It always worked better when the pointy end of the knife hit the target first.

Malik “Steel” Thompson shook his head and picked up the dagger that failed to stick in the board. What the hell was wrong with him lately? His head wasn’t in the game and it showed. As team lead of his Navy SEAL squad, he hoped no one witnessed his debacle. He had a name to live up to after all, Steel, for his prowess with a blade. But with this latest practice session, he wondered if maybe his skill was waning.

Nearing his twentieth year in the Navy meant he’d soon have to make a choice—re-up or retire. The thought of retiring churned his stomach, having been in the military since he was eighteen-years-old. It was his life. He’d never done anything else but work at his family ranch with his dad, and that was mainly making blades and horseshoes, as his dad was the local farrier and his grandpa a blacksmith.

Shaking his shoulders, he loosened his body, hopping from foot to foot to reset himself. Steel eyed the target, running his thumb along the base of the knife as if caressing it, speaking to it through his touch. He relaxed his grip and flicked his wrist, embedding the blade smack in the heart of the target.

“Nice shot.”

Steel whipped around and pulled a punch. “Fuck. I about took your ass out, Hound. You know better than to try and sneak up on me. Especially when I’m wielding a knife.”

Noah “Hound” Kendrick jumped back a step, holding his hands up. “Sorry, man. Didn’t think twice about it. Normally no one can sneak up on you.”

Steel exhaled a deep sigh. “Guess I’m just off my mark today.”

“Didn’t you once warn me about not having my head in the game?” Noah replied with a shit-eating-grin plastered on his face.

Steel hated eating his own words, but Hound was right. Though at the time, Hound’s head was clouded by a woman, his girlfriend Jayla, who in the end brought him the clarity he needed. Steel really didn’t have an excuse for his issues, other than maybe age was getting the best of him. Even at thirty-eight, he was in the best physical condition of his life after four tours in the military. But it wasn’t his body that failed him, it was his mind.

“Guess I’m just thinking too much about the future lately.” Steel turned from his teammate and eyed the target once more, releasing a series of daggers in a row, each surrounding the outline of the human target.

“What do you mean?”

Steel shrugged as he reached for another set of knives. “I hit my twenty-year anniversary in six months. Commander’s secretary just reached out to me with my paperwork. Have to make a decision in a couple weeks.” He launched another knife and it whirled straight over the top of the target. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he turned around to face Hound. “Guess I just got my answer.”

“Dude, come on. A couple of missed shots doesn’t mean you need to be put down like a dying dog. Shit, man, we’ve all had our off days,” Hound reassured him.

“We’re SEALs. If we have an off day it means someone dies. I can’t afford that on my hands.”

“Better here in practice than in the field. You can’t base your life’s work on a bad day. Besides, you’re best under pressure. We all are. It’s easier to miss in practice when there’s nothing on the line. We’re far more relaxed. But in that moment, in the breath of danger with lives at stake, we get the job done. End of story. You know how it works.” Hound slapped a hand on Steel’s back and stood in front of the target. “I’d trust you with my life, even in practice.”

Adrenaline spiked through Steel’s heart. “What the fuck are you doing, man? Get the hell out of the throw zone.”

“I trust you. I’m proving my point.” Hound shoved his hands in his camo pockets and a smile lit his lips. “There’s no one on Earth who can throw like you do.”

“I ain’t even going there. Seriously, get the fuck out of the way of the target,” Steel yelled, curling his fingers into his palm.

“Do it. I’m not moving.” Hound stood his ground.

Steel shook his head, wiping the sweat from his brow. “If Commander comes in and sees this shit, we’ll both be FUBAR.”

“Then I suggest you do it fast.” Hound winked.

That fucking asshole. After this stunt, Steel planned to make Hound clean the shitters for the next month. Grinding his teeth, Steel palmed the knife and sucked in a deep breath and threw the blade without thinking. He had to or he’d second-guess himself. It wedged into the target right between Hound’s legs.

He clutched his balls. “Fuck, man, you could have castrated me!”

