Defending Hope by Tamara Sky

A small-town girl who moved away. A solitary veteran. A chance to reconnect.

When I see Hope Leonard back in town, after five years, she’s everything I dreamed about. When she moved to New York, I quit football and signed up for the Army to get her out of my head. When the roadside bomb took a chunk out of my leg, she was the last thing I thought of before passing out.
Now she’s back, more curvy and desirable than ever. Everything in me says I have to make her mine, do the thing I should have done when we were growing up, and claim her for my own.
But she’s not staying. She belongs in the big city, and I’m just a broken soldier.
My enemies now are prejudice, and my own pride. I swore I would never let anyone pity me, and I can see pity in her gorgeous eyes.