“So, we get down to this tiny bumblefuck town in Georgia the day before we start Airborne school.” T launched into yet another tale.

“Don’t tell that story,” Aaron groaned. Truthfully, he didn’t mind. Once he’d gotten over himself, he was actually enjoying watching Natalie absorb everything his army issued brothers discussed. Having her there somehow made every story better. He inhaled her fascination like a drug. It eased the pain of the times no one told stories about.

“Aww come on, this one’s on me anyway. That was the first time you bailed my ass out of a sling,” T-Byrd vowed.

“I want to hear it,” Natalie urged.

“We go into this bar that’s supposed to have cheap beer and ladies with a thing for men in uniform.”

Aaron shook his head, laughing at what was to come. “I feel the need to tell you that I went back to the barracks alone. T did not.”

“That’s the truth,” T confirmed. “Anyway, I got nice and cozy with this redhead in the bar and decided that no one would ever know if I snuck her back in with me for a little while.”

“I take it that didn’t go as well as you thought it would.” Natalie giggled.

“That would be a very safe bet, sweetheart,” Aaron assured her.

“I got her on base just fine. It’s just that I’d had enough beers to drown a sailor so I passed out as soon as I blew my wad.”

“T! You kiss your mama with that mouth?” Aaron admonished.

Natalie shook her head at them. “It’s okay. Keep going. I have lots of brothers.”

“We were supposed to be in formation at 0430 the next morning,” Aaron picked up the story. “T’s nowhere to be found. I know he’s gonna get his ass chewed up and spit out and might even get sent back, idiot that he is.”

“Yeah, so, Triple A tells the C.O. that I’m taking a—uh, that I was in the head. Would’ve worked too, except right about the time I made it to formation Red comes stumbling out of my room.”

Natalie cringed.

“That’s not the worst part,” Aaron assured her. “Tell her about SF training.”

“Yeah, so I find out many weeks later that her daddy is the head of weapon’s instruction for all of Special Forces training. Someone from jump school gave him a call when they saw her coming out of my room that morning. He had a grudge to pick. As soon as my boots touched the ground, he was on my ass. Until Triple A figures out that the guy is a huge University of Alabama fan. A is a fucking brilliant bastard if you haven’t figured that out yet. He tells Instructor Asshat all about how his daughter had too much to drink and that I was worried about her going home with some other guys she was hanging out with that night. Then he casually lets it slip that the guys she’d been hanging with went to Auburn. Triple A tells him that I’d actually stayed in his room that night. That I’d just bought her back to the base so I’d know she was safe while she slept off the booze.”

“In the South football is like a religion. I knew it would work,” Aaron explained.

“Like it isn’t here?” Natalie reminded him.

“Right, so from then on I was a hero. A’s saved my life too fucking many times to count but that will always be the one I appreciate the most, I think. All the others it would’ve been over much faster anyway.”

“I couldn’t listen to any more of your whining about what he was making you do. I had to do something.”

“I bet that wasn’t it.” Natalie’s lips landed on the scar under his beard. For a brief moment, the memory of it was erased as well. “I’ll be right back.” She grabbed her purse and headed to the bathroom.

“My God, she’s gorgeous.” T leapt as soon as she was out of earshot.

“I know.”

“She’s good for you.” Griff’s earnest vow was weighted with importance.

“I need to be good for her.”

“Tell me what you know about this guy who hurt her?”

“Not much. Whoever he is he was on Camden ranch when she was eleven.”

“Are you fucking saying she was eleven when whatever happened, happened?” Griff growled.

Aaron nodded. “Now you know why I want to kill this bastard with my bare hands.” The Sevens all nodded. “Possibly a family member but I can’t come up with who that would be. Could also have been some kind of ranch hand she thought of as family. It was definitely someone she trusted at some point. I had her brother softened up last night but we got interrupted before he gave me anything actionable. I’m betting he’ll go cold now.”

