Chapter 12 #3
“Thanks for letting me off the hook. And…I don’t think there’s any doubt that Brain feels strongly about you,” Gillian said with a small smile. “Walker isn’t one to gossip, but he’s mentioned more than once that Brain seems happier than he’s been in years.”
Aspen liked that. A lot.
“I’m sorry I missed your wedding,” she told Gillian. “I heard it was awesome. And I’m jealous about the pink sparkly Converse sneakers that I heard you wore.”
Gillian beamed. “Thanks. They’re pretty awesome. And thank you for telling Brain about the appetizer thing for our reception party. That turned out really well.”
“You’re welcome,” Aspen said with a smile.
Just then, the door leading onto the patio opened and all seven men filed into the house.
“Hope you guys are hungry!” Oz said, holding a platter of hamburgers. “The meat’s ready.”
“I’d say,” Devyn muttered under her breath.
It was all Aspen could do not to burst out laughing. She turned to grab the casserole out of the oven instead.
Within minutes, the chatter in the small house had fallen to a minimum as everyone began to eat. Between the side dishes the others had brought and the hamburgers, which were cooked to perfection, the meal was one of the best Aspen had eaten in a long time.
Some of the guys ate standing up, giving the women the seats at the table. There was good-humored teasing and lots of compliments over the food, and Aspen loved every second of it.
An hour and a half later, everyone had settled into Kane’s living room and were telling stories and joking with each other. They’d given her a recap of Gillian and Trigger’s wedding, and how hilarious Winnie had been at the reception.
Aspen was sitting on the floor in front of Kane, who was on the couch. She had her arms draped over his legs, which were stretched out on either side of her.
Gillian was sitting next to Trigger on the other end of the couch, and Devyn sat between Kane and Trigger.
Kinley was on Lefty’s lap in the easy chair, and the other guys were spread around the room.
Some standing, some sitting. But everyone seemed comfortable and relaxed, which made Aspen smile in contentment.
This wasn’t her house, wasn’t her party, but somehow it still felt as if it was.
Maybe because she’d spent a lot of time here over the last month and a half.
Oz was in the middle of telling a funny story about a time when they hadn’t understood the local culture of an unnamed country, and how they’d gotten into trouble as a result, when Grover’s phone rang.
He was standing on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall. He smiled when he looked at the readout and didn’t bother to leave the room to answer the call.
“Hi, Mom, how are you? I’m good. No, you’re not interrupting anything. I’m just hanging out at Brain’s house with the team. Oh, and Devyn’s here too… She hasn’t?” Grover frowned over at his sister.
Aspen looked up at Devyn to find the other woman was shaking her head at her brother.
“Do you want to talk to her?” Grover asked, and when his mother apparently answered in the affirmative, he brought the phone over to where Devyn was sitting and held it out. “Mom wants to talk to you.”
“No,” Devyn whispered. “I don’t want to talk to her.”
Grover blinked in surprise. “Why not?”
“Because.”
“That’s not an answer,” Grover told his sister. “Just talk to her. She says you haven’t called since you moved here.”
“I know, and maybe there’s a reason for that, Fred,” Devyn countered tersely.
Brother and sister stared at each other for a long moment before Grover brought the phone back up to his ear.
He didn’t go back to his spot against the wall.
Instead, he stood in front of the couch and stared at Devyn while he spoke to his mom.
“She can’t talk right now, Mom, she’s helping in the kitchen. What’s going on between you two?”
There was silence in the room while Grover listened to whatever his mom was saying.
“Okay,” Grover said after a moment. “I’ll talk to her.”
At that, Devyn was clearly done. She stood from the couch abruptly and turned toward Brain. “Thanks for letting me join in tonight. I’m gonna head out.”
Grover was still on the phone, and Aspen heard him trying to end the call so he could talk to his sister. But Devyn wasn’t waiting. She was up and by the door before anyone could move.
“Devyn, wait!” Grover called out after he’d hung up.
Devyn turned to face him. “What?”
“We need to talk.”
“No, we don’t,” she fired back.
Grover walked toward her, the pair standing in front of Kane’s door, but because the house wasn’t all that big, everyone could hear what they were saying.
“Yes, we do,” Grover countered. “Why have you been ignoring Mom? She’s worried about you.”
Devyn snorted. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean? Of course it matters,” Grover said urgently.
“I love you, Fred,” Devyn said. “But you can’t fix this.”
