Spreading the quilt out on her living room floor instead of in her favorite field, Aaron set up the picnic as best as he could. The dogs were stretched out nearby, eyeing the picnic basket hopefully. He already had a fire roaring in her fireplace. If it weren’t for her sicko uncle, this would’ve been nice.

Using the same lighter he’d used to incinerate the photos, he lit the candles he’d set on her coffee table. “Come here,” he held out his hand.

“You didn’t have to do this.” She started to sit beside him on the floor, but he guided her into his lap instead.

“I told you I will not let him take anything else from you. Not your barn. Not this picnic. Not your dignity. Not your field. Not anything else on this ranch that you love. And sure as hell not me.”

If he hadn’t been hell-bent on never leaving her side, he would already have driven back to his house and beaten the fuck out of Rasmussen. Her uncle’s name wasn’t the only one on those slips. He’d recognized the old man’s handwriting before he’d even found one with his name on it.

There were only two possible reasons Rasmussen hated her so much. He was afraid someday she might find physical evidence against him and press charges, or he blamed her for keeping him from his sick hobby. He was too stupid to know the old betting slips weren’t enough to convict him in a state courtroom. Aaron didn’t give a damn what a judge might rule. He’d execute the man himself. He stopped short of listing ways to murder his landlord while making it look like an accident.

“I don’t want to remember that part of tonight. I want to remember all of the other things that I liked about it.”

“Okay.” He rocked her back and forth. “Then that’s what we’ll do. Your field is beautiful, baby.”

“I still love it.”

“Good. I want you to still love it. Never stop going there. Don’t give it up.”

“The barn is still really cool but I…”

“Don’t want to go visit that for a while.”

She nodded.

“You tell me when you think you’re ready. I’ll take you back up there and I’ll be right beside you the entire time. Okay? Bet I could even get all of your big brothers to go with us. I know they make you feel safe.”

“They do, but I don’t need them so much anymore. I have you.”

“Always.”

Cosseted safely in Aaron’s embrace, Natalie quirked one eye open the next morning. Make it stop. She whimpered. The buzzing continued.

Sitting up, she grabbed her cell phone from her bedside table. “Hey, Mama,” she yawned.

“If you’da told me a month ago that my girl was gonna fall in love with a man who’d make her sleep in late, I woulda called you a liar.”

“Sorry. Rough night.”

“Something happen with you and Aaron?”

“Not exactly. We’re fine. What did you need?”

“Well, your brothers are fit to be tied over doing your chores for you so after you go check your cattle bring Aaron down for breakfast. I’m making strawberry pancakes.”

“Yum.”

“Hurry up and you can lick the beaters on the mixer,” her mother bribed.

“Are you making strawberry whipped cream, too?”

“Does your mama ever do anything halfway?”

“Definitely not.”

“Then I’m making strawberry whipped cream. Get your behind over here.”

“Okay. We’ll hurry.”

“We’ll hurry to do what?” Aaron’s entire face contorted with his yawn.

“Mama’s making strawberry pancakes. She makes them with the preserves she puts up. They’re amazing. But I have to check my cattle first, so get up.”

“If I go down there with you, is your daddy gonna take pot shots at me?”

“Possibly, so just stay behind me.” Natalie giggled.

“Not a fan of the idea of using you as body armor but your daddy definitely won’t shoot you so I may take you up on that.” Aaron crawled out of bed, grinning at her. “Feeling a little better this morning?”

“Much. And no nightmares so that’s good. Plus, strawberry pancakes improve all situations.”

“Let me find clothes and feed the dogs.”

“I’ll make us coffee,” Natalie called as she headed down the hallway.

An hour later, the horses were fed and her cattle were all accounted for. They were just pulling into view of her parents’ house when a loose steer darted in front of Aarons’ truck. He slammed on the brakes missing the steer but causing Natalie to dump hot coffee all over her lap.

“Oh God, baby, I’m sorry.”

Natalie held up her hand willing the hot sting to cool. “I’m fine and I’ll dry. Spilled coffee is way better than a dead steer.”

“Let’s get you inside so I can get that coffee off of you.”

“I’m fine.” Natalie popped open his glove box searching for napkins.

“Nat, don’t.” He grabbed her hand but it was too late. Instead of the napkins she’d been expecting to find, her hand landed on a letter address to Hope.

Jerking away from him she stared from the letter to him. “Why do you have a letter for Hope?”