“If you know he was on her ranch when she was eleven all I need to know is how old she is now. Get me all the info you can on her and I’ll find this fucker,” Smith vowed.

Before their lives had been blown to hell, Smith had been one hell of a communications sergeant. He could make anything from an old school CB radio to the latest greatest satellite comm unit sing for him. Hell, Aaron would put good money on him being able to rig up some kind of communication device out of conch shells and rubber bands. There was a reason they called him Echo.

“Before she gets back, who owns this ranch?” T leapt into action. The remaining members of the Sevens all took out their phones.

“Been in the family for generations. The kids all own a portion of it. Everett and Jessie Camden are her parents. I’m betting the entire thing is really in their name and parceled out to the kids.”

“What’s her middle name?”

“Uh, it’s Jessica, after her mom.”

“Birthday?”

Aaron had taken Natalie out to the lake to hang out with her siblings and some of their friends last year for her birthday. “Shit, it’s soon. September twenty-first maybe.”

“Better memorize that real quick-like, A.” Griff chuckled as he typed. “Do not want to fuck that up and it’s in three weeks.”

“Noted.”

“Natalie Jessica Camden born September 20th right here at St. Elizabeth’s. Father is Everett Lucas Camden. Mother is Jessica Suzanne Camden. Would that be her?” T-Byrd held up his phone displaying a copy of Natalie’s birth certificate.

“That’s her. How’d you find that so quick?”

“She’s got nothing to hide. She isn’t camped out under a rock in the Middle East. It’s a lot easier to do what we’re doing now than what we did before.”

“We’re taking this job pro-bono, T, hope you know that,” Voodoo declared.

“I already told him we were,” T huffed.

“You can’t let her know I asked for your help,” Aaron warned.

“Dude, we have been in and out of countries without my mama even knowing we were out of the driveway. We can be discreet.”

“Whoever hurt her is going down,” Griff vowed.

“Here she comes,” Smith spoke through his teeth.

“You’re so full of shit,” Aaron laughed like they’d continued on with their reminiscing while she was gone. Just as they’d always done, the Sevens joined his laughter, playing right along. They’d never let him down.

“I get why they’re your family, Aaron. They’re great.” The hours of fascinating conversation that evening spun round and round in Natalie’s head as Aaron drove them back to Pleasant Glen. She had so many questions. Questions she knew she had no business asking him.

“They thought you were pretty awesome, too. Thanks for going with me. I liked having you there.”

“You sound surprised,” Natalie teased him.

“You know how you told me last night that you shouldn’t have liked me holding your hands against the wall like I did?”

Natalie nodded.

“I shouldn’t have liked you being there. Those stories get to me sometimes but tonight, they didn’t bother me.”

“Do you think that means maybe we’re good for each other?”

Aaron squeezed her hand. “Yeah, maybe. Not sure how good I am for you, but I’m trying.”

“I’m really glad I asked you to sleep with me.” Natalie prayed the moon outside her window didn’t reveal the streaks of heat in her cheeks.

“Trust me, sweetheart, I’m really glad you did, too.”

Raking her teeth across her bottom lip for the fourth time, she tried to come up with something to ask that would explain exactly how he’d gotten PTSD. She’d read everything she could find on it for most of the day. She wanted to help him. She just had no idea how to do that.

“So, um, when did you all decide to get out of the Army?”

“Didn’t exactly decide that.” His voice was suddenly hollow. He pulled his hand away from hers and put it back on the steering wheel. It didn’t appear that he’d even noticed he’d done it. Definitely not a good question.

There were seven identical military-looking stars tattooed from his left wrist to his elbow. “Are your star tattoos for the Sevens? That’s such a cool way to memorialize everything you all must’ve accomplished together.”

His long eyelashes made three quick blinks. A harsh swallow contracted the muscles in his neck. His Adam’s apple bobbed like he was choking back an answer. “Kind of,” escaped his lips before they sealed shut again.

“I won’t ask anything else. I’m sorry.” Way to go, Nat. You really are an idiot.

