Page 12 of Beckett (Warrior Security #2)

Beckett

“Todd’s sister,” I repeated again , the words hitting me squarely in the chest. My mind struggled to reconcile the woman in front of me with the image I’d carried all these years. “Jesus, I can’t believe you’re the little sister Todd talked about.”

The kitten squirmed in my hands, but I barely noticed. All I could see was Audra—really see her now. Those hazel eyes with their flecks of gold that Todd had described perfectly. The way she tilted her head, just like he used to when working through a problem.

“I hadn’t talked to him in years.” The admission scraped my throat raw. “But somehow when he talked about his little sister, I always pictured…” I shook my head. “A young girl, I guess. Pigtails and skinned knees. Not…”

“Not someone my age?” She wrapped her arms around herself, a defensive gesture I recognized too well.

“Not the beautiful woman with me now.”

The words slipped out before I could stop them. Color touched her cheeks, and she looked away, focusing on something past my shoulder.

“Todd used to brag about you constantly.” I shifted Chaos to one arm, needing to move, to process.

Fuck , it sucked that Todd was dead. I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

“He said you were the smart one in the family. Got your degree while working full time. He was so damn proud when you landed that PR job in Seattle.”

A sound escaped her—half laugh, half sob. “He talked about me?”

“Are you kidding? I knew your whole life story. How you rescued that three-legged dog when you were twelve and convinced your parents to keep him. How you won your middle school science fair with some project about water purification. How you once talked your way out of a speeding ticket by explaining the physics of why the radar gun must have malfunctioned.”

That got a real laugh, watery but genuine. “I can’t believe he told you about that.”

“He told me everything. How you used to leave Post-it notes with terrible jokes in his lunch in high school. Even after he got out of the military, he talked about you the few times we spoke. How you’d text him random facts at three in the morning just to make sure he was staying awake on patrol night shifts. ”

Her shoulders shook, and I knew she was crying. I had to fight the urge to pull her against me. She looked so lost, so young despite everything she’d clearly been through.

“Tell me about him,” she whispered. “The Todd you knew. I got his cop stories, but not as much about his military stuff… He never talked much about that time.”

I settled Chaos against my chest, for once, the little fiend not going into battle with everything around him.

“Where do I start? Your brother was one of those guys who could find humor in anything. Middle of a sandstorm, equipment failing, MREs that tasted like cardboard—Todd would crack some joke that had everyone laughing despite everything.”

She moved closer, drawn by the stories of her brother. Not close enough to touch, but close enough that the careful distance she usually maintained had shrunk to something almost normal.

“There was this one time,” I continued, warming to the memories, “we were at this remote FOB—Forward Operating Base. Absolutely nothing around for miles except sand and more sand. Morale was shit. Everyone was on edge. Then Todd somehow convinced the supply sergeant to smuggle in ingredients for s’mores. ”

“S’mores? In Afghanistan?”

“I know, right? To this day, I don’t know how he pulled it off. But there we were, bunch of hard-ass soldiers sitting around a trash-can fire, roasting marshmallows on cleaning rods. He even got the lieutenant in on it. Said it was a vital morale-building exercise.”

The laugh that bubbled out of her was the most beautiful sound I’d heard in years. Bright and real, nothing held back. For just that moment, the shadows lifted from her face.

“That sounds exactly like Todd.” She wiped at her eyes. “He once convinced his entire precinct to do a lip-sync battle for charity. Had these tough Portland cops performing boy band choreography.”

“I would pay good money to see that.”

“Oh, I have video.” The words came out light, teasing, before reality crashed back down. Her smile faltered. “Had. I had video. On my phone. But I can’t…”

Access it. Use it. Risk the digital footprint. I filled in the blanks she couldn’t voice. What I didn’t know was why .

“Tell me another one,” she said quickly, deflecting from whatever had driven her to abandon her digital life. “Please.”

So I did. Told her about the time Todd jury-rigged a coffeemaker from MRE heaters and spare parts.

About how he’d shared his care packages with the younger soldiers who never got mail.

About the way he could de-escalate tense situations with locals using nothing but broken Arabic and universal hand gestures for “friend.”

With each story, she relaxed fraction by fraction. Her arms uncrossed. Her shoulders dropped from their defensive hunch. She even laughed again when I described Todd’s attempt to teach Iraqi kids how to play baseball using rolled-up socks and a broken tent pole.

