Here With Me (The Archer Brothers #1)

by Heidi McLaughlin

  “Ryley?” she prods in a sweet voice that does nothing to calm me.

  “What?” I bite back angrily. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be me. I had to look Evan in the eye and tell him he’s dead to me, to all of us. The words were no sooner out of my mouth before the anger in his eyes flooded me. He didn’t understand. Telling that to the man that I loved… a man that I still love even though we buried him years ago. In hindsight, I should’ve dropped my bags and run into his arms. I should’ve trailed my fingers over his defined jaw and across his eyelids, confirming what my heart was already telling me. That the love of my life was standing in front of me. That he hadn’t died, that we could be whole again. But life had to rear its ugly head and shatter my world even deeper than it had before.

  I was cold and standoffish, rude and dismissive. I was everything I shouldn’t have been to him because I was scared, shocked and couldn’t believe that after so many years he was standing in front of me in flesh and blood, a real-life breathing man who I missed dearly, but I reacted so poorly and all he was expecting was a homecoming, but instead his welcoming party was too confused by his presence.

  “Do you need another break?”

  I shake my head wildly. It’s better that I start talking about Evan more so that when I leave only to come after his session, she can give us some guidance.

  “There are a few days that I’d like a re-do on where Evan is concerned. Well probably more than a few, but I’m trying not to be greedy. The day he left, when we were on the tarmac and I held his face in my hands, I told him that I loved him. But what I should’ve told him is that my love for him runs so deeply that it can never be taken away, that he’s who I see when I grow old, sitting by me in a rocking chair and watching the waves crash into the shore. Instead, I kissed him and told him that I loved him because I knew he was coming back.

  “When he was there on my front porch, my bags should’ve dropped. My eggs should’ve splattered all over my driveway and my gallon of milk should’ve exploded. Instead, I stood there staring at the ghost who had taken the form of my former fiancé as he descended the stairs of our front porch. His smile was bright, until he saw my face, and then it died.

  “I replay that day over and over in my mind. Each scene is the same as I find myself dropping everything and running into his arms. My lips pepper every bit of exposed skin as I tell him over and over again that this can’t be real. That he’s not real. That every prayer I’ve uttered for the past six years has come true. I tell him that I love him, and that EJ has missed him so much. In my head, I take his hand in mind, forgetting the groceries scattered all over my driveway, and take him in the house to introduce him to his son. His namesake.” I cover my face as tears stream down it. A sob rolls through my body, causing me to choke and gasp for air. I feel her hands on my shoulder, her fingers kneading into my skin trying to comfort me. I’m a despicable human.

  “Instead, I told him that I’m engaged to another man. The look…” I cough to clear my throat, in a lame attempt to breathe easier. “The look on his face is something I’ll never forget. If he wasn’t dead before, I killed him in that moment, shot him down with his own gun.”

  “Let’s take another break, Ryley.” Her words are meant to be calming, but they’re not. I stand on shaky legs and head to the bathroom. My last few steps are in a sprint as I feel my stomach start to roll. I barely make it before I’m down on my knees and clutching the cold white porcelain for leverage. I dry heave, unable to expel the contents of my stomach. I can’t even puke properly right now, that’s how messed up I am. Sitting back against the wall and pulling my knees to my chest, I cry into my dress. I’ve never been more confused than I am now. This session isn’t helping, but only showing me how much of a failure I am, and how I did everything wrong.

  I should’ve known better than to let Nate in, but he was there and offered the comfort I so badly needed. He felt the same pain I did. He was going through the same thing I was. He was there when I needed someone to cry to, and it was easy because he understood. He doesn’t even know his brother is alive, or he does and has hid it from me. That thought triggers an onslaught of emotions and this time I empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet. With my eyes closed I rest my head on my forearm. My chest is heaving. I need to calm down before I hyperventilate. There’s no way that Nate knew about Evan. He wouldn’t do that to me or his mom and sister.

