His mother was dead. Her longtime wish finally granted.
And he’d been notified via email. Upon his request.
Jesus, he was well and truly heartless.
And, as only someone who was heartless would, he’d given serious consideration to declining attendance and not leaving his team, even though they were between deployments and he’d be absent a matter of hours, a day at most.
But she was his mother and with guilt—and another, deeper emotion he refused to address—weighing on him, his sense of duty won out.
In the end, he arrived just in time for the pre-planned, scarcely-attended funeral.
The sun was bright, giving him an excuse to hide behind mirrored aviators, but the temperature was moderate. Even so, he felt hot and restricted in a charcoal suit, his dress whites in the closet, covered in a plastic dry-cleaning bag. He wasn’t a SEAL anymore. Wasn’t a son now, either.
Standing on spongy green grass, Jason stared at the mahogany casket positioned next to his father’s grave. A spray of white roses sat atop the gleaming wood, the flowers adorned by long ribbons labeled with gold lettering. The words reduced Beverly Reynolds’ life down to two titles.
Wife. Mother.
Jason kept his disgust in check. One out of two wasn’t bad.
His eyes flitted to the moss-covered headstone on the neighboring plot, the words etched into decades-old granite carrying far more truth. Husband. Father.
Pulling in a deep breath, he released it in a long, silent exhale, fighting the need to loosen the noose of his tie. Fighting the need to rant at a shiny wooden box. Fighting the need to fall to his knees in front a headstone he’d not visited in twenty years.
Snippets of that day, his father’s funeral, flashed through his mind, the event long ago but the pain still fresh. The scorched scent of burning leaves. The frightening sound of his mother’s sobs. The fragile feel of her trembling body, racked with grief as he held her to his side, taller and stronger, even at twelve.
It was the last time she hugged him.
After that, there’d been no more affectionate hands wiping sweat from his forehead, feeding him soup and 7-Up when he caught a flu bug.
No more home haircuts, his laughing mother wielding scissors and threatening a bowl cut while his shaggy locks dripped water onto cracked linoleum.
No more demands that he sit still while she disinfected his latest cuts and scrapes, an overenthusiastic skateboarding jump gone wrong.
And no proud mother attending his SQT graduation, weeping joy into a crumpled Kleenex when he crossed the stage and had a trident pinned to his chest, a rare man among the rarest of men.
Standing there, alongside her casket, he allowed the unfairness of his childhood to wash over him. He listened pensively as the priest read aloud from a Bible, his words about restoring your soul and fearing no evil providing peace to all in attendance, save the dark-haired man standing front and center.
Jason was stoic, though it was a shit-ton harder than he’d anticipated.
He rolled his lips and shifted his stance. Stretched his neck muscles and closed his eyes. Ignored the lump in his throat and suppressed the urge to rub his chest. The need to flee was handled internally, his torture training kicking in.
Neutrality was in his wheelhouse.
“Hang in there,” came an encouraging whisper from his right. “Only a few more minutes.” Then she hooked an arm through his and leaned in, a pillar of support.
Looking down, he stared at her red cowboy boots and smiled at the incongruous sight.
He’d arrived at the cemetery and taken one step toward the gravesite when Molly appeared at his side, One Eye, Rusty, and a few others from Nowhere following somberly behind.
Hell, didn’t they know? This was cause for celebration. His mother had finally gotten what she wanted. Whether that meant her soul evaporated like she’d never existed, or she was with his dad in some sort of heaven, Jason didn’t know.
What he did know was that her forced existence had ended, her private torment over.
And as he’d not often done, Jason wondered how his life would have turned out if his father had lived. If his dad hadn’t worked late that fateful night of July twenty-ninth, then stopped at a convenience store on his way home to grab a carton of his wife’s favorite ice cream. An apology for missing dinner.
Ten minutes sooner, and it would’ve been another innocent bystander standing in line instead of him, the quart of butterscotch ripple already melting on the passenger seat as he raced home.
Ten minutes later, and yellow caution tape would’ve blocked all the entrances into the store’s parking lot, sending him three miles out of his way to find the special frozen treat.
Ten minutes, one way or the other, and Jason might never have walked into an Armed Forces recruiting center, sporting a massive chip on his shoulder, a worn backpack stuffed with pocket knives and twenty-dollar bills, and nowhere but Nowhere to go.