“I, uh… it was in the…”

“How did you get this?” Her body flushed hot and then ran ice cold. The acid in her stomach swirled into a maelstrom. She recognized the scratchy handwriting from the betting slips she’d seen the night before. Tearing open the envelope, she jerked open the letter. “Tell me how you got this. Tell me right now.”

“T took it.” His voice was a half-haunted whisper. T. The library. Cheryl seeing T at the court house. All of the pieces fit far too neatly. “You broke into the library didn’t you. You took this from her desk or something. You were the one who broke the lock and the windows. You and T, right?”

“No.”

“Stop lying to me!”

“It was T and Griff. It wasn’t me.”

“Oh my God. The night at the fair. When you said you were going to Cottonwood. You were in Moorer’s Woods. You went to get them because they’d found this.”

“They almost got caught at the library. I had to rescue them. You wouldn’t tell me who’d hurt you. I just… Nat please. Please, I’m so sorry.”

“So, what, I wouldn’t tell you so you hired your friends to find out everything about me. Is that it?”

He had the audacity to nod. Bastard.

“The courthouse. Oh my God. Cheryl saw T outside the courthouse. Did he break in there, too?”

“They were looking for the wills.”

“I trusted you.” She raged in his face. “I trusted you with everything!” Flinging the door open she bolted toward her parents’ house. “I hate you. I never want to see you again,” she screeched as she reached the porch.

Her parents and brothers all raced outside. Dec, Holly, Brock, and Hope followed after them.

“Nat please,” Aaron continued to beg as he raced after her.

Shoving past Luke, Natalie took the stairs two at a time. “Tell him to leave,” she shrieked before slamming her door.

“What the hell?” Luke and Austin made it to Aaron first. If they wanted to beat the shit out him or kill him in cold blood at that moment, he would have let them. “What did you do?”

He’d made a career out of always having the right thing to say at the right moment. Lies. Truth. Half of both. It never mattered. But he’d reached the end of the rope. There was nothing but the truth. It was the only thing he’d ever owed her and it was the singular thing he’d withheld. “I tried to find your uncle.”

Every single member of the Camden family froze where they were. Dec’s eyes closed for the better part of a minute. Ev’s mouth was still hanging open.

“Why would you want to find my father?” Brock finally asked.

“We’ll talk about that later,” Jessie decreed. “Aaron, sweetie, let me talk to her. Let’s just let her cool off a little.”

Shaking off his shock, Ev approached Aaron. “Take a walk with me, son.”

“Sir, I have to beg her forgiveness. I… have to… do something.”

“We’ll get to all that. Right now, we need to chat.” Unsteady on his own feet for the first time in his life, Aaron found himself being led out toward the pasture nearby. They were five hundred paces from the Camdens’ front porch before Ev started talking.

“So, what were you planning to do to him when you found him?”

“Uh, pretty much to kill him, sir.” Any ability to lie seemed to have been drained from his consciousness.

“If I’d a known that, I woulda told you where he is. Wish you’d just asked me.”

“I have to talk to her.”

“Oh, she ain’t gonna talk for a while. Got more temper than her mama and that’s saying something. Just so I know how deep a ditch you’ve gotten yourself into and so I can figure how exactly to get you out of it, how did you go ’bout finding him?”

“In a former life, I was a Special Forces intelligence officer for the Green Berets.”

“Impressive. Thank you for your service, son. So, you called the Pentagon askin’ ’bout my brother or something like that?”

“No, sir.” The need to do more than chat with her father seared through his brain preventing him from coming up with any actionable plan. “Uh, some friends of mine from back in the army run a security firm that specializes in finding people who don’t necessarily want to be found. They helped me.”

“Heard her say something ’bout the library. I’m guessing you and your friends are why it got broken into but nothing was taken.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Wouldn’t have thought that kind of thing would be in the library.”

“It wasn’t. They broke into the courthouse as well. They, uh, they found your wills.”

“Thorough ain’t they?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know, I could be pissed about you upsetting my baby girl, but honest to the Good Lord up above you impressed the hell out of me. I thought about driving down to that stupid beach town in North Carolina and putting a bullet in his head more times that I can count. But you see, son, I finally realized that me festering in it wasn’t gonna help her go on. I tried to do everything a daddy can do when one of his babies has been hurt like that. I would’ve given anything to have killed him before he ever got to her. Sick bastard.” Ev spat on the ground.

“You moved his son back up here. She hates that.” Being angry at someone else just felt too damn good. It brought breath back to his lungs. It made him able to fight again.

