Prologue Clint
PROLOGUE: CLINT
“Are you gonna share any of those cookies you’re hiding under your cot?” Kellan asked.
Crossing my booted feet, I glanced up from the letter in my hand, feigning confusion. “What cookies?”
“The cookies from Pie Hard that I know damned well Austen stuck in that care package she sent with the latest batch of books.”
Nine months into a twelve-month deployment, we were all craving anything and everything from home. I had sympathy. I really did. But I wasn’t about to share my cookies. Mostly because Austen hadn’t sent enough of the peanut butter chip monster cookies that were my favorite for me to split with the rest of my unit. She’d slipped two into the package, wrapping them carefully in bubble wrap and wedging them amid all the paperbacks she’d sent to entertain us in our downtime. They hadn’t survived unscathed, and I’d already inhaled one.
“No cookies in this box. Maybe she put them in Rhett’s. The last time they didn’t survive so well in the box with the books.”
I had no compunction about throwing her brother under the bus.
Kellan turned his begging in Rhett’s direction, and I returned to her letter.
Dear Clint,
Hope you’re doing well and the cookies made it intact. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to Pie Hard until the end of the day, so there are only two. But upside, they’re your favorite! Lucky you. I know you’ll guard them with your life.
Mom’s fretting about your sock situation again.
You won’t believe what happened at the book club meeting last night. We were discussing that thriller I sent you last month, and Mrs. Abernathy got so into her theory about the killer that she knocked over her wine. Right onto Mr. Fitz’s lap! He jumped up so fast he sent the snack table flying. There I was, trying to mop up red wine before they got to the latest bestsellers, while Dorothy and Mabel were squabbling over the last cheese cube that had rolled under a shelf. I swear, sometimes it’s like babysitting toddlers with reading glasses.
Oh, and you’ll never believe this—old Mr. Jenkins finally sold that eyesore of a boat that’s been in his front yard for a decade. The whole town’s in shock.
Sending the new Stephen King and an assortment of other mysteries and romances. Tell me what you think, when you get a chance to read it. No spoilers!
Cliff says hi. Well, he meowed at your last letter. Pretty sure that’s a hello.
Stay safe. We all miss you.
Your friend,
Austen
I stared at her sign off with a vague sense of disappointment. It was the same one she’d used for all the letters she’d sent me on my deployments over the years, and it wasn’t inaccurate. We were friends. She’d been in my life since she was about six years old. But somewhere along the line, my feelings toward her had gotten a lot deeper and more complicated than mere friendship. And I had no idea what to do with that, considering she was my best friend’s little sister. There was a code. One I’d never violated.
But damn, I’d thought about it.
If I’d had some hint that she thought of me as more than another big brother, I’d have done something. Maybe.
But that damnable Your friend seemed to mock me.
Folding the letter, I stuck it inside the front cover of the Stephen King novel. “Isn’t it about time for poker?”
That spurred everybody into motion. We moved to the front of the tent, where a makeshift table had been set up. It only took a few minutes to grab our seats and the nuts we were using as chips. As the winner from last night, Kellan was dealer this go round. With practiced efficiency, he passed out cards, and we got down to the business of some five-card stud.
A few minutes later, the tent flap opened, and a familiar dark-haired guy ducked inside.
“Well, well, look who decided to join us,” Kellan drawled. “Pull up a seat. I’ll deal you in after this hand.”
Gabe snagged the last of the buckets we were using for chairs and took the only empty spot around the table. “Usual stakes?”
Rhett nodded. “Playin’ for peanuts.”
While Gabe got himself sorted for the next hand, I laid down a straight flush to take this one. With familiar ribbing ringing in my ears, I raked in the stack of nuts that were my winnings, resisting the urge to start snacking on my stakes out of sheer boredom. After all these months in the desert, I wanted space and quiet and the cool of the mountains.
Feeling nostalgic as much because of Austen’s latest letter as because I’d been so over this deployment for at least a couple of months, I muttered, “Man, I can’t wait to get back home and go fishing again. Nothing like those misty mornings out on the creek.”