The service lasted an inordinate amount of time, agonizing minutes passing before the priest spoke his last words. As people began to shuffle their feet and look around, pondering how quickly they could get back to their day, he accepted condolences from the few in attendance. Mostly neighbors and employees of the home health service who’d provided her care for years. There were no other blood relatives except Luke, who was running SEAL team missions in Somalia. Luke’s father—his mother’s only sibling—had died years ago, both of Jason’s parents coming from small families.
“I put a casserole in the refrigerator for you.” Betty squeezed his hand, sadness lining her thin face. “Make sure to eat something. And don’t worry about the house. I’ve washed all the bedding, and your mother’s clothing is tucked away in her closet. I’ll stop by every now and then to water the plants and such for you. All you need to do is mind the fridge and it’ll be fine until you decide what to do.”
Jason nodded his thanks, patting her back awkwardly when she hugged him. She was his mother’s closest confidante, and he wondered what she had that he didn’t.
“She loved you, Jason. She was just very sick.” Her voice was sure, but he didn’t need excuses meant to make him feel better. “You eat that casserole, now. It’s my grandmother’s famous tuna and noodle.”
She gave his arm a tug and he nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”
Polite agreement or not, he had no intention of stepping foot in that house for quite some time. Or eating a tuna fucking casserole. Leaving, she joined Katie and the other nurses as they walked toward their cars.
Molly’s motherly touch drew his attention.
“Well, look at you. You’re just as handsome as sin in this suit, but your uniform would’ve been better. Be proud of who you are. Let people see you. Let that gorgeous redhead see you.” She patted his jacket, wiping away imaginary lint. “Her absence tells me you’ve not been in contact. She’d be with you, otherwise. That girl ate three thousand calories a day in triple-digit heat just to be with you.”
“How’s business at the motel?” He changed topics, loosening his tie.
Her lips pinched, but she let it go. “Running at about half occupancy. I’m thinking of putting in a shuffleboard court. Try to attract the active adult community favoring dry climates to alleviate their arthritis. You wanna come help me map it out?”
“Yeah. Next summer.” During his annual visit on July twenty-ninth. “Luke will help, if he can get leave.”
“Visit sooner, and bring that sweet pea of yours.” She grinned, glancing at One Eye and Rusty waiting a respectful distance away. “Rusty says chardonnay sales are way down.”
He laughed, the smile lingering, proving once again that Tessa, tipsy and trapped in a wedding dress, could ease even the shittiest of days.
“You see?” Molly nodded at his reaction. “That’s why you don’t let a good thing get away. Your mother would’ve loved her.”
Ten minutes sooner or ten minutes later… his dad would’ve loved her too.
She hugged him goodbye, then joined the others walking toward the narrow gravel road dividing the cemetery, their cars parked alongside. He watched them leave, then looked at his mother’s casket one last time before thanking the priest and escaping to his truck, finally satisfying the need to flee.
It might have taken every weapon in his mental arsenal, but his eyes had remained dry the entire time.
She was wearing yellow. His new favorite color.
And she looked just as beautiful in it as she did a white wedding dress. Just as sexy as she did in her birthday suit, all creamy skin and pink bliss, his for the taking.
Taking… and then leaving.
Gripping the steering wheel, he sat parallel parked on Main Street in downtown La Jolla, staring through the front windows of her brightly-lit boutique. The sun was low as the dinner hour neared, shadows and his strategic location allowing him to see inside.
She was there, standing near the front, smiling and speaking animatedly to a group of women testing out a sofa.
Tessa.
Vibrant and full of life, in a yellow dress that suited her sunny personality. A dress tight to her stacked upper body, flaring out at the waist in a billow of fabric that ended just above her knees. A billow that could hide a baby bump. His baby bump.
Seeing her was like seeing color television after a lifetime of black and white, and he leaned back in the seat, mindlessly scratching the short, unkempt beard he’d not bothered to shave before the funeral. It felt like three decades had passed since he’d laid eyes on her, not three months.
Close enough to touch, all he had to do was cross the busy street and walk through the double doors, One Posh Place scrolled above. His fingers flexed, the need overwhelming. But he didn’t. He didn’t have the right.
Instead, he stayed hidden in plain sight.
Much the way he lived his life.
He wasn’t even sure how he ended up here, stalking a woman he had no business associating with.
