Page 2 of Easton’s Claim

He parked out front of the house and grabbed his duffel from the back seat before climbing the steps up to the porch. As always, the front door was unlocked. Stepping inside, the familiar, comforting scents of wood, lemon soap and gun oil wrapped around him.

“Easton?”

Dropping his bag, he headed left into the study. His father sat at his desk, cleaning his favorite sidearm. Easton slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he stood in the doorway. “Hi, Dad.”

His father’s weathered face lit with a warm smile as he set his cleaning kit down, the right side of his mouth and eye drooping slightly. “Good to see you, son.” He pushed to his feet and grabbed his cane to shuffle around the side of the desk, his plaid flannel shirt unbuttoned over an ancient olive drab USMC T-shirt.

Easton accepted the welcoming one-armed hug with a smile and wrapped his arms around his father’s shoulders. They weren’t as solid as they’d been before the stroke that had left him partially paralyzed, but they weren’t frail, either. His old man was still tough as nails, and going to the local pool four times a week helped keep his muscles from atrophying.

Easton eased away but kept his hands on his father’s shoulders. “You’re looking good.”

His gave a half shrug. “Can’t complain.”

He never did.

“When did you get back?”

“Yesterday afternoon.” He’d gone straight to his apartment in Alexandria to shower and crash. After a solid twelve hours of sleep he’d done a load of laundry then packed up and headed here.

“Well it’s a nice surprise. How long you here for?”

“About a week, maybe a few days longer, just depends.” Provided nothing came up at work that he’d be called back for. “A buddy of mine might come out and spend a couple days here, not sure yet.”

God knew the entire team could use the downtime this break afforded them, because this last rotation in Afghanistan had been tough. If he did, his friend would have to entertain himself for the most part though. Easton’s priority on this visit home was Piper. Everything else was secondary.

“Jamie?”

Easton had mentioned their newest FAST team member to his dad in a couple of e-mails. “Yeah.” The stroke hadn’t affected his father’s mind any. It was still as sharp as ever. “How are Wyatt and Austen? They set a date yet?”

“Nope, they want to finish renovating the house first, and I think they’re waiting to see when Brody and Trinity want to get married.” Brody was the middle brother, and had just gotten engaged a few weeks ago.

“I still haven’t met the mysterious Trinity, but she sounds interesting.”

“You’ll like her. She’s badass.”

Easton grinned at the description, because from his old man, those words were the highest form of praise. He just hoped he’d be stateside when his brothers got hitched, he’d hate to miss either wedding. “I’ll go over and see Wyatt and Austen tomorrow.” At some point he had to talk to Wyatt about Piper, and he’d have to tell his sister as well.

No one in his family had a clue how he really felt about Piper. And even after they’d broken up, Wyatt had always been insanely protective of Piper, so telling his big brother about his true feelings for her was going to be interesting.

“Charlie said she might pop down for the weekend as well, if she doesn’t have to work.”

“Yeah, I already talked to her.” He was closest to her out of all his siblings, and the conversation about Piper needed to happen face-to-face.

Again, he was prepared for awkward. Charlie and Piper were good friends, and stayed in touch regularly. More than he and Piper had, with the exception of this last deployment, when he’d made a point of calling or e-mailing her at least twice a week.

He didn’t think Charlie had noticed a change in his feelings for Piper, because she would have said something. There was no way Charlie would ever keep something like that from him; she would explode, trying to hold something like that inside.

“You gonna stay in here with me, or take the cabin? There’s not much furniture in there now that Wyatt’s moved most of his things to their house, but it’ll still be comfortable enough,” his dad said.

“Here’s good.” He didn’t get much time with his family, so he wanted to make the most of this visit. “Maybe we can go for a ride tomorrow.” It had been a while since he’d been on horseback and it always relaxed him.

“That sounds good,” his father said with a fond grin. Now that Wyatt had moved out, it had to be lonely for him here. Even with his eldest brother coming by to help with the farm and take care of the horses with the other guys they’d hired on as part time help, it wasn’t the same as having Wyatt live on site. “You eaten dinner yet?”

“No.”

His father nodded and gestured for him to follow. “Come on, then. Let’s see what I’ve got in the fridge that we can cook up.”

Easton followed him out into the hall and into the kitchen, loving that things always stayed the same here at the farm. The bright, cozy room was spotless as always, the long farmhouse table dividing the open floor plan in half.

---