Page 104 of Better Late Than Never

“The base…” I waved a hand and made an annoyed sound, which got a laugh out of him; he knew about the politics and bullshit at every command. “Spain is interesting, though. There’s been more culture shock than I expected.”

“Really?”

I nodded and paused for a pull from my beer bottle. “The language barrier has been tough. Very few people speak English here.”

“They don’t?”

“Nope.” I gestured at my phone. “I have to use WhatsApp and a translator app to talk to my landlord because my Spanish is trash.”

“Wow.” Quinn laughed. “My landlord speaks perfect English, and communicating with her is a nightmare sometimes. I can’t imagine not speaking the same language.”

I half-shrugged. “It’s tough, but I’m trying to learn as much as I can. It’s not his fault I don’t speak his language, you know? And he’s a good guy. Hell, when I came in to sign the lease, he had his whole family there, offered me wine and food—the works. It’s a different world.”

“No kidding.” Quinn took a drink. “Seems like a nice place, though. The house and what I’ve seen of Spain.”

“It is. I like it here.” I put my beer on the table between us. “It’s tough being this far from you and your brother, though. Not gonna lie.”

“It’s hard,” he acknowledged. “But it’s better with you here than when you were deployed.”

I studied him. “Yeah?”

“Well, yeah.” He met my gaze. “Mom always told us you were working in a hospital on a base, not out on the front lines, but when you’re a kid and your dad is in a warzone… especially after you got hurt…” He trailed off, and I thought he masked a subtle shudder.

Guilt twisted in my chest. I’d never realized Aimee had told them that, and I was suddenly grateful for it. I revisited the truth every night when I tried to sleep. Knowing my boys hadn’t known where I’d been and what I’d been doing? That they hadn’t thought I was in danger until after the fact? Fuck, yeah, I could live with that. In fact, I felt guilty now for getting hurt; I could’ve kept them sheltered from that reality. No wonder they’d been so shell-shocked when they’d come to see me at the hospital in Germany. Hell… maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to keep them in the dark. They hadn’t worried, but they’d been blindsided, and—was thereanyright way to handle something like that with kids?

“I’m sorry,” I finally told him. “I know it stressed you kids out. Your mom too.”

“I know. It was your job, though. We got it. But now you’re someplace where nothing’s really going on, you know? It sucks that you’re so far away, but you’re just… here. Working at a hospital in a place where nothing’s happening.”

I nodded. “I am. It’s probably one of the most boring duty assignments I’ve had in my career.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Ooh, yeah.”

He turned his gaze toward the pool and sipped his beer. “Where do you think you’ll go after this?”

“Don’t know yet. My CO says I can probably extend at the end of my assignment. Or I might go back stateside. Just depends on how things are going when that time comes, I guess.”

He was nodding as I spoke. “Are you going to be able to come back? Like for our graduations?”

“Absolutely. I already told my CO I’m taking leave when you and Savannah graduate.”

That made him smile. Then he turned a shy look on me. “What about when we get married?”

I smiled too. “Well, you’ll have to tell me when that is.” Inclining my head, I asked, “Any thoughts on that?”

“Not yet.” He absently swirled his beer as he gazed toward the other end of the house where his future wife was napping, a contented smile on his face. “But it probably won’t be too much longer.”

“Yeah? You thinking of proposing soon?”

“Thinking about it. Maybe her birthday. Maybe Christmas. I was going to wait until after we graduate, but…” He shrugged, still smiling. “I don’t know if I want to wait that long.”

“Well, if it feels like the right time, then it probably is.”

“I know.” He turned that smile on me. “Don’t be surprised if I forget about the time zones and call you in the middle of the night to tell you she said yes.”

I laughed. “I think I can cope with a middle-of-the-night call for something like that.”

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