After the funeral service, he’d headed to the attorney’s office, needing to settle his mother’s estate and sign paperwork before Scorpio shipped him off to someplace as ungodly as Libya again. The process was simple, Jason her only living heir and little in the way of assets and insurance. After a thirty-minute meeting that lasted twenty minutes too long in his opinion, he’d walked out of the law office with a thick file under his arm and a lead balloon in his stomach. Starting the truck, he’d rolled down the windows and put it in reverse, but didn’t let off the brake.
He had no idea where to go.
His lonely apartment wasn’t an option. It wasn’t where he lived, it was only where he slept, and while exhausted, his brain wouldn’t quiet long enough to catch any shut-eye. No way was he going to his mother’s house. Not today and not for a while, despite the promise of tuna casserole and the pressing task he needed to tackle.
Cleaning it out and putting it on the market.
That meant letting go of the only tangible thing still linking him to another human being—and he didn’t mean just his mother.
It meant her too.
Matilda.
No house on Willow Way meant no mailbox to receive an annual letter.
He opened the console and pulled out the pale pink envelope. The one that had arrived the day he’d met Tessa. The seal was still unbroken.
Running his thumb over it, he traced the raised floral pattern, the words inside not as important as they’d once been. His soul was no longer malnourished. Another woman was feeding him now and reading it felt like a disservice to her. To their connection.
Ridiculously, it felt like cheating.
The console clicked shut, the envelope back inside. Still sealed.
Sure, he could’ve hit the gym or the firing range, or headed into Scorpio to sit at a desk he was still getting used to. Asked Nolan for tips on trout fishing and listened to him drone on about lures and hip waders. Mentioned to Caroline he wanted carrot cake but hated raisins and watched her call every bakery in the metropolitan area, on a mission to find him raisin-free.
So why then, he asked himself, was he watching the woman he’d willingly walked away from, leaving her crying and throwing blocks of wood in an attempt to brain him?
Because he’d sat in his truck with a file full of legal documents mocking him from the passenger seat. Documents stating that Jason Reynolds was now officially all alone in the world.
Alone.
And it felt a lot worse than he expected.
No wife to go home to. No baby and no bond to share with her, laughing about things like vomit and cameras catching them in the act.
That’s what happened when you saw how the other half lived.
When you saw a man like Ash—who’d done the same grisly things he’d done—so in love with his wife and son, yet still able to thrive in the adrenaline-fueled world of dark ops. It opened the possibility. It planted the seed.
It parked him in front of her store, playing peeping Tom.
The cold, hard truth was… he missed her. It was a living, breathing ache inside him, and so alien, so different than anything he’d ever felt before, he hadn’t recognized it at first.
Watching her now, in her element, flitting about a store full of rare and expensive items, he saw only one treasure. Her.
This went beyond missing. He was drowning in yearning. Dipping into loving.
And instead of panic, a sense of peace washed over him.
Peace, and the urgent need to plan. To strategize and prep for the most important mission of his life, mapping out every possible scenario and his split-second response, implementing fail-safes to ensure the best execution and desired result.
Him and her, together.
When she threw back her head and laughed, her gorgeous hair flowing around her shoulders, Jason heard that laugh in his mind. Felt that hair flow over his belly. Saw the face of his future, forever-style.
And scrapped his mission planning.
He reached for the door handle, ready to go rogue, just as her customers exited and she flipped the window sign from Open to Closed. The lights dimmed seconds later, leaving only the ambient glow of her security system.
A sign from the universe.
He wasn’t suave enough to win back a woman on the fly.
Minutes later, he saw two cars—a lime green Ford Focus and a gray Range Rover—leave the lot adjacent the boutique. She didn’t notice him, his vehicle one of many parked on the busy street.
She looked good. Like banana bread and the possibility of a clinging monkey under that billowy yellow dress.
She looked like love.
Not the kind that made you throw yourself over a coffin, slit your wrists in a clawfoot tub, and kick your kid to the curb. But the kind that made you share your pizza, your sunsets, and your secrets.
His cell rang.
“Ash,” Jason said in greeting.
“Hey. How’d it go today?”
He snorted. “How funerals usually go. A bunch of uncomfortable people standing around a dead one.”
