Chapter 29 Calder
CALDER
“There were four men in that vehicle,” I say. “Tyler, Mason, Reed, and Holt. Half the team. The blast killed them before we could do a damn thing about it.”
A tear slips down her cheek, then another. She doesn’t wipe them away.
“The rest of us had to keep moving long enough not to get killed in the same stretch of road,” I say. “But we hit back. We took out the vehicles chasing us and the men who were on foot.”
Words catch in her throat before she asks, “Did you try to get to them, the rest of the team?”
“For a second, because that’s what you do. But the hit was direct, Elena. One look at the Hummer, and we knew.”
“You knew …?”
I force myself to hold her gaze. “There was nothing left to save.”
When she leans toward me, I draw her into my arms, and when her forehead presses against my chest, something fierce moves through me. She’s shaking and trying not to fall apart, and failing just enough to make me hate every institution and secret that’s brought her here.
“I’m sorry,” I say into her hair. My words are nothing compared to the size of the thing. “I’m so sorry.”
“They lied to me,” she whispers.
“Yes.”
“All this time.” She draws in a breath that hitches halfway through. “All this time I thought—I knew there were things they couldn’t say, but I thought the broad truth was still there. I had no idea—” Her hands fist in my shirt.
For a while, the only sound is her crying. It’s quiet at first, then not. It’s grief cracking open through a place she’d probably thought had scarred over.
I hold her through it without trying to fix anything, because I can’t.
I don’t tell her Tyler had been brave or honorable because she already knows that.
I don’t feed her lines about sacrifice or duty.
I just stay there and let her rage and hurt and betrayal soak into the space between us until her breathing finally slows.
When she pulls back, her cheeks are wet, and her eyes are red. She wipes at them, looking furious at herself for needing to. Her voice is low and shaking when she says, “You think someone from that operation found me? Found us.”
“That’s what it looks like. Anton is the brother. We learned he was asking about the team a while back. It seems he found a thread he could follow.”
“Me,” she says with a shudder. “I brought this here. To the town and the school.”
Even now, she’s thinking about everybody else. I know why Tyler fell in love with her, and why I find myself doing the same.
“No,” I say firmly. “You didn’t do this. You didn’t choose our mission, and you didn’t choose what was being kept from you. The blame belongs on the man starting the fires.”
She shakes her head and lets out a huff. “I hate that we brought this here. I hate that Tyler’s dead because of it. I hate that T.J. could be anywhere near it.” She searches my face. “Are we safe at all?”
“Safer now that we know what we’re looking at.”
Not safe, and she doesn’t miss the distinction. She nods once. “Thank you for telling me.”
I almost look away, because I don’t deserve even a scrap of gratitude. Especially not from her. “You should’ve had the truth sooner.”
I’m grateful when she doesn’t ask for more information about the mission, because I don’t want to tell her how the Navy called it a success.
The target was neutralized, the strategic objective achieved.
Four dead Americans on a road still on fire, but somebody high enough up the chain got to write the word success on a report.
And they told a devastated widow it was a training accident.
I’m glad she doesn’t ask for details, because I still remember exactly how it sounded when the rocket hit. Some nights, in the moments before sleep comes, I still get pieces of it back. The radio, the shouting, the kind of urgency that means everything is already going wrong.
“Calder.”
I blink and realize Elena’s said my name twice.
She studies my face, grief still raw in hers, but now there’s something worse beneath it. Understanding. “You were somewhere else just now.”
I let out a breath. “Yeah.”
“Back there?” When I don’t answer, her eyes soften in a way that makes me want to get out of the room, but I stay. “They didn’t only lie to me. They left all of you carrying it.”
I shake my head. “That was part of the deal.”
“No, that was the damage.” Her eyes don’t leave mine. “Is that why you keep your distance?”
“It’s the cleanest excuse I have.” When she keeps looking at me, I say, “There are days my head gets stuck in places I don’t want to be. It gives me a reason to tell myself I’m doing the right thing by staying back. It’s safer that way.”
