Page 41 of Guarded Knight (Echo Valley #3)

Getting Rio’s text at Café Luna was a little like being in the middle of a hurricane when a tsunami hits.

This is a shitstorm from all directions.

We pay the bill as soon as the girls finish their muffins, and although my sense of urgency to get back to the family offices tugs at my protective nature, Xander and I can’t leave this hanging.

He knows. I wasn’t ready to tell him, but I’m not treating Lara like a secret again. Not after how our past went down, not after how she was treated by Cameron… never. Not even if it means I’ll have to hear hard truths from my best friend’s mouth.

He knows I’m not marriage material. Hell, I’m not even stay-overnight material. He knows my struggles, my assignment to stay in one place, and my uncertainty at succeeding.

He won’t want any of that for Lara.

Xander claimed the girls wanted to see the horses, but we both know that’s not the real reason we’re back at Monarch Hills. It’s the only place he feels comfortable enough letting Lara out of our sight, even if only by a few feet.

Lara walks ahead with the girls, along the winding path upward toward the pastures where we head to our own family pasture.

There are quite a few post and rail fields, but most of them are filled with Santi’s clients, four-legged pampered equines that could end up being worth millions.

I’m proud of what my younger brother has achieved.

Sometimes I think about how I’m older and should have done more.

He was a visionary for this entire family ranch and estate.

Sure, we all worked together or encourage one another’s endeavors.

Santi and I both contributed to GhostEye from the jobs we cobbled together.

He had a few good runs at rodeos. I had several celebrity close protection clients that contributed a large chunk to all of this.

I kept sending money back, never thinking I’d actually end up here. I just wanted my family to be secure.

But now that Lara unlatches the gate to our family pasture, not filled with thoroughbreds but rather appaloosas and quarter horses, it suddenly feels like home.

What would it be like to live here with her?

To be with her fully? I’ve made a lot of progress in therapy…

could I be enough? Could I keep my demons away from her in a place like this?

Would she be happy back in a meddlesome small town?

All those questions circle around my chest, and I sure as hell wish Lara and I had discussed some of the answers before I have to talk about them with Xander.

Xander and I drape our forearms over the top rail and let Lara wander deeper into the paddock with Poppy and Daisy.

We watch in silence for a while. Listening to the girls argue over which horse is cuter.

Lara’s blonde hair shines in the sun, loose and low, swinging against her shoulder blades as she glances back now and then.

Just enough to let me know she knows we’re talking. Just enough to undo me.

Santi, Kat, and Kat’s son, Theo, are already in there, clearing the pasture.

Theo tips his gaze up from his rake and scoop and eyes the girls suspiciously, probably hoping they don’t try to talk to him.

He’s a man of few words, Theo, but he’s been through a lot.

I’m glad he’s landed here. Santi will never let those two down.

The pastoral bliss can only last so long, though, and eventually, Xander slips his hands into his pockets and squints out toward the fence line, deep in thought.

“Just give me a yes or a no.”

I wish it was that easy. My heart says yes and my head says… am I being greedy? Am I taking from Lara without knowing what I can give? Fuck, it’s too late now… forget my head and heart. My soul decided it was her long ago. There’s no way I’m walking away again.

But how will that affect this? Me and Xander?

“You’re with her, aren’t you?” He reiterates the question as if I didn’t understand the first time, or because he’s impatient for an answer.

“Yes.”

He meets my eyes, and a dry laugh leaves his mouth. “What’d you do, climb down a drainpipe this morning?”

“When you say it that way, it sounds stupid.” I try to lighten the mood, out of habit more than desire.

I would have preferred to give Lara and me a chance to figure things out before the inevitable big-brother interrogation.

But waiting would’ve made it worse. If he thought we were hiding it, it wouldn’t be just about me and her anymore.

It’d be about my best friend’s trust. And Xander doesn’t fuck around with that.

It’s also something neither Lara nor I could live without. It would kill us both. He is a rock in everyone’s life he touches. He’s a part of each of us separately but also us together.

Upon reflection, we’re lucky we got caught. It forced our hand for better or worse.

