Page 125 of Severed Heart (The Ravenhood Legacy #2)

Turning back to the house, I stare at the brick and mortar ahead of me that at one time was more than a house, but a home. Engine idling, bucket lowered, I allow myself a few more seconds to back out of the emotional decision to destroy the only true home I’ve ever known.

I’m already years into the road ahead of me, the road that begins after her. Reliving the memories and peace of the time we spent here, I allow the bittersweet emotions to swarm me.

This part of my life is over, and for the next seven years, I have no room for emotional attachment. The inkling to erase what could have been fills me with surety as I aim the bucket at the front door.

It’s over. Death took away all illusions of moving forward in the life we made.

Now, I’m an image of who others expect me to be, a falsity, an illusion, a liar, manipulator, and the keeper of all secrets. A protector and her soldier, nothing more.

The reason I breathe now is to make sure those I’m loyal to don’t have to desperately search for the rise and fall of the chest of those they love. From that, I can and will protect them the way I wasn’t.

Because it was heaven to love her, too, though I was in a sacrificial type of state. In order to have it, I had to give my heart permission to love her, though her loss altered my soul.

So I’ll protect them, so these questions don’t fucking haunt them.

I’ll keep their secrets and watch them fuck up and lose their chances to stupidity.

I’ll watch them hurt each other and take each other for granted.

Knowing the cost, I won’t say a fucking word, but fight for their individual breaths in between so they don’t ever fucking realize that their na?veté could cost them their sanity.

For a time, I swore she was my one weakness, but the truth is, now I draw breath for them. They are my weakness and reason. For them, I’ll breathe and will my heart to keep beating.

Only for them.

Because if I fail them, I’ll cease to have a reason to anymore.

Bucket lowered, I’m feet from the house when my son steps out of the front door, challenge in his eyes. Panic and shock seizing me, I all but stand on the brakes and kill the engine, jumping out as Zach squares off with me.

“What the fuck are you doing, Dad?”

Guilt washes over me as he steps forward demanding an answer.

“Did you maybe think for one fucking second that by totaling this place, you’d be wiping the memories of the only mother I’ve ever had away from me!”

Zach’s fury radiates from him as I stand in shock at his reaction. “You’re selfish in your pain with her. You’ve tried, but you’re still fucking selfish!”

“I’m sorry,” I offer pathetically as guilt and shame wash over me. “I thought you’d build a new—”

“I don’t want to erase my past. I’m embracing it. Even the parts I don’t want to remember. It’s part of being a well-rounded human. You taught me that, and what are you doing? ... She’s gone, and yeah, we need to move on with living, but what is this? You want to forget her now, too?”

I shake my head. “I can’t.”

“Dad,” he sighs, “I’ve sat back and watched you suffer year after year, but enough is enough. You know good and fucking well she didn’t want this! She told you specifically not to take mourning her this far, and here you are well over half a decade later, and you’re not even trying!”

“I can’t!” I admit, the pain lancing through me at that truth. “I can’t.”

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard those words come out of your mouth,” he says. “Words you refused to let me use.”

Zach steps up to me, and even as he scorns me, I can’t help the pride I feel, even as he hands my ass to me.

Which inside, I know, is deserved. She didn’t want this—me to mourn her this far—but my heart still isn’t beating the same.

My breaths are still shallow, and I miss her with every single one.

“Dad, I want to make this my home one day. When I find the girl for me, I want to bring her here, to the place where I witnessed firsthand what kind of love I wanted. It’s one of my dreams. So please, don’t tear it down.”

I nod, utterly speechless at his display. He rarely gets so emotional anymore, and I know it’s not because he doesn’t have a heart. It’s because he takes good care of it. In doing so, he’s now taking care of mine.

“Promise me,” he prompts, his eyes drilling mine.

“I promise, Son. Fuck, I’m sorry. It’s just—” I crack a little as I admit the truth. “I can’t reason my way out of this fucking grief. I can’t. I just need—”

“Faith, Dad. That’s all she asked of you.

You need faith. Real faith. She asked you to believe her and you need to start.

I heard her give you that order more than once before she died.

I heard it. An order you’re not following.