  A soft knock brings me back from my thoughts. “I’ll be out in a moment,” I say, standing up and righting my dress. I hit the lever and move away. The mirror I stood in front of earlier offers me another glimpse of how bad I look, even more so now. My eyes are bloodshot and puffy. Turning the water on, I open the medicine cabinet to see if by chance she has toothpaste. I imagine she works long hours and maybe even spends the night on her couch. Not to mention she drinks coffee and doesn’t want coffee-breath. Much to my relief, there’s a tube. I quickly pull it out and squirt some onto my finger, brushing quickly and rinsing. With one last look in the mirror, I mutter to myself “this is as good as it’s gonna get,” before exiting.

  The therapist is writing furiously across her pad of paper. The pad looks new and now I’m curious as to how many she’s gone through today. I’m also wondering whether Evan and I are her most messed up case. Can’t say anything I know about compares to what we’re going through. I take the assumed position in the chair and wait for the next onslaught of questions.

  “Feeling better?”

  “Slightly,” I say, nodding my assent. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel one hundred percent, but I get up every day and put my pants on like any other normal person.

  “Did you talk to any of the other wives or girlfriends from Evan’s unit?”

  “Mostly Frannie, she’s River’s wife. They had just gotten married a few days before the guys were called. We had been celebrating on the beach with a bonfire and a cookout. Kids were running around and some guys from different units and their families were there. That’s the thing, the SEALs are a brotherhood and they’re always going to protect their family.

  “Anyway, we had been on the beach when the call came in. River, he was their boss, got the call and just like that the atmosphere changed. The fire was extinguished and people started packing up and heading home to spend their last night with their loved ones. It’s amazing how one phone call or a knock on the door can change everything.

  “But to answer your question, Frannie and I hung out a lot. She’s a little older than me, but she and River didn’t have any children. She helped out a lot when EJ was born. Between her, Lois and my mom, I had someone at my house all the time.”

  “What about Evan and Nate’s mom?”

  I stand and walk over to the window. Evan is still sitting there, waiting for his turn.

  “How much time do we have left?”

  The therapist is quiet until I look at her. “Twenty minutes, but we can go over. I’m just seeing you and Evan today. We still have a lot to cover.”

  “What do you think you’ll be able to tell us after all of this is over? This was Lois’s idea, not mine, although I made Evan come. What are you going to do for us?” I look back at Evan and wish I were down there with him. I’m not sure what I’d say, but I think I’d like to hold his hand.

  “Ryley, I’m hoping by the end of the day I can give you an assessment. Provide you with an outsider’s opinion on which way you and Evan should go. It may not be what you’re looking for but it may be exactly what you both need. We won’t know that until we’re done and I’ve had a chance to go over my notes.”

  I stand up straighter when I see a woman approach Evan. She’s in NWU’s, identical to his. He leans back and greets her as she sits down. I want to bang on the glass, but what good will it do me? I’ve moved on.

  I PONDER HER QUESTION. It would be so nice to talk to someone, anyone, who isn’t tied to the military. All week I’ve been asking the questions, and each answer is ‘it’s classified’ or ‘we don’t
have any recollection of that happening’. My favorite one is, ‘the mission went as planned.’ No, the fuck it did. Snatch and grab and with a four man crew, I should’ve known something was up from the get-go.

  However, I don’t have the answers the doc is looking for. I only know what I know and what our mission was. If I tell her, is she at risk? Probably, but what if she’s able to take my story and help Ryley and I figure out how to co-exist? As much as I’d love to think the doctor is going to convince Ry to stop her wedding, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Ryley owes me nothing, even if I think she does. She was the dutiful girlfriend waiting for my return, and when I didn’t, she moved on. It’s expected. She did exactly what I wanted her to do; I just didn’t expect it to be with my brother.

