Chapter 3
ELENA
“Buck Brennan?”
The man sitting in my living room, who I thought was a stranger, nods.
“Lieutenant Brennan? Tyler’s team leader?” I work at keeping my voice level.
He nods again. “It’s just Buck now.”
“What are you doing here?”
“In Moon Ridge? I live here. I’ve been here a couple of years.” He says this gently, like he’s trying to soften the blow. “I grew up a few towns away.”
“You’ve seen me around town. You knew who I was.” It’s not a question, and his face immediately shows his guilt.
I’ve noticed him around town plenty, but apparently I was too busy checking out his broad shoulders and thick, dark beard to realize he was my husband’s SEAL commander.
“I need to tell you I’m not the only one here,” he says, and as soon as the warning sinks in, I prepare for another blow. “Weston Monroe and Calder Black work with me at the fire department, and they also served in my platoon with Tyler.”
It all seems like too much to be a coincidence, but as panic ripples through me, I remind myself Buck Brennan was living here before I arrived.
The first time I saw him, within a few weeks of my arrival, he was wearing a Moon Ridge fire department t-shirt.
I’m embarrassed to admit how vividly I remember the way the navy blue shirt stretched across his impressive chest and hugged his big biceps.
Back in my old life, I’d probably only ever seen the man once or twice, and one of those times was at the funeral, where my memories are patchy.
We’re over a thousand miles from the naval base, and as my mind races, trying to figure out how we could have all ended up in the same small town, I remember the reason I chose this area.
I’m in Moon Ridge specifically because of my job, but I chose the region because Tyler used to talk about it as a plan for our future.
He said someone in his platoon told stories about growing up in the mountains, and Tyler thought it would be a great place for T.J.
to live. Buck must have been that person.
“Why didn’t any of you tell me?”
I’m pretty sure I know exactly who the other two men are, because something is different about their eye contact when I see them around town.
Silly me, I thought I was catching the attention of a few hot firemen because they might have thought I was attractive.
Turns out, they just recognized me as a Navy widow.
Buck looks down at his feet for a moment before his dark eyes meet mine again. “I came up here to get away from the past, and I assumed you did the same. I didn’t want to reopen a wound.”
His jaw is firm and his spine is straight as he sits in the chair, but the man still looks tortured. I believe what he’s telling me, but I guess he doesn’t realize the wound may never close.
“So why are you here tonight, ‘off the record’?” I start for the kitchen. “I’m going to have tea. Are you sure you don’t want anything?”
“I’ll have a cup if you’re already making it,” he says. His expression tells me he’d prefer something stronger if I had it.
When I return to the living room a few minutes later, Buck’s still sitting with the same erect posture. He almost looks too big for the room. As I hand him the mug, I swat away a stray thought of how nice it is to have a man in my space again, even though the circumstances are troubling.
After I settle into the other chair, he says, “I suspect the black sedan you saw a few weeks ago is connected to the administration building fire. Have you seen the car before or since?”
My skin prickles. “A few times.”
“Have you ever seen the person driving the car?”
I shake my head as I wonder how much to tell him.
Though Buck seems earnest, I don’t know him personally, and I’m not sure whether his SEAL connections make him more or less trustworthy.
I don’t have much to lose, however, now that trouble’s found me in this little town.
I don’t have any other good options, either.
“Do you think the person might be connected to the school?” he asks.
Again, I shake my head. “I think he followed me here from San Diego.”
Buck goes still except for the arch of a brow.
After a deep breath, I say, “On the first anniversary of Tyler’s death, I received a letter at my front door. A plain envelope, no signature or address. It said, ‘A life was taken. A life will be paid.’”
The smallest shudder passes through Buck, but he otherwise doesn’t move.
“At the time, I thought it was some sort of sick joke, or maybe a prank, and I stashed it. It was already a difficult day. The letter didn’t hit me as hard as it might have.”
He nods, understanding.
“Nothing happened for nearly a year. I’d mostly forgotten about it when another letter showed up.”
“What did it say?”
