Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Her hair, which has always been pulled back from her face, hangs loose in glossy brown waves. She tucks it behind her ear on one side, and I notice every damn thing about the motion, from the way her shirt tightens across her chest, to the pale pink tips of her fingernails.
I clear my throat. I’m better than this.
“Sit wherever you like.”
I choose one of the chairs in the living room and pull my eyes away from this beautiful woman to scan the space. The dining room and kitchen are all in view. There’s an open entryway to a den on one side of the room and a hall that presumably leads to bedrooms on the other.
Her home is warm in both temperature and mood, with cheery colors and soft furniture. A plaid fleece throw is neatly arranged on the back of the sofa. A LEGO project is underway on the coffee table. There’s a reusable lunch bag and a school notebook on the round wooden dining table.
Tyler Ramirez’s service portrait, the one with him in his dress uniform, holds a place of honor on the bookcase next to the TV. I force myself to look at it for a few seconds, both for the sharp ache it delivers and because it reminds me of the importance of my visit.
“Would you like something to drink, Fire Marshal … I didn’t get your name earlier.”
“No. Thank you.” A pause, a deep breath. “I’m Buck. Buck Brennan.”
She’d been turning toward the kitchen, but she immediately pivots back to me, her eyes wild as they search my face. If she remembers seeing me, it was with shorter hair and no beard. Regardless, she recognizes my name, and the look on my face must confirm the connection.
She moves behind the armchair that backs to the hallway, instinctively putting herself between me and her son’s room. She looks like she’s seen a ghost, but unfortunately, I’m not one of our team who left this world.
CHAPTER 3
ELENA
“Buck Brennan?”
The man sitting in my living room, who I thought was a stranger, nods.
“Lieutenant Brennan? Tyler’s team leader?” I work at keeping my voice level.
He nods again. “It’s just Buck now.”
“What are you doing here?”
“In Moon Ridge? I live here. I’ve been here a couple of years.” He says this gently, like he’s trying to soften the blow. “I grew up a few towns away.”
“You’ve seen me around town. You knew who I was.” It’s not a question, and his face immediately shows his guilt.
I’ve noticed him around town plenty, but apparently I was too busy checking out his broad shoulders and thick, dark beard to realize he was my husband’s SEAL commander.
“I need to tell you I’m not the only one here,” he says, and as soon as the warning sinks in, I prepare for another blow. “Weston Monroe and Calder Black work with me at the fire department, and they also served in my platoon with Tyler.”
It all seems like too much to be a coincidence, but as panic ripples through me, I remind myself Buck Brennan was living here before I arrived. The first time I saw him, within a few weeks of my arrival, he was wearing a Moon Ridge fire department t-shirt. I’m embarrassed to admit how vividly I remember the way the navy blue shirt stretched across his impressive chest and hugged his big biceps.
Back in my old life, I’d probably only ever seen the man once or twice, and one of those times was at the funeral, where my memories are patchy.
We’re over a thousand miles from the naval base, and as my mind races, trying to figure out how we could have all ended up in the same small town, I remember the reason I chose this area. I’m in Moon Ridge specifically because of my job, but I chose the region because Tyler used to talk about it as a plan for our future. He said someone in his platoon told stories about growing up in the mountains, and Tyler thought it would be a great place for T.J. to live. Buck must have been that person.
“Why didn’t any of you tell me?”
I’m pretty sure I know exactly who the other two men are, because something is different about their eye contact when I see them around town. Silly me, I thought I was catching the attention of a few hot firemen because they might have thought I was attractive. Turns out, they just recognized me as a Navy widow.
Buck looks down at his feet for a moment before his dark eyes meet mine again. “I came up here to get away from the past, and I assumed you did the same. I didn’t want to reopen a wound.”
His jaw is firm and his spine is straight as he sits in the chair, but the man still looks tortured. I believe what he’s telling me, but I guess he doesn’t realize the wound may never close.