A slow grin turned up on Steel’s lips. “That’ll teach you to pull an asshole stunt like that. And you just earned yourself latrine duty this month.”

“Seriously?” Hound pointed to the target as he walked back to Steel. “I just showed you that you have nothing to worry about with your throwing skills and you give me shitter duty?”

“Stupid moves get punished.” He eyed Hound with a stern face, yet a laugh rumbled in his throat.

“Listen, Steel, I’d follow your lead and let you shoot at me if you were eighty-years-old with Parkinson’s. Your instincts are what make you the best. You can’t teach that. It just is, and nothing will change that. You just have to remember why you’re as good as you are. You take it for granted and that’s when you mess up.” Hound punched his arm and headed toward the door. “Am I seriously on latrine duty?”

“Fuck yeah, you are.” He smiled. “And thanks.”

Steel watched his friend walk out the door and processed the words he’d said. Hound may be ten years younger than him, but he was whip-smart. He had to give it to him. The problem was, Steel still had to believe in those words.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he swiped the screen. “Hey, Ma, what’s up?”

“Malik! Why don’t you call your ma anymore? I have to be the one to call you about finally getting out of the military and comin’ home?”

“Ma.” He tried to maintain a cool voice, but he hated it when his mother treated him like a kid. “Who told you I was coming home? I just got my paperwork two days ago. I haven’t even made a decision.”

“No one told me. I’ve been counting the days since the moment you left for boot camp, almost twenty years waiting to get my baby back. You’re my one and only. While I was never prouder than the day you were sworn into the Navy, it was also the day I lost a piece of my heart, and I’ve been waiting for its safe return.”

He knew what he meant to his mother as her only child. She and pops tried for years to have kids, each of them coming from rather large families. But she suffered from Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which made it nearly impossible to get pregnant, and the only time she did, it ended in a miscarriage.

But a miracle happened, and to this day his folks swear it was nothing short of a blessing from God; they had a successful pregnancy and he was born. So Steel understood her protective nature, which bordered on obsessive at times, justified because her only child decided to live on the edge and become a Navy SEAL.

Steel didn’t want to stay in Montana all his life. The moment the recruiter came to his school, he knew it would be his only option to leave the nest and not break his momma’s heart, and it was for his country. As much as he loved them, he wanted to see the world and not stay saddled down in the ranching life his folks chose.

“I know, Ma,” Steel said, softening his tone a bit. “I still have to think about things.”

“You’ve got some leave built up, right? Why don’t you come home for a visit? Your pops and I have some things we’d like to talk to you about, and it’s better to do face to face.”

Panic hit his heart as he immediately assumed the worst. His folks had always been in decent health, aside from his mom’s PCOS issue. But since they were getting up in years, he figured it would only be a matter of time before that luck ran out. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing bad. Just some things we’ve been thinking about. But you’ll have to come home to find out.” The hint of delight in her voice reassured him it wasn’t something detrimental.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose and let out a sigh. “Okay. I’ll see about getting some time to come up.”

Now, not only did he have his own future to contemplate, he had to brace himself for whatever bomb his folks were about to drop on him, too.

* * *

A spray of dirt pelted her legs as Letty rounded the last barrel on the course. Urging her horse, Storm, to deepen on the turn, Letty gripped the reins and rode high as they sprinted toward the gate. She still needed to slice two-tenths of a second off her time to catch Stevi Carson, the top barrel racer she’d been fighting all season for the title. They’d bounced back and forth between the competitions, but Stevi edged her out in the latest, putting Letty behind and in need of a win at the finals coming up in Eagle Rock, Montana.

Somehow Stevi always managed to pull off the win when Letty needed it most. But this time, Letty was determined to come out on top. She fought her way back for the last two years after being knocked out of the rodeo circuit due to a bad fall. Ever since, she’d been trailing the new-comer, Stevi, who’d risen to fame almost immediately out of the gate. It all smelled a little fishy to her, but she couldn’t tell if the feeling in her gut was genuine distrust or just jealousy. Not only did she want to regain her title as World Champion to prove she wasn’t some fluke or one-hit wonder, but she needed that purse at the end more than ever. Letty was about to lose her ranch back in Texas.