“Your husband made a choice. The debt didn’t die with him.”
Buck’s lips are drawn in a tight line before he speaks. “Did you report it?”
“I called the police and they analyzed the letters. There were no fingerprints, and essentially nothing they could do except document it.”
He nods grimly, and something in the way he listens, like he’s not just sympathizing but already thinking about how he’s going to act on this information, reminds me of the reason I fell for a SEAL in the first place.
“A few weeks later, I came home in the evening, and the house didn’t smell right. Things seemed vaguely out of place. A chair pushed in crooked, shoes lined neatly by the door when I knew they’d been a mess in the morning.
“Nothing was obviously missing, but I found a photo on my dresser. It was a grainy image of me and my son in front of a store. The edges of the picture were burned.”
Buck carefully sets his tea, which he hasn’t even tasted, on the coffee table. His other hand is clenched in a fist.
“I got T.J. out of the house immediately without continuing to search the other rooms and called 9-1-1. The house was clear, with no other evidence to be found. I changed the locks and installed a camera, but when I saw a strange car trailing T.J.’s school bus two days in a row the following week, I started making plans to move. ”
“Same black sedan?”
I shake my head. “An SUV. Also black.”
Buck gives a small nod, filing the information away. “When did you first notice something up here?”
“Things were calm the first few months. I felt like I could breathe again. Then, a month ago, another letter was on the doormat.”
“What did it say?”
“Location confirmed. Debt remains.”
“Fuck.” Buck’s curse is quiet, under his breath.
“I reported it to the police department, and they documented it.”
“Do you still have it?”
“I have copies of all three.” I set my mug of tea opposite his and get up to retrieve the letters from the locked drawer of my desk. Buck studies them for a moment, though there’s not much to see except the short lines of typed characters.
“Any signs that someone’s broken in here?” he asks.
“No, but now it only feels like a matter of time.”
“I’ll get you set up with cameras and alarms right away. I have friends just outside of town who work in security.”
I take a sip of the lukewarm tea to soothe my throat, then look Buck directly in the eye. “I was told Tyler died in a training accident.”
He looks back at me, eyes softening ever so slightly at the edges, but he doesn’t say anything.
“That doesn’t seem like the case, does it?” I challenge.
Buck swallows air, his throat bobbing once as his gaze stays level. “I understand why you don’t believe the official story.”
“And what do you believe?” What I’m really asking is what he knows. This man knows.
In my mind, I’m leaping out of my chair, screaming, and pounding him with my fists until he tells me everything, even things that may hurt worse than the story I was told. Instead, I sit quietly, fixing him in my gaze, as my son sleeps peacefully in the room behind me.
Again, he swallows, slower and longer this time, dropping his eyes to the ground before he looks back at me. “I’m not authorized to discuss it.”
To his credit, it seems to visibly pain him to say this, and I honestly wasn’t expecting anything different. I know a little about military NDAs, and I understand sensitive information.
Early in our relationship, I used to ask Tyler about his work, just wanting to know what he’d been through so I could support him, but he wasn’t allowed to talk about their missions. It wasn’t long before I stopped asking, so he wouldn’t be tempted to break his oath.
Buck leans toward me, bracing his big hands on his knees. “I can’t talk about the past, but I can deal with what’s here, and I’m taking this seriously.”
Still not touching his tea, he launches into a series of questions about the house I’m living in, whether I rent or own, and whether I need to get approval from my landlord before installing security equipment.
He asks me to accompany him on a quick walk around the house’s exterior, where he takes notes on doors, windows, shrubbery, and neighbors.
When we’re back inside, he asks about the location of our fire extinguisher and checks the date on it.
I can tell he’s itching to test the smoke detectors, but I assure him the batteries are fresh and tell him I’ll test them tomorrow, when my son isn’t sleeping.
Finally, he asks me for my phone number, and gives me not only his, but also the numbers of the other two men who served with Tyler.
“From this point forward, you don’t have to handle this by yourself,” he says. “You call me. Even if it’s something that seems small.”