Chapter 3
CHANCE
In the home gym I grip the pull-up bar, knuckles white, shoulders screaming. Muscle memory carries me through my morning routine, with every rep reminds me I’m still here.
Still alive.
Still on this side of the world.
Still in a house perched above a valley where the wind cuts clean and the snow sits heavy on the pines in winter. Through floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the mountains, I stare at a view that couldn’t be more different from the place my mind often goes.
A place that had been dull and sandy. A place where fall-colored leaves and lush greenery under a clear blue sky had never existed. Not in my experience, anyway.
For a second, though, I slip and my mind wanders the way it always does when it has nothing better to latch onto. The next moment, I’m back in Afghanistan, smack in the middle of a mission that had gone sideways so fast, it’d left a scar on my brain.
We’d been clearing a village. Simple recon, quick extraction. That was the word they’d used. Simple.
Now, call me crazy, but to me, simple doesn’t include the hum of gunfire in your ears while you realize someone on your team isn’t coming back. It doesn’t include the look on a kid’s face when he runs straight into danger because someone has to cover your six.
On that mission, I’d stepped into that dark side, cold, precise, and unyielding. I’d gotten those I could out alive, and I’d come back with medals, PTSD, and a reputation I never wanted.
Montana has been my salvation. Fresh air, wide skies, and mountains that don’t care about my past. A place where the three of us can build something lasting, our business and our home. It’s our little patch of peace.
Except lately, the peace has been feeling restless. Something gnaws at the edges of it, an itch I can’t scratch with pull-ups or long runs on the trail that snakes away from our back door. I know I’m the only one feeling it.
Boone has been staring off into the distance a lot more than usual, as much a slave to the demons that haunt him as I am. Dillon has been baking so much that it’s like he thinks he can slay the restlessness with a stick of butter and a whisk.
I drop from the bar, my muscles burning and sweat slick on my back. Flicking the cap off a bottle of water, I bring it to my lips and am halfway through draining it when Dillon strolls in.
“Hey,” he says, holding up a half-eaten chocolate chip cookie like it’s a trophy. “Want one?”
I roll my eyes. “No. And it’s ridiculous that you eat like that and still somehow stay in shape.”
He grins, as proud of his metabolism as if he’d handpicked it. “It’s a gift. Don’t hate me for being built like a god. I can’t help it.”
“Whatever.” I sigh and grab a pair of gloves, sliding them onto my hands before I move across the room. “Hold the bag.”
He saunters that much-too-tight-for-all-that-sugar ass over and braces one hand against the punching bag, the cookie still balanced in the other. “See? Easy. I really am a god.”
“You’re insane, is what you are.” I shake my arms out at my sides, bouncing a little on the balls of my feet. “You’re also going to fall over if you’re not ready when I start.”
“Insane. Hungry. Lonely,” he says before taking another bite of the cookie, speaking around it. “I’m always ready, though. Do your worst. I won’t fall over.”
I jab at the bag hard enough to throw him a little off-balance, but not enough to make him fall over. At least he shoves the last of the cookie into his mouth and steps fully into position on the other side. “We need a woman.”
I exhale hard and keep jabbing, throwing every ounce of my own frustration into each punch. “You know it’s not that easy. We’re looking. Be patient.”
“Patient? You sound like Boone.” He slaps the bag lightly with the back of his hand. “I got blue balls here, man. That’s not patience, that’s torture.”
I don’t stop punching. “Then maybe you should work out more. It’s a great stress reliever. We’ve got a nice, heavy bag right here and I’m doing sprints later. It’ll make you forget all about your balls.”
He groans, leaning back against the wall and forgetting all about the bag. Raking both hands through his sandy blonde hair, he drops his head forward and inhales deeply. “A stress reliever? I think what you mean to say is that it’s torture by sweat.”
“It’s better than whining.” I jab again. “And it works. Guaranteed.”
Looking up at me, he scratches absently at the inside of his wrist, right over the tattoo of a padlock worked into an intricate circuit board snaking up his forearm.
“How about we go out tonight?” he asks, kicking one ankle over the other and crossing his arms as I keep punching. He smirks at me from under the lock of hair that has fallen across his forehead. “Let’s see if you’ve still got the other kind of stamina.”
I groan, but my fists keep flying. “You really need to hit the trail with me later. It’ll drive you crazy if you keep obsessing about this.”
“You’re no fun.”
“Someone’s gotta be the adult,” I say. “Boone’s not here right now, so that leaves me.”
He lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Fine, be the adult, but if I die of frustration before you find a girl, I’m haunting your ass.”
