27. Mace
MACE
Iwoke to Max growling at the bedroom door.
My hand went beneath the pillow before I remembered I wasn’t carrying a weapon.
I opened my eyes.
Sunlight pushed through the curtains. A ceiling fan turned slowly overhead. The room smelled like fresh paint, clean sheets, and the piece of apple pie Agnes had insisted I keep beside the bed.
Max growled again.
Someone moved in the hallway.
Slow footsteps stopped outside my door.
The knob turned.
I came off the bed as the door opened.
Trigger stepped inside carrying two coffee cups.
Max lunged across the room.
Trigger yelped and threw both hands into the air.
Coffee hit the wall.
“MAX!”
The dog stopped three inches from Trigger and looked at me.
“Friend,” I said.
Max sat.
Trigger stared at him.
Then at the coffee dripping down the wall.
Then at me.
“You could have said that sooner.”
“You could have knocked.”
“I brought you coffee.”
“You broke into my room.”
“I opened an unlocked door.”
“Without knocking.”
“We didn’t knock when we were Rangers.”
“We also carried weapons and slept in buildings where people wanted to kill us.”
Trigger looked at Max.
“He wanted to kill me.”
“He wanted to stop you.”
“With his teeth.”
“They’re effective.”
Trigger lowered his hands carefully. “Is he going to eat me?”
“Not unless you touch his food.”
“I don’t want his food.”
“You ate my last protein bar in Afghanistan.”
“That was fifteen years ago.”
“Max holds grudges.”
Trigger took one slow step backward.
Max watched him.
“You talked to him about the protein bar?”
“We’ve had long drives. We've had plenty of conversations.”
Trigger looked at the empty cups on the floor.
“I liked you better when you lived in your truck.”
“You didn’t like me then either.”
“That’s not true. I complained about you with great affection.”
The door across the hall opened.
Blaze stepped out wearing plaid pajama pants and one boot.
He looked at the coffee on the wall.
“What happened?”
“Max tried to kill me,” Trigger said.
Max yawned.
Blaze looked at Trigger. “You probably deserved it.”
“I brought coffee.”
“You should have brought bacon.”
Blaze disappeared into his room and closed the door.
Trigger pointed toward it. “He’s been living upstairs again for two weeks.”
“Why?”
“He put a hole in his kitchen wall.”
“Accidentally?”
“No.”
I waited.
Trigger shrugged. “He had a disagreement with a cabinet.”
“Did the cabinet win?”
“The cabinet is still standing.”
I found a towel in the bathroom and wiped coffee from the wall.
Trigger watched me.
“What?”
“You clean now?”
“I always cleaned.”
“You once wore the same shirt for nine days.”
“We were on a mission.”
“You had another shirt.”
“It wasn’t comfortable.”
He picked up the cups.
“Breakfast is downstairs. Wolf says if you’re staying here, you work here.”
“I never said I was staying.”
“You unpacked.”
“How do you know?”
“I checked your bag.”
I stopped wiping the wall.
“You went through my things?”
“No. The bag was empty.”
“That means you looked.”
“I was curious.”
“You’re going to be curious from the bottom of the stairs if you keep talking.”
Trigger grinned.
There it was.
The same grin that had gotten us thrown out of bars, chased through villages, and assigned more latrine duty than any Ranger team in history.
I had missed it.
I would deny that under oath.
“Put on clothes,” he said. “The Magnolia Ladies are downstairs.”
“It’s seven in the morning.”
“They brought breakfast at six.”
“Why?”
“They said you looked hungry.”
“They fed me half a pie last night.”
“That was dessert.”
He headed for the door.
Max moved out of his way.
Trigger paused.
“Friend?” Trigger asked.
Max stared.
“Friend,” I confirmed.
Trigger leaned down cautiously and patted Max’s head.
Max licked his hand.
Trigger smiled. “He reminds me of Ranger. I’ll always miss that dog.”
“That’s what I thought when I saw him sitting out in the middle of the desert. I put him in the truck, and we became best friends,” I said.
Then Max sneezed coffee-scented slobber across Trigger’s shirt.
I laughed.
Trigger looked at me.
I hadn’t meant to laugh.
The laugh had escaped before I could stop it.
His expression softened.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “You needed to come here.”
He left before I could answer.
The Last Stand Tavern didn’t open until eleven, but the downstairs dining room was already full.
Agnes, Mabel, and June occupied a table near the bar. Nora sat beside Wolf with a cup of coffee between her hands. Rylie had taken Trigger’s usual chair and refused to move when he complained.
Havoc stood near the kitchen with Aspen and Dylan.
Dylan had grown since the last photograph Havoc sent me. He was almost as tall as Aspen and had the restless energy of a boy who believed every room had been created for him to run through.
Saint sat with Laney. Ace and Tessa were near the end of the table, arguing quietly about whether Ace had stolen the last biscuit.
He had.
The evidence was in his hand.
Everyone looked up when I entered.
I stopped at the foot of the stairs.
“No.”
Agnes frowned. “No what?”
“Whatever this is.”
“It’s breakfast,” June said.
“It looks like an ambush.”
