Page 58 of Sheltered By Love

More surprisingly there’s a note attached with a fishing hook.

Since we keep eating your food.

Z.

Zane

I’m upstairs dozing in her chair when she comes into her office bringing with it the scent of coffee.

“How did you get groceries so late last night? I thought the stores here all closed at nine?”

“They do. I drove to Carey’s Creek.”

I had to. I didn’t get an earful from Garrett last night, I got a one-word text message from Jax. Apologize.

In Jax speak that judgment is ten times worse than anything Garrett could lay on.

Her eyes widen a fraction as she hands me a mug. “In this weather?”

Now probably isn’t the time to tell her the weather’s only getting worse and by stocking up on food I was killing two birds with one stone.

I take a sip and shrug. “I owed you.”

“Groceries?” she prompts.

“And an apology,” I mumble.

She perches on the edge of the desk and looks at me. “Wow. That was painful to watch.”

I open my mouth and shut it just as fast. If six hours in the damp boat house with nothing but rats to keep me company doesn’t make me learn to keep my mouth shut, nothing will.

She gives me a half smile. “I’m going back to bed to read. If you need me that’s where I’ll be all day.”

My eyebrow cocks as a dozen thoughts thud around my fatigued brain. None of them involve reading, all of them involve getting to know Felicity in the Biblical sense.

She blushes and hides her face with her coffee. “You know what I mean,” she mumbles.

Before I have a chance to say anything she’s out of the office and for want of anything better to do, I’m back to staring at the screen.

It’s almost impossible to see anything past the fence line, and my mind starts to wander.

I think of life on the base. About my unit. My brothers. The same unit who had my back and were sympathetic, but ultimately had to remain in the good graces of the CO.

I think about telling Dad I was leaving, and how for a long time his words were what kept me focused on coming back.

“This is where you belong, and we’re your family.”

But his message right along with my judgment got skewed, and somehow, after three tours, I had two families.

The one I fought, ate, and slept alongside, day in, day out, and the ones who were back home in the Bay.

I stare at the dent in the wall, right above where Mom and Dad’s bed would have been.

I can’t remember who got hurt, just that the dent had something to do with my spring boarding Levi off the bed.

I snort a laugh as I remember how much trouble we got in, trying to cover it up with a hastily drawn picture by six-year-old gap-toothed Levi.

Mom had laughed and said ‘Points for trying’ but Levi and I knew we were in for it.

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