A Lot Like Perfect

by Kat Cantrell

  But he’d have to tell someone about it for that to happen. No one else seemed to know it existed, or at least he’d never encountered anyone else, and he wasn’t in hurry to share it.

  Isaiah spread out the old blanket he’d stashed in the corner under a weathered board with bent, rusted nails lining the edge, then stretched out to practice his breathing.

  He’d spent more than a few nights up here, staring at the swirl of black and starlight when he couldn’t sleep. Which was most of the time lately. His brain was constantly on blend mode, chopping through images of the kids that had died in al-Sadidiq. That was one of the hardest things about that op gone wrong. Innocent lives had been taken. Isaiah had helped make that happen. Accidentally, sure. It would be nice if that qualification mattered.

  Creak. He snapped his head toward the door, just in time to see Serenity Force ease it closed on squeaky hinges, her long gray hair easily discernible in the weak moonlight as she joined him on the roof.

  So much for solitude. He didn’t mind though. Serenity was cool. She’d regularly penned letters to the team while they’d been overseas, somehow becoming more than a pen pal and morphing into a surrogate mom, first to Hardy and then eventually the rest of them. None of the five of them had family to speak of, so Serenity had filled a gap and then some. When Hardy had announced he was driving to Superstition Springs to help Serenity fight the imminent destruction of the town she loved, Isaiah had been the first one lined up at the door, ready to leave on a moment’s notice.

  Meeting Serenity in person had strengthened the bonds formed via letter. And she’d given the SEALs a place to land after Syria, which he appreciated more than he’d ever be able to say.

  Which didn’t mean he shouldn’t try. He patted the blanket to indicate she was welcome. “Come to check out my tree fort? You’re the only girl allowed.”

  Serenity laughed but he could tell his comment pleased her. “Aren’t you a sweet boy. How did you find this place?”

  He shrugged as she eased down onto the blanket, her knees popping at the joints in a reminder that she was nearly twice his age. Or so he’d surmised without asking because that would be rude. But it wasn’t a stretch to assume that she was at least old enough to be his birth mother, not that he’d know anything about her, age or otherwise, since he’d been thrust into the foster system as a baby. Looking for the exit had long been his way of coping with a bad situation, and he had a lot of practice at leaving. What kind of insanity was it to have hoped he’d eventually find a place he could stay when history had taught him that moving on was his lot in life?

  “I opened a door,” he said easily. “Hope it’s okay to hang out up here.”

  As the owner of the hotel, it would be perfectly within her rights to tell him this area was off limits.

  “Of course,” she insisted immediately. “This is your home for as long as you choose to stay. I love that you’ve created a place for yourself.”

  Had he really though? What kind of place could he have where he wasn’t providing the glue for his team as they battled bad people on a daily basis?

  “It’s more of an escape,” he admitted without really figuring out why he’d told her that much. But Serenity might be the closest thing to a mom that he’d ever have in his life. If he couldn’t be real with her, then who could he talk to?

  “You need an escape?” she prodded gently, which turned to ice in his stomach as he scrambled to explain.

  “Not from you! Or the hotel. It’s wonderful, very nice. I appreciate that you’ve taken us all in, which you didn’t have to do—”

  “Isaiah West, you settle down now,” she interrupted but the smile in her voice was wide enough for him to easily hear despite not facing her. “I know you boys have had a time of it. That’s the only reason I didn’t send you on your way when you showed up here out of the blue, looking to get in the middle of my spat with Havana.”

  Serenity was Aria and Havana’s aunt, having taken in the girls when they were young, after their parents died. They had a third sister, Ember, who had just recently dropped back into town after an extended absence, or at least that was how Isaiah had pieced it all together without prying. The little boy Ember had in tow might be a part of the puzzle, but the kid was quiet and kept his head down on the rare occasions when he crossed paths with Isaiah. It wasn’t a stretch to assume that the five male strangers in his great-aunt’s hotel weren’t the sort a seven-year-old knew how to speak to.

