Chapter Two
Pope hadn’t slept well in so long that he stopped setting an alarm to wake up for sunrise yoga on the Black Heart Ranch. He’d spent the first week convincing himself he needed more physical activity to tire himself out. So he threw himself into work.
He loved training the horses. It was one of the few therapy sessions he didn’t have to force himself through, and spending more time in the fields and barn wasn’t a hardship.
But two months in, he realized his insomnia had nothing to do with boredom and everything to do with the woman who told him it was over.
He cut across the ranch from the barn with his fists shoved in his coat pockets, the cold morning air biting through the lingering exhaustion that sat heavy behind his eyes.
Frost still clung to the fence rails and patches of grass the sun hadn’t reached yet, the mountains beyond the ranch slicing into a pale Wyoming sky.
Construction noises carried across the property before he ever reached the therapy lodge.
The ranch had been one long project for months now.
Heavy equipment and contractor vehicles were parked everywhere, with crews coming and going from daylight to dusk.
The yard was still more mud than grass, but they were finally hitting the final stages.
The new wing of the therapy lodge had morphed from a frame of lumber and scaffolding into a solid structure that would house more veterans who needed a place to land after spending too long pretending they didn’t.
That was the point of the Black Heart—and Pope would always be grateful he’d found his place here. He just wished to hell he could find the kind of restful, dreamless sleep he did before he became a SEAL.
On another section of the ranch, a new military training facility had turned an isolated plot into a place for operators to train in mountain warfare. He’d ridden up there a time or two with Crew, a buddy of his who graduated from the therapy program and became a trainer at the facility.
Then there was Willow Malone’s house on the rise overlooking the ranch. Construction on it had been completed last fall and as he turned his head that direction, he made out the dark roofline and the windows reflecting the morning light.
Willow and Decker—Dutch to everyone else—had already promised a huge party once spring came, complete with bonfires, drinks, music and enough food to feed half the damn county. Everyone was invited.
Pope wasn’t sure how he felt about that. The thought of standing around a crowded yard full of couples and laughing people sounded as appealing as a bullet wound this morning.
He entered the lodge, enveloped by the warmth and familiar scent of coffee and cedar. The place had changed for him since he arrived at the Black Heart. It felt less like somewhere he was passing through and more like a place he stayed long enough to heal.
He passed what the vets all called “the wall,” a bulletin board filled with photos of the men who’d graduated from the program. It showed them all what they were working toward: a new chance. A new view on life.
Turning his face away from it, he continued on to another kind of therapy session. Rhae’s office door was cracked open, as always, and he knocked once before stepping inside.
She looked up from her desk with a smile, a little brighter eyed than the last few weeks since her second child was born. A small bassinet stood in the corner, and the baby inside it was asleep beneath a yellow blanket, one tiny fist curled near her face.
He crossed the room before he thought too hard about it and looked down. The little girl issued a sleepy coo but didn’t wake.
“Baby girl’s got Navy’s nose,” he remarked, referring to her big sister.
Rhae laughed softly from behind him. “She does.”
He gazed at the baby another second. “What’d you name her again?”
“Maren.”
He nodded once. “Navy and Maren. Fits for the daughters of a Navy SEAL.”
He finally moved toward the chair across from Rhae’s desk and sat down, dragging a hand across the back of his neck as exhaustion settled over him again.
“How are you doing this morning?” Rhae always had her little notebook at the ready, and the pen stood poised over the page, prepared to take notes on their session.
He exhaled. “Didn’t sleep.”
That was putting it lightly when the last words Summer spoke to him never stopped replaying in his mind.
You have nothing to give either.
The words stayed with him. He could try to outrun them all day, but they were right there waiting for him the second he got a quiet moment.
It was the worst in the hours before dawn. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her sitting in bed, wrapped in that blanket looking like she hated hurting him even as she did it.
The worst thing was she believed he was too damaged for a future.
Maybe she wasn’t wrong.
Over the past year of their fling—stolen nights when her young son was spending the night elsewhere—she’d threatened to break things off. They’d taken a few breaks but always circled back. Another late night. Another escort home. Another excuse.
This time felt different. It sounded like she meant it, and that alone kept him from poker nights in the back of the Stockyard.