The years of medical bills from her rehabilitation meant the bank was about to foreclose on her if she didn’t win the prize money, and her life would be ripped apart. She would be out in the streets, along with her ailing mother and all their horses. Letty could not lose this time. Too much was at stake.

“You’re running her too hard, Letty. Do some trotting and forgo the course right now,” her mom yelled out from across the practice ring.

“I’m still running two-tenths behind Stevi’s top score for the season. I’ve got to find a way to pick up time around that final barrel,” Letty replied, trotting Storm to the end of the pen where her mom sat in her wheel chair.

“You know what you’re doing wrong. You’re running Storm ragged. Plus, she’s getting bored. You keep repeating the course, and Storm is anticipating the moves rather than you guiding her. She’s not going to respond to your commands if you keep this up.”

“I don’t care if she’s bored. We can’t lose this, Momma. Everything is riding on the finals next week. Our entire lives.” Letty hopped off the horse and gave her a pat.

“Sweetie, you’ve got the skill. You’re back in top form from the accident now, and Storm’s in perfect condition. You can only do so much. The rest isn’t up to you.”

“Well, I have a feeling … well somethin’ ain’t right with this Stevi person, and I’m gonna figure out what it is.” Letty walked Storm back to her stable, her mother following behind.

“I know it’s not easy to see someone else wear your title. But I don’t want you to go around assuming someone’s up to something just because they happen to be a little better at it than you.

Maybe this is just a sign that you need to retire from the rodeo circuit and concentrate on other areas of your life. You’ve had a great run. You accomplished your goal and won the title. Now it’s time to move on.”

Letty turned to face her mother, holding back the fiery words burning the tip of her tongue. She knew what her mother was getting at. At thirty-three, Letty was still single, and her mother desperately wanted to see her daughter settled down with a husband and a family of her own. In fact, Letty believed that was one of the factors holding her mother to the Earth, even when her health was clearly failing. She refused to go until her only child had been taken care of.

But her mother didn’t know about the troubles with the bank and how desperately she needed this one last win in order to have that future. She needed the money to ensure her mother could get the treatment needed to see those dreams come true—a wedding and grandbabies. Her mom sacrificed her own dreams so Letty could live the rodeo circuit lifestyle, staying at the ranch and running things while Letty traveled.

Letty sucked in a deep breath then released a sigh. “If everything goes well with the finals and we win, then maybe that can be an option.”

“Stubborn, just like your father. His finest and most detrimental trait. He was steadfast in his decisions and held tight to his word, making him an honorable and dependable man. Yet foolish in his pride, not knowing when to back down. It’s what got him killed, you know.” Her mother folded her arms in a huff and stared toward the house opposite the stable.

“A bull got him killed, Momma. I know the story.” Her father ran the rodeo circuit in his prime, which is how her mother and father met. She was a barrel racer, like Letty, and her dad a team roper. But someone told him bull riding was a lot manlier than team roping and dared him. Not backing down from the challenge, he rode that bull like he was Lane Frost or Ty Murray. Little did those folks know, her father started out riding bulls on the ranch in his teen years. And when he made his eight seconds, the guy who challenged him, Hanson Welder, spooked the bull and her father fell, trampled to death in front of everyone.

Five years old when he died, she didn’t have many memories of her father. Her mom retired from the circuit when she was born, yet her father continued to travel, leaving them home alone most of the time. The few occasions Letty traveled on tour with her father sparked her love for the rodeo, which led to keeping the family tradition alive.

“No, his pride and stubbornness did. There’s a difference. He didn’t know when to say no. He didn’t think about his future when he got up on that bull. The bull is always a bull. But a person has a choice to not be a fool. You almost got yourself killed once. Don’t be so blinded by envy you’ll be a fool to tempt it twice.” Her mother wheeled herself toward the house, leaving Letty alone in the barn.

Her heart yearned to cry out after her mother, tell her the truth about why she was really trying to win. But a part of what she said rang true. Maybe she was doing it more out of envy. Maybe needing the money was more of an excuse than a reason.