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Twenty-Three

Dash

She already knows me. Gets me.

It’s a little uncanny how intuitive she is—how thoughtful.

Even in the midst of her own trauma, she’s cognizant of mine.

And I fall a little harder. A little deeper.

I’m already tied up in knots over this woman, ready to do anything and everything to keep her. This instinctive empathy is going to do me in.

“Yeah,” I say after a moment. “This was my spot. For the first few months after Colt died this was the only place I could breathe. He loved the water so when I was here I felt like he was with me.”

“That must have been so painful,” she whispers, leaning closer to me.

“I can’t even…” Damn, even now, four years later, it’s hard to talk about him. Think about him. Remember him. “I still hear his voice sometimes. His laugh. The way he’d grunt when we used to wrestle and fight… It’s been four years but I still reach for the phone sometimes.”

“I can’t imagine your loss.”

“And the guilt. I know it’s not my fault. He made a unilateral decision. The Special Forces thing is hardcore, and you have to break all ties for a while if you want to be able to focus. But out of all of us, I’m the one who understands all that. I lived part of it with him, so not telling me what he was going to do hurt.”

“He knew you were meant for something else,” she says gently. “And he was afraid you would follow him into whatever hell he was going to.”

“He was right, I guess. If I’d known, I would have gone too. I could have—should have—been with him, had his back.”

“Maybe, but there’s every possibility that it wouldn’t have been enough and now you would both be dead. And Frankie would be down two uncles instead of just one.”

I never thought of it quite that way.

“Yeah… I mean, Banks, Atlas, and Royal would have made sure she and Briar lacked for nothing, but I would hate not being in her life.”

“So maybe Colt did you a favor, in his own way.”

“I just wish I’d had a chance to say goodbye. We didn’t leave things on good terms. He just…left. Without a word. I didn’t know he’d gone until after. He had some money, assets… asked me to take care of things in case something went bad.”

“Did he leave everything to you?”

I frown for a second. “He left everything to Briar and me, split equally. Since he didn’t have any family, and the other guys didn’t need it, his letter said it would help Briar get her start in life and would help me in whatever I planned to do after the military.”

“Did it?”

“Help me start my security firm? Yeah. And when Frankie’s dad left them high and dry, it came in handy for them too. Again, the four of us were never going to let them want for anything, but I think she liked having something that was hers. That she didn’t have to ask us for. Then Atlas hired her and she took that bull by the horns.”

A faint smile touches Willow’s lips. “So Colt left part of him with you. And if you still think about him, hear his voice in your head, then he’s always with you.”

“It’s getting harder,” I admit. “I think about him, and I can still hear his voice sometimes, but other times… I start to forget. Now that we’re all busy and successful, taking care of Frankie, doing our own things—I don’t think about him as often. And I’m scared that…” I break off, unwilling to say the words aloud.

“Scared that you’ll forget him?” She squeezes my hand. “Never. You know that. He’s part of you.”

“I have videos—from college and when we were in the military together—so I play them sometimes… to make sure I keep his memory alive.”

“I’d love to see one sometime. So I can meet him too.” Her voice is soft, filled with genuine interest.

“Would you?” I stare at her as she nods.

I get out my phone and open the app where everything is saved.