Maid by Mistake - Miley Maine Page 0,3

testosterone fueled males, but those had been my size, and armed with serious weapons. Kids were a little different, but the concepts still worked. I’d let them both talk, taken them seriously, and then asked them to come up with solutions for their own problems.

After we finished, the restaurant owner had given me a month’s worth of free food, which I was looking forward to using. He’d also agreed not to fire the boys, or press charges, or even involve the sheriff’s department.

The next day was not quite as eventful, but it was not the peaceful Friday I’d hoped for. On Main Street, I ducked into the hardware store. I just needed a new hammer. When I’d been in the service, I’d been deployed for most of my adult life, and I hadn’t built up much of a collection of tools. Or anything for that matter.

Now I was back home in Pine Hills, and I was living in my grandparents’ farm house. My father had passed away, my mother was happy with her patio home, and my sister wasn’t interested in home renovations.

I planned to do some home improvement — pulling out the carpet, opening up the rooms, and redoing the bathrooms.

I’d learned those skills from my father and grandfather when I was still a teenager. Repairing the family home would give me something constructive to do.

And it would get my mother and sister off my back. They were scared that if I didn’t stay busy, I’d lose my mind.

Maybe they were right.

For the first month that I’d been back in Pine Hills, I’d sat and stared at the walls. People had brought me food. They’d wanted to chat too, but I’d merely thanked them and eventually they’d gotten the hint. They probably assumed I was far more injured than I was.

I had been injured -- shot right in the shoulder. But I could have gone back to my unit with the SEALs, after some intense therapy. But I’d spent over a decade going overseas. I wanted to spend some time actually living.

Before I could even get inside the door of the hardware store, I heard tires squeal. I jumped as a car horn honked.

Then I heard the unmistakable sound of metal crashing into metal.

For a second I was back in Afghanistan with an explosive ripping through our convoy.

No. I was home. In Missouri.

I shook myself out of it. A fender bender on Main Street really sounded nothing like an explosion or the sound of gunfire. God knows I’ve done enough therapy to try and control the flashbacks. And it had mostly worked. The same could not be said about the nightmares, but that was one reason I was planning on adopting a dog.

The county animal rescue group had a few new dogs that had been surrendered. Some of them were almost full-blooded Labs. I figured a big yellow Labrador Retriever would at least keep me company, even if he did nothing for the actual nightmares.

I blinked a few times and went to help whoever just crashed their cars. Thankfully this time there were no teenagers involved. So there were no calls to make to concerned parents. The culprits were both middle-aged people who looked pretty embarrassed to have bumped their cars into each other in the busiest part of town.

The woman, who I vaguely remembered from my childhood, was cradling her left arm. I was pretty sure she was my first grade teacher but some of my memories were more hazy than others now. I went to help her first, and I did my best to remember field medicine. I asked her a few questions and checked out her arm, realizing that her wrist was probably broken.

I got a bystander to take her to the local clinic. The man involved in the accident insisted he was fine, but I wasn’t taking no for an answer. He’d probably hit his head, and I wasn’t going to let him go home without a check up. While I was helping them, the sheriff had arrived, and was walking around taking photos of the wreck.

A crowd had gathered, and several of them were looking at me. I heard soft murmurs as they whispered. I ignored them. I wanted to make Pine Hills my home again, but that didn’t mean I necessarily needed to make friends.

I went home and started working on the farmhouse. It wasn’t much of a farm -- not yet. But maybe one day I’d plant some crops, and have some