by Kaylea Cross
“Nope,” Beckett said.
“Me neither,” Jase and Mac responded at the same time. It was mostly true. Jase sure didn’t miss freezing his ass off or going hungry, or being shot at.
Glen’s expression was skeptical. “Yeah? Think you’ll stay out for good?” he asked them.
“Not sure,” Beckett said. “I thought I would go nuts working a regular job, but I gotta say, it’s growing on me. It’s got its perks.”
“Yeah, meaning you get to go home and crawl into bed with Sierra every night,” Jase said, and everyone laughed.
Beckett grinned, his hard face lighting up. “What can I say, I’m a lucky guy.”
Yeah, he was. Jase was glad he realized that.
“Plus, this way you get to keep ordering our sorry arses around,” Mac pointed out.
“Yeah, that doesn’t hurt either,” said Beckett.
Jase smiled. He’d wondered whether he could handle a desk job after over a decade in one of the Army’s most elite units. Beckett’s job offer had come at exactly the right time. After years of constant deployments to various hellholes all over South Asia and the Middle East, Jase had been flirting with burnout.
For now, a safe, nine-to-five accounting position was good enough. Even though a part of him was already restless, hungry for the challenge of something new, and at some point he would crave the adrenaline rush of living at the tip of the military spear again. That was simply part of who he was.
For the time being, however, he was content to stand down and relax, spending his days with his neatly-compiled spreadsheets with their columns of numbers. Tidy. Concise. Peaceful.
Keeping the job also meant he could stay close to Molly. Because whatever else happened from now on, he would be there for her and the baby.
“You guys have room for one more?”
Jase whipped around at the familiar, feminine voice behind him, a bittersweet sting spreading through him at the sight of Molly standing there. She wore a pale yellow summer dress that left her shoulders, arms and legs bare and made her light brown skin glow. Her tight, dark curls were pulled up into a clip at the back of her head, little spirals bouncing at her temples and the nape of her neck as she moved.
And the smile. It damn near broke his heart because it was so courageous and he hadn’t seen her smile like that in so long. She was like a ray of sunshine breaking through the gloom.
“Of course,” Beckett said before Jase could, rising from his chair.
The rest of them stood and Jase moved his seat over while Beckett pulled another chair from the next table over for her, placing it between them. Jase got a whiff of her light, fresh scent that always reminded him of springtime as she scooted in toward the table and mentally slammed the gate shut against the inevitable tide of yearning he always felt when she was near.
“What changed your mind?” he asked her.
“I decided I needed a change of scenery.”
Good for her. “I’m glad you came.” She needed to get out more—she’d barely left her rental house in the past month. Molly was a social animal, loved people and being in the thick of the action. She and Carter had always been the center of whatever gathering they came to. Jase would hate to see her lose that part of her personality.
She shot him a brave smile. “Me too.”
Mac leaned toward her across the table. “What can I get you, bonnie lass?” His tone was friendly, nothing more, but even still the “bonnie lass” comment made Jase’s hackles go up. It was a stupid and irrational reaction, but there it was. He was protective and borderline territorial when it came to Molly.
Jase sat back, enjoying the chance to watch Molly as she talked with the others, laughing at stories they told her. Some about Carter, some about Beckett and him.
God, he loved the sound of her laugh, husky and sultry as the air before a summer storm. But watching her was bittersweet in its own way too. He’d become used to the stab of pain he always felt when he saw her with Carter. Now it almost hurt more to see her pregnant and alone.
Jase remained quiet as he observed her, drinking in the sight of her smiles and the welcome sound of her laughter. Surrounded by a table full of warriors, she shone bright as the sun, and he would have to be content with the few rays that fell upon him.
He would stay in Crimson Point as long as she needed him. But if that ever changed, for his own sanity he needed to leave this town and put a few thousand miles between him and Molly Boyd.
Chapter Four
Sierra called the following Thursday night just as Molly climbed out of her car at the storage facility. “Hey,” she answered with a grin. “I was just thinking about you.”
“Aww, you were? Where are you now?”
“Just going through a few things in my storage unit,” Molly replied, entering the passcode into the keypad.
“Did you find a place yet?”
“No. I looked at three apartments yesterday and one today. One of them wasn’t too bad, but it was dark and depressing. Beggars can’t be choosers and all that, but I can’t handle a long, gray winter being cooped up in a dark house.”
Finding something decent that she could afford on her salary was proving almost impossible. And she couldn’t apply for a mortgage because she was unsure whether she was going to get any insurance money and didn’t have enough for a down payment. Ideally, she wanted a rental with the option to buy, but they were hard to come by in her situation.
“Well, we’ve got a room all ready for you here if you need it.”
“I love you guys. If I don’t find anything in the next couple days, I’ll be moving in with you this weekend.”
“Is it selfish of me to hope you don’t find anything yet? It would be so cool to have you stay here. We could have girls’ nights all the time.”
Molly smiled. “I don’t want you to get sick of me.”
Sierra scoffed. “That would never happen.”
“Beckett might feel differently.”
“He’d adjust.”
