Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
FORD
I rolled my shoulders as I headed down the hall toward the conference room, satisfied with how the afternoon’s exercises had gone. The new protocols we’d been testing showed promise, though there were definitely some rough spots to iron out. Nothing we couldn’t handle. My muscles ached pleasantly from the physical demands of the training—a comforting sensation that reminded me of my track and field days at UGA.
“Lieutenant Commander.” Captain Patton nodded as I fell into step beside him. “Good work out there today.” His weathered face showed approval.
“Thank you, sir.” I straightened instinctively, falling naturally into the posture that had become second nature after all these years in service.
The rhythms of base life settled around me like a well-worn uniform. Here, I knew exactly who I was and what was expected. No complicated history. No ghosts of past mistakes haunting every corner like back home. The Navy had given me structure, purpose, and most importantly, distance from the mess I’d left behind with Emily when I’d called it quits with her for good—though sometimes, late at night, I still found myself thinking about that summer, about Bree, about all the things I’d run from.
We entered the conference room where the rest of the team was already gathering. The smell of stale coffee lingered in the air as everyone took their seats, notebooks open and ready for the debrief. Lieutenant Rodriguez was sketching something on the whiteboard—probably that tricky maneuver we’d attempted during the third run of the drill. Chief Warren had already claimed his usual spot near the window, methodically arranging his pens in perfect parallel lines.
“Alright people, let’s break this down,” Captain Patton called out as he moved to the front of the room. “Starting with the morning exercises…”
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead as we dove into the analysis. My pen moved across the page, taking notes on improvements needed for tomorrow’s runs. Here in this sterile conference room, surrounded by the structured routine of military life, I felt centered again. Ready to face whatever challenges tomorrow’s exercises might bring.
My phone buzzed against my thigh, interrupting Captain Patton’s analysis of our formation issues. I shifted to pull it from my pocket, ready to send it to voicemail. I could call Mom or Mimi back when we finished—they were probably just checking in like they did every week, Mimi eager to share the latest island gossip while Mom fretted about whether I was eating enough. They could hardly be expected to know when I was through for the day. But the name on the screen stopped my heart.
Bree Cartwright.
The same Bree who’d excised me from her life a decade ago with surgical precision, cutting away every trace of our friendship like it was diseased tissue. The Bree whose number I couldn’t bring myself to delete from my contacts, even though she’d made it crystal clear she never wanted to hear from me again.
Bree did not call me. She did not text or email. She’d said nothing at all to me in ten years, maintaining a silence so complete it felt like we’d never existed in the same universe. This could not be anything good. My gut twisted with a combination of dread and something that felt dangerously like hope.
“Sir,” I cut in, already pushing back from the table, metal chair legs scraping against the floor. “I apologize, but I need to take this call. It’s urgent.” My heart hammered against my ribs like it was trying to escape.
The captain’s eyebrows rose, but he nodded, probably reading the tension in my face. I was out the door before anyone could question it, my hands shaking so badly I nearly dropped the phone as I swiped to answer. The hallway suddenly felt too narrow, too confining for whatever was about to happen.
“Bree? Is everything okay?” My voice came out rougher than intended, heart hammering against my ribs. A decade of silence broken had to mean disaster. Because I wasn’t remotely delusional enough to think a miracle had occurred and she’d somehow decided to forgive me.
“You need to get back to Hatterwick immediately.”
Ice flooded my veins as I recognized that flat tone she used to cover up great emotion. That careful control had always been her tell—the more even her voice became, the bigger the storm brewing underneath. Bree didn’t do upset. She locked it down, determined she could out-think feeling, just like she had since we were kids. “Did something happen to Mom? Or Mimi?” My mind raced through terrible scenarios, remembering how Mom had mentioned some chest pain last month.
“Shit. No.” She dragged in a breath, the sound shaky even through the phone line. “No one is injured. It’s not your moms.” The pause that followed felt loaded with something I couldn’t quite grasp, something that made my stomach clench with dread.
My own breath shuddered out as I sagged against the wall outside the conference room, grateful for the empty hallway. “Okay… What’s going on then?” The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, a steady drone that only highlighted the thundering of my pulse in my ears.
The silence stretched so long I pulled the phone away to check if the call had dropped, the screen’s glow confirming we were still connected. “Bree?”
She took another audible breath that crackled through the connection, the sound so achingly familiar it transported me back a decade. “I have your daughter sitting in my office.”
The words didn’t compute, like they were being spoken in a language I’d never learned. “My what now?”
“Your daughter, Ford.” Her voice was uncharacteristically gentle.