So you need to know you’re not going to find the peace you want until you do. ”

“I’ll try, Son. I’ll try.”

“Okay,” he releases on a long exhale before glancing back at the house. “Let’s—” He nods toward the door. “Let’s spend the night with her, here, before you go back?”

I give him a slow nod. “Yeah, she would love that.”

Eyes still full of concern, his expression relaxes slightly as he glances over a Tobias. “Hey Uncle T, you staying?”

T nods. “Hey, and yes, if it’s okay with you.”

“Of course... no, Uncle T, put your fucking wallet away.” Zach rolls his eyes before turning to me.

“I’ll go grab something to grill.” He eyes the newly vacant porch.

“And I guess get a new fucking grill,” he utters dryly, shaking his head before stalking to my truck.

Easily finding the keys where I pinned them above the tire, he turns it over before driving away.

Tobias and I stand mute for a few minutes as Zach speeds down the gravel drive.

I remain zeroed on the truck until it’s out of sight, utterly in awe of the son I raised when Tobias speaks up behind me.

“It’s so wild watching you be a father, but I always saw it in you. Since the day we met and you mowed my lawn.”

“Yeah.” I grin and turn to him. “You ever think about it?”

“I was blessed to be brother and father.”

“You aren’t going to try with Cecelia?”

He gives me an imperceptible expression. “That’s a complicated question considering she wrote me off. One step at a time, brother.”

“This is going to be epic,” I muse. “Just know Russell and I will be popping popcorn every night to tune in for this shit show.”

“Fuck you,” he utters, even as a grin plays on his lips.

* * *

Later that night we honor Delphine in a way that would actually please her.

Laughing hysterically about her antics and salty cooking.

Pausing heavily when it starts to sting.

After sipping my beers a little longer and when the pain becomes too much, I cut myself off before any buzz can set in.

Determined to stay sharp when I start on Preston’s security detail tomorrow.

As I remind them of that, we all part ways for lights-out.

But when the two of them head for the bedrooms, I decide to take a walk, which turns into a moonlit trek toward the pasture of wildflowers.

“Breathe, Soldier,” her whisper reaches me as the trees sway with the crisp arrival of fall. Visions of her swarm me just after, leaving me aching as her whispers continually reach me.

“Je t’aime, my miracle, soldier of my heart,” she whispers.

Turning the corner, I’m stopped by the sight that greets me. The wildflowers I planted so long ago eat up the entire hillside having grown wildly in the years since our departure. Nature doing its thing, the overabundance renders me speechless.

In a blink I’m surrounded by them, by her, as faint music fills my senses, carrying over the breeze.

Getting lost in time, I become absorbed in the night I married the love of my life.

In remembrance of the feel of her. Of her silken hair and skin against my palms as we danced on our wedding night.

Her lilted whispers engulfing me as I turn slowly to inhale the sight before me.

Raw and aching, the pain remains unrelenting, as the dark beckons me, forever promising a way out.

But this pain, this pain could never be fully blinked away.

Just as I think it, the breeze flutters over the tips of the wildflowers as her whisper reaches me.

“Close your eyes, Tyler.”

“They’re closed,” I whisper back.

“See your way out, Soldier, do you see it?”

“I see it, baby,” I croak, cracking wide as the blades of the Blackhawk sound in the distance, the thwomp thwomp thwomp announcing its rapid approach.

“Have faith, Soldier. Have faith.”

“I’ll have faith, baby ... I love you.”

“My one true love,” she whispers.

“I miss you so much.” I slap my fingers against my salted cheeks.

The helicopter touches down yards away as Tobias approaches the field, and I hold the moment for as long as I can, feeling her everywhere for those brief seconds.

“Open your eyes, Soldier of my heart. Go.”

A peace washes over me as I inhale her one last time and exhale her slowly. Not completely, but enough to take another full breath since the last time she took one of her own.

“Go, Soldier,” she orders through time and space as I approach the bird and Zach appears, waving us off from the side of the house. Her voice echoes back to me one last time as my severed heart beats soundly for the first time in years. Even if it remains in pieces.

“Win again, Soldier. Win again.”

THE END... but truthfully, it’s just the beginning.