“Noted.” I punch the bag one last time and step back, letting it swing to a natural stop. “You’ll live longer if you come for a run and besides, you’re already haunting me.”
“Is that a no for tonight?”
A trickle of exasperation rolls through me. “It’s a fuck no. We’ve already talked about this, man. Wherever the girl we’re supposed to be with is, it’s not here. It’s unlikely she’d have rolled into town this morning and then decided to spend her first night drinking at The Uncorked Cowboy.”
“I’m an uncorked cowboy.”
I can’t help but laugh as I slide the gloves off and flex my fingers. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re no cowboy. Uncorked or otherwise.”
He pushes off the wall with a sigh. “Maybe that’s what I should do. Build some stables and buy a horse. Become a cowboy.”
I jerk my head toward the view and meet his piercing blue gaze. “Does that look like the kind of terrain that’s navigable on horseback?”
“Maybe a goat instead.”
I chuckle, but right now, I’m only sixty percent sure he’s joking. Dillon, Boone, and I have known each other since high school, and we’re staring forty in the face in just a couple of years. That means I’ve known him longer than I haven’t, but sometimes, I still can’t read him.
“You can’t ride a goat,” I say before running a towel over my face. “I also don’t think goat-riding would qualify you as a cowboy, so I think it’s about time you accepted you’re shit out of luck on that front.”
“I’m shit out of luck on every front,” he grumbles as we leave the gym side by side, climbing the wide staircase that leads to the main floor.
“Something needs to give, man. Building an empire and giving back to the community is great and all, but I want more. I need more. I want the woman who completes us.”
“Have you put up the ad for a data-entry specialist yet?” I ask when we hit the landing. “We’re drowning in spreadsheets over here and I’m not complaining, but the business is growing faster by the day. We need an ass in that seat. Maybe you should be thinking about that instead.”
Dillon shrugs. “I haven’t done it yet. Soon. I’ve been busy.”
“Busy inventing breakfast items that shouldn’t exist?” I rub the towel along the back of my neck as we reach the top of the stairs.
Dillon rakes a hand through his hair again and shrugs. “If they shouldn’t have existed, I wouldn’t have invented them. I know you liked the omelet waffles.”
“Pouring beaten eggs and veggies onto a waffle iron is an abomination.” I glance at him as I drop into a stool at our kitchen island. “The ad, Dillon. It’s important. I’m serious here. If we wait much longer, we’re never going to be able to clear the backlog.”
“I’ll get to it,” he says easily. “Don’t worry about it. Beer?”
“It’s nine a.m.” I roll my shoulders to ease the tension in them and drain the rest of the water I’d brought up from downstairs. “What’s going on with you? Be honest. I know it’s not just the girlfriend thing.”
“It’s the girlfriend thing,” he reiterates, widening his eyes at me. “It’s been a long-ass time since Sharon, and I realize that whole situation wasn’t ideal, but you cannot tell me you’re not feeling it too. Something is missing, bro. It’s grating at me.”
“Interesting how you can look back on that shit-show and refer to it as just ‘not being ideal,’” I say dryly, remembering how badly it’d ended. “Of course I’m feeling it. So is Boone, but what happened with Sharon was a cautionary tale. She’s exactly why we’re being so careful now.”
“So what if she got jealous?” He braces his hands on the counter and looks across it, directly at me. “That doesn’t mean we need to be so careful that we’re all going to be geriatrics by the time we get into another relationship.”
“She didn’t get it, bro. This time, we need to make sure that whoever we fall for really does understand our dynamic. We need to take it slow or risk getting our hearts broken. None of us want that.”
“I’m into novel experiences,” he says lightly. “I’d be open to getting my heart broken. Besides, you’re the one she wanted to be with. It couldn’t hurt that much hearing that you’re the one she chose.”
“It hurt that she chose at all. That’s just not how it works,” I say pointedly. “And what about Boone? Have you thought of him in all this?”
Dillon winces, his tone softening. “You think he got hurt?”
“No, but I think he could’ve.” I watch as he pops the top off the fully stocked cookie jar on the countertop and sticks his hand in. “If you keep eating those things, you really are going to have to come on a run with me.”
“Cool it, Marine.” He raises his cookie in mock salute. “That’s not going to work for me any more than Sharon did.”
“Your heart isn’t going to work for you any more than Sharon did if you keep going like that,” I joke, though only partially.
“Just get the ad up and meet me outside in an hour. You’ll see.
You’re going to feel like a whole new person once you’ve spent some time on the mountain.
In a few hours, you won’t even remember what had you so worked up this morning. ”