Page 10 of Recurve Ridge

Jon nodded his agreement, his brow creased as he tracked the two men’s progress across the room. “Could do. Might also want to teach your new girlfriend how to fend for herself.”

“She’s not my girl,” I growled, low enough to strain my throat at the effort.

But the plain fact that Jon had called herminesat all too well in the cavity that once housed my heart.

A hand banged against the wall of the roomsheslept in, and Jon shook his head. “Enough.” He thumped a fist on the kitchen bench, but neither man halted their mini battle despite pants and blood splattering my walls. “I said—ah, fuck it.”

He leaned into the foray and grabbed both boys by the scruffs of their necks to separate them at shoulder height.Hisshoulder height, which meant two pairs of feet dangled well above the floor.

Alan raised a hand and waved in my direction.

I rolled my eyes, noting Miller’s opposite reaction. He folded his arms across his barrel chest while still dangling in midair and glared first at his opponent, then me.

I sighed. “Put them down.” The big man hesitated. I clenched my teeth, my patience fraying. “Now, Jon.”

“Don’t you two start up again, or you’ll be cleaning outhouses for the next month. Got it?” Jon glared between the pair of younger men, both his junior by at least half a dozen years. The thirty-four-year-old giant took a step back, bracing his tree-trunk arms overhead against the thick, exposed beams that supported the ceiling, matching their girth.

Alan’s nose twitched. He made it all too easy to read his thoughts as his mouth opened to object that we didn’thaveouthouses. The intent seemed to dawn on both men at the same time.

“Yes, sir,” two voices mumbled.

I caught a fleeting smile that disappeared from Alan’s face at speed. The brat would end up killed or come limping back with his ass handed to him if I didn’t do something about their attitudes soon, but right now we had other concerns.

“Miller. Spit it out.” I leveled him with a stare that said he’d crossed a line, but the soldier who had saved my life too many times to count sent that stare right back.

The balls and testosterone clashing in my house were better suited to a barracks. I needed neither when I had an injured girl in my bed with God only knew what damage haunting her mind as well as her fragile body.

“Fine. You bring home a girl who happens to turn up in our woods. Your woods, Robe.” Miller looked between us and threw up his hands. It might have been comical if his eyes didn’t bore their intent into mine. “You want to save her, but what if she’s a plant, Alan? Jon? Did you think about that?” He rotated on the spot, catching each man’s attention before his singular focus returned to me. “Did you?”

I nodded. “I have. And I’ll risk everything to secure the safety and well-being of a woman who’s been treated so… harshly.”

Miller’s lip curled, and not in a nice way. “You haven’t changed.”

“I hope not.” I smiled, offering an olive branch.

Miller glared at me for a moment longer. Clumps of hair from his home buzz-cut job stuck up too tall from the top of his head. His mouth turned down when he failed to find what he sought in my face. A moment of stillness strained the oxygen in the room while we conducted a silent conversation about events the others weren’t privy to.

“Remember what happened last time?”

I remember saving lives, getting them to safety.

“I remember us getting shot at while you had a little romance.”

I let the old sadness grip my heart. It hurt, knowing the woman I almost gave both our lives for wouldn’t come back with me. At that point I still had a career, and afterward, a business.

Perhaps that choice had saved her a worse future here, where Mari lay.

“I remember acting human, even if I’d lost my sense of humanity by then,” I murmured.

Miller’s grimace transformed into a snarl. I wasn’t the only one affected by what we’d seen and done during those peacekeeping missions, every one of them bullshit. He pivoted on his heel and stormed from the house.

Alan sidestepped, waving him out the door in his typical flamboyant fashion. I half expected the younger man to say something, but the cabin filled with a strained silence.

“Miller—” Jon started forward, four steps too late.

I held out a hand, pressing my fist to his chest when he pushed against my arm. “Leave him. He’ll cool off.”

“Will he?” Jon rubbed the back of his neck. “He reminds me of….”

---