“He didn’t just sulk,” I say quietly. “He sabotaged me. Undermined my decisions. Turned most of my board against me. And when that wasn’t enough, he used company money behind my back to fund his failing ventures.”
My voice roughens. “He stole from the company I built to keep his pride afloat. And when that still wasn’t enough, he started sleeping with anything that would bend over for him.”
I let the truth hang there, because some wounds need silence before anything else.
“So I burned it down,” I say. “Every lie. Every shell corporation. Every fake invoice. I fired everybody on the board who betrayed me. Froze assets. FBI. Marshals. Audits. Indictments. I didn’t just walk away, I went scorched earth so nothing he touched could grow there again.”
The last part sticks before I force it out. “Then I came home. Daddy was sick. I realized I’d spent so long trying to save a marriage that didn’t deserve me, I almost missed the time I had left with a man who did. I got a few good months with him before he passed. I’d burn a hundred more companies if it meant I didn’t miss a second of that.”
I braid my fingers together. “Most people think I left because I lost my business and my husband, but truthfully, I left because I refused to lose myself.”
He takes a breath like he’s bracing for impact. “My turn.”
I nod.
We walk slower, like the memories weigh down his steps.
“We were sent on a mission that should never have been greenlit,” he says. “Intel was wrong, and command ignored it. They sent us into a region that was already a powder keg. We walked into hell.”
He stares at the river like he’s seeing something else. “They were going to let a village get wiped out women, kids, elders and let my men die with them to bury the screwup.”
My stomach knots.
“I wasn’t letting that happen,” he says. “So I broke from command. Went in first, pulled people out house by house. My team joined once they realized what I was doing. We fought till sunrise. Some of my men walked out missing limbs. Some walked out whole but broken inside. Some didn’t walk out at all.”
His jaw flexes. “Every night since, I smell the smoke. Hear the sounds. And every night I know exactly who I couldn’t save.”
I take his hand without thinking. He grips mine like it’s the only solid thing in the world.
“The rescue got caught on camera,” he continues. “Brass tried to make me the villain to cover their asses, but the footage went global. They had to pin a medal on me to save face—but they pushed me out of the Marines, so I’d shut up.”
He laughs once, bitter. “So yeah. Nightmares, rage, guilt. None of it really leaves.”
“You saved lives, Trace,” I say.
“I didn’t save enough.”
“You’re still saving people,” I whisper.
He looks at me and something raw flashes across his face. My heel wobbles. He catches me by the waist, steadying me; then something clicks behind his eyes.
“Hold on,” he says.
He guides me to a bench and kneels in front of me. He takes my heels off slowly, when his thumbs press into my arches, I groan before I can stop myself.
Then he reaches down inside each pant leg and pulls out my slides.
I gasp. “You did not steal my shoes.”
“Oh, I did.” He slips them on my feet, eyes on mine. “I wasn’t letting those torture devices distract you tonight. I want you thinking about me, not your feet.”
“You stuffed them in your socks,” I say, half horrified, half charmed.
“Baby, you have no idea the lengths I’m willing to go to for you.”
He talks then about coming home and not being able to stay in one place, losing jobs, losing his apartment, going back to his parents’ house, angry and ashamed. About waking up in their bedroom with a gun in his hand and no memory of getting there. About realizing he was more afraid of hurting someone than dying himself. About Silver Creek. About Andy. About Copper Ridge.
“And then there was you,” he says finally, voice low. “And I knew I was where I should be.”
