Arden sniffled. “Sean enlisted in the Navy at eighteen, when I was fifteen. It was like he couldn’t get out of here fast enough. He’d talked about becoming a SEAL, but it didn’t work out that way. He became a Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewman, a Swick. He was so proud.”
“Of course he was. ‘Boat guys never quit’,” Kyle quoted the SWCC motto.
Kyle’s SEAL team had worked with SWCC crews several times. Swicks were the best-kept secret in the Navy. They were the boat teams who did insertions and extractions of SEALs, and the guys who SEALs in a jam called for backup. They were tough and committed as any team and they knew their shit. “Your brother must have been a badass, babe, no doubt.”
Arden nodded. “Maybe I’m just a smidge biased, but he’s the toughest guy I know.” Arden actually smiled. “So, you can imagine how hard he can argue.”
“And you could go toe-to-toe with him seven days a week.” Kyle planted a kiss on the top of her head. She was still talking about Sean in present-tense and he’d let it go—for now.
She laughed a little. Kyle took it as a good sign. “When Mom and Dad died, I was in college working toward a degree in veterinary medicine. Dad wanted me to eventually take over his practice and I was all for it. I had my whole life planned out—I’d finish school, get a little place in Lyons, work with Dad, and eventually when he and Mom decided the ranch was too much, I’d buy out Sean’s share and take over, hopefully many, many years from now and with my own little family in tow. Sean was totally cool with that. He had no interest in managing the ranch. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that he always saw the ranch as a burden—for both of us. I had a choice of selling the ranch and staying in school, or dropping out and managing it. So, that’s what I did. And he always thought it was the wrong decision. He pushed for me to go back to school and become a vet but the time was never right and I never quite had the money. I took classes remotely one or two at a time and got a degree in social work instead, which lets me run the ranch as a therapeutic clinic.”
“That’s remarkable.”
She shrugged. “It was practical. But Sean always saw it as me not reaching my potential. And you can imagine he’s big on reaching one’s potential.” Kyle met her smile with one of his own. “So he channeled his frustration with me straight to the ranch. He visited less, tried to get me to visit him more in San Diego. I teased him about it. Hell, I even told Sean at the funeral, wow, you really go to some extremes not to help me out with the ranch, huh? But this is little too extreme even for you, Sean.” She stopped as a sob wracked her. Kyle stroked her hair and waited patiently for her to continue.
“The last time I talked to him on the phone, he was getting ready to deploy. He was pushing me to sell to Rick, to ‘get out from under the ranch’ as he put it, take the money, and go to school. Get a life. And that made me so mad. I told him we’d talk about it at Christmas face to face. And he said that if I wanted to talk to him face to face, I could come to San Diego to do it, that he’d refuse to come back to the ranch unless it was to help me pack. I told him he could take the whole of California and shove it up his stubborn ass. And that’s how we left things. He deployed and we never spoke again. I’m the worst sister ever.”
“Baby, no. Don’t say that. You loved your brother hard. That’s how you are. You love hard.”
The wind howled outside and threw a wall of snow at the house. The lights went out.
“Shit,” Arden said, startled. “That’s why I have a fuckton of wood chopped for the winter.”
“This happens a lot?”
She nodded. “Two or three times every winter. I’m surprised we kept the power on this long through the storms.”
Camo raised his head and looked around. Arden scratched his head. “It’s okay, boy, stand down. It’s just the storm.” She grinned. “Or just Nancy wandering around. Christmas is the time for ghosts.”
Kyle felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and it wasn’t at the thought of a Christmas ghost. He pulled out his phone and checked the app he’d installed right along with the new cameras. They were still capturing video, but without any light, they were damn-near useless. He’d do a patrol later.
“Hey!” Arden said. “Is that connected to my system?”
“Of course, babe. Best way for me to make sure everything’s secure. I’ve been checking it on and off all day.”
“Oh.” She bit her lip in thought. “I’m an idiot.”
“What?”
“It’s just. I thought you were checking for flights out of here all day. That you couldn’t wait to get away and take Camo with you.” She shook her head. “I didn’t want to bring it up until tomorrow. But that’s what I meant by nothing’s changed.”
And here it was. The truth they both didn’t want to face. Kyle set his phone aside. “When I first got here, I was so angry at you. You were a stranger with no connection to Camo, tomydog. That you were just being selfish and stubborn. Then I learned a little more about your circumstances, and my opinion changed. I thought you and your brother were fighting, that he was in the military, and you just needed Camo to get you through Christmas. I thought that right up until last evening, after we got back to the ranch.” Kyle breathed in and blew out his breath. “Time for my confession. When I learned Sean’s name, I had a buddy of mine from work look him up. I thought he was a SEAL, and I thought that if I could talk to him, I could convince him to call you at the very least and talk it out. That I could be a big hero, reunite you with your brother.”
“That’s actually very sweet.”
“No, it isn’t. It was selfish, and the wrong thing. Because I thought if I could do that, you’d just give up Camo and I could ride off into the sunset with him, guilt-free. It was self-serving, Arden, and I am so sorry.” He grimaced. “Babe, I already knew Sean was gone when you told me.”
He braced himself for her to kick him out. He’d go to the car, or maybe even to the Sanders’ place. But nothing would make him leave Colorado right now, not with Muir around threatening her, until that threat was neutralized—one way or another. It didn’t matter if she knew he was there or not; the important thing was to watch over Arden, to keep her safe, whatever sacrifice it took.
Arden sat with Kyle’s words for a few minutes. The house creaked and popped in the wind and the darkness, lit only by the bedroom fireplace. The sounds put Camo on-edge—he scanned the room, his ears lifted, which made Kyle uneasy.
Arden cleared her throat. “All this time I figured you must think I’m the most selfish woman in the world, not letting you have Camo back. And I was right—you did think that.”
“I did, but only at the beginning. I don’t feel that way now, especially knowing about Sean.”
“What do you know about his last mission? It was classified.”
“I just know that Sean was killed in action—”