  “I figure it must have been a pretty big surprise to have five SEALs dropped on you,” he said wryly. “We could have called first.”

  Except, if they’d called Serenity, she might have told them not to come and Isaiah would have been last guy to risk that. He’d needed somewhere to go after being discharged, naturally. Leaving California had seemed like the obvious choice.

  “Your hearts were in the right place, sweetie. It’s my fault for pouring out my troubles about this town into my letters. But look what happened as a result. Caleb and Havana got the development company to give us six months to turn the town around,” she said with a mix of awe and no small amount of gratitude.

  Caleb and Havana had started out on opposite sides of the deal, but soon started making goofy eyes at each other until they were so tightly involved the only solution seemed to be combining forces. They were a formidable team, working tirelessly to get infrastructure in place so the town could become a tourist destination. If they didn’t, the development company would start offering residents huge piles of cash to relocate and folks who loved the town, like Serenity, would be forced out.

  “The schoolhouse is coming along. Cassidy is really excited about her plans to form a charter school once it’s done,” he commented. She never stopped talking about it, which he assumed equaled excitement.

  “The first of many great additions to our town.” Serenity’s voice glowed with so much pride that he didn’t have the heart to correct her. It was her town, sure. But not his. “I’m so thrilled you boys showed up. You were meant to come here. Didn’t I predict that?”

  Isaiah traced the little dipper with his eyes as a stall tactic before responding because he wasn’t entirely sure he believed in all that jazz. So he’d kind of dismissed the concept when Serenity had doled out some hokey prophecy in a letter a few months back. But he knew she believed in her predictions. And her connection with the universe wasn’t something he could easily reject while in her presence, not unless he wanted to be disrespectful.

  “I don’t remember it that way,” he said instead. “I thought the prediction was about how I’m going to meet the future Mrs. West, not about coming to Superstition Springs.”

  Future Mrs. West. It felt wrong on his tongue, too weighty and just…not something he could believe in. Now, he’d seen some pretty crazy stuff in Syria—idols and revered goats and such. But mysticism had never really resonated with him anyway and finding love was literally the last thing on his mind, then or now.

  A guy with one foot constantly out the door didn’t lead a woman to believe that commitment was anywhere in his vocabulary.

  She shook her head with a little tsk and repeated the words she’d penned to him. “You must slow down a bit to find love. Seek a romantic retreat to heal and nurture your soul while connecting spiritually with a like-minded soul that shares your need for depth. What is that but a perfect description of this town? Here you are, stargazing. Slowing down. Connecting. All of these things will help you heal.”

  He didn’t bother to pretend she was wrong about his need to get better, though the fact that it was becoming common knowledge made him a little squicky. Clearly she’d sensed that on her own but it was a little easier to take from her rather than from Marchande earlier. Not that he believed either of them had done much more than witness for themselves that he was broken. Didn’t take a genius to sniff that one out when he’d failed to get anyone on board with Hardy’s quest to start filling official town positions.

  It shouldn’t hav
e been that hard to talk Marchande into a role with the yet to be formed fire department. The guy’s middle name might as well be fire. Yet…here they were with no one on the roster.

  But there was no reason to be dismissive toward her belief in the supernatural. He could still spell diplomacy. “Maybe the prediction is talking about connecting with my teammates. We’re tight, after all. That’s just as likely to be what you’re sensing as a female being involved.”

  The look she gave him was priceless. “Well, if you’re saying you’re gay, I’ll love you just the same. That’s not what you’re saying, though. Is it?”

  “Um, no.” Wow, that had been an unforeseen deviation. “What I meant was, the guys are my family. We depend on each other. They’re the ones who’ve had my back since day one and that’s not going to stop.”

  The lump in his throat grew too big to swallow. The guys had depended on him and he’d failed them. They all had scars from Syria, mostly inside. Except for Caleb’s brother, Rowe, who’d had months of physical therapy after half a building fell on him and still had trouble hearing out of his left ear. Isaiah hadn’t helped any of them get back up after falling down.