“Right there with you,” Rhett agreed. “But for me, it’s the smell of autumn in the mountains. With all the leaves changing, the chill creeping in, everything’s all brisk and invigorating. It feels like nothin’ changes here.”
Kellan doled out the next hand. “What’s the first thing y’all are gonna do when you get home?”
Gabe answered immediately. “I’m falling face first onto my bed and sleeping for eighteen hours straight. I’ve been dreaming of that memory-foam topper for nine months.”
A comfy bed sounded incredible. But it was my stomach that drove my answer. “For me, I’m getting an entire huckleberry cobbler from Pie Hard and eating every bite. With vanilla ice cream.” I could practically taste it melting on my tongue, a heavenly blend of tart and sweet.
“Obviously,” Rhett agreed. “I want a quiet beer down at Doc Holliday’s. Can you imagine how good one of Doc’s lagers would taste after all these scorching dry days?”
Kellan heaved a sigh as he reorganized the cards in his hand. “You know what I miss most? Late nights with Tate, talking about anything and everything over a couple of brews.”
Much as we all regularly talked about what we missed from home, this was new.
“Tate, your best friend and business partner?” Gabe clarified.
Shifting in his seat, Kellan shrugged and didn’t quite meet any of our eyes. “Since I’ve been out here, I’ve been maybe thinking about how she means more to me than both those things. How maybe I should do something about that.”
Thompson walked right into the crater that conversational bomb left, grinning from ear to ear as he came back into the tent.
“Just got off the phone with my wife. The adoption’s going through! We’re having a baby!”
That led to a round of hugs and cheers. This was huge news. That adoption had been in the works for two years now, and I couldn’t think of a better pair of parents.
Once he’d left to spread the news among our other comrades, I turned the conversation back to relationships, hoping I could get us back on the topic of Kellan’s announcement.
I discarded two cards and drew two more. “Obviously, the long-distance thing is tough, but I feel like this would somehow be easier if I had someone at home to look forward to.”
What would it be like to go home, knowing Austen was waiting for me, with those smiles and that smart mouth that made me want to do wicked things to her and with her?
“You got anybody in mind?” Rhett asked.
I hummed a noncommittal noise, because the last thing I was about to do was admit to him that the person I’d had in mind for most of the past decade was his sister. Ever since she’d hit sixteen and started looking more woman than girl. Nope, not admitting that to her brother at all. I wanted to survive this deployment.
Rhett dropped his gaze to the bare ring finger of his left hand. “I really fucked things up with Pepper. Wish I could take it all back.”
I’d known he was still carrying a torch for the high school sweetheart he’d married and divorced, but he’d never admitted he wanted her back. Maybe this deployment was causing him to reevaluate his priorities. It sure as shit was making me reevaluate mine.
Clearly not comfortable with his admission, Rhett turned his attention to the last of our quartet. “What about you, Gabe?”
Of all of us, Gabriel Bishop had the best poker face. But I didn’t miss that flash of… something in his eyes. There was someone, and I suspected I knew who she might be. Not that he’d admit it. Gabe played things close to the vest, always.
A glint in Kellan’s eyes said he was about to dish some shit in the name of getting answers, but whatever he’d intended to say got drowned out by a low rumble that shook the ground beneath us. Then chaos erupted outside the tent.
“We’re under attack!”
“What the fuck? This region is supposed to be stable!” someone shouted.
Apparently not.
We all vaulted into motion, pulling on gear and taking up weapons. On impulse, I grabbed Austen’s latest letter and tucked it inside my flak jacket, close to my chest.
What if this was it? What if I’d gone my whole life too chickenshit to do something about my feelings for her?
“Hey!” I shouted.
My buddies turned, faces pale and drawn with fear.
I held out a hand, exactly like we used to do before our high school football games, and stared at each of them in turn until they’d added their hands to the stack. “I say we make a pact. If we get out of this shit alive, we go home and woo our women. A happily ever after is the only thing that makes all this worth it.”
“In,” Kellan said.
“In,” Rhett muttered.
We all looked at Gabe. “Oh, hell. In. Let’s go kick some ass.”