“No. Fuck. I’m the one that’s sorry. It’s just…you know that thing you refuse to tell me?”

“You aren’t telling me because I won’t tell you what happened to me?”

“God no, it’s just we both have shit in our pasts we don’t want to talk about. All those stories they told you tonight, those were the good times. Times weren’t always good.”

“I’m really sorry for whatever happened, Aaron.”

“Yeah, me too, baby. For both of us.”

“So, they all own a business together now or something? That’s what it sounded like.”

“Yeah, T got the brilliant idea to open a security firm. They’re pretty much just glorified P.I.’s as far as I can tell. They love it though.” He shrugged.

“Is it bad that I’m glad you work at Saddlebacks and not with them?”

“Not at all. I’m glad you like having me around, sweetness. And don’t worry, I don’t want to have anything to do with any kind of profession that requires me to carry a gun ever again. I love the Glen. It reminds me of one of my favorite places growing up. Our tiny town definitely does not need a P.I, so I’m good tending bar.”

“Except for when Ed and Eliza start in on each other.”

“They drive me crazy but it’s worth it.” He returned his hand to hers. Natalie grinned.

“Did you see how Voodoo kept trying to flirt with our waitress and she kept shooting him down?” She ventured back to safer ground.

A haunted smile returned to Aaron’s features. The effort that must’ve taken physically affected Natalie. Her chest ached for all he’d been through. “I saw him. Did you see him slip his number in when he signed his check?”

“I didn’t see him do that. What did she do?”

“Rolled her eyes. Voodoo has probably been a womanizer since preschool. Needs somebody to settle his ass down. We were on the same chopper when we got sent to Ramstein. I came to for a few minutes and Voodoo’s strung out on painkillers but still trying to flirt with the doctor who’s redoing the stitches he gave himself.”

Natalie forced a slight chuckle. What was Ramstein? She needed to remember so she could search for it later. The words, came to, painkillers, and stitches he gave himself churned in her stomach. “I’m glad you’re okay. Scares me to think about you not being okay.”

Aaron’s seeking gaze finally landed on hers. “I’m fine.”

“I always say that, too.” Her voice was devoid of any emotion or any volume. He didn’t respond. Determined to find some way to help him, she refused to be deterred from the plan she’d come up with when she’d stumbled upon a medical website that outlined the sleeplessness and nightmares that were common with PTSD.

The darkened ranch was almost silent when Aaron drove them through the gates. The occasional bellow of a cow and screech of a hawk just weren’t soothing that night. Unable to work out the best way to ask this, she decided to just let the words leap off her tongue. She was sure to mess it up anyway.

They neared her house. “Uh, I was thinking…”

“I’m hoping the next words out of your mouth are about kissing you again.”

“Well, yes, but no.”

“Gonna need a little help with that answer, Nat.”

“I was thinking I’d really like you to stay with me tonight.”

The rapid, rhythmic clicks of Aaron’s parking brake echoed inside her skull. “You want me to stay here tonight?”

She knew enough about Aaron to know without a doubt he would never stay if he thought she was doing this for him, and he would never turn her down if he thought she needed him to stay. He would always come to her rescue. He would always keep her safe. Triple A through and through.

“It’s just sometimes I have weird dreams. When I was a little girl, my therapist said it was my brain trying to heal or make sense of…everything. Sometimes I can sense when I’m going to have one before I even get into bed. Kind of feels like carrying around a ghost that you can’t get rid of. It feels like it’s bigger than my body. I can’t contain it but it won’t go away. When I’m with you, I feel safe.” That was all true. She wondered if he carried around ghosts as well.

“Come here to me.”

Before she understood what was happening, he’d scooped her into his lap. She nestled her head into his neck as he cradled her in the soothing warmth of his arms. Maybe staying with her wasn’t all for him. Maybe she needed this as well.

“Baby, I’ll stay with you as long as you need me to. I swear to you I will never let anything or anyone hurt or scare you ever again.”

“I know.”