  “My unit leader, River, had just gotten married when we got the call. We had been home for some time, and I actually started to have a routine with Ryley. She’d get up with me in the morning, we’d make breakfast together and I’d make love to her before I left for work. I never wanted her to feel like we didn’t have a last time together. I know it seems chauvinistic, but it was important to me that she and I had connected on that level before I went to base. Reporting to base each day, I never knew if I’d be home for dinner or not, so I had to treat each day like there wasn’t a tomorrow morning.

  “Anyway, we’re at the beach, ya know? It’s a normal day. The sun is out, we’re eating and lots of guys and wives are there. River’s phone rings, and he excuses himself. When he comes back, he says make sure everything is right at home. That was his code for we’re leaving. Right then and there, everything shifted. It was time to go home, make everything right with our spouses and pack.

  “River, Frannie, Ry and I were the last to leave, and as the girls walked to our cars, he stopped me and said that it was just four of us going: me, him, McCoy and Raskin. It wasn’t the first time a unit of four had gone out, but the way River said it made me pause. We were heading into Cuba and a child of a U.S. politician had been kidnapped and taken there. Intel told us where the child was, and the commander said it’d be in and out.

  “I echoed River’s thought though and felt that something wasn’t right. It wasn’t our territory, and it should’ve been a unit from the east coast going, so why did we only have four members if we were going into hostile territory? He didn’t have the answers and wasn’t about to question our CO.”

  I stand and retreat to the water cooler and fill yet another paper cup. I keep my back to her, hiding my expression because this is harder than I thought. I shouldn’t be talking about that day, but I feel like I’m left with no choice. The prize at the end of the tunnel, whether I win or not, is worth it.

  “Had you ever felt this way about a mission previously?”

  I shake my head. “Not even when we were in Afghanistan. We’re elite. We’ve trained for everything possible. We may get nervous or excited, but it’s not like we’re jumping out of our skin. Jumping out of planes, walking through water and dense forest, it’s second nature. This mission should’ve been easy compared to seeking shelter from a sand storm and being fired at by the Taliban.”

  I opt to sit on the couch instead of returning to the chair. Hopefully I can relax a little more now that the floodgates are open. I’m still mentally battling with the fact that someone has made a mistake. Mistakes cost people their lives and simply can’t be made. Everything we do is checked and double-checked. We’re efficient, perfectionists. At least I am.

  “Some of my questions about while you were gone may seem out of the ordinary. I don’t pretend to understand what it is that you do, and as I’ve stated, I’m here to help you and Ryley come to some sort of conclusion. The more we talk, the more it seems that there was a communication breakdown. Again,” she says raising her hands. “I’m not in the service, I don’t know. I’m simply making a guess on how four highly trained Navy SEALs disappeared, to have their families mourn their loss, only for you to return completely unaware that anything was amiss.”

  “You and me both,” I mumble. She’s right. Now that I sit here, too much of the past six years isn’t adding up. If this is an error, it’s a grave one, and someone had to know we’d return unless we weren’t supposed to return. My time in Cuba is fresh. The memories are there. I have no doubt that McCoy, River or Raskin can recall every order, every maneuver we made to secure not only the child in question, but the many that we found when we arrived.

  “When we found the missing child, we stumbled upon something bigger. We extracted the child and met at our rendezvous point. That was planned. What wasn’t planned was the directive to go back to the site and…” I trail off, uncertain of what words could describe what we were told. I shrug and continue, “Secure the location. We were told that another unit was deploying immediately. We didn’t think anything of it, until we got back to where the child was being held and everyone was gone.”

  The doc flips the page of her notepad and continues to write. I want to get up and take it from her hand and make sure she’s not writing down something she shouldn’t be. I know I have to trust that what she’s writing is going to help Ryley and me, but with everything that has happened, it’s hard for me to trust anything right now. It makes me wonder what’s going through her mind.

  “What happened next?”

  “We started searching for clues as to the whereabouts of the missing, which took us deeper into the jungle. We lost our communications for a bit, but assumed command was aware of that. It was probably weeks, if not a month before we finally reached an elevation where we could use our Sat phone, but the orders were the same. Find the package and retrieve it. We reiterated that the package had been delivered, but the communications back were that it hadn’t and to find it.”

