Page 48 of Cowboy SEAL Homecoming

Chapter 11

It had been a long, hard day of work, and being such, Alex didn’t feel much like getting cleaned up and heading into town. He’d have preferred a nice cold beer on the front porch and then a long, solid night of sleep.

But Becca had been right this morning about this being overdue. The guys needed some fun, some flash of life off the ranch to remind them there was life off the ranch. There was life, period. Not just work and missions.

There had to be balance for all of them. He’d agreed to back off on the leadership stuff, but he was still the resident expert, so to speak. He was the one who knew how to do all the ranch stuff and knew what ranch life entailed. He was the one who had lived it. So there was still a certain element of knowing things the guys didn’t know.

It wasn’t being an overbearing leader to make sure they dealt with ranch life in a healthy, sensible way.

He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror after having taken a shower. The little spot of hair in the back that stuck up when it got too long was being obnoxiously stubborn. He pushed it down again only to have it pop back up.

He scowled at the reflection—one he wasn’t sure he recognized. Who was the man looking back at him? What was he trying to do?

He certainly didn’t want to dwell on the fact that the man in the mirror was some kind of stranger. That this wasn’t the plan. So, he focused on pushing the stubborn lock of hair down till it stuck.

He turned away from the mirror when it wouldn’t. Who cared? He was going to go out to dinner, have a few drinks, and relax. His friends were going to enjoy themselves and he…

He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he could enjoy himself, but he would put on a good front for them.

He left the bathroom and headed downstairs. Gabe and Jack were standing in the living room looking at their phones. Becca was nowhere to be seen.

“This restaurant better have steak,” Jack muttered.

“If Georgia’s is anything like I remember it, you won’t be disappointed.”

“I’d take a pretty view over steak,” Gabe offered. “What’s this Georgia look like?”

Before Alex could answer, Becca jogged down the stairs.

“That’ll work,” Gabe said with a grin that had Alex bristling.

But Alex couldn’t deny she was quite the pretty view. She wasn’t particularly dressed to kill. Nice jeans that actually hugged her hips instead of hiding them. She had a flannel shirt on over a tank top that scooped low enough for Alex to purposefully keep his gaze from following the curve of fabric.

Besides, he was a little too distracted by her hair. He’d never seen it down. She always wore it in a braid, but today it waved and tumbled over her shoulders, thick and shiny and distracting.

“What? Am I not dressed right?” she asked, straightening her shirt.

“You look fine,” Alex replied gruffly.

“Then why are you all staring at me?”

Alex glanced at Jack and Gabe, who were still kind of slack jawed. Clearly, they all needed some…maybe not female companionship per se, but just getting back into the land of the living. They couldn’t all be standing here drooling over a perfectly conservatively dressed woman.

“Is someone going to answer me?”

“We’ve just…never seen you with your hair down.”

“Not exactly what I was looking at,” Gabe muttered low enough Becca wouldn’t be able to hear.

Alex narrowly resisted elbowing him in the stomach. So she had breasts and an ass. Plenty of women had those assets just as nice if not nicer. Plenty.

If only he could bring one of them to mind. “Let’s go, huh? Gotta beat the rush.”

Becca rolled her eyes. “Georgia’s doesn’t get busy, Mr. Sarcasm.”

Alex grabbed his keys from the end table. He’d come to hate what keys symbolized, what he’d have to do with them, but that didn’t mean he was going to chicken out of driving.

He could drive just fine.