Chapter Seven
Kira
Durham, N.C. was eighty miles north of Fort Bragg. It took Kira about an hour and twenty minutes to make the drive.
Same for Ty.
Kira didn’t know why it upset her when Ty made the trip on his own, whereas she was fine when she was in the car with him.
She’d never been in a car accident and didn’t know anyone who had been seriously injured in one. So, it made zero sense to her as she and her psychiatrist explored why Kira’s anxiety spiked when Ty was coming or going.
But that particular stretch of road, between her house and Fort Bragg, felt vulnerable to her.
Kira thought it was because Ty was on the road because of her. If anything happened to him, she was the catalyst. It was her fault. An unimaginable horror.
These thoughts were laughable, since Ty held one of the highest-risk jobs in the military as a Delta Force operator.
But he specifically trained for that risk and had his Echo brothers and the might of the military behind him should things go sideways. She was never afraid for him when he was on a mission. She absolutely, one hundred percent believed in his skill.
The dangers of Ty’s work were part and parcel to his military life.
The highway was personal.
When Kira had broached the subject, Ty squeezed his eyes together and held his belly with both hands as he tried hard to hold in the laughter.
Something about his mirth felt like it was tempting fate; it doubled her anxiety, and she’d started to cry.
Kira hated that.
She wasn’t a delicate flower.
She wasn’t an emotional basket case.
In the past, she wasn’t, anyway. Things had changed.
Now, Kira wasn’t wholly in charge of her emotions. Her psychiatrist said it was going to take time to reset her nervous system. “Be patient, treat yourself with grace.”
Kira thought that almost two years was too long. And wondered what she was doing wrong that kept her from making progress.
As soon as her tears started to flow, Ty’s eyes filled with warmth. He looked at her with so much love as he held out his arms, “Oh, sweetheart, thank you for caring about my safety, it means the world to me.”
Kira’s anguish disappeared as quickly as it came. The roller coaster of emotions she’d been on since they’d met definitely wasn’t something she was getting used to.
Though it was also true that when Ty was around, the crests and troughs of that roller coaster resolved much quicker with less variability. It wasn’t smooth sailing; she navigated choppy waters, for sure. But Ty had a way of soothing her soul.
And Kira thought that might become a complication.
She didn’t want to be the kind of person who could only feel okay in the presence of someone else. It would be a burden for Ty whether he acknowledged it or not. Kira thought he’d probably put up with it because he felt somewhat responsible.
Which he shouldn’t.
Kira definitely recognized that Ty Newcombe could easily become her drug of choice if she wasn’t strong enough to be comfortable feeling uncomfortable.
This morning, her eyes popped open, and she’d pulled her phone toward her to read the time stamp at the very moment when Ty said he was getting on the road. Her subconscious must have been keeping track.
Kira and Ty had to snatch what hours they could to be together, so Ty was driving up early to exercise Rory in the park, and they’d all be ready to start the day.
The highway should have been clear in the wee hours of the morning—absurdly early for Kira’s system but a norm for Ty and Rory.
Even still, she lay there dealing with her anxiety for one hour and twenty minutes.
The stress abated just before the sun peeked over the horizon, when she heard Ty quietly let himself into her house, toss his keys in the bowl on the hall table, and put on the coffee pot.
Then he was gone again as he and Rory took off for their morning jog.
Kira got up to pee and brush her teeth, then slid right back under the covers.
Ty’s regular ten miles with Rory took time.
They ran ten miles every morning because otherwise Rory became a menace.
Malinois were very high energy, and Ty needed to run Rory in the morning, and then he would do training in the afternoon, where Ty tried to engage Rory’s brain so that Rory became tired from all the thinking.
New skills came easily to Rory; hence, Ty was constantly trying to come up with something fresh to teach Rory.
In the latest game, Ty was trying to teach Rory how to read simple words.
If the card said ball, Rory would have to pick out a ball from the items in front of him.
Reading was a Rory favorite.
Kira had asked if Ty would like to get a communications mat she’d seen on social media, where influencers trained their dogs to step on a button to speak a recorded word to “talk” with their people. Kira thought it led to hilarious misunderstandings, some confusion, and some poignant moments.
Ty said giving Rory buttons like that would be a mistake because it would change their relationship dynamic.
Rory's ability to ask for what he wanted, rather than waiting for Ty to offer specific options, wasn’t a safe structure for their work relationship.
“Besides,” Ty said, “can you imagine what life would be like if I gave Rory a button that said, ‘outside’? We’d never have any peace. ”
Handling Rory was like being a parent. Where the other men in Echo got their downtime, being a K9 handler was a way of life.
And with those thoughts, Kira drifted back to sleep.
By the time Ty and Rory got back from their run, Kira was deep enough in sleep land that she didn’t hear them come back in. She only woke when a cold, wet nose pressed into her cheek, then snuffled her hair.
As Kira blinked her eyes open and reached out to pet Rory, she registered the sound of the shower.
Rory was whining and stomping, demanding that she get up.
“Rory, my love, you are very insistent.” She leaned over to kiss him on the forehead and rub his ears.
Rory grabbed a mouthful of sheets and blankets and pulled them off the bed, leaving Kira lying there in one of Ty’s white T-shirts that covered her nearly to her knees.
“Up,” Kira said with a salute. “Yes, sir.” She pattered over to the bathroom door and tapped. “Good morning, Ty.”
“Almost done.”
“Don’t rush. I’m going down for coffee. Can I go ahead and feed Rory?”
“Yes. Thanks,” he called back, and Kira left her hand on the knob for a moment, knowing that Ty never locked the door in case she wanted to wander in and play Mr. and Mrs. Clean.