“I’m not gonna make a speech,” Xander says. “You’re not some kid who needs my permission. And clearly you know that, since you didn’t ask for it.”

Should I have talked to him before? Maybe. Maybe I should have mentioned something years ago. But I had a feeling he knew, maybe not about the kiss or the momentum we gained thereafter, but he knew I loved her as more than a friend.

He scans the horizon like he’s hoping it’ll hand him a reason not to say what comes next.

He shakes his head. “You know, when you came back to Starlight Canyon after being discharged and left again straight after, we all got it. You needed space.” A muscle in his jaw flexes. “But she wasn’t the same after that.”

It’s not an accusation. Just a statement. But it lands like a punch.

“She didn’t tell me she was in love with you,” he adds. “She didn’t need to. I could tell her pain was different. It was heartbreak.”

“I kissed her before we deployed.” The confession is a painful relief.

“I would have told you, but she and I left it as friends. I told her to live life… did the right thing at the time. I should have said something, but equally, I felt I did the right thing.” My throat is tight.

“Did right by what you would have wanted. My intentions were in the right place.”

“And then you came back,” he says, somber. “You told her not to wait, but basically she did. She never really dated anyone at college.”

“I know.” I sigh roughly. “But the man she was waiting for didn’t come back. So I told her that when I discharged. I wasn’t going to make her go through this shit with me.”

He nods, like he already figured that out. “You mean you decided what was best for her.”

My hands curl around the top rail, the wood grounding me. “I thought I was protecting her.”

“Yeah, I get that.” He says it more to himself than to me.

Xander has made decisions for Lara, looked out for her before he knew there was trouble. And it makes me think back to what she said about choices and how freedom isn’t worth a damn without them.

I guess that’s why she left Starlight Canyon.

I’d like to think I can be strong enough to let her be unguarded one day. If I can’t give her that, I better not ask her to stay here or even to go with her.

He exhales. “We were both pretty fucked up back then. But you also hurt her, G. Deep. In a way I don’t think she ever fully said out loud.”

“She’s said plenty since,” I mutter.

A shadow of a smile tugs at his mouth. “Yeah. She’s good at that.”

Silence stretches between us, the kind you only get between men who’ve survived things together. Fought beside each other. Fallen apart for the same reason and can say a thousand words without any. From men who, egotistical or selfless, feel it’s their responsibility to protect the ones they love.

But there’s a big difference between loving arms and a cage.

“You weren’t the same guy after the SEALs. I respect that you knew that,” Xander says after a beat. “Hell, I wasn’t the same. I’m still not.” He lets out a sharp breath. “We’ve both got ghosts we don’t know what to do with.”

“It sticks with you,” I admit.

“That it does.”

I swallow hard. “She says she isn’t afraid of it.”

“But are you?” His gaze searches my features for the answer.

“Honestly, G, when I came back home that one last time before discharging, already messed up in the head, I didn’t want Hannah seeing me like that. It’s not just hard to deal with the devil inside, it’s hard to be seen as…”

His words drift off, but my mind finishes the sentence. Vulnerable. It’s hard to be seen as vulnerable. When our self-worth is so wrapped up in being the strong one, the protector, and weakness shows? It’s an identity crisis.

Xander’s jaw is tight. “I hated her seeing me that way. I hated it even more when she got sick.”

“I know there were a lot of bad moments in those years before she passed, Young, but there were good ones, too.”

We both look toward the pasture again. Lara is laughing now, crouched beside the girls, picking small daisies as one of the horses nudges her shoulder. There’s a lightness in her, and I want to wrap an invisible shield around her and keep her in this state forever.

“Maybe,” I say reflectively, “it’s not all about protecting them from bad but knowing that the good is worth all the rest. Hannah thought the world of you. She wouldn’t have traded anything for you. Demons and all.”

Xander stares out at the girls and yet somehow through them, maybe all the way to the past. “You could be good for her. You’re steady. When you choose to be.”

I glance at him. Could.

“But good doesn’t always mean safe,” he adds.

“You need to know what the hell you want. Because if you break her again…” He trails off, not because he doesn’t know what to say, but because he doesn’t trust himself to say it without consequence.

