Page 10

“Not like that, littlest bird.” He’d said it with a laugh, back when he still laughed easily. “You’re digging, not brushing.”

Emily had stuck out her tongue, adjusting her grip on the curry comb with exaggerated care. “I am not digging. I’m exfoliating. He likes it.”

?ha?té Skúya had flicked an ear, the barest nod of amusement. She’d grinned. “See? Agreement.”

Bear had crouched beside her, his knees in the straw. “Look,” he’d said, taking her hand in his and guiding the motion. “It’s not about scrubbing him raw. It’s about how you connect. You move with him. With his breath. Feel that?”

She had gone still, quiet in a way only horses and starlight ever made her. She’d closed her eyes, pressed her palm flat to the roan’s side. “It’s like music,” she whispered. “Only slower.”

“Yeah,” Bear murmured, a knot catching in his throat. “Exactly.”

That was the last afternoon.

The sun had been low, the dust golden, her laughter chasing the barn swallows across the beams like wind come alive. She’d braided a strand of Skúya’s mane and said it was his war braid. Then she'd made one in her own hair to match.

He’d helped her down from the fencepost. Hugged her too fast. Too distracted. He’d been days away from shipping off to Coronado. BUD/S on the horizon, a dream bigger than himself finally within reach.

Then she was gone.

No note. No sign. No reason. Just gone.

The brush, her brush, now hung on a nail in the tack room. Its bristles a little bent from her “exfoliation.”

Back in the present, his hand moved again, slower now. ?ha?té Skúya breathed deep, as if remembering too.

Bear swallowed hard.

“Miss you, littlest bird,” he murmured.

He didn’t believe in ghosts. Not really. But sometimes, when the sky was heavy and the land too quiet, he swore he could still hear her whisper.

It’s like music…only slower.

He closed his eyes, a lump forming in his throat. Her memory was soft around the edges, a little girl with bright blue eyes, dark hair in two braids, a strong chin like his mom, and the soft weight of his great-great-grandfather’s warrior heart.

That ghost still whispered in the dark places. Not loud. Just… missing. Fifteen when she vanished. A teenager with a sweet tart grin and too many secrets tucked into the hem of her jean jacket. She’d been gone before he’d even finished BUD/S. No one ever found her. No one ever really looked.

Bear didn’t say her name much. Not even to his parents. It still made his mother’s hands tremble.

He stroked Skúya’s shoulder once, the horse leaning into him slightly, sensing the weight without needing words.

There were too many names on that list now. Native women taken, forgotten, dismissed. Stolen. Not enough answers. Not enough justice. Missing and Murdered Indigeous Women and Girls. MMIWG was an acronym the rest of the world could afford to forget but not him. Not his people.

Maybe that’s why he’d bonded with Flint so fast. Animals didn’t forget. They didn’t lie, either. Maybe that’s why he’d stayed in the Teams even when the missions got heavy and the cost got steeper. Sometimes all a man had was what he could protect, and the ones he could still save.

Bear exhaled and leaned his forehead gently to Skúya’s , their breath mingling in the quiet space between. “You’re a good boy,” he said softly.

The next morning, he did his chores, then headed toward the barn.

He would ride over to Zorro’s mostly for the quiet of the early afternoon, and the rapt, smiling faces of Zorro’s adorable nieces, Camila or Cami as she was called, and that little firecracker, Sofia, Fifi for short.

The barbecue would be underway. Flint would get as much attention as the horse.

The kids would beg for rides before the carne asada came off the grill.

Bear smiled faintly, the wind lifting Skúya’s mane as he led the gelding out of the barn, then mounted him, reining the big Paint onto the trail that would lead him to his battle brother’s house.

Claire Martinez always gave him the same welcome, quiet hug, two firm pats on the back, and a fierce, knowing look like she saw something in him she approved of but wouldn’t speak aloud. He respected that.

There was something in Zorro’s family that reminded him of home, even if they couldn’t have been more different. Maybe it was the way they laughed with their whole bodies. Or how his mother treated every teammate like they belonged.

Maybe it was just the way Zorro looked at them, bringing a lump to Bear’s throat.

Bear unlatched the stall and stepped into the sunlight, the scent of cut grass and smoke drifting on the breeze. Flint padded across the yard toward him, alert but at ease, his shadow stretching long beside him.

He gave a short whistle and Flint’s ears perked.

“Come on,” Bear said. “Let’s go break bread with the people who make this life worth fighting for.”

The scent of garlic, lime, and mesquite hung thick in the air, curling up from the smoker like a promise.

