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T wo familiar raps on the doorframe drew Rhae’s head up from the notes she was finishing up from her last patient. She abandoned her task immediately and pushed away from her desk.

“Crew. I was wondering if you’d stop by today.”

The former pilot for the Air Force gave her a brief nod—his attention was all for Navy. Her daughter sat up on a colorful playmat next to Rhae’s desk. The ball she played with had a spiny texture that she loved chewing when she was getting a new tooth.

Crew picked up on the squeak of her gums on the rubber. “She’s cutting a new tooth?”

“Sounds that way. She was a bit fussy before I put her down for her nap. Come on in.” She grabbed a fresh notebook and pen and drifted to the armchair while Crew took his usual spot on the floor with Navy.

As soon as her daughter’s big eyes fell on the tough man, she dropped her toy. A stream of drool flooded out of her wide grin. Three little white teeth glinted in her smile.

With a low chuckle, Crew automatically reached for her. He pulled Navy into his lap and picked up her ball. Navy brought it right back to her mouth and began happily gnawing on it.

“How is your day so far?” Rhae prompted over the squeaks of Navy’s gums on the rubber.

Crew began to talk about his morning of tending to chores on the ranch. Rhae read between the words, hearing moments of frustration interspersed with a few peaceful times when he felt things were going his way…like things were inside his control.

“I ran into Gray and had a good talk.”

“How so?” She jotted down a few more notes on the topic.

To her, Gray Malone was a wild card. The brother had never crossed her threshold or sought her counsel in the short time since he returned to the ranch. However, she knew he was former Air Force too. A pilot like Crew. And they shared big losses in common.

“We set up a time to work on the letters. A bigger block of time to get more done.”

The letters were a big project Gray and Crew shared. Writing to the families of servicemen who perished after an aircraft carrier sank seemed to be helping both to make peace with their losses. Crew lost his copilot in a crash…and Gray lost every man on that ship.

Her stomach knotted at the thought of everything her patients struggled with on a daily basis…and those Malone brothers who didn’t come to talk.

She touched the necklace at her throat. “How do you feel about that? Excited? Relieved? Worried?”

He shrugged. With Navy tucked in his lap, he reached for the building blocks she enjoyed and started stacking them in slow movements. Controlled. By the time he had three stacked, Navy stopped chewing to watch what he was doing.

He slid her to the floor in front of him. Immediately, she dropped her ball and swiped an arm at the blocks but didn’t knock them over.

Rhae leaned in to keep watch. While none of the guys would ever intentionally hurt her child, she was still a protective momma bear.

Navy squealed in delight as the tower reached four blocks. One chubby arm waved in an arc toward the structure but she didn’t make contact.

Six blocks. Seven.

Navy whipped out her arm and struck the tower. Blocks flew everywhere.

Crew went still.

Rhae perched on the edge of her seat.

Then Navy issued a big belly laugh, and she relaxed.

Crew grinned and did it all over again, building towers for Navy to knock down, talking all the while. When Navy lost interest, crawling a few feet away to get her ball, he glanced at his phone.

“I’ve taken up enough of your time.”

“You don’t have to go if you’re not ready. Navy still has plenty of playtime left.”

He smiled and pushed to his feet, limbs unfolding with grace despite his muscled bulk. She’d passed by the big, modern, indoor gym on occasion and had seen him in there working out. It showed. A lot.

He said his goodbyes to her and Navy and then slipped out of the office, leaving only the squeaky noise of her daughter cutting teeth.

Seeing that Navy was fine for a bit longer, Rhae pulled out her phone. Her daughter was nine months old, but her one-year checkup would be here before she knew it. That meant she had to plan.

She didn’t keep a regular pediatrician. Even though the few doctors in the surrounding area were good, and she liked them, she didn’t dare go to the same one twice.

“Hello.”

The voice yanked her attention from the list of area wellness clinics, and she looked up to see Oaks Malone.

She blinked at him, lost in the rugged lines of his face, his body. Those gray eyes all the Malones shared.

Her gaze slid to her daughter, who was crawling toward the scattered blocks.

“Hi, Oaks. What’s up?” She infused her voice with a casual note even though her heart was pattering faster at the interruption.

“I stopped by to update the security on your PC.”

“Oh.”

“Do you mind?”

She shook her head and got out of her seat to follow him to the desk. “Is there a problem with security?”

He plunked down in her desk chair and drew the laptop toward him. “I’m going to hook you up with a VPN. In case you ever decide to go paperless.”