“But I love him enough to not put him through that.” Her first shift back at the hospital was on Monday, so she intended to get as much done before then to get the rest of her life as settled as possible.
“You going to be at the storage place long?”
“For a while. I’ve been putting this off, and it’s time.”
“So, does this mean we’re not going to yoga class tonight, then?”
Molly laughed under her breath at the hopeful note in her best friend’s voice. “Of course we are.”
“Oh.”
She shook her head, smiling. “I thought you said you weren’t hating it anymore. You told me last week that you might even have started to like it.”
“No, that was Poppy.”
“No, that was you. Dork.”
Sierra laughed. “I must have been high on endorphins or something, because I do not remember saying any such thing.”
“Liar. It’s an hour a week, and it’s good for you. Plus it helps me find my zen, which you gotta admit, I could use more of these days.”
A loud sigh answered her. “Ouch, heap on the guilt, why don’t you. Bitch,” Sierra teased.
Molly smiled. “You know you love me.”
“I do. And so I’ll meet you at the damn yoga studio at six with Poppy.”
“Good stuff. See you, doll.” She ended the call and walked into the storage container.
She hadn’t been here in almost a month. It had taken this long to finally summon up the courage to come here and start going through all her and Carter’s stuff. With Sierra and Poppy’s help she’d put aside some of his cherished personal items from his military service for Jase and Beckett, kept other sentimental things for the baby, then donated everything she didn’t want to keep. Now there were only a few pieces of furniture and a dozen or so boxes remaining.
The box at the top of the second stack was marked photos. She’d been holding off going through it because she just hadn’t been strong enough
to face the memories inside it. But she couldn’t avoid it any longer. If she wanted to truly put the past behind her and begin moving forward, this was a necessary step.
She dragged the box down and sat cross-legged in front of it to start going through the contents. The first album she found put an instant lump in her throat. A Warrior’s Journey, she’d entitled the memory book she’d made.
Inside was the story of Carter’s ordeal that began during his final deployment to Afghanistan. The first picture was of him standing in their kitchen in North Carolina wearing jeans and an olive drab T-shirt, his big grin visible in the midst of his heavy, dark beard.
She remembered the moment vividly. He’d been trying to coerce her into a final quickie before heading to the airport, and she’d made him pose for the picture first.
The next page contained some pictures he’d taken at camp in Helmand Province over the next few weeks. Most were of him being an ass, clowning around with the guys from his team. The vast majority were of him and Jase, causing trouble and mugging it up for the camera.
Jase had always been the straight man to Carter’s comedic personality, more grounded and subdued. The two of them had been almost inseparable from the night she’d met them at the bar near base.
She turned the page, and the visceral clench of her stomach was all too familiar as she looked at the images of the destroyed Humvee Carter had been riding in when the IED went off. Jase had given them to her afterward.
The entire front half of the vehicle was missing. Both the driver and the front passenger had been killed in the blast. Carter had been knocked out with a skull fracture in the backseat, and the guy next to him had lost both a leg and an arm. Jase had been riding a few vehicles behind when the explosion happened. He’d been the one to pull Carter out of the wreckage.
The sight of the blackened, twisted metal sickened her, reminding her too much of the mangled mess of Carter’s truck the night he’d died.
She quickly flipped to the next page, showing her dressed in scrubs at Carter’s bedside at the hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. She’d flown there the night she’d gotten the call that he’d been injured, to be with him when he woke up post op.
In the shot she was bent over his bed, her head close to his, smiling at the camera with him. His head was wrapped up in bandages, his eyes blackened and swollen, but he was grinning, giving a thumbs-up to the nurse who had taken the picture for them.
The image hurt for a number of reasons. When he’d come out of the anesthetic, he’d been so happy to see her he’d held her to him so tight that her bones had ached.
Molly had thought it was a miracle that he’d survived without serious cognitive loss or permanent physical dysfunction. Neither of them had known the nightmare that was in store for them later on.
She flipped through the rest of the book, lost in memory as the pictures and text chronicled Carter’s recovery and eventual release from Walter Reed several months later.
There were more books in the box, and special framed photos. Their wedding album. A portrait of her and Carter. One of them with Jase, who was best man. A picture of her and Carter on the beach on their honeymoon in the Dominican Republic.
Bittersweet memories she didn’t want to look at every day, but she couldn’t bear to throw them away, either. And the baby deserved to know and see Carter as he had been.
After sorting through and organizing what remained in the storage locker, her energy level had plummeted and was hovering near zero. Tired and in need of a recharge, she locked up and drove over to Whale’s Tale, her friend Poppy’s bookstore/café in the heart of Front Street.
Poppy gave her a sunny smile when Molly stepped through the front door, the smell of baked goods and freshly brewed coffee filling the air. “Hey, this is a nice surprise.” Golden blond hair up in a knot, she came out from behind the front counter wearing a frilly little half-apron around her waist and engulfed Molly in a warm hug. “You hungry?”
“Starving. What’ve you got in here today?” She sniffed the air. “I think I smell my favorite soup.”