  The ticking clock got louder in his head. After the barn was finished, he should go.

  “Sweetie…” Serenity took his hand, squeezing it gently. “It’s great to have friends. Especially the kind that you share such a bond with. But if they were the ones who were meant to help you heal, wouldn’t they be sitting out here in the dark watching the stars with you?”

  Oh, man. His lungs froze as her insight hit him hard. He’d come up here on this roof to be alone and never once had he considered cluing in the guys about its existence. Because Isaiah was the one pulling away. On purpose.

  “Maybe you’re my soul mate,” he said with a forced laugh and was only half kidding. If he spent a lot of time with Serenity, then he didn’t have to worry about any of that mumbo-jumbo. Especially the slowing down part.

  Slowing down wasn’t on his radar. That was not how he’d get his breathing right, no matter what Serenity thought she saw beyond the veil. Only leaving worked. Or rather, he didn’t have a lot of hope that he’d ever find a place that would fix what was broken, but the longer he stayed here, the more disappointed everyone would be that he couldn’t be Elmer anymore.

  He was glue that couldn’t figure out how to stick. The irony was killing him.

  “My predictions aren’t that specific,” she said in all seriousness. “But I do sense that you’ve met the one already. Though I’m pretty sure it’s not me.”

  The one. It sounded so mystical and wondrous. And not something Isaiah deserved. If it wasn’t Serenity, who then? There weren’t a whole lot of eligible women in town, so he needed to figure it out fast so he could stay far away from this woman. How could he jet if he was busy going gaga over a woman? The prediction had it wrong, all the way around. Not happening.

  Though he couldn’t deny that he ached down in his bones for the kind of soul-deep connection running rampant throughout that prediction. It was like Serenity had cracked him open and in one shot spied everything he longed for but couldn’t have. His own mother hadn’t wanted him. But the Navy had. And then Caleb Hardy, Tristan Marchande, Hudson Rafferty and Rowe Hardy had adopted him as one of their own. As a thank you, he’d failed them all.

  “I’ll take that under advisement,” he said mildly. “But you’ll forgive me if I don’t run right out and propose to someone.”

  “Oh, no. You definitely shouldn’t do that. This is a process. You need to do it slowly. Weren’t you listening?”

  Serenity was so serious about all of this that it gave him pause. “I’m sorry, I was. Slow. Got it.”

  Now he somehow had to navigate the next few weeks until he left without hurting Serenity’s feelings. Preferably by completing a schoolhouse for Hardy’s build-a-town project while not falling prey to the suggestive lure of glancing around just in case there really was someone the universe had selected to fix everything that hurt inside him. That was as likely as Isaiah taking a breath that didn’t burn all the way down.

  Three

  Tristan Marchande was the most beautiful human Aria had ever laid eyes on. If she had a poster of him, she’d tack it up above her bed like a besotted teenager. The fact that she shared a room with Havana, who was engaged to Caleb, meant nothing at all. They could both stare at him. She’d share.

  It was all make-believe anyway.

  It wasn’t like he’d give her a second glance or anything. Sure that stung a little but it was so much safer to dream about a stunning, out-of-reach angel of a man. If she set her sights on someone she had a chance with, then this hypothetical guy would eventually leave. Just like everyone else in her life had done. That was not a recipe for happiness.

  No. Much better to have a harmless crush on a former SEAL with a physique that could bring a woman to tears. No one had to know she’d set her sights on him strictly because nothing ever could or would happen. That was the only way to avoid getting hurt.

  “How did you know Caleb was the one?” she asked Havana, who stood behind her braiding Aria’s hair in an intricate fish-bone pattern. It would be horrendously difficult to unbraid later, but Aria would never say a word.

  Havana had been gone for eight of the longest years of Aria’s life. Now her sister was back in Superstition Springs for good and there was literally nothing important enough to potentially squabble over. She’d much rather hear her sister talk about something fun like her fiancé. Just because love wasn’t in the cards for Aria didn’t mean she hated the concept. On the contrary. It was great to see her sister so happy.

