Page 110 of Guarded Knight

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 heknew, 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.