Page 82 of Almost Home
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Hours after I’d arrived and long after the close of business, I’d assured Madeline we’d figure this out. They’d come to the office on Tuesday afternoon for a few things, and in the meantime, she’d call the sheriff and then me if anything set off her spidey senses.
Anthony had argued hard for me to be the first call. He had an acceptable understanding of some of my training—that was part of what sold Saint Securities, after all. Experience in the Exceptional Mission Unit was a hush-hush part of a person’s resume right until they left the organization and put it on their actual resume. Of course, it would never be confirmed by the military, but considering plenty of generals tagged the unit as part of their history in their bios, Bruce and I wouldn’t be above indicating the experience where needed.
I had hundreds if not thousands of hours of weapons training. I was, without arrogance, one of the best marksmen in the world. Compared to the average police officer, whose time training with a weapon was hampered by budget restrictions on everything from ammunition to range time, I was like a god. And again, I meant that in the nicest possible way. The police were focused on a lot of different things. I was trained to find, capture, kill. And maybe a few other jobs that popped up along the way. Translate that to now? I was trained to find, detain, and call the good guys to come haul them away before they could hurt someone.
Knowing Brad was handling the cyber portion of the job made my role fairly simple. I’d prefer if we had everything in house, but even if I’d had my cyber team in place, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Reynolds had wanted her man to stay on it. So no complaints, simply a narrowed role that I’d do as well as I could, even if at times that meant deferring to her team or local law enforcement.
So no, Madeline Reynolds shouldn’t call me. She should call the sheriff and let the law enforcement handle it. But I wanted to be that second call so I could assist in any way possible.
My phone buzzed in my pocket as I pulled into my parking spot.
“Miss you tonight. Hope everything went well.”
Warmth bled from my fingertips where I held the device all the way to my toes. I tapped a reply before exiting the car.“I’ll catch you up tomorrow. We’ve got a good plan. How was your thing?”
I’d planned to talk through things with Sarah at lunch today. Not the most romantic setting, but after the weekend we’d had, it felt like we were together. Solidly committed and moving forward, arms linked.Planslinked.
That said, I had no idea if she felt the same. I thought I did, but I couldn’t entirely eliminate our history from my mind. Because of that, until I heard her say the words, I didn’t know. I wouldn’t assume I knew where she was with us.
I’d insisted on going home and not staying the night last night only because the day had been packed full of emotion and meaning, and I could see how close to the surface her emotions hovered. That didn’t exactly scare me, but I worried about my own thoughts and needed time to sort through them before we dove back into bed together. And trust, that was exactly where we would’ve ended. If I had the choice, we’d go there and spend a week without interruption, making up for lost time.
Part of me thought maybe I should wait to talk with Sarah and gauge things until after my therapy session tomorrow. I liked bouncing stuff off the doc at this point, and she was always game to smile and let me work my way through my problem. But that was just it—part of the process was learning to trust myself and my evaluation of my own choices, wasn’t it?
Coming back here, I’d felt uncertain of my ability to live life as a civilian. And no, a few months didn’t mean I’d wrapped that up in a neat little bow. But good things were happening, and I’d finally started to allow it without questioning it.
This thing between me and Sarah, despite our past, didn’t have to be hard or grueling. Or maybe because of how brutal our past was, it’d earned the right to be easy.
I’d always struggled to embrace something I felt I hadn’t earned. The Army had given me a perfect, clear system through which to move toward earning my worth—rank, medals, badges, bonuses, etc. Outside of that, life didn’t move linearly. There wasn’t a rubric for the requirements a given life achievement needed in order to unlock.
But maybe the whole point was that Sarah and I had unlocked the opportunity by simply trying again. We’d toiled through years apart, neither of us finding an acceptable alternative. So coming back together was both a solution and a reward for everything that’d come before this point.
We could be together having earned the right to try again simply because wehadtried again. There was no other stipulation, no other requirement for suffering before we were allowed to be together and be happy.
And damn if that wasn’t the best realization I’d ever had.
CHAPTERFORTY-ONE
Sarah
Dahlia beamed back at me, happiness on my behalf just oozing out of her.
“I just love this for you. I love it. Have I mentioned I love it?”
She’d renewed her sentiments many times, but when she came back from a trip to the restrooms to find me blushing over a text from Wilder, she launched in yet again.
“I’m glad you’re so happy,” I said, laughing for the nth time tonight and elated to be sharing some of the overwhelming excitement with my friend.
We’d set this meal up a while ago. Her weekends tended to be insane, especially as spring edged its way into summer and more people were getting married or having special events with big floral orders. So a Monday night in late May was all I could get with her, and I’d take it and run. The rest of our friends couldn’t make it, but there was something to be said for the one-on-one times, too. I’d only just started getting to know Dahlia and everything I’d learned, I loved.
She was deeply loyal and an incredibly romantic soul, though so far I’d gotten no hints about her romantic past or interests. But based on her reaction to the news that Wilder and I had taken things to the next level to include me attending a family dinner—amongst other things I did not spell out but she clearly inferred based on the amount of eyebrow waggling—she was a true romantic.
“So are you seeing him after this?” she asked, setting her fork to the side of her plate.
“No. He just got back from meetings, and I’m…” I searched for the right words. “Processing.”
Her dark eyes widened. “Um, hi. What’s to process? You’re back together after a dramatic twenty-year pause. Pretty sure you love him. Pretty sure he loves you. His family loves you. He’s living here now and so are you. You even currently get to see each other daily because you work for him.”