She filled her lungs with air. “I prefer having paper files.”

He nodded. “So you’ve said. I just want to give you options so you feel secure.”

“I like to make sure everyone’s privacy is safe.”

He didn’t shift his attention from the screen. “This will make sure everyone is safe.”

She stared at his profile. His features looked like some master had chiseled them from the very granite of the mountains that surrounded the Black Heart Ranch. All of the brothers were so good-looking. And Willow could be a model for her beauty. She had the height for it too.

Oaks didn’t stop in her office often, but the therapy program was his brainchild, and he liked to keep tabs on how everything was run.

He tapped at the keys. “Everything else okay?”

She took a few breaths to calm her heart, which began thumping faster. “With work? All good. Your family has been so easy to work with.”

Over the top of the laptop, their gazes met. “Nobody is bothering you?”

Her heart skipped. “What do you mean by bothering?”

“You’re pretty and single.”

Heat climbed her throat and she felt her cheeks burn.

“All the guys come in a lot. Anybody would enjoy spending time here,” he continued.

“That’s not why they’re here. It’s all very professional—on the up and up.”

“Good to hear that. Good,” he said almost to himself, as if she’d soothed one of his concerns.

“How is Shiloh? I heard a horse stepped on her toe.”

Oaks’s gray eyes met hers again. “She’s lucky. She was wearing hard boots and it’s only bruised.”

“Thank goodness. I wouldn’t know what to do if that happened to me. I haven’t spent much time around horses. Tell her I asked about her.”

“I’ll do that. What about you, Rhae?”

She straightened her spine, breaths coming in shallow pants. “What about me?”

“Are you getting enough support? As a single mom.”

Air trickled out of her lungs, hot with relief that he only wanted to know about her state of mind as a single mother.

“I barely get to mother alone. Believe me, I have a lot of help.”

His eyes crinkled with his smile, knowing exactly what she meant. “That’s great. All the guys seem so attentive when it comes to the baby.”

“It’s been such a beautiful thing.” The passion she felt about the men being so involved—and enamored—with her daughter seeped into her voice.

He tapped away at the keys a little more and then pushed the laptop back. He stood, eyeing her. “You know, if you want to get Navy started on a pony, there’s one here that would be so gentle.”

“A pony! She can’t even walk yet!”

“Willow was about her age when she first sat a horse. We wouldn’t walk her on the pony. Just dip her feet in the cowgirl life.” With a smile, he stood.

“I’ll think about it. Thank you. And thank you for hooking me up with a VPN.”

“No problem.” He crouched next to Navy on the floor.

For a moment, Rhae’s heart felt like it stopped.

Looking between the former SEAL and her infant daughter, her eyes clouded over with thoughts of all that she and Navy were missing out on.

He cradled Navy’s head in his big hand, eyes creased at the corners with his smile. “Be good for your momma,” he told Navy, then pushed to his feet and threw her a wave on his way out the door.

Navy rolled onto her back to play with her feet. Rhae looked on, fingers pressed to her lips.

Her gaze drifted to the window, her hand falling away as she took in the wide-open stretch of land beyond the therapy building.

Here, she was safe. Off the grid, just like she’d planned. No bills in her name. No presence on the internet. She was a ghost with a pulse.

It was a life lived in shadows, but shadows kept her breathing, kept Navy safe. No one knew her past, and she intended to keep it that way.

Because the minute someone started asking questions, the shadows wouldn’t be enough to hide her anymore.

* * * * *

Denver stared at the laptop screen, his fingers hovering just above the keyboard.

He couldn’t even bring himself to type a single letter into that search bar. One press of a button could send him down a dark path of self-destruction.

He wasn’t just a Navy SEAL. He was goddamn Blackout. The special ops team made him a ghost. Confidence had been driven into his bones, unshakeable. But now? Now all he did was question things: his skills, his instincts, his own damn mind.

He didn’t know what would happen once he sank into the digital void and searched for traces of her.

Rhae.

When his medical discharge came down the line, she’d been the first person he wanted to talk to. Hell, she was the only person he wanted to see. But she’d vanished.

He’d looked for her, called in every favor he had, but it was as if she’d evaporated the second he’d left her in that hotel room. His hands curled into fists at the memory.

The office was too damn quiet. The kind of quiet that let thoughts creep in—thoughts of the way he left Charlie team. How he’d been discharged halfway through a mission to find a terrorist called Cypher.