I hold the door open for Samantha and Tanker as we walk out of the diner.

"Thank you for the meal Shane. I could have paid for it though." Samantha looks up at me with a soft smile.

"You're my girl now and I couldn't let you pay for it. Besides, if I remember right you have already fed me once." I smile and place my hand on her lower back.

"A microwave dinner hardly counts as me feeding you. Just you wait, I will show you one time just how I can cook and make a meal." She sasses.

"Looking forward to it, little paws. Although, I can also cook just hadn't done it in forever." I laugh.

"Oh I would let you use my kitchen anytime and maybe we could cook together at some point." She seems to relax and get all excited at the same time.

I am getting excited in everyway with how she is wanting this with me and can see us doing things as simple as cooking together in our future. I want to do it all with her and see what she truly likes and doesn't like.

"So the current plan is that we go for a little over thirty miles to the next hotel since this little town has one but it is not one to stay in." I look over to her as I unlock the door for her.

"Sounds great to me. If we don't make it to Blue Sky's by mid-morning that will be just okay with me. I don't actually have any patients on my schedule for this week due to the convention. I just plan to catch up on paperwork and do emergency calls." Samantha smiles warmly at me, before she starts climbing up into the truck.

I close her door and as I round the truck, I catch her leaning over to unlock my door. I open the door and Tanker jumps in like he normally does. I climb up last.

"Thank you for unlocking the door." I start up the rig.

"Makes it easier for you." She sighs and leans back in the seat. "I think the delicious food is trying to put me in a food coma." She laughs lightly.

I look over at her and smile at how relaxed she looks. Being near her seems to be healing me in so many ways I never thought I could again.

Tanker moves up by the shifter from the sleeper and I lean over to unsnap his vest to take it off of him for now. he huffs and lays his head on Samantha's hip wanting some affection. I pet his back as her hand comes up an moves along his head softly.

I watch her other hand moves to the little box that she put her leftovers in. A couple of fries come out and she slowly holds them by his mouth. Tanker gently takes them from her hand and munches on them quickly.

"You are going to spoil him." I laugh.

Samantha looks over to me quickly. "You weren't supposed to see that." She laughs hard.

"Busted." I laugh with her.

"Well every fur baby needs to be spoiled and a couple won't hurt since I didn't add salt on mine." She sasses.

"You know best doc." I laugh and push in the clutch and pop the brakes before putting the truck in gear and we lurch forward gently.

We get back on the interstate and the sky is dark with the time of day it is now.

"Doesn't your internal time clock ever get messed up by the different time zones you travel through?" Samantha looks at me.

"Sometimes." I nod. "I learned how to adapt to things because of the training I had right when I turned eighteen."

"There is several times we mention training you have had." Her voice is soft.

"Yeah, none of it was to do with driving a truck. Or well there was that in a way because I was trained to drive large vehicles like this in the army."

"Oh." Samantha falls silent and it still surprises me how she has never pushed for more and all things she asks never feels like she is pining for the answers either.

"When I was eighteen I joined the army and my brother followed right after he did. Our parents had us extremely close in age he was not even a complete year younger than me. Growing up, we bothed looked up to our grandfather who had been in the service so I joined and then my brother did."

"That is very admirable for you to do, because it is a big choice to make." Samantha's words surprise me.

"The only person that has said that was our grandfather. The choice we had both made angered our parents because we went into combat. So there were trainings we went through and that is how I learned the shift in weather and driving large pieces of machinary. My job was to help the squad, I was placed in with, had me doing many things along with combat. My brother was more of the fighter spirit and just wanted to do the combat only."

"Is the time in the army long a period?" Her voice stays soft but I can hear the confusion in it.

"Mine was supposed to be several years in before renewing and I would have renewed but I was discharged early and on medical." I sigh.

"I am sorry." She whispers.

"The last mission we were on there was my squad got involved in a blast. I was thrown several feet away during and had major damage to my torso area. I survived along with a handful of others, from what I been told but I hadn't seen them and lost them in everything going on. My brother didn't survive." I watch the traffic and can feel Tanker's nose nudge me from the side.

"I am okay buddy." I move my hand from the shifter to pet his head.

"That is awful Shane. You have a reason to still be here and nothing was your fault." Samantha moves her hand and places it on top of mine.

"You're the first one to know what happened. Not even my parents know everything because they didn't care too. I was in the hospital for months and then through therapy to help the muscle strength from everything weakening from being bed bound for so long. The army discharged me and I had to spend a lot of time with a pychatrist which is the one who had me get Tanker through a program they have for injuried soliders to help us with mobility or in my case PTSD."

"I am sorry if my questions made you feel like you had to share. That has to be hard to hold in and have no one here for you other than Tanker." Her voice wavers some like she is tearing up.

I hate that my story does that to her.

"I wanted to share my story with you, little paws. Nothing feels forced with you and I don't want to keep anything from you in the least. My parents took it hard from the loss of my brother. When I was in the hospital they never came to visit me. Then when I got out and had Tanker, I called them which ended in a fight. To them I was less of a man for needing a service dog. The last words I heard from them was if my brother were alive and not me he wouldn't need the help I do. That is when I started feeling like they wanted him alive more than me."

Samantha sniffs slightly. "That is the worst. It makes you more of a man for knowing you need a little more help. I for one am glad your still alive and here or I wouldn't have met you. The one man that has broken my barrier and feel at home with."

Her words coat my heart with warmth and I know without a doubt I will spend the rest of my life with this woman. She is perfect and like none other I have ever met.

I pick her hand up and bring it to my lips to kiss it lightly.