Fun. But not what Kira was in the mood for today.
She’d talk to Ty about her mood when he came down for breakfast.
When she got to her kitchen, she found a bag from her favorite bakery sitting next to the coffee pot. Ty and Rory must have taken the loop and stopped by on the way home.
She pulled the bag over to peek in, finding her favorite cinnamon rolls wrapped in parchment, still warm and fragrant. She rolled the top of the bag back down, so it would hold their heat until Ty came down.
Rory sat next to his bowl, muscles tight, staring intensely.
“I’m coming, sweet pea.” Kira opened the fridge, pushing the milk aside to pull out the container of wet food Ty kept stocked.
Rory’s body quivered with restraint as she filled his bowl. “Now, we say thank you,” Kira said. And Rory sat on his back legs, bringing his front paws together with a bow of the head. “Lovely. You may eat.”
Rory dove in, tail wagging, mouth gobbling, tongue licking.
He brought his gaze up to meet Kira’s with a question in his eyes.
“Nope. That’s all you get. You can take it up with Ty when he gets down.”
Reaching into the cupboard, Kira pulled out two hand-thrown ceramic mugs made by a local artist. She set one by the coffee maker for Ty and filled the other for herself.
The coffee Ty had chosen that morning smelled of hazelnuts.
Pattering barefoot over to the glass doors that led out to her little garden, Kira watched as the sun winked over the back wall, sending shadows crisscrossing her lawn.
She looked down at Rory. “I remember the first time I saw you. You were then, as you are now, spectacular.”
Rory plopped onto his butt and lifted a hind leg to noisily scratch his ear.
Kira’s memories floated her back to their first days. She’d interacted with Ty briefly when he saved Princess Beatrice from getting run over by a car. Bea was her best friend, London’s King Charles spaniel that Kira had been dog-sitting.
When Ty brought Bea safely back to Kira’s arms, they didn’t exchange names. They didn’t have a conversation. Still, Kira thought she’d sensed a connection with the man.
She wanted to believe that.
Kira’s doctorate focused on 19th-century romance novels. And she could hope for those lyrical scenarios to play out in her own life.
Why not?
The dashing hero, the clever heroine, a meeting of the minds, and then the bodies.
If people could imagine it on paper, there was no reason to think that it didn’t exist somewhere in the world.
Why not for her?
The next morning, Kira had woken up with a plan fully formed. If she went to the same coffee shop at the same time and sat in the same seat as before, maybe Beatrice’s protector might show up, looking for them. “And wouldn’t it be a shame if I wasn’t there waiting?” she’d asked herself.
So she had dressed for the occasion.
And the guy didn’t show up.
In her disappointment, Kira had taken Beatrice on her normal walk, just following her normal patterns, and that was when the norm shattered.
She was thinking of Ty when she felt strange. Tinnitus rang in her ears. She looked around and saw nothing that should attract her attention. She’d felt—“watched” wasn’t a big enough word. “Stalked” got her a little closer to the right description.
Kira had tried to push the sensation away, thinking it was disappointment over not seeing that guy, possibly love at first sight. If not love, it was certainly lust.
And she wondered if she’d ever see him again or if she’d missed her great opportunity.
But then came her red flag signals. Along with the tinnitus, there was that obnoxious buzzing at the tip of her nose.
Turning, Kira saw a rottweiler racing into her path, growling at Princess Beatrice.
Horrified, Kira snatched Bea up into her arms.
But the rottweiler’s prey drive had throttled up as he closed the distance.
Out of the mist came Ty and Rory, leaping the fence like the heroes they were.
Back in the beginning, Kira had written in her journal that in the park when Ty and Rory leaped into the fray, she’d felt peaceful and cared for.
The look in Ty’s eyes—that intense alpha protection that shifted away to leave warmth and gentleness, gentlemanliness—it was something out of one of her beloved novels.
It was perfect.
It was a scene a writer would conjure on a page.
This scene was, in fact, written, not by an author but by her dear friend Lula LaRoe.
As Kira would eventually discover, Lula, the great manipulator, also went by the moniker Johnna White when she wore her CIA hat.
And Kira had been Lula’s unwitting asset all along.
Ty and Rory, as it turned out, were under Lula’s command. But in this dog attack scenario, Ty didn’t know that they had been set up. He was acting out of courage and protection. Which was exactly what Lula wanted to happen.
Lula needed for Ty and Kira to fall in love.
And they did.
Oh, boy, did they.
For Kira, it was like the strike of lightning, a force of nature.
Or so she’d thought.
Where Ty knew, for the most part, about the behind-the-scenes. Kira was completely, na?vely oblivious.
Kira wasn’t mad about it. She was a lot of things about it, but mad wasn’t one of those emotions.
Kira owed a lot to Lula. After all, because of Lula’s choices, Kira was alive. She was whole. She was in love with the man Lula had chosen for her. Kira couldn’t think of a single scenario other than a CIA mission that would have Kira crossing paths with Ty.
Still, there was a lot to reconcile because of how her relationship got its start.
“I’m in love, and I’m safe,” she told her garden.
If that was true, why couldn’t Kira just be happy?
Why couldn’t she let the past flush from her system?
Kira lowered her lips and blew across the top of her coffee, feeling the humidity of the steam condense as it touched her upper lip.
Holding her mug between her hands, Kira drew it to her chest, letting the radiant heat warm her heart, wishing that she could be okay.
To simply love freely.
Yet here she was with all the complications of a nervous system that felt like it was in perpetual danger.
And she didn’t understand why.