Page 52 of Cowboy SEAL Homecoming

Her face heated against her will. “I mean, Alex was my stepbrother there for a while, I guess.”

“For a while, you guess. You know what’s funny is neither one of you seem too keen on addressing that relationship full on. It’s a lot of ‘kind of’ and ‘I guess’ and ‘sort of.’”

Becca straightened because she wasn’t going to let Jack intimidate her or make her feel uncomfortable. She gave him a cool, regal stare, or at least the best she could muster. “Is there a particular thing you’re trying to get at, Jack?”

He stared at her for the longest time, and she did everything in her power not to fidget under Jack’s icy-blue perusal.

“I think…you’re a really good person, and you really care about people, and you want to see them happy. Alex is the same. He wants what’s best for everyone…except himself.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Becca asked, feeling like there was a point. Some point she was afraid of and so darn curious about.

But Jack looked behind her and Becca could only assume Gabe and Alex were on their way back.

She felt the cushioned bench depress before she glanced over. Alex sat stony faced and silent, immediately bringing the glass of water to his mouth.

Gabe slid back into his seat and if the look between Gabe and Jack communicated anything, Becca couldn’t read it.

She was out of her depth here. All three of these men had dealt with things she had never even thought of happening to people. Not just in their Navy SEAL life, but apparently in their personal lives as well.

But Jack had it right about her. She cared about all three of them, damaged men trying desperately to find a way not to be. How could she not feel protective? How could she not care and want to see them heal? How could she not want to help them?

They wanted her to stay back and not get in their way. They didn’t want her challenging their denial or whatever was going on in their heads.

But Becca was realizing that by following their orders to back off and give them space, she wasn’t helping any. She wasn’t being the strong, brave woman she wanted to become. Giving in to what they wanted, rather than what they needed wasn’t going to help anything.

She thought what they needed was more than just work. More than just the foundation. They needed life. They needed this—going out to eat and flirting with Georgia and being human. Being civilians.

She was in no way equipped to be their therapist or psychiatrist or whatever. But she was equipped to help them find lives outside of their goals with the foundation. She could give them Blue Valley and people, though people weren’t her strong suit. Still, she knew…things, and she knew that belonging would give them almost as much as the foundation would.

“Do you guys want to hear the story about how the new Pioneer Spirit owner got the bar?”

“I take it he didn’t just buy it,” Alex offered, sounding so far away and lost.

She was going to help him find whatever it was he needed. She was going to help all of them. Her own personal foundation for these three good men. “No, she did not just buy it. Did you ever know Rose Rogers?”

“I am somewhat familiar with the Rogers girls. I don’t remember which one Rose was.”

“Well, as the story goes, Rose won Pioneer Spirit in a poker game. Many legends have sprouted from said poker game.” Becca happily spent the next thirty minutes eating a hamburger and telling three men about Blue Valley.

Not the one Alex had grown up in, but the Blue Valley it had become in the past ten years. Not his old home, but his new one.

By the end of the meal, Alex was smiling. Becca would count that one as a win.