“Tell me what ‘this’ is, and I’ll try,” Grover insisted.
“Mom was disappointed that I left Missouri,” Devyn said after a long moment. “And she wasn’t shy about telling me how big of a mistake I was making.”
“Maybe she’s trying to fix things between you now,” Grover said.
“She wants to try to ‘talk some sense’ into me. Convince me that I was wrong. That I shouldn’t have left Missouri and everything was a big misunderstanding. But it wasn’t.”
Brother and sister stared at each other for a moment, then Grover reached out and pulled Devyn into his arms. He hugged her tightly and said something into her ear. She nodded and pulled back. Then, without another word, she opened the door and headed out.
Lucky leapt up from his spot on the floor and hurried after her. “Thanks for the food, Brain,” he called as he went. “I’ll make sure she gets home all right,” he told Grover when he passed him at the door.
Grover nodded, and just like that, Lucky was gone.
“Sorry about killing the mood,” Grover said when he came back into the living room.
“Don’t worry about it,” Brain assured him.
“It’s just…our mom’s always been overprotective of Devyn because she was so sick when she was little. I just can’t imagine what the hell’s going on or what caused the rift between them.”
“She’ll talk to you when she’s ready,” Gillian told him. “But if you push, she’ll just clam up even more. She seems pretty stubborn.”
Grover snorted. “You have no idea.”
The conversation switched to something less serious, and it wasn’t long before the previous mood was restored.
“You ever hear from that chick from Afghanistan, Grover?” Oz asked.
“What chick?” Aspen asked, her curiosity piqued.
“The short one,” Doc said. “The one from the chow tent.”
“Sierra?” Aspen asked.
“Yeah, her,” Grover said. “And no. I sent her an email but never heard back. Guess she wasn’t really interested.”
Aspen was surprised. She didn’t know Sierra all that well, as she’d arrived not too long before Aspen had left the country.
But she’d always been extremely friendly, if not a little na?ve.
She couldn’t imagine her giving Grover her contact information and then blowing him off. “You think she’s all right?”
“Why wouldn’t she be?” Grover asked. “She works in food service. It’s not as if she’s out there patrolling the village or anything.”
Aspen frowned. Grover was obviously still in a mood over what had happened with his sister and mom, and bringing up Sierra wasn’t making him feel any better. So she did her best to change the subject. “Are you guys going to the organizational day this weekend?”
An organizational day was an event planned by the Army intended to get soldiers and their families together in a social setting. There were usually games, obstacle courses, face painting, and other activities for the children to enjoy.
“Yeah, we’d all planned to head over around eleven and meet up there. I know Ghost and his team will also be there,” Trigger said.
“Ghost?” Aspen asked.
“He’s the leader of a former Delta team,” Kane told her, leaning forward and resting his arms over her shoulders.
Because she was below him on the floor, it was as if he was hugging her from above and behind at the same time.
Aspen loved feeling surrounded by him. “He and his team are retired from missions now, but they’re still heavily involved in training and in planning missions. ”
“One of those guys is Annie’s father, right?” Gillian asked.
“Yup,” Lefty answered.
“Who’s Annie?” Aspen asked.
“Sorry, yeah, Annie’s thirteen now, I think, and she’s amazing. I went to an obstacle course competition she was in, and she was killing it, but when one of the kids in her heat was struggling, she went back to help him rather than go on to win herself.”
“Awesome,” Aspen said.
“It was,” Gillian agreed.
“Anyway, the answer is yes, we’ll all be there. Are you going with your team?” Doc asked.
Aspen stiffened, and Kane squeezed her shoulders. “No,” she told him. “I mean, we haven’t talked about it. I don’t…we don’t hang out when we aren’t at work like you guys do.”
“Their loss,” Kane said quietly from behind her.
“Well, you can come and chill with us,” Kinley told her with a smile.
“Thanks. I’d like that.”
“On that note, it’s getting late, and we should probably get out of your hair,” Lefty said.
Aspen couldn’t help but chuckle. It wasn’t that late, and it was obvious that Lefty just wanted to get Kinley home so he could have his wicked way with her.
The two had been eyeballing each other all night, and if the way Kinley had been squirming in Lefty’s lap was any indication, she was more than all right with calling it a night.
Everyone else agreed, and soon it was just Aspen and Kane in his house. She turned to him at the door after they’d said goodbye to everyone. “Was it something I said?” she quipped.
