Page 39 of Silver Secrets

Killed.

She knew that was what he couldn’t say. What he wouldn’t let himself imagine.

“It was bad enough seeing all that blood. I wanted to throw up. Still feel like I might. I was pleading with every fucking deity I could think of as Gunner drove to let me take your place. Fuck, Red. He and I were talking earlier about whatever this is going on between us and I just?—”

“Accidents happen, and I’m okay.”

He looked up at the bandage on her forehead. “I’m not convinced it was an accident, Red. And you are not okay,” he grumbled.

“It was just someone with road rage. I’m sure the deputy who questioned me at the hospital will be able to figure out who it was.”

“They better find them before I do.” He squeezed her hand tighter. “Can’t lose you too.”

Sloane finally found the courage to bring up a question she’d been wanting to ask for months. Maybe it was easier to get the words out after what she faced because she could feel how badly he needed to talk about them. About their accident. About when they died. Her eyes drifted over his shoulder, to the pictures he had scattered around of a beautiful woman with long, silky hair and a little boy with the same sparkling eyes and dimples as his dad.

“Will you tell me about them? About their lives?”

Gage’s eyes went wide. “I don’t know that I can,” he whispered.

“You don’t have to share about the end if you don’t want to. If it’s too painful. We’ve danced around it for a while, and I understand. Really, I do, because I like my privacy. But I care about you, and I want to know about their lives. About who they were. Your favorite memories with them. Do you think you can share them with me?”

Gage nodded. “I want to, but I don’t know where to start,” he sighed.

“How did you meet Melody? Did you grow up together like Gunner and Lily?”

“No.” His smile was so genuine that Sloane couldn’t help but mirror it. “At the time, our team was based out on the West Coast, and she was at this ratty dive bar called The Frog Hog with her friends.”

“The Frog Hog?”

He nodded. “Hawk dragged us there one Friday night, talking about some insane hookup he had, but all that was forgotten when he laid eyes on this woman with blonde hair tied up in a messy bun and fire in her eyes. Hawk started flirting with her?—”

“Oh,” she huffed out a laugh. “I think I know where this is going.”

“Yeah. He’s pretty much the same exact guy he was a decade ago. But Mel wasn’t having any of it. She was up on the bar, dancing and singing at the top of her lungs. Hawk was trying to get her to take a shot with him. Instead, she jumped down with her drink in her hand, marched over to me, grabbed my hand and pulled me out on the dance floor. The look on his face was priceless.”

“I bet the look on your face was the same.”

“I was pretty shocked. Out of everyone in our team, I think Gunner is the quietest, but I’m definitely a close second. You’d never have known that with her, though. Mel was so easy to talk to. She just had this way of putting you at ease. I think it was how outgoing she was. Like all the burden of being extroverted was taken up by her bubbliness. I didn’t feel like I was forced to be anyone other than myself when she was around.”

“I can understand that.”

“I know you can.” Gage squeezed her hand. Sloane had almost forgotten that their fingers were still intertwined. When was the last time someone was touching her and she wasn’t acutely aware of it? Yet there was none of that with Gage. In fact, she knew her touch was helping to ground him. To keep him calm. And she could see the beauty in that so clearly.

“So, how long did you two date before you got married?”

Gage’s cheeks turned red almost immediately. “Four months.”

He held his free hand up by his face and smiled. “And before you say that’s an insanely short amount of time to date someone before marrying them, I know. I honestly can’t believe it still to this day.”

“You two were that in love?”

“Yeah, we were. But we were also a little reckless, and Mel got pregnant with Mikey. But I honestly knew it was right. Us living together. Getting married. Having the baby and becoming a family. I think from the moment I stepped out on the dance floor with her, I knew it was always going to end up that way. So I didn’t hold back when the pieces just sort of fell together.”

“I think that’s really beautiful, Gage. Your soul knew that she was the one for you.”

Something flared in his eyes, but she watched as he shut down the emotion before carrying on with a big sigh.

“They don’t tell you how terrifying pregnancy and delivery can be. I grew up thinking it was just this boring nine month process that you came out on the other side with a kid after a few pushes. I was so unprepared. We got married when she was six or seven weeks along, and she’d only been dealing with a little nausea. But then came the morning sickness that lasted all day and all night. I felt helpless. And I was deploying on more and more missions right when she needed me the most.”

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