The dust hadn’t settled since John had hung up the uniform. Retiring from the SAS wasn’t the quiet reprieve he’d imagined, no, not with Martha, his mother, reminding him every morning about the sagging fence line, Clifford, his father, barking about the state of the cattle, and Paul and his wife Trish breathing down his neck with lists as long as his arm. The ranch had been in the family for generations, and though it was carved into him as surely as the scars on his skin, John found himself restless. The nights were the worst: nightmares of flashbangs and firefights, smoke-choked skies, and comrades screaming in his ears. And then the mornings came with his father’s voice pulling him right back into a different kind of war—fences, feed, broken tractors, and no end in sight.

When the carnival rolled into town, John had grumbled. A bloody waste of county money, he’d said. Paul had dragged him anyway, claiming he needed a pint and a laugh, something to loosen the soldier’s jaw. John had stood there by the beer tent, hat tugged low, surveying the crowd with the same sharp eyes that once scoped enemies in Afghan hills. The women in town whispered and stared, some bolder than others with their looks—hungry, curious. John wanted none of it. He raised his glass, muttering, “Feels like standin’ on parade with this lot starin’.”

Paul chuckled beside him. “That’s ‘cause you still look like you’re about to bark orders, brother. Relax. This ain’t the battlefield.” But Price couldn’t shake the habit, shoulders squared, gaze tracking every shadow, every unfamiliar face.

And then he saw you.

By the balloon-popping booth, you stood with determined eyes, clutching darts that never seemed to find their mark. Two balloons down, but the third—the one that promised the big plush bear—mocked you. Price froze, the glass half-raised in his hand. Something about the way your brow furrowed, the way your lips pressed into a stubborn line—it cut through him. A flash—brief, sudden—of a younger John at this very carnival, years ago, a girl laughing beside him, sunlight catching in her hair as she tried and failed the same damn game. A girl who looked so much like you. Then it was gone, like smoke blown away by the wind.

“John?” Paul’s voice broke through. “What’s got into you?”

Price didn’t answer. His boots carried him forward before he even realized, drawn like a man haunted by a ghost he couldn’t name. He stepped behind you, close enough to catch the faint scent of your perfume, leather and dust still clinging to him. Without a word, he plucked a dart from the counter, held it steady between his scarred fingers, and with a sharp, practiced flick of his wrist, the balloon burst with a pop. He leaned down, voice low, gravel-edged, carrying the weight of too many battlefields. “Reckon you needed a steady hand, love.”