Kane chuckled and tugged her into his side, leading her back to the living room. He pulled her down on the couch and lay back, taking her with him.
Aspen stretched out beside him happily. There were things she could be doing. Taking out the trash, cleaning the counters, doing dishes, but she was perfectly happy where she was at the moment.
“Don’t take it personally. That’s kinda how these things always end. When one person calls it quits, everyone else usually follows close behind. I’ll see them at work soon enough.”
“True,” Aspen mused.
“So…what’d you think?”
“Of your friends?” she asked, propping herself up to look at him.
“Yeah.”
“They’re just as great as they were when we hung out the first time. It’s as if months haven’t passed since then.”
“Grover and Devyn’s spat notwithstanding,” Kane said on a sigh.
“Honestly? That made me feel even closer to everyone,” Aspen told him.
“I mean, I’m not happy something’s up with them, but the fact that they didn’t hesitate to have it out in front of all you guys…
it just means they trust you. That they feel comfortable around you.
It was nice, in a weird way. Does that make any sense? ”
“It does,” Kane reassured her.
Aspen put her head back on his chest. “I’m happy for you, Kane.”
“For what?”
“That you have friends who are like family.”
“They’ll be family for you too, if you let them,” he told her quietly.
“I know. And it kinda scares me.”
“It shouldn’t,” Kane said. “They’re good people. Anything you need, they’ll be there for you.”
Aspen let that sink in. It felt nice. And she freaking loved knowing that Kane had such loyal friends at his back.
It made the missions she knew he’d be sent on in the future not seem so scary.
Trigger, Lefty, Oz, Lucky, Doc, and Grover would do whatever it took to make sure Kane came home, just as he’d do for them.
She couldn’t say the same about her own team, which sucked.
As the day got closer to when she was going to have to make a decision about her reenlistment, Aspen already knew she was leaning more and more heavily toward getting out.
She was sad about that, as she’d been so excited the day she’d learned she was attached to a Ranger team.
But as hard as she’d tried, she hadn’t been able to fit in, not the way she wanted.
And for the first time, she wondered if her presence on the team was hindering the other men from connecting the way they should.
That thought was painful, but she couldn’t deny it might be true.
“What are you thinking about so hard?” Kane asked.
“Nothing much,” Aspen said. How could she admit out loud that she felt as if she’d failed? Once upon a time, she’d wanted to make a difference. Wanted to pave the way for her fellow women soldiers to be able to join whatever unit they wanted.
“I’m proud of you,” Kane whispered. “You’ve worked your ass off to be where you are today, and even if your team can’t appreciate it, I’ve seen for myself how much of an asset you are to the Army, and to the Rangers.”
And just like that, Aspen felt better. “Thanks,” she told him quietly.
“I know we haven’t gone there yet, except for that one night, which I’m not sure counts since it was accidental, but…do you want to stay tonight?”
Aspen’s heart rate spiked.
“Not for sex. Just to sleep. Neither of us has to go to work in the morning, and I thought it might be nice to fall asleep with you in my arms and wake up to your beautiful face in the morning.”
Aspen couldn’t think of anything better. She lifted up to look at him again. “It depends…what are you gonna make me for breakfast?”
He smiled. “Whatever you want, hubibi.”
“I can’t even begin to guess what language that was,” she said with a laugh.
“Arabic.”
“Right. And I was teasing. I’m not much of a breakfast person. As long as you have coffee, I’m good.”
“I’ve got coffee,” he told her, smiling. “And I can go out and get some fresh doughnuts or kolaches if you want.”
“Oooh, I want,” Aspen told him.
“Deal.”
She lay her head back on his chest and sighed in contentment.
She loved making out with Kane. Loved how he always put his hand on the back of her neck and held her still as he took what he wanted.
But she also loved this. The feel of his hand on her back, gently stroking.
The sound of his heart beating in his chest under her ear.
For the first time, she admitted to herself that she was addicted to Kane Temple.
Not a day went by when she didn’t think about him.
The fact that they could also be in the same room together, each doing their own thing, was just icing on the cake.
She didn’t have to entertain him; he didn’t have to entertain her.
They were comfortable with each other, and that was something she’d never had with anyone else in her life.
Kane could be the one.
She could see them fifty years from now, lying just like this, simply soaking in each other’s company. And she liked that thought…a hell of a lot.