Page 1 of Silver Sanctuary (The Silver Springs #3)

One

“ C ome on, Mom! I can’t be late for my first day of school!”

“I know, I know. Here.” Lacy slid a bowl of cereal across the table and grabbed the pink brush and matching hair ties.

Brushing Embrie’s hair was one of Lacy’s least favorite parts of the morning, but it had to be done.

Her own mother had never been around to teach her those basic skills, too lost to vices that were always more important.

Lacy was determined to not repeat that history with Embrie, even if she couldn’t do fancy braids.

A smooth ponytail was better than anything Lacy had as a kid.

Of course, Lacy’s curls were unruly, even now as she marched toward her thirties, while Embrie’s hair was usually silky, and pin straight, but somehow still managed to have stubborn snarls after she slept all night.

“No! I can do it on my own,” Embrie protested.

She was so incredibly bright, but with that came the strength and willpower to argue over every decision Lacy made for her.

Being the mother of a nine-year-old was not for the faint of heart.

“The hot water’s out again… Ow! Don’t brush it so hard. You’re hurting me! ”

“I’m doing the best I can. Do you think we can start today with a little grace?”

“Sorry,” Embrie sighed, her little shoulders falling. “I just don’t understand why things are always breaking around here.”

Shit. Lacy’s stomach soured. No matter how hard she tried to better Embrie’s life, there were still things she was failing at. Their current living situation being one of them. “I’m sorry about the water. I’ll call Burt as soon as I get to the shop this morning.”

“You know he’s not going to fix it.”

“I know, baby, but I have to try. I’ve almost got enough money saved up that I can call someone to do the work.”

“What about the roof? I haven’t been able to sleep in my room since we moved in.”

“It’s on the list, ladybug. I’m trying my hardest, I promise.”

Silence fell over their single-wide trailer as Lacy pulled the brush through Embrie’s tangles.

The list of things to accomplish that morning was a mile long, and the weight of their terrible living conditions pressed heavily on her heart.

She knew Embrie deserved more, but it felt like life was busy working against them.

It wasn’t like their return to Silver Springs had been a fairy tale—not that she was expecting it to be.

The legacy her mother left for their family certainly wasn’t one Lacy wanted to be reminded of.

Amber Graves had struggled her whole life with addiction, and not even having Lacy to take care of could pull her from it.

Lacy had so many plans for a better life for Embrie when they returned to Silver Springs, and had spent many nights dreaming about moving there with Embrie.

To a small house, maybe with a little yard to start a garden in.

Instead, they ran in the middle of the night, landing in a single-wide trailer that was probably one storm away from being condemned. It was embarrassing.

But Embrie had clean clothes, nutritious food to eat, a roof over her head, a backpack full of supplies to make the year ahead a success, and she was loved. So incredibly loved.

“Are you sure you want to go to school? We could try homeschooling. There are free online programs and you could hang out with me at the flower shop.”

“Mom, I promise, if it gets to be bad like last year?—”

The teasing—bullying—all because the kids had found out… Lacy shook her head, refusing to go there. “No, Brie. You’re going to tell me immediately if something happens this time.”

“She’s not here to make it bad for us anymore.”

“I know. I just worry about you.”

“That’s because you’re a good mom.” Embrie turned and wrapped her arms around Lacy’s waist.

“Thanks, kiddo. It’s because you’re so easy to love.”

Mondays really were the best day of the week. At least, to Nash they were. Because Mondays meant new flowers for the office, and new flowers meant seeing Lacy.

He scooped the vase of wilting flowers off the reception desk at Montgomery Defense.

If Mae, the receptionist and office manager for the business he worked at with his best friends, had been sitting there when he tried to take them away, he’d never have managed it.

So, Nash knew to grab them once she’d stepped away.

“What is it with you and these damn flowers?” Hawk Morgan leaned against the counter as Nash walked into the office kitchen, grinning like a fool.

Nash had a lot of patience for his friend and his shenanigans, but if Hawk thought for one second that Nash would accept being teased over supporting Lacy and her business, he had another thing coming.

Nash plucked the old flowers from the vase and dropped them into the trash, sighing as he turned toward his buddy.

“What do you care? Are my flowers bothering you?”

