“I can’t give her what she wants. How can I know what the future will bring, Dad? How can I know I won’t wake up one day completely different? What if I want to move to Montana to start raising cattle? Where would that leave her?”
“Montana?” His father let out a rough laugh. “Since when are you considering the life of a rancher?”
“I used to know who I was.” Eli clasped hands, watching the crunchy leaves scatter over his rooftop. “I was a meat-eating Marine with a live-in girlfriend, buddies I loved like brothers, and both of my legs.” He let out a humorless laugh. “I lost it all.”
“You’re rebuilding it all.” His father’s blue eyes held wisdom and years and years of pain—pain he’d hurdled.
“How’d you do it? How’d you lose Mom and not curl up and die with her?” Eli had never asked him that question. But he’d always wondered. He used to think it was his father’s strength that saved him, but no matter how strong Eli was, he still feared what might go wrong next.
“Because of you. And Tag. And Reese. Without you, I’d have climbed into a bottle of scotch and never come out. Or maybe I would be living on Key West, picking up aluminum cans and muttering to myself. You boys gave me a reason to go on. Family does that. Women do that.” He raised both eyebrows. “Why do you think I insisted on coming to these dinners? I’m not willing to let you become a loner, Eli. No good lies down that desolate path.”
His father was right. They’d gradually pried Eli out of the muck.
“You’re retreating. A good soldier knows when he’s lost the battle,” Alex said. “But, son, your compass is showing false north. You haven’t lost. You haven’t even tried.”
Eli lost his temper, standing and kicking over his lawn chair. “You don’t know anything!” He turned for the door, steam from his anger propelling him forward. He wasn’t sure where he was going, just that he was going.
“Don’t run this time,” came his father’s calm voice from behind him.
Eli stared at the handle of the metal door leading to his upstairs loft, wanting more than anything to go through it and leave his father’s words behind. In the end, he couldn’t. Like Reese, Alex was right most of the time, too.
He heard the scrape of the chair and the scuff of his father’s leather shoes. A second after that, his father’s broad hand landed on his shoulder. “Life doesn’t have to be this hard, Eli. You’re home now. You’re no longer required to fight for a living. So stop fighting, yeah?”
Eli blinked over very scratchy, heated eyes.
“My tough guy. You always were my little soldier.” Alex’s raspy chuckle ended with pulling Eli into his arms, holding the back of his head while Eli tried to stop the hot tears from burning twin trails down his cheeks.
He held on to his dad, the words his father spoke sinking in. Maybe he could stop fighting—maybe he could let go of the past and the grief that haunted him like ghosts from A Christmas Carol.
After a few moments, Alex patted Eli’s back, then held him at arm’s length. Hands on his cheeks, Alex gave him a pat. “There now. Go get your girl. If you want her. Do you want her?”
Fuck yeah, Eli wanted her. But he also honored her right to leave—her right to walk away when he didn’t give her enough.
“She asked for space and I respect that.”
His old man’s eyes narrowed briefly. “Women are delicate creatures, aren’t they?”
Eli pressed his lips together. Isa was both delicate and strong.
“Don’t wait too long, yeah?” Alex pulled open the door and gestured for Eli to go in ahead of him.
“Yeah.” One trial at a time.
Eli swiped his eyes and sniffed before going in. When he reached the staircase, he began his descent.