  “Because he thinks I’m bossy and loves me anyway,” Havana announced immediately with a happy sigh. “I can be myself twenty-four/seven without censure. What is that, but heaven on earth?”

  The middle Nixon sister, Ember, spread her red-gold hair behind her as she settled into a pillow on the king sized bed that Aria and Havana shared. Ember had taken a tiny room on the second floor where all of Serenity’s ex-SEALs currently lived since there was no extra room on the third floor of the partially renovated hotel their aunt had bought a couple of years ago.

  Her sister came upstairs enough that she might as well live there. She’d wandered into the bedroom a few minutes ago, seemingly content to watch Havana’s fingers fly through Aria’s stick straight hair, no mention of the whereabouts of her seven-year-old. Neither Aria nor Havana had asked after Judd since Ember got snippy the moment anyone said a word about her son.

  “Really?” Ember’s voice dripped derision as she jumped into the exchange. “That’s what you find attractive in a man? A guy who calls you names, then tries to make up for it with declarations of his feelings. Please.”

  Geez. That’s what Ember had taken from Havana’s comment? It had sounded pretty nice to Aria but since she’d never been in love, maybe there was a trick to it that other women learned on the fly.

  “What do you think makes a guy attractive then?” Havana shot back over her shoulder. “A tractor?”

  Ooh, interesting question almost assuredly designed to get some answers out of Ember about who the father of her son was. The young boy her long-lost sister had showed up with a few weeks ago looked exactly like Ember and their mother so there were no clues there, and her sister had been shockingly closed mouthed about his parentage. Just like she had been at seventeen. The only males of approximately the right age and who were also rumored to have been Ember’s lovers in high school were Farmer Moon’s sons.

  Aria glanced at Ember in the mirror, but their sister’s face betrayed nothing. Too bad. Aria wouldn’t ask. If Ember wanted them to know, she’d tell them. And it wasn’t like she’d called a whole bunch over the last eight years that she’d been gone either. Havana had at least tried to maintain her relationship with Aria via phone, which was more than Ember had done.

  “I like a guy who knows when to keep his mouth shut,” Ember finally said cryptically. “Sil
ence is sexy.”

  No doubt a nod to whichever local boy had gotten her pregnant but hadn’t spilled the secret in all these years. Of course it was possible that she’d never divulged the truth to the father, either. Maybe she didn’t even know. Ember had been rather free with her affections back in high school, yet another source of conflict between Ember and Havana, especially after the positive pregnancy test. Aria had always avoided male attention on purpose, not that her lack of curves and dull red hair had inspired much of that in the first place.

  “Figures.” Havana smirked. “You’ve never met a wall you couldn’t have an argument with. Why not pick a guy whose ear you can talk off? I feel kind of sorry for whoever you end up with.”

  “Who said I was in the market?” The hard cross of Ember’s arms belied her mild tone.

  “I like a guy I can have a conversation with,” Aria threw in before the whole thing devolved into exactly the kind of argument Havana meant. Those two had always clashed and nothing had apparently changed other than the fact that this time, no one had stormed off to another city and stayed for almost a decade. Not yet anyway. “Cheekbones are nice too. You could cut butter with Tristan’s.”

  “Because that’s a useful quality in a man.” This from Ember who apparently had appointed herself the naysayer of all Nixon women’s opinions about the opposite gender.

  “What do you think is a useful quality?” Havana asked point-blank, pointing the comb in her hand at Ember. “You know, if you were in the market?”

  “Why all the interest in my love life?” Ember responded instead of answering, likely to avoid the question. Obviously she didn’t get the concept of conversation between sisters, a deficiency that Aria, for one, would like to change.

  “Because you’ve been gone for a long time,” Aria explained before Havana could say something else that would set Ember off. “We want to get to know you again. You’re the one who came back home. Why would you do that if it wasn’t to reforge the bonds with your family?”