“This isn’t a test drive. This is her life.

And since those new meds, she’s finally starting to believe she might get to a future after many years of not knowing she’d even get this far. ”

He clears his throat, that sharp cough he does when emotion rises too fast. I’ve only heard it twice, once when his Daisy was born and he was deployed, not getting more than a video call. I saw it when his wife died.

“She’s not going to be here forever, G, and the end won’t be pretty.”

I’ve seen it in her coughing fits, her percussion vest sessions, and her hospitalizations. I’m not afraid to face it with her, to be her comfort, the arms that hold her no matter how ugly it gets.

He presses on. “She deserves to live a whole lifetime. She might do that now. I really believe with these meds she’s got another twenty years, and a person can do a lot with twenty years.

I want her to have it all but I’m not sure she believes anyone thinks she’s worth the twisted end.

” He scrubs his hand down his face. “I told her Hannah was worth every second. But she doesn’t need to hear about worth from me. ”

His eyes lock on mine. “I won’t recover from you hurting her again.

You’re not just some guy to her. You’re the one she used to sneak phone calls for after lights out.

The one she wrote that dumb-ass poem about sophomore year.

You were always there, even when you weren’t.

Like a heartbeat she didn’t notice until it stopped.

” He hesitates. “She’ll never say it, but you’re the one. ”

And she’s always been mine.

I’ll have to learn more than to just stop running. I’ll have to learn to be raw and real in a way I’ve never been before.

He leans his arms on the top rail, boots dug in, watching the girls run wild through the field. Daisy is patting old Hector’s muzzle, but she keeps glancing over at Theo.

I exhale slowly, watching Lara from across the paddock making daisy chains with Poppy, and suddenly Daisy sprints toward Theo and pokes him between the shoulder blades. He turns around with the exasperated energy of an old man disrupted.

Xander finally pushes off the fence and reaches for the gate latch.

Before either of us can say another word, gravel crunches behind us. I glance over my shoulder, and Freya and Anton come briskly up the path, side by side, both of them serious.

Freya lifts a hand in greeting. “Sorry to interrupt.”

It’s all-systems-go time. For as many times I was wary about Freya, I’m glad to see her taking agency. I want to solve this all for Lara’s sake, but now, also for Freya.

For their friendship. Now, with Xander here, it reminds me how essential these bonds are to life.

Anton skips the niceties. “We’ve got something.”

Xander closes the gate again. “What kind of something? I can’t fucking believe it was her boss the whole time. Are you sure?”

I’ve been keeping Xander up to date with details as they’ve shifted. This isn’t all news to him.

Freya’s eyes find Lara, who’s still crouched in the grass, laughing threading wildflowers into Daisy’s braid.

“Lara’s not wrong to be worried about Kevin. If that is even his name.”

Anton crosses his arms. “Rio pulled some records this morning, stuff tied to old nonprofits. Kevin’s and Belinda’s names came up.

Different aliases, different boards. I’m sure Kevin knows Lara found a thread that could unravel everything.

Rio said there would be a lot more work to do to take this to the authorities, but…

it seems logical that with this much jail time on the line, he’d want Lara out of the picture. ”

A tight pressure coils low in my gut.

“So he stalked her instead of firing her?” Xander asks.

Freya shakes her head. “Without cause? Let’s be real, Lara would have fought that tooth and nail and probably sued. Who wants lawyers poking around a bomb site?”

Anton nods toward where Lara is in the field. “We should get back to the office. Rio’s waiting. Let’s piece it together before he makes another move.”

Lara rises from the grass, brushing off her jeans. She turns, already sensing the shift in the air—Xander’s folded arms, Anton’s silence. Her eyes find mine.

The smile leaves her face, and something in my chest knots hard. We bought ourselves one night of normal, one morning of hope. It’s gone now.

I want to give her a future, no matter how short or long. But the danger circling us isn’t waiting for me to figure it out. Kevin isn’t working in the open, and I don’t know how deep this goes or who else has skin in the game.

There are too many unknowns to focus on the one in our hearts.

And if I don’t get ahead of it, she won’t just lose her peace.

She might lose her life.