Page 17 of Shelter for Shay (Broken Heroes Mended Souls #2)

“You’re the least selfish person I know,” Becca said softly. “You can be a school counselor anywhere.”

“I know.” Shay nodded. “I just have to figure out where and how Moose fits into that. It’s time to do what my mom has always said I needed to do and that’s grow up and be an adult.”

“You are adulting.” Becca laughed. “You’ve been seeing the world.

You’ve lived more than most of us.” She pointed to her son.

“I don’t have regrets. I’m glad I got married young and had my kids when I did.

But sometimes I look at you and all the places you’ve traveled, and I realize I might never get to see them.

I might never get to know what the world is like outside out of the world I grew up in.

That’s something, Shay. And your mom, she was so proud of your accomplishments. ”

“Sometimes I wonder.” Shay stared out over the water. “While she always supported me and my life decisions, she was always trying to set me up with men when I came home and asking me when I was going to settle, especially this last year. I feel like I let her down.”

“You did nothing of the sort,” Becca said. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty. Not to mention, your emotions are so raw right now. My advice, whatever this is with you and Moose, just enjoy it. Let it play out. No risk, no reward.”

A kid screamed—a full-out wail—and Becca winced. “That’s my cue,” she said, standing and calling after her daughter. “Lucy, stop hitting your brother!”

Shay laughed. She shouldn’t, but she did. It filled the quiet spaces in her chest. It didn’t erase the uncertainty. But it made it feel less like a weight and more like a beginning.

Moose – Virginia

The sun had dipped low, bleeding amber and rose gold across the horizon as twilight settled over the Virginia countryside.

Moose’s five-acre patch of land sat at the edge of a forgotten two-lane road, bordered by split-rail fencing and a stretch of scrub woods where deer liked to loiter at dawn.

He’d bought the place when the team had first been assigned to the base because he had needed space.

He’d needed a place where he could go and quiet his mind after missions and just be.

He’d needed a place where he could distance himself from the world of covert operations—and even his team—and simply breathe.

The men on his team understood that about him and never questioned it.

They’d known his history. Known everything about his childhood.

They had no secrets between them. They couldn’t.

In order to protect each other in the field, they had to understand the psychology of each team member, and that meant understanding their demons.

And Moose had a few of those.

But today, those demons seemed to have faded into the darkness. They weren’t even lurking in the shadows, taunting him. It was as if merely facing his mother after all these years allowed them to slip off like a snake shedding its skin.

He stared at the sky and smiled. He’d told Shay that her mom would always be with her and right now, he felt Margaret’s presence everywhere. More so than he had in a long while and that was an odd thought.

His coop sat twenty feet from the back porch, homemade and painted barn red, currently hosting twelve squawking hens and four roosters that treated him like a rock star when he came bearing scratch grain.

Past that, a small weathered barn leaned a little too far to the left, sheltering his feed bins, a few tools, and a rusting four-wheeler.

A single floodlight lit the backyard, casting long shadows as the chickens murmured and scratched in the fading light.

Beyond them, the fields rolled gently, dotted with sycamores and framed by pine trees.

Moose sat on the back porch steps, a cold bottle of beer sweating in his hand, boots planted on the gravel path like he wasn’t ready to move just yet. He wanted to feel this moment a little while longer. The guys had gathered after dinner—one last night before they deployed at zero six hundred.

Thor sat next to him, elbows on his knees, nursing his own bottle.

Kawan tossed corn chips into his mouth straight from the bag, lounging in a camp chair like he owned the place.

Lief sat on the porch steps, staring at…

nothing. Sloan was perched on the porch rail, tapping something into his phone, and Jupiter sat cross-legged on the grass near the chickens, apparently mid-conversation with the bossiest hen.

“I’m telling you,” Jupiter called out. “She judges me. That little gray one? The ringleader. Mafia eyes.”

“She’s a chicken,” Sloan said flatly. “She’s not building a racketeering empire.”

“You don’t know that.” Jupiter glared.

Thor grinned. “He might have a point. That coop’s got a vibe.”

Moose shook his head. “Don’t encourage him.”