“I’m just thinking, you were never concerned with flowers when the only place to get them before was from Charlie over at the Shop and Save. All of a sudden, a new flower shop opens with a pretty little thing running it, and now you’re Mr. Botanical.”

Stone Lawson, another buddy and business partner, snorted into his cup of coffee. “Mr. Botanical. I can’t fucking wait to share that with Gunner.”

Nash ground his molars together. “The office needed something to brighten up the space—I thought flowers would be nice. And they have been. People have been complimenting Mae when they sign in to the gym.”

Hawk stared at him, his mouth hanging open.

“I can almost guarantee that sentence has never come out of a Navy SEAL’s mouth before.”

“Yeah, well, we aren’t in the SEALs anymore, are we? Besides, you don’t hear Mae, or Lily, or Sloane complaining that I’m bringing them flowers every week, do you? You’d think you guys would learn that if you want peace and happiness, you leave little treats for the women you care about.”

Nash was grateful to be living the dream with his buddies after they decided to leave their careers in the military behind.

It certainly helped that their former team lead, Sebastian Montgomery, was now a billionaire businessman, and employed the rest of the team within the new defense company he’d built.

The whole team—Gunner, Stone, Hawk, Gage, and Nash—had all recently settled down in Silver Springs, opening a security consultation business that also housed the only commercial gym in town.

Hawk’s sister, Mae, handled the administrative tasks there, and also at their brand new, state-of-the-art training facility for Special Ops teams and law enforcement agencies that they were now running.

She was a firecracker, and Nash wasn’t lying about trying to stay on her good side.

Lily Brooks and Sloane Donovan were a different story.

Lily, Gunner’s wife, was a sweetheart. He often thought about the first time he met her—just a few weeks after she had her daughter—and how she’d still taken the time to bring him his favorite childhood treat.

And Sloane… well, the small town psychologist was dating their other business partner, Gage Walker.

The two of them had survived something truly awful just a few months before.

It fucking ripped Nash’s heart out that he was supposed to have their backs, and he failed to keep them safe.

The scar on his forehead was a good reminder of that, and the flowers?

Well, he guessed they were the only way he could think to atone.

“Right. ‘Cause you care so much about the girls that you spend your lunch every Monday picking out flowers, bringing them back, tending to them all week, and making room for new ones to start the cycle all over again,” Stone teased.

“Fuck off. So I have a hobby…”

“Yeah, right.” Hawk laughed as he turned to walk down the hallway back to his office. “Tell your cute little hobby I say ‘hi’ today when you go over to Petals to flirt with her… I mean, when you get more flowers for the office .”

“Don’t you dare laugh,” Nash warned Stone as soon as Hawk was out of earshot. “Or I’ll tell him about you and Mae.”

Stone held his hands up by his face. “Damn, buddy. Don’t worry. No laughter here.”

Nash looked down at his watch. God, he was antsy.

There was a pile of work waiting for him at his desk, and that would take well into the afternoon to finish.

But he normally left around lunchtime on Mondays—yes, to get flowers for the office.

Maybe the guys were right. The truth was, he did it to have a little time to flirt with the sweet single mom who ran the shop.

Would she be worried when he didn’t stop in?

Fuck. He thought he had a cute little plan in place since he knew it was her daughter’s first day of school…

but what if she spent all day worried he wouldn’t be in to make his usual purchase.

She never mentioned business being slow, but in a small town, it was easy to see that the shop was struggling.

People avoided her shop. People avoided her . Unless they were the assholes who wanted to bring up her family’s history in the town. Those people seemed to never leave her alone.

Christ, take a breath, would ya?

Nash was working himself up over something silly. He’d see her later that afternoon, once school was out and he knew she had a chance to get her daughter back to the shop. Until then, he’d tackle his mountain of paperwork.

“Well? How was it?” Lacy asked as Embrie climbed into the back of their car. It must have been a busy day, her hair was sticking out in every direction and her ponytail had fallen about halfway down her head. “Do you love your classroom? Your teacher? Did you make any friends? How was your lunch?”

“Mom!” Embrie sighed as she plopped down on the seat.

“What? I’m so excited to hear about it all! I was going to wait until we got home, but I’m making tacos for dinner tonight to celebrate!”