Sweat trickled down the back of Zorro’s neck as he flipped another flank of marinated carne asada with the focus of a man determined to keep his hands busy.

The grill hissed. The music pulsed low and warm, tried and true old-school Santana, his dad’s favorite.

It was loud enough to fill the backyard but soft enough not to drown out the kids’ laughter or the rise and fall of conversation.

This was his house. His domain. Today, it was filled with people who didn’t just have his back in battle but who had dragged him through the kind of hell that left scars on souls, not skin.

“Smells like you’re trying to channel abuela , little brother. She was one of a kind, and so are you.”

“Don’t you have children to wrangle, Dani?” he shot back, grinning as he reached for the basting brush. “Or a husband to lecture about putting the forks in the wrong drawer?”

Daniela Martinez-Vargas just laughed, one hand on her hip, the other expertly balancing a pitcher of agua fresca . “They’re inside with Papá . He’s teaching them how to play dominoes and curse in Spanish.”

Zorro shook his head, lips twitching. “So, we’re just leaning into generational chaos now?”

“Obviously.”

A low chuckle came from the lawn chair closest to the fire pit. “Leave the boy alone, Dani. He’s got that I-need-to-feed-everyone-to-forget-my-feelings look again.” His brother-in-law, Dani’s husband, said, never missing a beat.

Zorro clenched his jaw.

Yeah. That was about right.

The sizzle of meat and the crackle of flame couldn’t drown out the words still echoing in his skull. Don’t touch me. No matter how many jokes he cracked, how many ribs he grilled, nothing dulled the sharp edge of that moment. She’d walked away from him, shaken , distressed and hadn’t looked back.

No amount of smart-mouth, shit-talk, or brotherhood banter could cover the hollow in his chest where she'd left something raw and unfinished.

Don’t touch me.

Hell, that was exactly what every red-blooded guy wanted to hear from the woman who’d once kissed him like she meant it .

He hadn’t imagined that. Couldn’t have. Not the way her mouth lingered on his, not the taste of her breath, or the tremble that passed through her fingers when they brushed his jaw.

But the rest? The waking? The silence?

That was where doubt crept in.

He gripped the tongs tighter, his eyes fixed on the fire. He didn’t know where she was. No contact, no follow-up, nothing but questions aching to be answered. Maybe she’d convinced herself it didn’t happen, or worse, maybe she’d regretted it.

But she’d dodged his probing in the hospital, eyes sharp and evasive, and that alone made him wonder if maybe he hadn’t imagined it after all.

Maybe it had happened. Maybe that kiss wasn’t mercy or madness, but real.

A moment she couldn’t take back, no matter how badly she wanted to pretend it had never happened.

His jaw flexed again.

He exhaled hard, the scent of grilled citrus and garlic punching up into the night air. His body remembered the shape of her, the heat of her breath, the impossibility of her mouth on his. His hand twitched, the tongs dipping low into the coals before he caught himself.

No. Not here.

Not now.

He flipped the meat cleanly, forced a breath through his nose, and locked the ache down.

The fire hissed. Laughter bubbled across the yard.

But inside him, she lingered, in that damn space between memory and fantasy, and he didn’t know how to let her go.

Zorro turned to roll his eyes. “ Tío Marco. You’re not even blood.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m wrong,” he said, raising a beer in salute. “Besides, Mamá warhammer already called you out earlier when you nearly sliced your thumb trying to chop cilantro like it owed you money.”

“She exaggerates.”

“She was holding your hand under the faucet, mijo .”

Zorro’s mother, Claire Martinez, appeared at his elbow just in time to take over the slicing. Sharp blue eyes and quiet steel. She kissed his cheek and murmured, “Go sit down. Your brother just pulled up.”

That gave him pause.

His gaze shifted toward the driveway where a lean, wiry figure stepped out of a beat-up Tacoma, his younger brother, Javi.

Wearing a Padres cap backward, his dark hair curling down his neck, and a smirk that had been his signature since high school, Javi gave Zorro a two-fingered salute as he walked through the gate.

“You let him back in the state?” Zorro muttered under his breath.

His mom just smiled. “He’s yours to deal with now.”

Javi strolled over, arms wide. “ Hermano ! Look at this guy. Still brooding over the grill like you’re about to recite war poetry.”

“I will stab you with this skewer,” Zorro replied, but his arms came up anyway, pulling his brother into a quick, rough hug.

“I missed this,” Javi said, stepping back. “Where else am I gonna get carne asada , blackmail, and emotional trauma all in one afternoon?”

“Try therapy.”

“I did. They said it was you.”