“She did. She don’t so much anymore. I never dreamed Mick wouldn’t leave Brock with us when I told him I’d kill him if he ever so much as crossed the Mississippi again and bury him so deep no one would ever find him. Brock is nothin’ like my brother. This whole damn town wants to hold him accountable for his father’s sins, the ones they know about, anyway. I wasn’t going to do that. Boy deserved another chance. And my daughter deserved to know how strong she is. She never has to forgive Mick but carrying around all of that hatred was hurting her, too.”

“Guess we’ll agree to disagree on that. She deserves to hate whoever she wants, including me.”

“She don’t hate you. If she hated you, she wouldn’t be up in her old bedroom crying over you. She’d be out on her horse thinking up creative ways to set your truck on fire.”

“I’ll hand her the matches. I deserve worse.”

“You know, Natalie has always needed one thing me, and her mama, and her brothers, and her little sister just didn’t have it in us to give her. But I think you might just have it in you.”

“What? Anything.”

“She needs somebody more stubborn than she is. Somebody who ain’t gonna roll over and play dead just ’cause she told ’em she don’t never want to see ’em again. You know anybody willing to fight with her for her?”

“Yes, sir.” Fragments of an idea began to take shape in his mind.

“Kinda thought you might. I knew I liked you.”

“You did?” The man had hated the very earth Aaron walked on a week ago.

“Just ’cause I threatened to kill ya don’t mean I don’t like you. I just love my girl.”

“I love her too, sir.”

“Then batten down the hatches, son. She’s real likely to come out of my house guns blazing.”

“I need to get a few things.”

“You go on. I’ll see if Jess and Holly have had any luck getting through to her. They won’t but they’ll try. It’ll be a good long while for she even comes outta that room. She’ll go from there straight to her house.”

“I’m sorry I hurt her. I never meant to do that. I…” he choked.

Natalie’s father put his hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “I know you never meant to. Let her simmer down. Lying to her was a bad plan. Protecting her wasn’t. I should’ve done a better job of that when she was a little girl. I’ll never forgive myself for what he did to her. I shoulda taken a page from you. Course I didn’t know then what I know now. But I like the idea of her being with a man willing to go to prison to keep her safe.”

“I would.”

“Oh, I know, son. I ain’t so much worried about a prison cell though. I’m more worried about getting you out of the doghouse.”

Aaron had his phone to his ear as soon as he cranked his truck. “Get him on a child pornography charge. I want him to burn,” he snarled.

“What?”

“Mick. If I can’t kill him, let some inmates do it on my behalf.”

“Dude, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“Natalie found the letter. She pretty much hates me for lying to her.”

“Fuck.”

“She took me out to this barn on her ranch that she loves. We found some old betting slips and there were pictures of her and her sister when they were young.”

“Jesus. I hope he does burn but it won’t be in the state pen. He doesn’t even own a computer.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

“I am looking inside his house, A. I’m telling you. He’s got nothing there that’s illegal. Guy doesn’t even drink anymore. How are you going to get Natalie back?”

“I’m not sure I can.” The idea Aaron had come up with seemed more and more ridiculous the farther he drove away from the ranch. He didn’t deserve to get her back. Why would this mission go any better than his last?

“Fuck that. You’re getting her back. You two were meant to be. Why the hell do you think you stopped your truck in that tiny ass town years ago? You were supposed to meet her. I know it. I can feel it.”

“I stopped here because it reminded me of Gentry not because of her.”

“Uh huh. You ever think all the shit that you went through as a kid, Gentry, what happened in Najaf, all of it has been leading you right to her. I’m not letting you give up without a fight just because you’re damned and determined to be punished for something that wasn’t your fault. You get your shit together. We’re going wheels up at 1100 hours.”

“What?” The call had been ended.

Fight with her for her. It ricocheted around in his head making him dizzy. How exactly did he do that when she refused to come out of her parents’ house? Nothing else came to him so he went on with his original plan.

Tearing open the boxes under his bed, he found his old combat tent. Flinging away meritorious promotion paperwork, combat medals, and his purple heart, he dug until he located his old rucksack and sleeping bag.

With each memory that surfaced, he tried to disassociate himself from them in preparation for the battle ahead. If she wouldn’t take him back, he had no interest in going on. This was the fight for his life.

Needing some piece of Josh with him, he slipped his tags around his neck and dropped them behind his shirt. Another shattered fragment of his heart found the whole Natalie had been reconstructing.

Standing, he flung away his Wranglers. If he was going in, he was going in in fatigues.

