Page 74 of Shadow Blind

Aiden made kissing sounds and batted his eyelashes. “I didn’t know you cared, bro.”

Before Cosky came back with a brutal and probably amusing retort, a low, deep whine surrounded them. The Bell’s floor vibrated beneath their feet. The chopper’s hold held no windows, but even without seeing the ground getting smaller, Aiden could tell they were rising.

From what Rawls had told him earlier, the flight to Shadow Mountain’s Neighborhood took twenty minutes, which meant the distance between the base and the township was somewhere around one hundred and thirteen klicks. Quite a distance to sink roots.

“Why build your Neighborhood so far out? You could have cut your commute by half if you’d set up camp just outside of Denali.” Aiden adjusted the headset mic, which kept trying to migrate beneath his chin.

Cosky, who was slouched down in his seat, head against the wall, looking half asleep, didn’t bother opening his eyes. “We wanted distance between the two in case the base was ever targeted. Besides, twenty minutes is perfect decompression time. By the time we set down, base pressures are behind us, and family time is ahead. We try to separate the two.”

Aiden could see that. By the time the Bell circled and dropped, worries about Kuznetsov and nanobots had given way to worries about Demi and their future. Or lack thereof. Frowning, he organized the points he wanted to make into punchy sound bites.

What we’ve got together is great.

We can build on what we’ve already created.

I can give you a home and a family.

The sex is fantastic. We can build on that.

“Don’t think about it so hard.” Cosky sounded reluctant, like he didn’t want to get drawn into the drama but was finding it impossible to remain neutral. “Thinking too much when it comes to women never ends well. Use your instincts. Speak from your gut.”

Easy for him to say. The dude already had his woman roped and tied. Aiden rolled his shoulders and tried to relax.

You’ve got this. This isn’t rocket science. You’re not locked down, cut off from your brothers, with RPG strikes raining down all around you. This isn’t life and death, no matter how much it feels like it.

With a light rocking motion, the Bell settled on the ground. The engine’s roar decreased. So did the beat of the rotors. Aidan took his headset off, rose to his feet and dropped it on the empty seat. Cosky followed suit.

“Home sweet home.”

Without the buffering of the headset, the beat of the Bell’s rotors drowned most of Cosky’s voice out. But Aiden was certain that the words he caught carried relief. No doubt Cosky was thrilled that the opportunity to dispense relationship advice had ended.

Cosky dragged the cargo hold door back, motioned Aiden out and followed him to the ground, dragging the door shut behind him again. They ducked and shuffled their way out from under the rotors. Once they’d cleared the icy backwash of the rotors, the winter chill felt lazier, even warmer.

Aiden took the scene in with a slow, focused scan. Emerald trees, with Christmas lights vaguely visible through clouds of fresh snow. It figured that Kait would go batshit crazy with the whole Christmas theme, and that her besotted husband would let her. He took another longer look around. Christ, there were trees everywhere. Dozens of boughs surrounded the house for unfriendlies to hide beneath. What the hell was Cosky thinking?

He shifted his attention to the house. It was full of windows and bright light. The whole place was lit up like a bullseye. He scowled. Had Cos lost his ever-loving fucking mind? All that light would lead the unfriendlies right to their door and those windows would make the place impossible to secure.

“We need to have a serious conversation about these trees and windows,” he told Cosky, as the Bell took to the sky.

“If you can talk some sense into your sister about that, be my guest,” Cosky muttered back as he brushed past Aiden.

The front door, with its festive holiday wreath, opened, and Kait stepped onto the porch. He could barely make out the crown of Demi’s aqua-colored head behind his sister’s shoulder.

Kait rushed down the steps, heading directly toward him. Aiden got a quick glimpse of Demi in the doorway, huddled in a thick tweed sweater jacket of blocky greens and blues. And then his sister blocked his view. He enveloped her in a hard hug, then pushed her back to give her a narrow eyed, leisurely, face to toe examination. Things had been in such an upheaval the last few times he’d seen her, which had been in the clinic. He’d paid little attention to how she looked. Cosky better be taking care of her, otherwise they’d be having a serious conversation—probably spelled out with knuckles and bruises.

His sister looked great, though. Much more relaxed than the last time he’d seen her, when anxiety and stress had drained the glow from her face.

He let her go and stepped back. “Looking good, sis. Denali agrees with you.”

“Right?” Kait laughed, her voice exuberant. “Who would have guessed? I always thought I was a sun and sand kind of girl.” She linked her arm with his and they lazily followed Cosky toward the porch. “I can’t believe this is the first time you’ve been here. You know Wolf would have made an exception for you to visit, right?”

“No offense, but I wanted to spend what little downtime I had with my girl.” He glanced at the open door, but Demi had disappeared.

“Yeah…” Her voice went quiet for a moment. She shot a quick glance toward the empty doorway, and the exuberance faded from her face. “Did Cosky tell you we’re going out to dinner? He and I, I mean. You’ll have privacy to talk to her.”

From the sympathetic look that had replaced the joy, she didn’t expect the convo to go well. Aiden’s stomach tightened. Regardless of that gut shot expression his sister was wearing; he still had a chance to patch things up with Demi. He knew she had feelings for him. He had feelings for her, too—strong ones. Sure, there were problems they needed to work out. But every relationship had rocky moments.

Emotions held couples together during the rough patches, and they had those emotions in spades. They just needed to explore compromises, ones they could both live with.

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