a calmer voice. “I did. My grandparents did. His mother did. My parents did. His girlfriend did. The whole town turned its back on him when he needed them. This is the only thing I have ever been able to do for him. And I won’t let you take it from me. You are important to him, and that makes you important to me.”
    She headed for the door but stopped at the threshold and glanced back at him. “Look, Rocco. Not all wounds are physical, but they all take time to heal. Cut yourself some slack. You had a setback today. Big deal.” She shrugged. “It’s not your first and it won’t be your last. I don’t care what the town thinks of you or us or me. I never have. So don’t start arguing that you should leave.” He said nothing, which seemed the best of all mercies.
    She’d taken two steps before he stopped her. “Em?” His face was pale. Lines of fatigue showed around his eyes, his mouth. “Make it two sandwiches. And a milkshake?”
    She smiled at him and nodded. “Coming up!”

Chapter 8
    The next few days were blissfully uneventful for Rocco. He worked. He ate. He ran. The shadows held less and less of him. Maybe there was something to Mandy’s grandfather’s philosophy.
    He spent his evenings sitting on his porch, tending her second-hand tack. Area residents had donated most of it, like much of the center’s equipment. Some had belonged to her grandfather. All of it needed cleaning and maintenance.
    He worked in phases with the leather items, cleaning, conditioning, then mending. Tonight, he was preparing to stitch a cinch buckle back on a child’s Western saddle when Mandy came down the hill toward the bunkhouse. He looked her over from her feet up, letting the distance camouflage his interest. Her boots were made of soft leather that hugged her slim calves. She wore a short jean skirt that flared at her bare thighs. Her shirt was a short-sleeved, blue gingham confection scooped low at her neck with thin ribbons of elastic that made it fit tightly around her slim waist. Her hair was loose. The streams of her copper mane were topped with a straw cowboy hat.
    She looked good enough to eat.
    He picked up a lump of beeswax and drew it down the length of saddle thread, then turned the thread and waxed the other side. He didn’t look up when she stepped onto the porch.
    “Hi!” she greeted him.
    “Evening.”
    “Rocco, you’re amazing! These pieces look new! I didn’t have the heart to tackle them yet.” She ran a hand over the child’s saddle. “We may not have to buy as much tack as I’d feared.”
    “Mm-hmm.” He still didn’t look at her, though he knew she watched him. Her voice and her scent were as seductive as the sight of her. All he could think was how useful that bare stretch of wall behind him could be. That short skirt would be no impediment—he could have her legs wrapped around his waist in seconds flat.
    Did she know how close he was to breaking? What the hell was she doing out of the house dressed like that?
    “Rocco—do you dance?”
    He pricked his