Chapter 1 - The Sound That Stopped the Applause
My husband broke my arm with a folding chair while I was eight months pregnant, in front of four hundred people who had come to watch me receive a Purple Heart.
The worst part wasn't the pain. It was watching his mother turn her face away before the chair even hit me.
Thirty seconds earlier, General Robert Hayes had caught his shoe on the edge of the stage carpet. I reached out without thinking.
"Easy there, General," I said, steadying his elbow.
He grinned. "You spend two tours keeping people alive, Sergeant Price. I guess you don't quit."
Then metal scraped across the floor behind me.
I knew that sound. The chairs had made it all morning as guests found their seats. But this scrape was followed by Ethan shouting, "Get your hands off him!"
I turned. My husband was already swinging.
I threw my left arm up between the chair and my stomach. The metal frame struck my forearm. Something snapped. The chair bounced off the stage, and I went down hard on one knee.
For a terrible second, the baby didn't move.
"Claire!" Someone screamed.
My Purple Heart was still pinned to my dress uniform. Beneath it, my arm hung at an angle no arm should make.
Ethan's brother Jason laughed once. A short, ugly sound. Margaret, their mother, stood beside him with both hands locked around her purse.
"He's under a lot of stress," she said, as if explaining a spilled drink.
Ethan pointed at me. "You embarrassed me."
General Hayes stepped between us. His expression changed so completely that Ethan actually backed up.
"This is a family matter!" Ethan snapped.
"No," the general said. "It stopped being private when you raised that chair."
Two county deputies moved toward the stage. I pressed my good hand against my belly and felt one small kick. I could finally breathe.
Hayes looked straight at Ethan. "We already know what you've done."
Ethan went white.
May you like
And then the general said something that made my blood run colder than the injury.
"Tell him, Claire. Tell him where you were three weeks ago."