“You do. Come on.” She tugged Molly to the counter and immediately went over to ladle a large serving of homemade tomato basil soup into a compostable takeout container. “Want some focaccia to go with it?”
She mentally checked in with her pregnancy stomach and got a thumbs down. “Got any of those cheese biscuits instead?”
“Sure.”
Molly perused the pastry case as she waited. She shouldn’t go nuts with the junk food, because gestational diabetes was no fun at all, but it’d been a hell of a few months, and she was growing a small human in her belly. She deserved treats.
“I’ll take two peach tarts, and a couple apple turnovers, too. Oh, and couple sweetened iced teas as well.” Not the sweet tea she’d grown up with, but pretty tasty and much better for her.
Poppy glanced at her with a teasing glint in her eyes. “You’re eating for four now instead of two?”
“Ha, no. Some of it’s for tomorrow.”
Poppy bustled around getting the order together. “Sierra says we’re still on for yoga tonight?”
“Lemme guess, she called you to see if you wanted to cancel.”
“Yep.” Poppy put the pastries into a white cardboard bakery box decorated with the Whale’s Tale symbol of a humpback fluke on the top. “She’s really looking forward to class tonight.”
“No she’s not.”
Poppy laughed. “Okay, not even a little. But hey, she’s going. And I’m looking forward to it, so that’s something.”
“Glad to hear it.” Molly paid for her order and dropped a five-dollar bill into the tip jar over Poppy’s protests. “You’re the best. See you at class.”
Outside in the parking lot, her phone rang. Jase. “Hey. What’s up?”
“You busy right now?”
“Not at this moment, no. Why?”
“I need you to meet me somewhere.” He gave her an address that was only a few blocks away.
She frowned. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything’s good.”
“Then why? What’s going on?”
“Just come.”
“Okay. I’m at Whale’s Tale right now, so I’ll be there in two minutes.”
“Perfect.”
What was Jase up to?
She drove south on Front Street past all the pretty shops and businesses along the waterfront. September was the tail end of tourist season and the beach was fairly busy on this perfect, sunny afternoon, gentle waves rolling in endless curls onto the beach. Families with young children flew brightly-colored kites in the brilliant blue sky while gulls circled overhead, searching for an unwary tourist’s food.
A wistful smile curved her lips as she thought of all the things she and her baby could do together in the coming years. Lord it was pretty here. In a completely different way than North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Wilder. The ruggedness called to something inside her.
She arrived at the address four minutes later. A house. And not just any house—a gorgeous, new-looking Craftsman-style one. Jase’s and Beckett’s trucks were both parked out front.
Jase was there to pull her door open for her, a big grin on his face. “Well, whaddya think?”
“Of the house?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s gorgeous. But why are you showing it to me?”
“No reason. Come on.” He grabbed her hand and started for the walkway to the front door, the scent of his leather bomber jacket so familiar, his strong fingers secure around hers.
She loved that he wore his grandfather’s jacket. And that he adored all things WWII era including the music because it reminded him of his grandparents. An elite warrior he might be, but deep down he was a sentimental sap. She loved that about him too.
“Is this one of your latest projects?” The renovation company Beckett owned and ran specialized in fixing up heritage homes, but they did other projects as well.
�
�Yep.”
“It’s beautiful.” Just the sight of it made her happy.
It had an almost East Coast feel, the wooden exterior boasting a fresh coat of smoky blue-gray paint and white trim. Black shutters framed the windows on both floors and the front door was painted a glossy, soft aqua. A tall redwood cedar stood in the tidily-landscaped front yard full of shrubs and other plants, and though she was blocks away from the beach here, she could smell the ocean on the breeze.
The sweet smell of sawdust hit her as she followed Jase up the walkway to the front porch, along with the whine of a power saw and the thud of hammers from inside. “You’re being awfully mysterious right now,” she said to him.
He shot her a grin and kept walking, then opened the front door and stood aside, motioning for her to enter. The first thing she noticed was the natural light flooding in, and the shiny hardwood floors.
She walked past the staircase and into a beautifully done kitchen with stone countertops, creamy cabinets and new appliances. “Wow.” Large double windows above the sink looked out directly over the back deck and small backyard large enough for a swing set and maybe an above ground pool.
“You like it so far?” he asked from close behind her.
She couldn’t stop looking around. “Are you kidding? What’s not to like?”
“Here, check out the living room.”
Molly followed him into the other part of the great room. There was so much character in the house, giving it a warm, cozy feeling. It even had her favorite color on the walls, a deep blue-green teal.
“There are three fireplaces, this one, one in the office here on the main floor, and one in the master bedroom. All gas.”
She stopped and faced him. He looked tired, with dark circles under his eyes. He’d recovered well from the flu, but the funeral and the late nights he must have been putting in here had taken their toll. She wanted to hug him, make those shadows disappear. “Jase. Why are you showing me all this?”
His aqua eyes were full of warmth. “Because it can be yours if you want it.”
Her mouth fell open. “What?” He had to be kidding. “There’s no way I could ever afford something like this—”
