Page 4 of Cowboy SEAL Homecoming

Chapter 2

The stables were exactly like he remembered. It was as if sixteen years hadn’t passed since he’d lived here. Instead of stepping into a new location, he was stepping back in time.

The high rafters, the smell of hay and horseshit, the tools lined up haphazardly on a pegboard along the south entrance. The sounds of horses moving about and the filtered daylight.

He’d never allowed himself to wallow in homesickness while he’d been away, but it hit him now—how many years he’d missed this. Home. Belonging. The smells, the air, the freedom.

Except Becca was standing in the middle of the stables like a skittish bird. Fluttering and radiating nerves. That was nothing like the home he remembered.

He couldn’t get a read on her, which was odd. He’d always been good at figuring people out, and this was just life, no added stress of, say, war to mess with his judgment.

“I don’t have a key to the house,” he said as gently as he could manage.

“Oh. Right.”

“You know, growing up I don’t know that we ever locked the doors.”

She laughed, something genuine mixed with all the discomfort. “Yes, and you should have heard the arguments Burt and my mom had about that.”

Alex tried to smile in an effort to put her at ease, but he didn’t like being reminded his father had had this…whole other life. A life Alex hadn’t been a part of. All of that had been Alex’s own doing, but…

Well, that old melancholy was for another day. A day when he didn’t have things to do and goals to reach.

So, hopefully never.

Becca handed a key ring out to him. “The one with a three on it. There are extras in the house, and I’ll make sure to get you each one. I mean, I have them for you. I just have to hand them to…” She blinked profusely.

He couldn’t even begin to figure out what was going on in that head of hers. He understood her being a little uncomfortable, a little awkward. But this was so much more than that, and Alex was at a loss for the first time since…

Well, for the first time since he’d accepted his injuries were the end of his SEAL career. It was not a feeling he enjoyed or welcomed, and he ungraciously was irritated at her for prompting it.

“I’m not used to having anyone here,” she said. “I’m not used to being around a lot of people.”

“We’re only three.”

She looked up at him through the fringe of bangs that hid her eyes enough for him to continue to have trouble reading her. “You don’t really know much about me, do you?”

What the hell did that mean? Before he could find a gentle to way to ask, she powered on.

“Anyway, when Mom and I moved here, it was just us and Burt. Your dad hired Hick back a few years ago,” she said, referencing the ranch foreman who’d worked for his dad throughout Alex’s childhood. “I’m used to having the run of the place. I’m used to being alone, or very close to it. Have been most of my life. So this is weird for me, and when things are weird for me, I’m a little weird. Looking at me like I’ve lost it doesn’t help matters.”

“I’m not looking at you like that.”

She shrugged, wrapping her arms around herself and squinting at the rear stable door. She still held the keys and her eyebrows drew together. Her profile was surprisingly strong for as clearly timid as she was. The midafternoon light from outside glowed against the elegant slope of her neck, the wisps of dark hair falling out of her braid. She had a strong, rounded jaw and a sharp nose. Dark, long eyelashes framed big eyes, and she had the lightest dusting of freckles on the apples of her cheeks.

Why was he noticing shit like that?

“I don’t want you here,” she said on something that was no more than a whisper.

But it hit him hard, like a sharp slap. He even stepped back. She’d been the one to plant the seed of this whole foundation. She’d been the one to—

“But you should be here, and we have something really important to build together.” She looked at him then, and it almost seemed like a forced movement, like she had to fight to meet his eyes. “Just don’t expect me to be Ms. Welcome Wagon or Chatty Cathy. Even if I wanted to be, I wouldn’t have a clue as to how.”

“So you really did learn a thing or two from my father.”

She laughed, a surprisingly potent smile lightening up her pinched expression, relaxing it. “He was not an effusive man, that’s true. Probably why I liked him so much.” The smile died, quick as it had come. “I loved him like a father.” She blew out a breath and looked away again. “He was a good man.”

“Was.” Alex had spent a year getting used to the fact that his father was gone, but there was something about being here, using words like was, that fanned the spark of grief into something bigger. “Yes, he very much was.”

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