Wolf took a drink of coffee. “It is.”
Max walked into the room beside me.
Dylan jumped out of his chair.
“You have a dog!”
Max’s ears lifted.
Dylan ran toward him.
“Stop,” I said.
The boy froze.
Havoc moved quickly, but I held up my hand.
“Let Max come to you.”
Dylan looked at the dog.
Max looked at Dylan.
“Hold out your hand,” I said. “Keep it low.”
Dylan did exactly as I told him.
Max moved forward and sniffed his fingers.
“Friend,” I said.
Max’s tail moved once.
Dylan smiled so widely I could see the gap between his two front teeth.
“Can I pet him?”
“On his shoulder. Don’t reach over his head.”
Dylan placed one careful hand against Max’s side.
Max leaned into him.
Havoc released the breath he had been holding.
“He likes me,” Dylan whispered.
“He doesn’t like many people.”
“He likes me,” Trigger said.
Max turned his head away from him.
Rylie laughed.
Trigger looked wounded. “We had a moment upstairs.”
“You threw coffee on the walls,” I said.
“That was before the moment.”
Dylan sat on the floor. Max lowered himself beside him.
Havoc came closer to me.
“Thanks.”
“He’s good with kids.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You never asked.”
“I didn’t know you were coming.”
There was no accusation in his voice.
That made it worse.
“I didn’t know either.”
Havoc nodded as though that answer made sense.
For men like us, it probably did.
“Sit down,” Mabel ordered. “Your eggs are getting cold.”
“I can make my own plate.”
June gasped.
Agnes looked personally offended.
Trigger leaned toward me. “Apologize.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. Just do it.”
“I’m sorry.”
The Magnolia Ladies relaxed.
Mabel placed a plate in front of the empty chair beside her.
Four eggs.
Six pieces of bacon.
Biscuits and gravy.
Fried potatoes.
Enough food to feed a patrol.
I sat.
Agnes inspected me while I ate.
“You have gray in your beard.”
“I’m forty-three.”
“That isn’t old.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“You need a haircut.”
“I had one.”
“When?”
“February.”
“It’s August,” Nora said.
I looked at her. “Whose side are you on?”
“Theirs. It’s safer.”
Wolf nodded. “You’ll learn.”
“Where's Judy?” Wolf asked.
“Already at the Sheriff's Office,” Rylie answered.
Mabel reached across the table and touched my sleeve.
“This shirt has a hole.”
“It’s small.”
“It’s on your shoulder.”
“My shoulder doesn’t mind.”
“We’ll take you shopping.”
“No.”
All three women stared at me.
Trigger shook his head slowly.
I tried again.
“I appreciate the offer, but I have clothes.”
“Two bags,” June said.
“How do you know how many bags I have?”
“We saw them.”
“They were in my truck.”
Agnes waved one hand. “Details.”
Saint smiled into his coffee.
I looked around the table.
“Does anyone control them?”
“No,” every Ranger answered.
“Good,” Agnes said. “You boys are finally learning.”
Max rested his head on Dylan’s knee.
The room filled with conversation again.
Rylie asked Nora about the library.
Aspen reminded Havoc that they needed to pick something up after breakfast.
Tessa stole half of Ace’s biscuit while he was distracted.
Laney handed Saint a napkin before he realized he needed one.
The men I remembered had been trained to sleep on dirt, eat from plastic bags, and disappear into places no one else wanted to go.
Now they discussed grocery lists, school schedules, leaky faucets, and whether the tavern needed a new freezer.
They had built lives while I kept driving past mine.
Wolf caught me watching.
He didn’t say anything.
He didn’t need to.
After breakfast, Wolf led me into the small office behind the bar.
A large map of Texas covered one wall. Schedules and security contracts had been pinned to a corkboard. Two locked filing cabinets stood beneath a row of photographs.
The Rangers in uniform.
The Last Stand Tavern before the renovations.
Wolf and Nora on their wedding day.
Trigger and Rylie laughing beside the river.
Havoc with Aspen and Dylan.
Saint holding a baby.
Ace and Tessa beneath the tavern sign.
Life measured in pictures.
There wasn’t a photograph of me.
I hadn’t been there.
Wolf sat behind the desk.
I took the chair across from him.
Max lay near the door.
“You still doing security work?” I asked.
“We run the tavern and the company. The security work pays better. The tavern keeps us sane.”
“Trigger works here. I’m not sure sane is the word.”
“He’s calmer than he used to be.”
Trigger shouted from the dining room.
“I DID NOT brEAK THE COFFEE MACHINE!”
Something crashed.
Wolf closed his eyes.
“Marginally calmer.”
I looked at the contracts on his desk.
“What kind of work?”
“Personal protection. Threat assessments. Transport. Missing persons when local law enforcement asks for help. We stay close to Eagle River unless the job requires travel.”
“You don’t miss the bigger missions?”
“Sometimes.”
“What changed?”
“Nora.”
He answered without hesitation.
I looked at the wedding photograph.
“You happy?”
“Yes.”
The certainty in his voice surprised me.
Not because I doubted his marriage.
Because I couldn’t remember the last time I had answered any question that easily.