  “At any time were you able to communicate with Ryley?”

  My head shakes back and forth, my lips forming into a thin line. “Without sounding heartless, no I didn’t. I’m there to do a job. I’m there to protect you and her from people who are trying to do our country harm. I’m not thinking about calling her to check in. I’m thinking about keeping my men alive. We’re on a mission with a goal in sight. We stayed hidden, kept tracking the people we were looking for and checked in every few days with command.”

  “Did anyone ever come for you?”

  “Yes, they brought us supplies, a new radio and they made sure our ammo was stocked. That’s why this is so hard to understand. They had pictures of my son, letters from Ryley and my mom. But according to that newspaper article you showed me, I died months after being gone. None of this adds up. The Navy was supporting us, we were on a mission to recover children who were being used as sex slaves and someone here was telling everyone that we’re dead!”

  I stand and start pacing, stopping at the wall. My fist pounds against the wall, once, twice before I push away and run my hand over what little hair I have.

  “Someone did some serious covering up, and it’s costing me my life.”

  “LET’S SHIFT A LITTLE and talk about your parents. Both your parents are in the military, right?”

  I lean my elbow on the armrest of the couch. “My dad is a consultant for the Army Corps of Engineers, a federal employee. My mom is still active; she’s stationed in Coronado. She takes EJ to work with her every now and again. EJ loves it. He wants to be like his grandma and his dad. I have no doubt that someday he’ll wear the same uniform, but I’ve told you that already.”

  “I know, just going over my notes.

  “Okay,” I say meekly. My voice is tired. I’m tired. My session needs to be over.

  “You met the Archers in Washington?”

  I nod. “We did, but when Evan received his orders for Coronado, I applied to school in San Diego. Everyone thought I was stupid, but I wanted to be near him. My dad was livid and insisted that I apply everywhere so I could live my life and not worry about Evan or cater to his whereabouts. My mom encouraged me to enlist or become a lawyer like her, saying I might help someone on
e day like she does, but that’s not what I wanted. It’s not how I saw my life.”

  “How did you see your life?”

  “With Evan, as his wife, raising our children while he’s protecting our country. It was important to me that I support him and be there for him. I think it was important to him, as well, that he knew I’d be his support all the time, regardless of the situation.”

  “What if you were to break up?”

  I shrug. “I tried to never think like that. I wanted to always be positive for Evan. Happy and welcoming. He was under enough stress that he didn’t need mine as well.”

  “How many schools did you apply to?”

  “Five, maybe? I don’t remember. I wanted something close and really liked the area when I visited the schools there. When I was accepted at San Diego State I thought my dad was going to freak and refuse to pay for school. My mom though, she requested a transfer. They moved to Coronado about three months after I left for school.”

  “How did you feel having them so close?”

  “Honestly, I didn’t mind. I’m family orientated, so having them literally in my backyard was a blessing. I could drive home on the weekends and for holidays. I could’ve even lived at home, but being on campus gave Evan plenty of opportunities to spend the night. Having them there made it easy for me to make decisions. I didn’t have to apologize to them because I was going to be spending the holidays with Evan. We were all together.”

  “And what about Evan’s mom and sister? Where were they?”

  “Julianne and Livvie stayed until the twins received their orders. Right now, they live in Sacramento.”

  “And all the parents get along?”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that.” I hate that they don’t, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Our relationship is strained. “At first, yes, everyone got along and even more so after Archie died, but since Evan… the tension started at his funeral. Like I said before, Julianne wanted things a certain way but Nate made sure I was afforded liberties. She was mad at Nate for a while, but eventually forgave him. Julianne questioned Evan’s death and asked my mom to look into it. She wanted answers, and the Navy wasn’t giving them to her. She expected my mom to find them out and my mom couldn’t.