Page 45 of Cowboy SEAL Homecoming

“Funny, Burt always complained about spring.”

“My mud has mud has mud.”

“Yeah, exactly that.”

“He had a few sayings that never changed.”

“That he did.”

But she didn’t want to dwell on Burt. Not just because Alex usually left when she did that, but also because she wanted there to be more between them than just memories of Burt. “Going to have to start thinking about the garden soon enough.”

“You have a garden?”

“Well, Mom and I…” From one sticky subject to another. With Alex, it seemed like there wasn’t much else.

Nothing was simple or clear. She wondered if that was why she liked him. Because she was finally at a point in her life when she wanted a challenge. She was ready to deal with the hard things, done with being sheltered from them. Alex was a million hard things.

“We tried to revive your mother’s garden.”

It didn’t surprise her that he stiffened. Didn’t surprise her that he looked down at his coffee with that tensed jaw.

“She did love that garden,” he finally said. And that was a surprise. For him to say anything at all about his mother.

“Do you think it gets easier?” she asked, since he was giving pieces, and she’d gather all of them she could.

His gaze met hers, and she knew he understood that question and exactly what she was asking.

“You’re asking the man who left for sixteen years? I’m not sure it ever gets easier if you run away.”

“You’re here now. Is that why you stayed away so much? You missed your mom?”

“No, actually. I always wanted to be a soldier.” He took a careful sip of coffee. “I was four or five maybe, and I snuck downstairs and Dad was watching this movie. Some war movie. I never figured out what it was, but things were exploding and people were being shot, but one man stays calm, saves his men. I always wanted to be that man, but…” He trailed off.

There was more to that story, she would have bet money on it, but whatever it was, he pushed it away.

“I’ll admit Mom being gone probably made it easier to do it. But that was always the dream. Serve my country. Save people.”

“It’s a very admirable dream.”

“I don’t know that it’s admirable.”

“Many people wouldn’t do it. Most people are too scared.” She couldn’t imagine facing what he must have faced.

“Some men are born soldiers. It’s in the blood or the brains or something. It’s who we’re supposed to be, but some people are born to other things.”

Becca chewed her lip as she worried her thumb over the handle of the coffee mug. She caught the faintest sliver of gold peeking over the mountaintop in the distance. “What if…you have no idea what that thing is?”

“You figure it out. Knowing you, belonging here is a start.”

It left a little hitch in her chest that he would say that, think it. “I’m not sure I know that. I think I hope it, but knowing it is something else, isn’t it?” She wanted to be certain, and some days she could muster it, but…ever since the guys had come back, there were moments when she questioned her place.

“It’s a leap of faith,” Alex said as though it were a simple fact. “Belonging where you’re supposed to be.”

“A leap of faith.” She smiled at that. A leap of faith—yeah, she liked that. Because this had all been, from square one, a leap of faith. To trust Burt. To find her freedom. To make this deal with these men.

Belief and faith and hope. It was what propelled her, and if practical and sturdy Alex believed in leaps of faith, there had to be something to that.

“Is this the place you’re supposed to be?” she asked, not wanting this easy, open conversation to end. There were so few easy, open conversations in her life. She wanted to stretch it out and soak it up.