Page 9 of Montana Silence

“Yeah.” Lucas was quiet. “I know. It feels strange to even talk about moving off the property, but I think we might have to. Not going anywhere else, just nearby where we could build something bigger.”

That I understood too. I’d never lived on Resting Warrior property—by my own choice—for the same reason. But when I came here, I knew I wanted a location I could make a home. One I wouldn’t have to leave. So I’d found a place on the edge of town, and for the first few years we were here, I spent every moment I could making it mine.

“Have you told Daniel?” Jude asked.

“Not yet, but I don’t think he’ll have a problem with it. It’s not like I’ll be screwing off to go travel the world. I’ll just be down the road. Hopefully.” Lucas chuckled. “I guess it depends on what we can find.”

I tapped him on the arm. “I can help if you need me to. My real estate agent still sends me Christmas cards.”

Noah groaned. “Oh my god, I understand that. Do they ever stop?”

“I don’t think so.” I shook my head. “But she was good to work with and very helpful while trying to find apropertyand not just a house.”

“Thanks, Liam. I’ll probably take you up on the offer. We’re not ready yet, but soon.”

None of us was in a rush to chase them out. Things were already wildly different at Resting Warrior compared to when we started, and people moving off the property to raise a family would be more proof things were changing.

A good development, for sure, but there was always a twinge of fear when things changed. Because change could be good, but most of the time, in my experience, it wasn’t.

Still, change was part of life, and I was trying to get better at handling it.

Jude pulled up near the potential site and parked the truck. “Everybody out.”

“Keep telling me what to do, Mr. Williams, and you’ll have to buy me dinner,” I said.

He laughed once. “I don’t know if Lena would like that, but you’re welcome for dinner at our place any time.”

“Really?”

Jude frowned. “Yeah, of course.” Then he smirked. “Maybe notafterdinner, when we disappear upstairs. But for the meal.”

“Picked a date yet?”

He grabbed the laser plane out of the back of the truck, and I grabbed the stakes and flags we’d need to map out the building. “No,” he said. “Not yet. Lena’s been so busy with everyone else’s weddings, she hasn’t even had time to think about it. If I didn’t know she wanted a nice wedding, I’d fly her to Vegas tomorrow and marry her.”

“At least you’ll save money on the catering.”

Jude grinned. “Even if she decided she didn’t want to lift a finger, I wouldn’t care.”

A pang in my chest had me looking away for a second. These men were my friends, and I was happy for them. But I wasn’t going to pretend it was easy to see them so happy. As the jokester and the prankster here, I knew my role and was comfortable in it. And it had always been that way.

But I found it harder to be the constant lightness now.

Noah spread out the preliminary plans for the building on the tailgate so we could see what the hell we were doing.

“This place is going to be huge,” I said.

“Yeah,” Noah agreed. “But it’ll be incredible.”

He was right. The rehab center would allow us to help members of the military who’d been injured and were also struggling with PTSD—like most of us had been. It would take everything we were doing now and push it to the next level.

“We might not be able to do this now,” Jude said with a sigh. “I could have sworn this was working, and now the damn thing won’t even turn on.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Did you charge it? I know older guys like you sometimes have trouble remembering things.”

“Smartass,” he muttered the word under his breath. “Yeah, the battery was full. Something’s going on with the laser.”

“Well—” I looked around at the open space in front of us, “—I needed to go to the hardware place for the belt, anyway. Drive me back, I’ll run into town now, and you guys can still roughly map stuff out, and then we’ll finesse it if they have one in stock. I’ll order one if they don’t.”

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