1 #2
She enhanced the image as the man approached the kennels.
His face remained shadowed, but something about his posture, the way he moved, the tat on the hand holding his side .
. . “Hey, wait! I do know him.” She narrowed her eyes.
That arm was splayed on the ground when she’d turned him over, so she hadn’t seen the tat.
“That’s Brian Miller. He was a Ranger in Seth’s unit. A medic.”
“Seth?”
Her throat went tight. “My fiancé, Seth O’Reilly, who was killed. Brian was transferred out two weeks before the ambush. I haven’t seen him since Seth’s funeral.”
“Fiancé? I didn’t know.”
She shrugged. “No reason you would.” Leo had become a surface friend in the two months he’d been here—just the way she liked her friendships with single, eligible, and attractive men.
He was haunted by his own wounds and secrets.
Secrets he held close to his chest. And she didn’t push him to share.
The easy friendship had been enough. It was safe.
By the look on his face, that might be about to change.
Leo’s shaggy head and scruffy beard both needed a good trim. The tattoos on his biceps and forearms spoke a familiar language from his military days. And the angry scars on his face from a helicopter crash pushed people away, intimidating them before they could get to know the man beneath them.
Leo straightened. “And now he shows up wounded.” He ran a hand through his dark hair. “That’s not a coincidence.”
“No. But what in the world does it mean?” She closed the laptop, thinking thoughts she’d rather ignore. “It’s obviously a warning, right?”
“From who?”
“I . . . I’m not sure.” But she could guess.
The same people who’d buried the truth four years ago.
The same people who threatened to destroy Seth’s memory—and more—if she ever told what she knew .
. . but couldn’t prove. And at this point, she’d slice her tongue out before she would say anything that could jeopardize . . . well, everything.
Leo studied her face. “You’re not telling me the full story.”
“No.” She met his gaze. “And now I’m not even sure if my version of the real story is actually the right one. If Roarke is alive . . .” She couldn’t finish the thought.
“Then everything you thought you knew is wrong?”
“Yes.” Felicity walked to the window and stared at the blood that still stained the gravel. Her carefully constructed world—the safe, predictable life she’d worked so hard to build so she could finally, finally prove that she was able to—
Stop.
She sucked in a shuddering breath. She’d been so close to achieving her goal.
And now her safe space felt like a house of cards waiting for a stiff breeze to come through.
“I need to get to the hospital.” She grabbed her keys from the hook by the door.
“Brian might wake up, and I need to know what he knows, what he meant about Roarke.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“You don’t have to do that. You’re supposed to be healing and—”
“And I’m doing that. I feel better than I have in a very long time.” Leo stepped closer. “But someone just threatened you on the property where I live. A place I’ve come to love with people who’ve come to mean a lot to me. And . . . we’re friends, aren’t we?”
Her heart softened. “Of course we are.”
“And that, in and of itself, makes it my concern.”
She wanted to argue, to push him away like she did almost everyone else. But the truth hammered in her chest—if Roarke was alive, it was highly likely she was going to need all the help she could get. And this former Marine was certainly qualified to offer it.
“Fine.” She clipped Auggie’s lead to his collar. “But we do this my way.”
“Wouldn’t expect anything else.” A hint of a smile touched Leo’s lips.
Her phone buzzed with a text from Maya.
He’s in surgery. Critical but stable. Security posted at his room per my request.
Felicity showed Leo the message. “Let’s go.”
They headed for her truck. Auggie jumped into the back seat. Somewhere out there, beyond the peaceful fields and quiet barns, danger waited. Felicity could feel it—the same cold dread that had followed her since the day Seth died.
If Miller had found her, Roarke could possibly find her. And that was terrifying.
Leo slid into the passenger seat of Felicity’s truck, the scent of leather and dog shampoo filling his nostrils.
Felicity secured Auggie in his area as he’d seen her do many times.
She didn’t believe in letting dogs hang their heads out the window.
“They need to be strapped in for safety just like us,” she’d told him a couple of weeks ago.
They pulled away from the kennels, and Auggie settled in the back seat with a contented huff.
“So tell me more about this Roarke,” Leo said. “Who is he exactly?”
She gripped the steering wheel tighter, knuckles white against the black leather. “Colonel Silas Roarke. Like I said, he was my commander when I was running missions with him and his team. He commanded Seth’s unit in his last deployment.”
