Chapter Eighty-Seven
Isla
So fucking mad I could barely see straight, I drove down the dirt lane and cut across the low outcropping that led down the beach.
The SUV bounced, Linc grabbed the oh-shit handle, and I hit the brakes a few yards before the stone ledge gave way to a jagged cliff.
Throwing the rental into Park, I glanced over at a terrified fifteen-year-old and immediately felt horrible. “I’m sorry. My driving kinda sucks.”
Leaning forward to look toward the cliff and ocean beyond, Linc didn’t let me completely off the hook for dragging him out here. “It was kind of a bumpy ride.”
“Yeah, well, like you, I don’t have a driver’s license.”
Eyebrows raised, eyes wide, he looked at me.
I smiled sheepishly. “Sorry?”
Like only a teenager could, he let out a half laugh, half snort, then shook his head in pure judgment of stupid adult behavior.
“So, are you telling me I’m not cool?” I made a ridiculous face.
He deadpanned me.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
Then we were both laughing.
“Dude.” With his beautifully expressive eyes wide like they were every time something shocked him, he drew out the word. “Your brother is hardcore.”
“Right?” I laughed harder. “Wolf never shows his hand, but I bet he was pissed when I took his Glock!”
Linc grinned. “He so was! His eye twitched, like, three times.” His expression sobered.
“But that was totally badass.” He nodded like he was reliving it.
“Yeah, I didn’t know who I was more scared of in that moment.
I thought you were going to shoot him.” He raised his eyebrows.
“But, like, my dad was there? So, I figured… you know, he’d, like, stop it? ”
“I’m pretty sure he would have if I’d actually pulled the trigger.” I wasn’t pretty sure. In fact, I was pretty sure Will would’ve encouraged it. And Wolf deserved it. He never should’ve drawn near Linc. “I’m sorry about that. About Wolf.”
Linc half shrugged. “I’m kind of getting used to it, with, you know, my dad and all. Is your brother’s name really Wolf?”
“Middle name. Trahern Wolf King.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about Linc getting used to anything, but this was also the world he lived in now. And it’d been the reality of my upbringing, so I couldn’t exactly cast stones at Will for this. If anything, today was my fault.
“My dad called him Legend?”
“That was his call sign when he was on the Teams.”
Linc’s eyes practically bugged out. “He was a SEAL? And you took his gun?”
Oh my God, I loved this kid. Nodding, I grinned. “I love you. Remind me to teach you how to disarm your father.” Will would absolutely lose his shit. But also, he’d be proud. “And yeah, Wolf was a SEAL. Same as my dad,” I added.
“Oh, um.” Linc shoved his palms across his jeans and looked out at the ocean as his voice dropped. “I, um, love you too.” He looked up. “And holy crap, your dad was a SEAL too?”
I didn’t tell Linc I loved him to hear him say it back, but the words, coming from him, healed something in my past that I hadn’t known needed healing until that very moment.
Swallowing down my own emotions, I nodded.
“It was a while ago, when I was younger, but yes. My dad was a SEAL. He was also a survivalist. He raised me and my brother that way.”
“Whoa. So that’s how you know how to do all those things, like fish and stuff.”
“Basically.” At least that’s where it’d started. The past ten years had taught me a few different skills, all out of necessity.
“I’m kinda intimidated right now.”
“Why?” I nudged his shoulder. “I can only start a fire. You write your own songs and can out-sing us all. And you play about a hundred instruments. That’s seriously much more impressive, and it’s talent.
Anyone can be taught how to rub sticks together, but true talent?
That’s not something you can teach someone, Linc. ”
“Maybe.” His gaze landed on his lap, but he smiled. “And I only know, like, five instruments.”
“Including the piano?” I grabbed the paper sack of takeout food that I’d tossed behind our seats when we’d gotten in the SUV. “Wait. Is the piano considered an instrument, or like…?” I didn’t know what. I’d never played an instrument in my life.
“Oh, yeah, it is. But it’s sort of, like, considered both a string and percussion instrument. I guess some people argue over that, though? I don’t know. But yeah, that’s one of the five.”
I opened the bag. “So piano, drums, guitar….” Those were the ones I’d heard him play. “What are the others?” I pulled out a sandwich from the pile of four left and handed it to Linc.
“Um, bass.” He nodded at the bag. “By the way, I got you two veggie subs. They’re the ones on the whole wheat bread. Don’t worry, I didn’t have them put anything on them that you don’t like.”
My heart. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome.” He tore into his sandwich.
I grabbed one of the veggie ones. “What’s the fifth instrument?”
“Oh, um, I can fiddle.” He took another giant bite.
I glanced up from unwrapping my sandwich and looked at him. “You can fiddle.” This kid. Oh my God. I loved him more every time I learned something new about him.
He spoke around a mouthful. “Sorta?” He shrugged, then swallowed. “But, like, not as good as I can play piano or anything.” He took another huge bite.
“Did you just low-key tell me you’re a fiddler, then downplay the hell out of it?”
The sandwich already halfway to his mouth for another bite when he hadn’t finished the previous one, he froze and looked at me like a deer in headlights. “Um, maybe?” He swallowed hard.
“You’re so not cool.” I was being sarcastic, seriously fucking sarcastic.
He smiled. “I know, right?”
I smiled back. “I’m totally lying. You’re the coolest person I know.”
His glorious expressions that gave away every emotion on his face shifted once again, and he became serious. “My dad’s cool.”
“He is.” I matched his tone. “And I bet your mom was the coolest.”
He looked down at his sandwich, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Yeah, she was.”
“I wish I’d gotten to hang out with her.”
Linc didn’t say anything in return, so I took a bite of my sandwich.
He followed suit.
Then, halfway through a second sandwich, he gave me his form of forgiveness. “Thanks, Isla. For, like, letting me talk about Mom.”
“Always, Linc.” My eyes welled, but my heart swelled. “Always.”
A fifteen-year-old nodded nonchalantly. Then, three bites later, he paused. “Isla?”
“Yeah?”
“If you were a guy, you would’ve been a great SEAL.”
I smiled. “Nah, I don’t take direction well.”
Linc scoffed. “You did today, from Dad.”
“That’s different.” In ways I’d never explain. “Your dad’s kinda cool.”
Linc shook his head. “You so have it bad.”
“I so do.” I’d no sooner smiled than my door was yanked open.
Green eyes darkened by residual anger, the chiseled angles of his face standing out in relief against the shadowy cast of a clouded day, his breath made mist in the cold air. Then Will murmured a single word that was the calm to my storm. “Intruse.”