“This place, it’s given you so much peace,” Thor said after a minute, voice quieter now. “You’ve built something solid here. Even if your livestock are slightly homicidal.”

Moose glanced around. The warm wood siding of the house. The citronella candle flickering on the table. The low rustle of crickets. “Yeah. It’s quiet. Predictable.”

“Which is why it freaks you out that Shay cracked through it.”

Moose didn’t answer right away. He took a pull from the bottle and stared out toward the horizon where the last of the light disappeared behind the trees.

“I’m not as freaked out as you think I am,” he said. “She makes me feel… steady. Not tamed. Not different—more myself. Like there’s space to be something other than what the Navy made me.”

“Are you falling in love with her?” Thor asked, no judgment in his tone.

Moose rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I’ve never been in love. Don’t know what that feels like.” He waved his finger. “Only know what it looks like in you and Danni. But yeah… I think I could. I think I’m heading that way.”

“And she?” Thor asked.

“We talk every night. I know her voice better than I know my own at this point. We talk about dumb things. Serious things. Grief. Chickens. I haven’t let someone in like that in… ever… outside of you assholes.”

Kawan let out a mock sigh from the camp chair. “Aw, our Moose is in his feelings.”

“Let him be,” Thor said. “He’s allowed.”

They all fell quiet for a few moments, each lost in their own thoughts. Jupiter was humming to the chickens. Sloan was still texting. Somewhere in the dark, a frog chirped.

Eventually, the others filtered inside to grab gear or make their final calls to their mamas and other family. Thor squeezed Moose’s shoulder before he followed.

Alone on the steps, Moose’s phone buzzed. He pulled it from his pocket.

Shay’s name and picture flashed across the screen.

“Hey you,” he said. “You’re early tonight.”

“Sorry. Are the guys still there?”

“They're collecting their crap and getting ready to head out.” Moose closed his eyes for a moment, letting the sound of her settle something in his chest. “I was just thinking about how I’ve got a crazy rooster named Sergeant Peck who respects no one but me… and he still doesn’t scare me half as much as taking this call with my team in the background, ready to tease the crap out of me. ”

“Is this your version of vulnerability?”

“Yeah. Let me have my weird metaphors.”

They both laughed, and then the silence stretched between them—not awkward, just full.

“I care about you,” Moose said quietly. “A lot. More than makes sense. And I’m not good at this. I’ve never really done this. But it feels good, even if it’s a little frightening.” Being honest with her was easy.

“It scares me, too,” she said softly. “These past few days have been strange.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been going through some of Mom’s things, trying to sort through what can go to Goodwill, what I can sell, you know that sort of thing.”

“Shay, you don’t have to do all that right now.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Give yourself some space and time to grieve.”

“Actually, I find some of it therapeutic,” she said.

“But I was hoping to find something about my dad, you know? Maybe a wedding picture. Her marriage license or the divorce papers. Anything that might tell me something about him without having to stalk him.” The crack in her voice tore at his heart.

“Do you want to find him? Because I can help with that if it’s important to you. I could do all the heavy lifting.”

“I don’t know if I want to find him as in to know him, or even have a conversation with him,” she whispered.

“He didn’t just leave my mother. He left me too, Moose.

And I’m angry about it all of a sudden. Not the kind of anger that makes me want to confront him, but the kind of anger that’s always been there, hidden somewhere in my heart, but I never allowed it to surface.

I was afraid to question anything because it would hurt my mom. ”

“Are you mad at your mother?”

“Wow, you’re becoming quite the therapist,” she said with a slight chuckle in her tone.

It was teasing in nature, but he could tell he needed to tread lightly, or they just might have their first fight… which wouldn’t be good right before deployment.

“I don’t mean to be like that,” he said. “I’m just trying to understand where your head is at. And it’s okay to be upset over it all. I would be too. My parents didn’t abandon me, but I felt that way.”

“I know you did, but this is different,” she said.

“There’s always been a small part of me that’s wondered why my mom would never talk to me about him.

I get my dad hurt her and she never rebounded from that.

She tried to protect me from that pain, and for the most part, she did.

But I know nothing of him. I just buried my mother, and I have this dad out there somewhere and I just want to know something about him other than he didn’t want me. ”