He was shoving protein bars in his ruck sack when his front door was kicked open.

“Good, we were all on the same page.” Griff assessed the disaster in the floor. Every remaining member of the Sevens was dressed in black T-shirts and camo pants. “Packs are in the trucks. I went by Supply and got enough M.R.E’s for a month. Wheels up.”

“I take it the drop zone is approaching.” Smith chuckled as T drove them through pastureland toward Natalie’s house.

“You don’t have to do this with me. I’m the one who fucked everything up.”

“We are the United States Army Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha 1167. Where you go we go,” T vowed. “High time you got over yourself and figured out what to do with your life. Natalie is what you do with your life in case you had any doubt.”

Honored, humbled, and humiliated, Aaron had never been more thankful for his team in his entire life. He followed them out of the truck and started setting up camp in her front yard.

T stabbed a metal pole in the ground with a paper guidon flag attached to it. Aaron shook his head. The Special Forces arrows were in the center just like their old guidons. However, unlike their old flags, the team number was now a 69 and the company name was no longer a single letter it was an A and an N.

Griff unfurled a full sized army surplus tent. When it was erected, he hung a sheet of poster board on the side facing Natalie’s house declaring that this was Camp Take Him Back.

“Where the hell did you get a tent like that?” Uncertain how to feel about all his team had done, it was the only question that came to mind.

“I refuse to answer that on the grounds that the army might want it back and decide to incriminate me.” Griff smirked.

“All right we need some mission parameters and specs. Basically, I’m asking what the hell happened and how are we going to fix it.”

The look on her face when she pulled that stupid letter from his glovebox sucker punched him yet again. “I shoved the letter in my glovebox. I wanted it on me in case I stumbled up on an opportunity to get it somewhere back in Brock and Hope’s house or her pocketbook or something. I’ve been on the ranch so much I figured I had a fair chance to stick it somewhere and make Hope believe she hadn’t left it where she knew she did. A cow ran in front of my truck this morning. I slammed on the brakes. Her coffee went all over her. She was looking for napkins I guess. Found the letter. Put all of the shit I’d been shoveling in a pile, told me she hated me, and that she never wanted to see me again.”

The weight of every lie he’d told crashed down on him. He sank to the ground under the strain of his shame.

“All right so obviously you can never lie to her ever again. Not even for a Christmas present or about a burned dinner or anything else trivial.” T, in ready form, began planning.

“Yeah, I figured that out all on my own.”

“As for you going behind her back to find shit out, you weren’t the only one on your own intel gathering mission.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“She asked us about what happened to you,” Griff supplied. “The scars, all of it.”

“When?”

“That night we were in the bar.”

“Yeah, I got a phone call from your girl a couple of nights ago. She pretended to want to know what your favorite meal was. She said she wanted to surprise you. Can’t lie to save her own life. She finally got to asking me if we’d all gotten deactivated at the same time,” Smith supplied with a life of his eyebrows. “Made me wonder where she got the correct army term. I figured it was from you.”

“What’d you tell her?” Inventorying his mind Aaron could find no irritation that Natalie had asked his friends about him. Only hope and regret. He clung to both. Clearly, they both needed to stop talking to his team and start talking to each other.

“Nothing. But that’s not the point.”

“She didn’t get the term from me. She’s been Googling.”

“So, I’d say you’ve got a better than a fair chance of showing her you weren’t the only one who went around your ass to get to your elbow as far as finding shit out about each other goes.”

“Yeah, well I’m sure as hell not gonna go in pointing that out. I have to apologize on my knees. Swear I’ll never lie to her again.”

“All in due time, brother. All in due time.” T sank down to the ground beside him. “You’ll get your chance. First course of action is to get her out of her house.”

“We can’t bomb her out, T.” Smith rolled his eyes.

“I’ll come up with something slightly less destructive,” T assured them.

The sound of approaching footsteps had all of the team standing. Dec offered them a kind grin. “Gentlemen.”

Aaron cleared his throat. “Dec this is T-Byrd, Griff, Voodoo, and Echo, my old team. Guys this is Dr. Declan St. James, my shrink.”

Dec got several appreciative nods.

“Currently, I’m here as your friend. Although I would be remiss not to remind you that I told you not to do this. That being said, my wife is holed up in there with her sister and I thought I might see if I could lend a hand to your mission. I’d like Holly to come home at some point. I know my wife. She won’t leave Natalie’s side until this is all resolved and you weren’t the only one asking the wrong people for answers.”

