Tripp had saved her life.Twice.And she loved him.She needed to hear him out because he’d shown her who he really was since she’d moved here.
Rufus got up from his bed on the floor and padded over to her, tail swishing gently.
She bent to pet him, the feel of his soft fur comforting.“Hi, buddy.You feeling better now?”He seemed to be coping with today’s trauma way better than she was.
She was so thankful he hadn’t been hurt.On the drive home he’d happily stuck his head out the back window of Tripp’s truck, enjoying the feel of the wind in his fur.He’d wolfed down his dinner, then passed out in his bed as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
She wished she could do the same.
He snorted softly, turned and trotted out the bedroom door, tail up.She followed, a weight settling in her chest as he stood waiting by the French doors leading to the back porch.
She could see Tripp’s silhouette out there in one of the Adirondack chairs she’d painted, his freshly bandaged arm standing out in the moonlight.The paramedics had closed his knife wound with a special type of glue and rebandaged it, so he didn’t need stitches.
Physically he was okay.Emotionally, she was past her limit, and was sure he had to be on edge too.
The thought of hashing this out now was exhausting.But Tripp had been there for her through every step of all this craziness.In her heart of hearts, she couldn’t believe he would have ordered that strike without a damn good reason.
Taking a deep breath, she let Rufus out and followed, shutting the door behind her.Tripp looked up and swept her with a concerned gaze while Rufus raced for the back fence to start his patrol.“Hey.Doing okay?”he asked.
She shrugged as Rufus left the back fence and ran over to check the first set of peepholes, unsure how to answer that.“I guess so.”As okay as she could be at this moment.
She lowered herself into the other painted chair, putting them a few feet apart.But the invisible wall between them made it seem like a mile.
She hated the distance.Wanted to be curled up in his lap right now, soaking up the comfort of his strength and calmness.But she needed the truth more and wanted to give them both the space to have this hard conversation.“Thank you for what you did for me today.All of it.”
He stared at her, irritation clear on his face.“You think you need to thank me for that?”
No.
She looked away.The evening air was warm, the almost full moon bright above the black outline of the trees.
It was so quiet back here.Deceptively peaceful, but they were two of the few people who realized the magnitude of the danger hidden on the island right now.She hoped Rafe got the help he needed from the mainland to uncover everything before someone else got killed.
The awful, silent tension between her and Tripp was killing her.“I need you to tell me what happened to my brother.”
He was silent for a long moment.She glanced over to find him looking at her.Wondered if he was going to push back.
“All right,” he said quietly, and looked back out into the darkened yard.
Willow forced herself to sit still as she waited for him to continue, resisting the urge to get up and pace.“Thank you.”
Several seconds ticked past before he began.“It was a recon mission based on perishable intelligence about a possible stockpile of chemical weapons hidden in the city by a rebel faction.I was in command.I split us into two teams, each one responsible for checking a location on opposite sides of the city.Everything went according to plan until someone on Peyton’s team hit a tripwire when they entered their target building.Three guys were killed in that initial blast, and Peyton was wounded.”
She kept silent, fighting back the wave of grief at the thought of her brother suffering in his final minutes.
“I was on the radio with him, still at the other location.Drone footage showed an enemy force moving in toward them.I ordered them to evacuate and called for a medevac.My team headed out immediately to rescue them.”
He inhaled, rubbed his hands up and down his thighs in agitation.“Our convoy had five vehicles.I was in the lead truck when it hit an IED in the road.My driver and another passenger were killed instantly.I and the guy behind me were wounded.The truck was on fire.The one behind us was burning too.The second we got out, we started taking enemy fire.We’d driven right into an ambush.”
The anguish in his voice tore at her.She couldn’t imagine the terror.The horror.How much pain he’d been in.“Tripp?—”
“No, let me get this out.”He took a moment to gather himself, then continued.“I called for backup and another medevac while we returned fire.But my team was decimated.We had multiple killed and wounded, and we couldn’t get to the other target building.I heard the firefight start on the other end of the radio.Peyton got hit again.Bad.But he’d stayed instead of evacuating to verify whether the chem weapons were there.”
Willow pressed her lips together, struggling not to cry.
Of course Peyton had stayed.He’d seen his friends killed and wounded, had been wounded himself.He would have wanted to make sure he completed their objective.Ensure their lives hadn’t been lost in vain, and stop the enemy from ever using those weapons.
“He was weak,” Tripp continued in a low, ragged voice.“I don’t even know if he would have survived long enough for the medevac to arrive, but he and the other survivors were outnumbered and outgunned.It was only a matter of time before they would be overrun, and if that happened...”