“But… I don’t have a daughter.” My free hand pressed against the wall, steadying myself as the floor seemed to shift beneath my feet. The conference room behind me felt a million miles away, along with the stack of reports I’d just presented and everything else that had made sense in my life five minutes ago.
“Yeah, turns out you do. She’s thirteen—nearly fourteen—and looks just like you.”
“I don’t… I… That’s…” The words tangled in my throat as my mind raced backward through time, searching. My pulse whoosh wooshed in my ears so hard I could barely hear anything else. Sweat broke out across my forehead.
“I did the math. It would have been the summer before you left for college.”
There’d only been the one girl. Casey Walsh. Long, curly brown hair, big brown eyes. She’d been on-island for three weeks of vacation with her parents. We’d bonded over running, spent endless hours walking the beach, making out under the pier. Then more. I remembered how she’d cried when they had to leave, promising to write, to call, to stay in touch somehow.
She never had. Not one letter. Not one call. Nothing but silence and memories that had faded like footprints in the sand.
Suddenly, I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. I slid down the wall until I hit the floor, my knees giving out. But this wasn’t possible. We’d used protection. If she’d gotten pregnant… Surely she would have told me? I’d given her my number, my email. Hell, she knew my home address. She’d been to my house. I’d even written it all down on that little scrap of paper from her dad’s hotel notepad, watching as she carefully tucked it into her wallet.
“I don’t understand. Where is her mother?”
Bree made a small sound, something between sympathy and pain. “Dead, apparently.”
“Oh, my God.” The air left my lungs in a rush. Now I understood why Bree had been the one to make this call. She knew this story. She’d lived it. She’d been just a kid herself when she’d landed on Ed’s doorstep, scared and alone.
I had a thousand and one questions about how this girl had ended up with her, of all people, but I held them all back. My free hand pressed against my eyes, trying to block out the fluorescent lights that suddenly seemed too bright. The irony wasn’t lost on me. Here I was, sitting on the floor of my office at the Naval Station, learning I had a daughter from the one person who had every right to never speak to me again.
A daughter. I had a daughter, and I’d missed thirteen years of her life. A daughter who’d lost her mother and somehow found her way to Hatterwick looking for me. And I hadn’t been there. Hadn’t been around to protect her or her mother. What the hell kind of man did that make me?
“Look, Ford, she came all the way across the country to find you entirely on her own. No doubt someone is looking for her.” Bree’s voice vibrated with tension. “I haven’t contacted anyone because I didn’t want to involve the authorities before you even knew about her. But I won’t be able to keep this quiet forever. You need to come home to deal with this.”
“I… Yeah.” My head spun. The implications hit like waves—a child, alone, crossing the country. If I hadn’t already slid to the floor, the idea of that would’ve taken me out at the knees. My stomach churned at the thought of what could have happened to her out there. What kind of desperation drove a move like that? “I’ll get emergency leave. I don’t know how long it’ll take.” What the hell was my CO going to say? How could I possibly explain this situation when I barely understood it myself?
“She’ll stay with me until you get back.”
It was a big fucking ask. One I wouldn’t have made of Bree. Not after all these years, not with our history hanging between us like a storm cloud. But she was offering nonetheless, and the gesture meant so much more to me than I wanted to admit.
The knot in my chest loosened just a fraction. “Are you sure? My moms…”
“Your moms will be beside themselves with enthusiasm and will overwhelm the poor kid. She shouldn’t meet them before she meets you.” The way she said it, so matter-of-fact, so… Bree… made my throat tight.
A part of me wanted to laugh because, no matter what had happened between us, what walls we’d built, she knew my family.
“Okay. Okay, yeah, you’re right.” I shoved to my feet, already planning what I needed to do. The chain of command. The paperwork. The protocols. My mind clicked into military mode, because that was easier than processing everything else. “I’ll go do what I need to do and let you know as soon as I can head back.”
“Okay. I need to get back to her.”
“Bree?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s her name?”
A pause stretched through the line, heavy with meaning I couldn’t decode. “Peyton. Peyton Walsh.”
“Peyton.” The name felt strange on my tongue, foreign yet somehow precious. A daughter. My daughter. The words echoed in my head like a bell tolling, each repetition making it more real.
Jesus Christ. Everything I thought I knew about my life had just been blown sideways. Thirteen years of memories suddenly had a shadow version playing alongside them. All the moments I’d missed, all the firsts I hadn’t known existed.
“Thank you.” The words felt entirely inadequate for what she was doing, for being the one to reach out when I knew exactly how much it must have cost her.
Another long pause filled the line, crackling with unspoken history. “Just hurry, okay?”
“As fast as I can.” I was already reaching for my keys, my body thrumming with urgency even as my mind struggled to process this seismic shift in my world.