Chapter 24
Adam
Silverton’s small-town reality came into full effect the moment we stepped into the Silver Ridge Brew Pub. I saw no fewer than four people I recognized within ten seconds of entering, and Jo likely knew far more than me. The place had opened last summer, and the food was fantastic, so it came as no surprise it was packed.
“Guess there was no chance this wasn’t getting out,” I said, laughing at the fact I’d ever considered we’d slowly let people know.
She squeezed my hand and searched my face. “Is this a problem? We can leave if you’re uncomfortable.”
I raised her hand and kissed the back of it, holding her gaze to make sure she understood. “I’m good if you are. Just didn’t think this through, but I’m happy to be seen with you.”
Yes, it’d be painful when all of this was over—if it has to end, that tiny voice reminded me—but I’d promised myself I wasn’t going to dwell on that aspect while I was here with her.
Her smile came slow and pleased. “I’m happy to be seen with you, too.”
Thankfully, she confirmed it just in time. The host gestured for us to follow him, and once we were seated at a booth in a far corner, we had about ten seconds to settle in before the first visitor arrived.
“Well, look what we have here,” Kenny said, all delighted swagger. He leaned in and shoved my shoulder. “You look lovely this evening, Jo.”
“Thanks, Kenny. Who are you here with—oh.” She raised a hand toward Beast, who’d posted up a few steps behind Kenny and gave me a look that said everything from “I tried to stop him” to “Sorry about this idiot” to “Hey, man, good for you.” His scowl was infinitely expressive.
“Yeah, had to get this guy out of the house, and now we’re heading to check on Stone.” He held up a bag, presumably with takeout inside.
“That’s great. Tell him hi for me.”
Kenny gave us an exaggerated wink. “Oh, I’ll tell him more than hi. Have fun, you two.” He turned and left, passing Beast as he gave me the chin nod and tipped his head further down to acknowledge Jo.
“That man…” Jo said, chuckling to herself as she settled her napkin in her lap.
“Which one?” I asked, glancing back at them, Beast’s hulking mass drawing eyes from at least half of the restaurant.
“Well, good question. I mostly meant Kenny because he’s just out there, but he’s sweet at his heart, I think.” She looked toward the hostess desk, where they’d undoubtedly already passed before exiting the place.
“He is definitely that. But also young.” My gaze shifted to hers as soon as I said it. “Not that that’s a bad thing.”
She tsked and shook her head, though her lips only barely held off a true smile. “Oh, very bad attempt at a save, Doc. The words are already out there.”
“It’s not that youth is a problem necessarily, and of course that’s relative. But your being twenty-eight and his being the same, or actually he might be twenty-nine, it’s different. You have maturity and some life experience, and a lot of times it feels like he doesn’t.”
The waiter arrived and we placed our orders, miraculously fast but likely because we’d both been here before, and then she circled us back to Kenny.
“It’s odd to me that you’re talking about him as though he doesn’t have life experience. Didn’t he deploy when he was in the Army? And live away from family and… I mean, he had injuries, right?”
“He did. It’s part of what makes it feel like he needs to grow up a little, but it’s more complex than that. Kenny lost a lot—yes, he lost two fingers on a mission a few years ago, but before that, he lost”—I shook my head, knowing it wasn’t my place to divulge everything but also wanting her to understand my friend at least a little—“a lot. I think he’s almost forced himself into this super-positive version of himself as though that’s his way of coping. Or rather, it is his way, but I worry about him.”
Her gaze softened and she extended her hand across the table, which I gladly took, a thrill following the contact.
“He and Beast seem to be good friends.”
My thumb swept over the heel of her hand. “Funny enough, they are. The grumpy-sunshine pairing we never knew we needed.”
She gasped and then beamed at me. “Adam Carter, are you talking romance tropes to me?”
I chuckled, more than a little pleased to see her response. “Well, not actual romance between those two, more like bromance, but I know a little about tropes. I can’t hang around the Saint Security building and escape it, let alone walk by the All Booked Up romance section and not learn a thing or two.”
She grinned. “Very true. We love a good trope tag.”
I dipped my head and spoke as quietly as I could. “Plus, I’m dating a romance author.”
She covered her mouth, eyes wide, then let her hand drop and gave me the kind of smile that would cue the sunrise.
“So true. You need to be well-versed in things like tropes.”
“Guess I do,” I said, all nonchalant.
“And probably should have a list of at least a few favorite romance authors,” she suggested.
“Sure. Give me a list and I’ll read whomever you recommend.”
Her eyes lit with a fire only kindled by a man asking a reading woman for book recommendations.
“Oh, I certainly will,” she said in a voice so smooth and low, I made a mental note to return to book recommendations and romance tropes if I ever tried to seduce her.
Okay, odd thought, but point was, all of this felt like an oddly sensual form of flirting based on her responses, and I was not mad about it.
“Why is Beast so grumpy? And why can’t you guys have him leave town so Jess doesn’t have to keep going?”
