Page 53 of Single Mom's Firefighter SEALs
“For a second, because that’s what you do. But the hit was direct, Elena. One look at the Hummer, and we knew.”
“You knew …?”
I force myself to hold her gaze. “There was nothing left to save.”
When she leans toward me, I draw her into my arms, and when her forehead presses against my chest, something fierce moves through me. She’s shaking and trying not to fall apart, and failing just enough to make me hate every institution and secret that’s brought her here.
“I’m sorry,” I say into her hair. My words are nothing compared to the size of the thing. “I’m so sorry.”
“They lied to me,” she whispers.
“Yes.”
“All this time.” She draws in a breath that hitches halfway through. “All this time I thought—I knew there were things they couldn’t say, but I thought the broad truth was still there. I had no idea—” Her hands fist in my shirt.
For a while, the only sound is her crying. It’s quiet at first, then not. It’s grief cracking open through a place she’d probably thought had scarred over.
I hold her through it without trying to fix anything, because I can’t. I don’t tell her Tyler had been brave or honorable because she already knows that. I don’t feed her lines about sacrifice or duty. I just stay there and let her rage and hurt and betrayal soak into the space between us until her breathing finally slows.
When she pulls back, her cheeks are wet, and her eyes are red. She wipes at them, looking furious at herself for needing to. Her voice is low and shaking when she says, “You think someone from that operation found me? Found us.”
“That’s what it looks like. Anton is the brother. We learnedhe was asking about the team a while back. It seems he found a thread he could follow.”
“Me,” she says with a shudder. “I brought this here. To the town and the school.”
Even now, she’s thinking about everybody else. I know why Tyler fell in love with her, and why I find myself doing the same.
“No,” I say firmly. “You didn’t do this. You didn’t choose our mission, and you didn’t choose what was being kept from you. The blame belongs on the man starting the fires.”
She shakes her head and lets out a huff. “I hate that we brought this here. I hate that Tyler’s dead because of it. I hate that T.J. could be anywhere near it.” She searches my face. “Are we safe at all?”
“Safer now that we know what we’re looking at.”
Not safe, and she doesn’t miss the distinction. She nods once. “Thank you for telling me.”
I almost look away, because I don’t deserve even a scrap of gratitude. Especially not from her. “You should’ve had the truth sooner.”
I’m grateful when she doesn’t ask for more information about the mission, because I don’t want to tell her how the Navy called it a success. The target was neutralized, the strategic objective achieved. Four dead Americans on a road still on fire, but somebody high enough up the chain got to write the wordsuccesson a report. And they told a devastated widow it was atraining accident.
I’m glad she doesn’t ask for details, because I still remember exactly how it sounded when the rocket hit. Some nights, in the moments before sleep comes, I still get pieces of it back. The radio, the shouting, the kind of urgency that means everything is already going wrong.
“Calder.”
I blink and realize Elena’s said my name twice.
She studies my face, grief still raw in hers, but now there’s something worse beneath it. Understanding. “You were somewhere else just now.”
I let out a breath. “Yeah.”
“Back there?” When I don’t answer, her eyes soften in a way that makes me want to get out of the room, but I stay. “They didn’t only lie to me. They left all of you carrying it.”
I shake my head. “That was part of the deal.”
“No, that was the damage.” Her eyes don’t leave mine. “Is that why you keep your distance?”
“It’s the cleanest excuse I have.” When she keeps looking at me, I say, “There are days my head gets stuck in places I don’t want to be. It gives me a reason to tell myself I’m doing the right thing by staying back. It’s safer that way.”
“For me?”