“Feel like getting schooled at Texas Hold ’Em?” Intuitive, he changed the somber subject. “Sam’s hosting a tournament tonight. Twenty-spot buy-in. We play low stakes because Grady’s poker face sucks, and I can’t, in good faith, win back the entirety of his paycheck in one evening.”
A keyboard tapped in the background, along with the intermittent sounds of baby babble.
“Never thought I’d see you with a baby.” Where the fuck did that inane comment come from?
The tapping stopped, dead air on the other end of the line.
“Thought I might never have one,” Ash finally said.
“On purpose?” Christ, he’d lost his ever lovin’ mind.
He laughed. “That’s a little personal, but yeah, I’d say he was on purpose.”
Jason heard shuffling, then Olivia’s muffled voice in the background. “I need to feed him. Rosa’s on her way to babysit.”
The baby babble faded, and the tapping resumed.
“Are you in? Sam’s headed to the liquor store and taking drink orders. If you don’t make a special request, it’s domestic light beer in a can.”
“Is it easy? Running ops with a wife and kid at home? Balancing them?”
A measured beat passed. “No, it’s not easy. But I didn’t think that word was in a SEAL’s vocabulary anyway. Nothing you’ve done in the teams was easy, and much of what we do is the same. Doing it, along with having a wife and kid relying on you to come home, adds another burden. Not only are you focused on completing a mission without injury to one of your teammates, you start applying that same requirement to yourself. Death becomes less valiant. Somebody other than your country is counting on you to stay alive.”
He paused, letting that sink in.
“But the balancing act is worth it, I can say for certain. It took Liv and I several wasted years to figure that out, so the sooner you get your ass in gear, the better. Life is short. You were just at a funeral, so this should be obvious.”
Life lesson complete, the tapping resumed. “The ladies are going out for a girls’ night tonight. Hope’s rounding up Caroline and Sam’s wife, Ali, then picking up Liv. She says your sort of is welcome to join them at the Crab Hut downtown. They’ll add another straw to the pina colada punch bowl. So, poker?”
“I’m not great company.” The beautiful sight of Tessa aside, he’d buried his mother a few hours ago.
“You don’t have to drink or talk, Jason. Bring twenty bucks and play a few hands. Beck’s dry too, and Grady’ll talk enough for the both of you.” He somehow read the silence. “You’re not alone. You have six brothers who’ve been where you are. Integrating is tough. It’s not always sunshine and rainbows when you’re used to hiding in the shadows hunting bad guys.”
“Not when you look in the mirror and see somebody just as bad.” A man with a renowned kill count.
“Whoever this woman is that you’re worried about balancing? She sees you too. I’m assuming she’s not tied up in your basement, so it must be of her own free will. Maybe you’re not as bad as you think.”
I’m not afraid of you.
You should be.
“How do you mix the two? Who you used to be—who you are now while on the clock, with the man you need to be when you go home? How do kiss your wife and hug your baby, knowing what you’ve done? The violence you’ve committed?”
He heard movement, then a door close before Ash spoke.
“What I’ve done, and what I do now, is all in the name of protection. Not always my own family, not always my own country, but always to protect. The means by which that protection occurs is an ethical line we ride. Have I found myself on the wrong side? Yeah. A sheepdog confronts the wolf to protect his flock. Is my conscious clear? Yeah, but it took a while. I kiss my wife and I hug my child, knowing they’re safe. Sheepdogs never hurt sheep. They do what’s necessary to control the wolves, and the sheep need not know how.” He paused, the speech auditorium worthy. “You in for poker?”
Jason stared at the closed store, reconciling the two men within him.
An operator who could fire his AR-15 with deadly accuracy during ten days in Libya, cleaning the blade of his knife on his lifeless enemy’s shirt and leaving blood splatter in his wake.
A stranger who could cuddle with Tessa in the bed of his truck while sharing a private sunset, under her spell before he realized what was happening and hooked for life, even as he walked away.
It was a miracle, really, that a woman wearing a wedding dress had moseyed into a bar in the middle of Nowhere, taken one look at him, and instead of seeing the operator with no apparent heart outside of a pulse, saw the stranger trying to silence that wounded beat by applying whiskey.
“Yeah. I’m in,” Jason said.
To the poker game.
To the prospect that he could be two men at once.
And to the plea she’d tearfully issued in a purple motel room.
The possibility of maybe.