Page 49 of Single Mom's Firefighter SEALs
As the glow fades, a little flicker of guilt ripples through me. Despite the men’s assurances, something ingrained in me says being with more than one man is wrong, like I’m being reckless and making up for the years I’ve been alone.
But the three of us are being open and honest, and resting here in Weston’s arms doesn’t feel wrong. As I trace a nearly invisible scar I find on his shoulder with lazy fingertips, I think about this man’s quiet strength, his warmth, and his incredible patience.
Our encounter was playful and emotional, and different from what I shared with Buck, which felt intense and raw, yet soothing at the same time. But it’s all new, and maybe being with them again will be different. Despite my reservations, I hope I have a chance to find out.
They’re different men, yet they share the same common threads that attracted me to Tyler all those years ago: Honor, protection, giving care without keeping score.
I haven’t fallen for them because I’m faithless, but because some part of me already knew them. The things I loved in Tyler hadn’t died with him. They’d survived in the men he trusted most. The brothers who had carried him, mourned him, and come back from hell with pieces of him lodged in their hearts.
Maybe the guilt I’m carrying isn’t loyalty, but fear.
I’m afraid of leaving Tyler behind and afraid that being loved again would expose how badly I want it. Afraid of losing control.
But I can’t live my life ruled by fear.
Weston’s arm tightens around me as he strokes my shoulder. His lips brush the top of my head. “You all right?”
I draw in a long breath and give it some thought. Maybe letting myself be loved and cared for doesn’t have to feel like betrayal.
I lay my hand over Weston’s heart and feel his warmth and strength surrounding me. “I’m good.”
He squeezes me closer against him. “Good.”
CHAPTER 27
CALDER
The first cigarette butts Buck and Weston found were too soggy from melted snow to tell us much. When I find two clean ones outside the station, faint Cyrillic lettering stands out near the filters.
By now, we know Tyler is at the center of this. The vandalized team photo in Elena’s house made sure of that. The cigarettes don’t change the why, but they give us a where. The lettering doesn’t prove anything by itself, but it points in a direction we’ve all been avoiding.
It’s enough to make me stop putting off a call I should’ve made sooner.
Bruce Noland was on my team before Tyler’s platoon, back when his knee was still intact, and mine hurt less in the cold. He got out a few years before us and landed in Naval Intelligence, where he does the kind of analysis work that still puts blood on his hands, just from farther away.
I send him photos of the cigarette butts and a short message telling him what I can without putting names inwriting. Three hours later, I’m wiping down tools in the apparatus bay when my phone buzzes in my back pocket.
“Got something,” Noland sends. “Heard chatter a while back about a former Spetsnaz operative asking about members of a disbanded SEAL team. Didn’t have names then. Dug deeper after your text.”
The air coming through the open bay door feels a few degrees colder.
“Which team?” I type back.
There’s a long pause before he replies. “Tyler Ramirez’s name came up.”
The line has been bending this way for days. The certainty of it still hits hard.
My thumbs hover over the screen before I force them to move. “Who?”
“Anton Kozlov.”
Kozlov.The name punches through me so hard I have to brace a hand against the engine.
Not Anton. Arseny. A black Hummer fishtailing across wet pavement. Tires screaming. Radio chatter, clipped and overlapping. Headlights smearing in the mirror. Then the impossible orange bloom. Fire where there should have been only dark road and metal and motion?—
I shut my eyes and stop it there. I’ve learned how to do that, but not well. Not every time. Well enough to keep from drowning in it in the middle of the station.Usually.
When I open my eyes, the phone is still in my hand, and the concrete is still solid under my boots. My breathing isn’t great, but I’m getting it under control.