I squeezed her hand and leaned back as the waiter set our drinks in front of us, then a bread basket full of soft, warm rolls. We each dove in to slather them with butter, and Jo took a giant bite of hers as I responded.
“Beast has been a man of few words as long as I’ve known him. It’s not all that uncommon in our field. Operators are, as a demographic, largely introverted. Some of us are more half-extroverted, like me, and then there are the Bruces and Kennys of the world.”
She laughed and dabbed her lips with her napkin. It was such a dainty, delicate move and made me realize how long it’d been since I’d been on a date—even longer since I’d been out with someone I cared about.
After a bite of my own roll, I continued. “He and Jess have history that’s more complex than any of us truly know, but from what we do, we get that they do best with space between them. For his part, Beast technically signed on with Saint first, and Jess agreed to work there after the fact, even knowing he was already on staff. But I’m not sure she knew that a, his contract includes a no-travel clause, and b, that she wouldn’t want to travel because she actually likes Silverton and its inhabitants quite a bit. I think you’re partly to blame there.”
She pressed a hand to her heart. “I love Jess. At least, I love what I know of her. She’s amazing, and I hate that she’s unhappy at work.”
I could practically see her mind racing through whether to ask me more about the situation. Jo wasn’t a particularly nosy person from what I’d observed, but when she cared about someone, she really cared. She wasn’t a halfway kind of person. It reflected in most of what she did, just like her books. She’d started out casual, but now Josie Wade had become a huge aspect of her life.
“I’m sorry she is, too. And I probably shouldn’t talk about it much more, but I can promise you that Bruce and Wilder are not unaware of the issue, and they care about Jess and don’t want to lose her or Jude.”
“Oh my gosh, I always forget he has an actual human name,” she said, an embarrassed laugh rushing out.
“Honestly, I think we all do sometimes. But he’s a good man, even if he’s taken the grumpy nonverbal thing to its limit. I worry about him, but… I’m doing what I can.”
Her dark gaze flickered back and forth between mine for a moment. “And Stone? That’s Dorian, right?” Her voice was soft, as though she knew this was a particularly tender subject.
I nodded, taking a small gulp of my water.
“Yeah, Dorian.” I shifted, wanting to explain my friend to her, and yet knowing how private he was, I couldn’t say much without violating what he valued. “We all come with baggage, of course. And it’s sort of like, if you serve for a handful of years, you might get out unscathed. Same if you serve twenty—miraculously, there are people who serve twenty and never see anything traumatic. It’s unlikely to go without changing you in some way, to grow a person and present challenges and whatever else, but some might sneak out without real damage.”
She swallowed, waiting patiently for me to finish. The waiter brought our appetizers, and we ate for a minute before I finished my thought.
“Many of us served, and aside from the big things like how to transition into a civilian life after twenty years in a military one, or how to go from being a soldier in a unit that executed missions that mattered on a national and sometimes international scale to something small and sometimes seemingly insignificant, we don’t have a whole lot to work through. Others of us… our bodies and minds carry the load differently.”
“That makes sense. I’m sorry that, either way, the load you all carry is so heavy.”
The compassion in her expression and the care in her voice made me want to jump out of my chair and kiss her until we both forgot we were standing in a room full of people who knew exactly who we were and would report to everyone else in town who knew us.
“Thank you. So, yeah. Dorian’s got a heavy load he’s carrying right now, and we’re all trying to help with that burden in whatever way we can. Still, I worry about him.”
But tonight, he’d have friends. They’d make sure he ate. He had Bear, and I think his neighbor checked on him once in a while. Plus, I knew Aidan Wallace went over there about once a month to check in on the tree farm itself. Dorian had been doing better overall, but I wanted him healed completely. Maybe that was my curse as someone in the medical realm—I wanted to be able to patch up everything like I’d dress a wound and then watch the body slowly work its magic. It didn’t always go that way.
But Stone would be okay… he would. He had to be. He was one of the strongest and best men I knew, and that didn’t mean he didn’t struggle, but it meant we wouldn’t give up on him. We wouldn’t be scared away. We hadn’t yet, and we wouldn’t ever.
Jo’s hand covering mine pulled my attention back to the here and now.
“You have such a big heart. It’s amazing,” she said, nothing short of awe in her voice.
I huffed. “It’s a pretty normal heart, actually.” And one that ultimately wouldn’t manage to hold on to hers. But that was a thought for another time.
“You just told me how you worry over all your friends, and you have this love and concern for them that I can feel from across the table. You check on Stone and you fret over Kenny?—”
“I don’t fret?—”
“But Adam, who worries over you? Who takes care of you?”
I shook my head, ready to tell her I didn’t need any caretaking. I’d been fine for years and I wasn’t about to stop now. But the warmth of her hand on mine and her beautiful face searching mine for a real answer, not a blow off or something flippant about being the old man in our relationship, made me answer truthfully.
“I don’t know, Josie. Are you applying for the job?”