“He never told me any of this,” she said softly. “Just said his time overseas was hot and boring.”

“That was Todd. Never wanted to worry anyone. Especially you, since your parents weren’t around anymore.

” Their dad had passed away when they were young, then their mother not long after Todd had enlisted.

I scratched behind Chaos’s ears, remembering.

“He kept your picture in his helmet. Said you were his reminder of why he needed to make it home.”

She made a sound like all the air had been punched from her lungs.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean to?—”

“No.” She shook her head firmly. “No, I want to hear it. All of it. The good and the bad. It’s just… It’s been eighteen months since anyone’s talked about him like he was real. Like he existed.”

“Grief doesn’t have a timeline.”

She studied me then, those hazel eyes seeing too much. “Speaking from experience?”

Rodriguez’s face flashed through my mind. The weight of his body in my arms. The promises I’d made and couldn’t keep.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “Different kind of loss, but yeah.”

I could see her recognizing it—the trauma we carried, different in detail but similar in weight. Warriors who’d seen too much, lost too much, survived when others hadn’t.

The cat barn door banged open, making us both jump. Jet bounded out, all gangly legs and enthusiasm, making a beeline for us. Or, more specifically, for the kitten in my arms.

“Jet, no,” I commanded, but the German shepherd was already there, tail wagging furiously as he sniffed at Chaos.

The kitten hissed, back arching into a perfect Halloween cat pose. Jet play-bowed in response, butt in the air, clearly delighted by this tiny, angry new friend.

“Jet, easy,” I warned, though Audra didn’t even flinch. She’d been working with him all week.

“He thinks everyone wants to be his best friend, including tiny attack kittens who?—”

Chaos chose that moment to launch himself at Jet’s face, all eight ounces of fury. The dog yelped more in surprise than pain, dancing backward. The kitten landed in the grass, immediately puffing up to twice his negligible size.

“Play,” we both finished at the same time.

Jet approached again, belly almost on the ground, but this time, he went straight to Audra first, pressing against her legs before investigating the kitten.

She absently stroked his head while Chaos evaluated this new, much larger threat.

When Jet got close enough, he very gently touched his nose to the kitten’s head.

Chaos swatted him.

Jet’s tail wagged harder. He glanced up at Audra as if asking permission to continue playing with his new tiny friend.

“This dog might be broken,” Audra observed, but there was clear affection in her voice as she scratched behind Jet’s ears.

“He’s definitely broken. Failed security dog who thinks kittens are friends.” I watched Jet’s tail wag harder. “Though he seems to have good taste in people, at least.”

“Or he’s just really bad at reading social cues.”

Chaos, apparently satisfied by this show of submission from the much larger dog, marched over and began attacking Jet’s ear. The German shepherd held perfectly still except for his constantly wagging tail, letting the tiny kitten gnaw with determined ferocity.

“That’s…actually kind of sweet,” Audra said.

She crouched down for a better view, one hand still resting on Jet’s back, and something about her posture—balanced on the balls of her feet, ready to move—triggered a memory. Todd used to move the same way, trained into him by years of patrol work.

“Did your brother teach you that?” I asked without thinking. “The way you position yourself. Ready to run but not obvious about it.”

She stiffened, the moment of ease evaporating. “Teach me what?”

“Tactical positioning. Keeping your weight centered, exits in peripheral vision.” I kept my voice neutral, conversational. “It’s cop training 101.”

“He worried about me living alone in the city.” The answer came carefully, each word weighed. “Gave me some tips.”

Truth, but not all of it. I let it go. Push too hard and she’d bolt like a spooked deer.

Chaos had progressed from attacking Jet’s ear to climbing onto his head. The dog’s eyes crossed trying to look up at his tiny attacker.

“Should we rescue him?” Audra asked.

“Jet or Chaos?”

That surprised another laugh out of her. “Good question.”

She reached out tentatively toward the animals, then stopped. Started to pull back. I caught the hesitation, the war between wanting connection and fearing it.

“Here.” I scooped up Chaos, ignoring his protests. “Want to try holding him again? He’s in a better mood now.”

“I don’t think?—”

“Trust me.”

The words hung between us, heavier than I’d intended. Trust. Such a simple concept that became impossibly complex when life had taught you everyone would eventually let you down.

But she held out her hands.