“What’s that mean?” Aaron demanded.

Dec shook his head. “If we manage to suture the cavernous wounds both of you tore in your relationship, promise me you will come see me together.”

“Not really in a position to promise anything on her behalf,” Aaron huffed.

“Good answer. Let me talk to her.”

“Just what the hell does he think he’s doing?” Fury radiated from Natalie as she peeked out of her blinds to spy on the army camp set up in her front lawn.

“You fell in love with a Green Beret, sis. Looks like he’s not going down without a fight.” Holly wrinkled her nose.

“Yeah, well maybe he should’ve thought of that before he decided to have his friends spy on my life and then lie to me about it.” Pleased his dogs were in her house, Natalie continued to play with Lulu’s ears. Eventually she’d have to return them to Aaron but for now she needed their comfort.

“I know you’re hurt, Nat. I just…”

“Do not make excuses for him.”

Holly’s sigh was interrupted by a knock on the front door. “Holl, love, it’s me. Let me in.” Dec’s soothing intonation quelled a little of Natalie’s rage, but only a little.

Holly swung open the door. “I’m not getting anywhere with her.”

“Let me try,” Dec assured her.

“Do you people think I’m deaf?” Natalie snapped.

“Hard of listening, maybe, but not deaf,” Dec challenged. “About two weeks ago, a woman who bears a striking resemblance to you waltzed in my home early one morning demanding answers on the man camped outside in some bizarre combination of army meets cattle ranchers. When I refused you, you got them out of your sister. Now, how exactly is that different from the things he did?”

Incensed ire rode on the bile that shot to her throat. “Well, for one I did not break into businesses to find out about his PTSD.”

“So, you’re mad he’s better at it than you are?”

“Get out of my house,” Natalie menaced.

“Nat, come on. He’s right. You both did the same things. He just went above and beyond, which is kind of his motto, isn’t it?” Holly pointed out.

“On that note and since it is painfully obvious that there needs to be absolutely no secrets between the two of you, I’m going to once again do something I shouldn’t. Aaron decided to take himself off of all of his anti-depressants when you two started dating. They can have sexual side effects. To my knowledge he’d never experienced any but he wasn’t taking any chances when it came to you. Understand that in doing so he was willing to return to the nightmares and the flashbacks coming far more often than he could really deal with.”

The night at the fair whipped through Natalie’s mind. Guilt taunted the fringes of her anger. She tried to refuse it but failed.

“When a soldier with Post Traumatic Stress who blames himself for the trauma comes off of the meds there is an extremely common occurrence.”

“Superhero syndrome,” Holly gasped.

Dec nodded. “Yes. Exactly.”

“What is that?” Natalie sank down on her sofa under the weight of all that had happened. Her steady foundation was shaken and cracked, but maybe it wasn’t quite broken.

Holly sat down beside her. “It’s a different scenario for each individual experiencing it. In this case it means his brain sort of went into overdrive. He convinced himself that he needed to be better than human for you. He didn’t feel like he deserved you. He had to earn you so to speak.”

“Something like that,” Dec agreed. “His mind concocted the idea that he had to end anything that had ever frightened you. Your uncle being right at the top of his list. It was the only way he believed he’d ever be good enough for you. His psychological trauma is significant, Natalie. He’s still not well.”

“I know that.”

“Does that mean you’ll give him a chance to at least apologize?”

“No.”

“Nat…” Holly pleaded.

“No. I don’t know what I’m going to do but I shared everything with him and he lied to me over and over again.”

“But you didn’t share everything with him. If you had, he wouldn’t have gone on some bizarre mission to figure out who’d hurt you.” Holly crossed her arms over her chest.

“I don’t have to share that with anyone.”

“No, you don’t,” Dec agreed. “But don’t sit there playing judge, jury, and executioner based on false evidence. You did not share everything with him. You shared a few fragmented pieces of your soul, and that took tremendous courage. No one is saying that it didn’t. But as you can plainly see the parts you left hiding in the dark are the ones that have gotten us here.”

“This is not my fault,” Natalie snarled.

“Of course it’s not,” Holly huffed. “But you two are the only two people who can fix this.”

“I don’t think I can ever trust him again.”

“Coming from us…” Dec put his arm around Holly, “…two people whose entire relationship existed because of complicated lies we told everyone around us, I can tell you that the trust you had before can never be rebuilt, but you can build a new kind of trust, a better kind of trust, one that can’t be broken,” Dec concluded.