“The one where—”
“Where Seth died. Yes.” She turned onto the main road, eyes fixed ahead. “Two years later, Roarke was reported killed by a sniper’s bullet.”
“If he’s dead, why would Brian show up bleeding and saying he’s alive?”
“That’s what I need to find out.” She checked her mirrors. “Brian was part of Seth’s team but was discharged two weeks before the mission that killed Seth.”
She turned onto the highway. “After Seth died, Brian attended the funeral, expressed his condolences, and disappeared. I tried to contact him a few times about what happened to Seth after I read the redacted documents. But Brian never responded.”
“Okay.”
“Roarke was not a good man. He was a horrible leader, and yet he was never investigated in spite of complaints against him.”
“Ouch.”
“I know a lot about Roarke, the kind of person he is, and I wondered if maybe Brian disappeared because he had to.”
“Meaning Roarke had something on him?”
“That, or Brian had something on him and Roarke threatened him somehow.”
Leo shifted in his seat. “And now Brian shows up at your doorstep with a bullet in him, warning you about Roarke. Does make one wonder for sure.”
“Exactly.”
The silence stretched. Leo stared out the window at the passing landscape.
The peaceful Tennessee countryside looked nothing like the urban chaos he’d left behind in Denver.
A little over two months ago, he’d stood on the rooftop of a local business with a hostage negotiator, watching a situation spiral out of control.
The helicopter circling overhead, the flash of gunfire, the screams . . .
“You okay?”
Felicity’s question pulled him back. “Yeah.” He rubbed his temple. “Just thinking about why I’m here.”
“The ranch has been good for you.”
“It has.” Leo nodded. “It’s been amazing, actually.
” He was truly stunned at how much the intense daily counseling—complete with homework—had rewired the way he thought about things.
A lot of things he hadn’t realized he needed to rethink.
Not just the incident, but also the family dynamics he’d grown up with.
“When my captain suggested I take leave after the Westbrook situation, I thought he was punishing me.”
“I’ve wanted to ask you what happened, but I also want to respect that you may not wish to talk about it.”
Leo hesitated. With the exception of Rachel Evans, the Broken Chains counselor, he’d kept the details to himself since arriving at the ranch.
But he was learning to open up. To release the hold it had on him.
To let go of his father’s voice and the constant echo of six words he couldn’t seem to banish.
“Fear isn’t the enemy. Freezing is.” “It was a domestic violence hostage situation. A mom and her son held at gunpoint on the roof of a local business by the man who was supposed to protect them. Instead, he found out his wife was leaving him and tracked her and her son down while they were out shopping. I was lead detective on scene.”
“Intense.”
“That’s one word for it.” The memories pressed in. “The negotiator had almost talked the guy down when a news helicopter flew too close. Spooked him and he opened fire.”
Felicity glanced at him. “That’s awful.”
“I . . . froze.”
“Fear isn’t the enemy. Freezing is.” His father’s voice again—then his mind replayed a conversation with Rachel.
“Fear is a signal,” she’d said. “Freezing is a pause. You moved after. You survived. That’s not failure, Leo. That’s your mind doing its best to keep you alive under impossible pressure. And you didn’t stay frozen—you reengaged.”
“Eventually,” he said.
“But you did. And that’s courage. Courage isn’t always fast or flawless.
Sometimes courage is what happens in the heartbeat after fear.
You don’t need forgiveness for being human.
Except when it comes to the forgiveness of God and your soul.
But from other people? You need compassion for the parts of you that were overwhelmed.
Your father trained you to be strong. Great.
Now learn to be gentle with the boy who, it sounds like, had to be too strong too soon. ”
“Leo?” Felicity’s voice cut through the memory.
He swallowed hard. He could do this. He could push away his father’s words and use his own.
“The helicopter, the gunfire—it triggered me in a way I’d never had happen before.
Suddenly I wasn’t in Denver anymore. I was back in Kandahar, watching my unit get torn apart.
Crash landing with the chopper . . . the fire, the burns.
” He touched the left side of his face, the rigid scars that were his permanent souvenir, and waited for the flashback to overwhelm him.
When it didn’t come, he let out a slow, relieved breath.
Okay. He was healing. “But it doesn’t change that I froze and a little boy had to watch his mother die at his father’s hand. ” Leo stared at his own hands.
“It wasn’t your fault.”