“You got it.” I hadn’t given the team a timeframe for my absence. Simply told them I needed indefinite leave. I had to get the lay of the land here. See how my family was.
If I were honest, the call about Dad’s heart attack three months ago had scared the hell out of me. I’d met them at the hospital in Seattle where they’d airlifted him. My mom’s pale face, flashed in my mind, so ashen it was almost translucent.
It had been a hell of a wake-up call. I was missing out on my family’s lives, and I didn’t know how long I’d have them. And all because I’d let my demons rule my life for far too long. I knew better than anyone that second chances rarely came around.
I was about to end the call when Jack spoke again.
“If you get a shot, take it.”
My gaze bored into the road in front of me and the forest that leapt up around it with pines so tall I had to look through my sunroof to see their tops. “You telling me to take a hit out on someone while I’m here?”
I’d thought the quip would make my ex-sniper friend laugh, but only silence greeted me.
“Don’t leave things left unsaid. Even if you’re scared as hell to say them.”
The muscles in the back of my neck tightened, knitting themselves into intricate knots. “It isn’t words she needs from me.” It was atonement. But I couldn’t give Wren anything that would heal the wounds I’d caused for not being there during the one moment she’d needed me the most.
“That’s bullshit. A damn cop-out if I’ve ever heard one.”
“You don’t know,” I growled. No one did—to hold the girl you loved more than anything as the life bled from her body.
“Maybe I don’t. At least not exactly what happened. But Idoknow what it’s like to have regrets. To live with ghosts. I don’t want that for you.”
A little of the pissed off seeped out of me at that. “I hear you.” It was all I could give Jack. I sure as hell couldn’t give him a promise to make things right because that was impossible.
“All right, man. You know I’m here if you need me. Call anytime. And if shit gets bad, I’ll take our chopper.”
That was friendship. The kind born of battle and bloodshed. Of being in hellish situations with only the other to get you out. We had each other’s backs. Always.
“Thanks. Tell the team not to blow anything up while I’m gone.”
Jack chuckled. “You never want us to have any fun.”
I shook my head and ended the call.
I’d made it to the center of town during the phone call. Just a couple of blocks left. But they were brutal ones. Wildfire Pizza, where I’d taken Wren on our first date. Cones, where she and Grae always begged me to stop on the way home from school.
But the damned dock was the worst. I swore I could still taste the hint of mint from the lip balm Wren always wore. Feel the hesitant press of her mouth to mine. See how she looked up at me with so much trust.
And I’d destroyed it all.
2
WREN
“Little Williams,”Nash called as he maneuvered the bullpen, headed toward dispatch city. He held up a hand for a high five.
I shook my head but smacked his palm. “There’s no Big Williams.” But no matter how many times I made that point, he kept calling me that. For so long, it had been like an ice pick to the chest every time he leveled the nickname at me, conjuring memories of all the outings I’d had with Holt and the Hartley clan. But over time, it had lessened to a dull ache.
Lawson came up behind his brother, clapping him on the back. “You know you’ll never get Nash to call you by your actual name.”
Nash patted Lawson’s chest. “Damn straight, boss man.”
The eldest Hartley scowled. “Stop calling me that.”
Nash’s lips twitched. “Chiefbetter? Big man? Head honcho?”
“I’m gonna start making you call me sir.”