Chapter 1
Today
Ethan lifted his beer to his lips, his smile wide as he looked around at his friends. Not simply friends. Former teammates. Brothers, not in blood but in every other way.
It had been a year since they’d finished up in the military and months since they’d seen each other in person. Now here they were at Trap, a bar in his hometown of Deep River, Montana.
Fuck, it was good. Being away from them had felt like missing his right hand.
Connor leaned over the old wooden table. “What’s this music and why’s it playing from a jukebox?” He was the calm one on the team. The guy you went to for advice. Or just for someone to listen to you.
Joel, the joker of the group, grinned, dimple on display in his cheek. “It’s Johnny Cash. Don’t tell me you don’t know it. The jukebox, on the other hand…a bit outdated.”
“Don’t let Dusty hear you say that,” Ethan said, his gaze going to the big burly bar owner. His white beard was so long it ran over his large gut. He’d owned Trap for longer than Ethan had been alive.
“The bigger question is, what’s with the black-and-white TV? It’s a brick,” Ryan said. He was the team lead, and while Joel smiled the most, Ryan smiled the least.
Zac, the team medic, lifted a shoulder. “I like it. Makes me feel like I’m as far from a big city as possible.”
“Dusty doesn’t like change,” Ethan said. “And if you think this place is behind the times, wait until you try the black-and-white theater and Basil’s Pancake Bar.”
“Pancakes not good?” Ryan asked.
“Best pancakes in the world, according to a small-time magazine in 1990.”
Zac frowned. “1990?”
“Hasn’t changed the recipe at all. So according to him, the title stands.”
Connor chuckled. “I need to try them.”
“I’m more excited to meet this self-proclaimed psychic,” Zac added.
Ethan nodded. “She has a good track record. She predicted Basil’s shop was going to get robbed, and the next day, someone stole twelve-fifty from the till.”
This time, Ryan frowned. “Twelve-fifty?”
“I think old man Louis forgot to pay for his stack of pancakes with sausages.”
The team chuckled.
Ethan glanced around at his friends, a bit of the smile slipping from his face. “Still want to move here?”
“A job by the river where I get to work with my team?” Connor asked quietly.
“Sign me up,” Ryan answered before anyone else could.
“You have to understand what you’re signing up for, though.” Ethan swallowed, acid on his tongue. “We’ll get no support from the county sheriff. The opposite. He’s going to hate us muscling in and will make our jobs as hard as possible.”
“Shouldn’t he appreciate the help?” Connor asked.
“He should. He won’t.”
“How the hell is he the sheriff?” Ryan growled.
“No one’s ever run against him. And his latest four-year term started right before I got home. He’s got three years left.”
Joel scoffed. “If he’s too lazy to do his job, he should be welcoming us.”
Ethan shook his head. “He’s lazy, but he also likes the rush of being in charge.”
The guys scowled, and yeah, Ethan felt it too. The deep frustration that a man who’d signed on to protect his town wasn’t fulfilling his obligations. Meanwhile, they’d taken their oath to protect their country so seriously that they’d risked their lives on every single mission.
“I’d still like to know who this anonymous donor is who’s funding our team,” Joel said, lifting his beer.
“I’ve tried. Ferris isn’t budging.”
Ferris was the mayor, and the man who’d brought this job opportunity to Ethan. Unlike Ward, the sheriff, Joe Ferris cared about this town. His father had been mayor, and before that, his father was mayor. No one wanted to see Deep River flourish more than him.
“They’re paying us good money,” Zac said. “So, whoever this is—”
“Also has money. I know.” It was something Ethan had thought about a lot in the last week. “As far as I’m aware, no one in this town even has that kind of money.”
“Someone does,” Ryan muttered, gaze skirting the bar like the person was right there.
Connor tapped his fingers against his beer. “So essentially, we don’t know who our boss is?”
“We’re our own bosses,” Ethan said. “And that will work well, because no one’s more qualified to run this team than us.”
A couple of the guys grunted, while the others nodded.
Even this, sitting here, talking and planning with these men, felt good.
They carried the same scars. The same past and traumas. That created a bond that would forever live inside each of them.
There were three other guys on the team—Tate, Lincoln, and Kolby—but they were still active-duty SEALs. When he’d called his former teammates to tell them about Ferris’s proposal, all he’d asked was that they come up and talk about it. He hadn’t asked for a commitment. Not yet.
But now, sitting here with them, he prayed they stayed.
He didn’t want them to leave. He wanted them there, protecting his hometown beside him.
Connor leaned back, a grin on his face. “An anonymous boss paying my wage and a pissed-off county sheriff not doing his job. Sounds fun.”
Ryan dipped his head. “Yeah, life’s been too slow since getting out. It will be good to shake things up.”
Zac lifted his beer. “I do like a good black-and-white movie.”
They all looked at Joel, who was frowning. “Those pancakes really the best in the world?”
Ethan lifted a shoulder. “According to Basil.”
“Then count me in.”
Ethan’s lips twitched. “So you’re all staying?”
“I was looking for an excuse to get away from my neighbor’s dog,” Joel said. “So why the hell not.”
Something inside Ethan lifted. This weight that had been sitting on him for the last year. “We’d better get to that town meeting then. I’ll message Ferris on the way.”
The guys rose from the barstools, and Ethan couldn’t wipe the smile from his face. His friends—his brothers—were here to stay in his hometown. A town that was in trouble. A town that was bleeding.
Ethan wouldn’t need to shoulder that alone. It felt good. Better than good. It felt like the thing that would keep his head above water.
Ward wouldn’t be happy. Which made this even more appealing.
The guys stepped outside first. Ethan said a quick goodbye to Dusty before following.
The second he stepped out, he felt it. The shift in energy. The tension.
He opened his mouth to ask what was going on, but then spotted the woman in front of them.
The sight of her hit him so low and hard, it felt like an old injury flaring to life, one he thought he’d healed from. One he’d never stopped carrying, not for the entire eleven years she’d been gone.
Maggie.