“For me?”
“Yes.” I can feel her eyes still on me, and I force myself to meet them. “I shouldn’t want you the way I do. I shouldn’t …” My throat tightens. “Christ, Elena. I watched your husband die. I came home, and he didn’t. Some days it feels like I came back by mistake.”
Pain flickers across her face, but there’s no pity. “I know Tyler was your friend.”
“He was more than that.” My voice roughens. “He was one of the best men I ever served with. And now every time I look at you, I’m reminded that Tyler’s gone—” I swallow hard. “And that I care about you more than I have any right to.”
She doesn’t say anything, and the silence is both mercy and torture, so I keep going.
“I told myself it was just guilt. Leftover loyalty to Tyler. Then I told myself it was the trauma. That I’m too damaged to drag anybody into this, especially you.
” I brace my hand on the back of the nearest chair and keep my grip there.
“But that’s not the whole truth, and the trauma gives me a reason to pretend keeping my distance is noble. ”
Elena starts to speak, but I keep going.
“I’m not good at this part. I know how to carry weight and how to take a hit and keep moving.
But I don’t know how to stand in front of my dead friend’s wife and admit I want her.
That I care about her. That some selfish part of me is glad she looks at me the way she does, even knowing I have no business wanting that. ”
Her breath catches, and I look away.
“I should keep myself out of it,” I say. “You deserve that much.”
For a second, it’s quiet enough that I hear sounds from elsewhere in the station. Air in the ducts. Voices blurred into white noise. A faint click of metal.
Then Elena steps closer.
When I lift my head, she’s right there. Her eyes are still red, and her mouth is trembling a little, but she’s firm on her feet. “You don’t get to decide what I deserve.”
She reaches up, no hesitation or pity in her actions, and lays a hand against my jaw. “And you don’t get to make caring about me sound ugly because you survived and Tyler didn’t.”
I close my eyes for a beat at the warmth of her hand and the weight of her words.
“You were there,” she says softly. “You came back carrying something awful, and I hate what it cost all of you, but I’m not going to punish you for being alive.”
“Elena—”
“No.” She brushes her thumb along my jaw. “You cared about Tyler. You care enough about me to tell me the truth when you knew it would hurt me. I don’t want distance from you, Calder. Not the kind you’ve been forcing because you think it’s the right thing to do.”
My hands ache to touch her again, but I won’t. “I care about you, but I’m damaged enough that getting close to anyone is a bad bet. Whatever I have to give would come with too much darkness. Too many nights where I’m somewhere else in my head.”
“Calder—”
“I’m not built to love you the way you deserve.”
She should step back, but instead, she lifts up on her toes and takes my face in both her hands. When I look down at her, she tugs me closer, then kisses me.
For one stunned second, I don’t respond.
Then instinct, hunger, and relief hit all at once, deep and hard enough to make me falter. I set my hands on both sides of her waist and press carefully, then more firmly as she moves closer.
I start to kiss her back, and there’s grief and sadness and anger tangling between us. There’s the sharp edge of two people who’ve been circling something for too long.
She slides her fingers into my hair, while I kiss her like a man who’s spent months starving. A growl comes from my throat as I pull her so close, our bodies bleed together.
When the need for air finally forces us apart, I’m breathing hard.
“Elena.”
“I know,” she whispers.
I almost laugh at that. “Do you?”
She keeps a hand on my face, another on my shoulder. “I know you’re scared of hurting me. I know you think your damage makes you dangerous to love.” She slides a hand down to my chest. “None of that changes what’s here.”
Something in me cracks open fully.
Outside the room, the station carries on with the ordinary sounds of people doing work. Beyond that, there’s a small mountain town that has no idea an old war might be closing in.
I look at the woman Tyler loved, and I understand, with a grief that will never entirely leave me, exactly why.
I stroke my thumb over her cheek. “I care about you. More than I know what to do with.”
Then I kiss her again.