Page 20 of All Along The Watchtower

I pushed that thought away. This wasn’t about me or my issues.

“Do you have any pictures of him?” Peyton’s voice was small, hesitant.

“Not here.” I hadn’t been able to look at them in years. “But Pop has albums full of photos from when we were growing up. Ican ask him tomorrow.” If she stayed that long. If she didn’t bolt like I’d wanted to so many times before Ed became my anchor.

My phone buzzed. A text from Ford.

Ford:

Got emergency leave. Coming home tomorrow.

Relief washed through me. I showed Peyton the message.

“Tomorrow?” Her eyes went wide.

“Yeah. Which means you should eat and get some rest. I expect you’re tired after all the travel it took to get here.”

God knew, I was exhausted simply from the past couple of hours of trying to process the reality of her existence.

She poured a small ocean of syrup on her pancakes. “It has been a minute since I had a bed.” Her eyes flicked up to mine. “Or a sofa’s good, too.”

Had she managed any sleep at all since she left Oregon? Or had she stayed in that faintly dozing state, ready to bolt in case someone invaded her personal space or threatened her? Either way, tonight she’d have a room of her own, with a proper bed.

“I’ve got a guest room, kid. I’ll make it up after we finish dinner.”

CHAPTER 10

FORD

I stood on the front porch of Bree’s cottage, staring at the bright turquoise blue door. My hand hovered over the brushed nickel knocker, heart pounding like I’d just run ten miles at a sprint. The last twenty-four hours felt like a fever dream, reality bending and shifting around me with each new revelation. A daughter. I had a daughter. And Bree had finally broken her silence. The weight of both those things pressed down on my chest.

The door swung open before I could knock, making me jump slightly. Bree filled the frame, dressed in well-worn jeans and a faded OBX Brewhouse t-shirt that had seen better days, blonde hair pulled back into a tail that caught the morning light. Those gray eyes I remembered so well watched me with careful wariness, like she was trying to decide if letting me in was a mistake.

“You made it.” She stepped back, gesturing me inside, her bare feet silent on the weathered wooden floors.

I ducked through the doorway, too aware of how small the entry felt with both of us in it. The cottage smelled like coffee and something sweet. Maybe cinnamon. A quick glance told me the place was homey. Lived-in. There were books stacked onevery surface and a mess of colorful throw pillows piled on a weathered leather couch. An array of dog toys were scattered across the floor, some bearing the battle scars of enthusiastic chewing. It was nothing like the stark military quarters I’d left behind, with their regulation corners and institutional feel.

“Yeah, finally. Had to call in every favor I had.” My voice came out rough from lack of sleep, and I could feel the fatigue settling deep in my bones. “The paperwork alone… I swear the Navy was easier to join than getting emergency leave approved.”

“You look exhausted.” There was no judgment in her tone, only casual observation, and something else—maybe concern—that she quickly masked.

“Haven’t slept.” I scrubbed a hand down my face, feeling the rasp of stubble against my palm. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and this will all be some weird dream. Like maybe I imagined having a thirteen-year-old daughter show up out of nowhere.”

Bree crossed her arms, maintaining a careful distance between us. “It’s real. She’s real. She’s sleeping in my guest room right now.”

The weight of that hit me again, a sucker punch to the gut that drove most of the air from my lungs. A daughter. Here. Under this roof. Not some far-off concept anymore, but flesh and blood. “How is she?”

“Scared. Trying not to show it.” Bree’s expression softened slightly, the mask she usually wore around me cracking just a bit. “She’s got your eyes. Even does that thing where she narrows them when she’s thinking hard.”

That simple statement made my heart stutter in my chest. I sank onto the worn wooden bench by the door, legs suddenly unsteady beneath me. “I can’t believe Casey never told me. All these years… Christ, I missed everything.”

“Ford.” Bree’s voice was gentle in a way I hadn’t heard in a decade, since before everything fell apart between us. “Take a breath. We’ll figure this out.”

We, not me. The distinction wasn’t lost on me, even through my exhaustion.

It had been so damned long since Bree and I had been any kind of “we.” I lifted my gaze to hers, then couldn’t make myself look away. This was as close as we’d been in years, and I took the opportunity to just drink her in. The morning light streaming through her front windows caught the gold in her hair, and for a moment I was twenty again, watching her laugh on the beach. The air between us crackled with the tension of unspoken words, regrets, and possibilities that had died because I’d been careless and had taken her for granted. More than ten years of distance, of pretending the other didn’t exist, and now here we were, forced back into each other’s orbit by circumstances I never could have imagined.

A floorboard creaked down the hall.

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