He stared toward the window behind Rhae’s desk, jaw tight. Maybe once therapy was done, and he got his head on straight enough to leave the program for good, Summer would see things differently.
“You look tired.” Rhae’s gentle observation brought him back to the moment.
“Feel tired.”
“You out too late playing poker?”
He shifted his gaze back to her. No accusation echoed in her tone, and somehow that made him feel worse.
She rested her hand on top of the open notebook. “We’ve never talked about poker, have we, Pope?”
He pulled in a breath through his nostrils, deep enough to make his chest burn. “It’s just a way to pass the time.”
She offered a soft smile. “I’m bringing it up now because when people are dealing with something painful, they often distract themselves with things like games or drinking. Anything that helps numb out instead of facing their emotions.”
He huffed through his nose. “That what you think I’m doing?”
“I think you’ve been harder to reach lately. One of the guys mentioned you really love poker.”
He looked away again. It had to have been Crew. Irritation slipped under his skin like a thousand splinters. Why would Crew talk to Rhae? Why were they discussing him? Why would any of them discuss him outside the program?
“Good to know I’m a damn case study.”
Rhae compressed her lips. “Nobody’s gossiping about you, Pope. Sometimes when guys get close to graduating from the program, they panic a little.”
Outside the office, construction noise drifted faintly from the other side of the building.
Rhae picked up her pen again. “They start doing things that pull them backward because leaving means they don’t have a safety net anymore. They have no more ways to avoid figuring out who they are outside of what happened to them.”
What happened to him. Fuck.
“Not my problem.” He shot to his feet and already turned to the door before Rhae could push any harder.
As he reached the opening, a child with pigtails flying ran into the office. She set eyes on Pope and launched herself at his legs, wrapping her arms around him.
He reached down to cradle Navy’s head, his chest tightening.
She jumped on top of his boots and tipped her head back to look at him. “Horses!”
He gave one pigtail a light tug. “We’ll go see the horses later, Navy.”
The little girl grinned at him like he’d promised her the moon and enough stars to hang on her bedroom walls.
He swallowed against the strange pressure climbing into his throat and tugged his hat brim down before glancing at Rhae. He didn’t quite meet her stare.
“See you next week.”
The second he stepped outside, the sharp cold woke him up a little but not enough to clear out the mess tangled in his mind.
Summer.
Therapy.
The ranch changing around him. New vets would arrive soon and all those new rooms would be filled.
The ranch family—the Malones, all their significant others, the vets tied into Black Heart Security and the training facility—were all building something. Moving forward, leaving him stuck somewhere between the SEAL he’d been and whatever he was supposed to become.
Too many thoughts. Too many feelings. None of them good.
* * * * *
The baked beans were gone. Summer stood in the canned food aisle with her grocery list in one hand and Ben’s hand tucked in the crook of her elbow. And the exact amount of money she could spend on food for the week was already stretched so thin it felt like a joke.
She stared at the empty spot on the shelf where the store brand should have been. Not the name brand two rows above it. Not the organic ones with the fancy label that cost almost double. The cheap ones.
The ones she’d counted on because she’d sat at the kitchen table last night with a pencil, a calculator and the store’s sale flyer, figuring out this grocery trip down to the penny.
Beans, rice, eggs, bananas, chicken thighs if she could make the meat budget work, and the baked beans because Ben liked them and they could stretch into two meals if she added hot dogs and toast.
She checked the shelf again like maybe a can would appear if she stared hard enough. Nothing. Just one dented can of a brand she couldn’t afford, and changing her list meant standing in the middle of the aisle doing math she didn’t have room in her head to do.
Ben leaned his cheek against her arm. “Hey, Mom. We could make cupcakes.”
Summer closed her eyes for half a second.
She loved him so much her chest hurt, but sometimes the timing of a seven-year-old’s wants could knock the last bit of air right out of her.
Cupcakes.
She looked at her list again, trying to see where she could move seventy-nine cents here, a dollar twenty there, but her brain wouldn’t cooperate.
“Cupcakes!” Ben bounced beside her, and the store lights hummed overhead as a shopping cart squeaked at the end of the aisle.
“Cupcakes?” she repeated to buy herself time.