* * * * *
Zee didn’t know how it happened. One minute she was sitting there, crushing crumbs of her breakfast with her fork. The next, a toddler was sitting in her lap and the little girl’s mother was introducing herself.
“It looks like you’re Navy’s next victim.” The woman, sensationally pretty and radiating happiness, took the chair that Church had abandoned.
Zee looked down at the little girl sporting two tiny pigtails and the biggest gray eyes she’d ever seen. “Um…hi, Navy.”
The child reached for Zee’s untouched muffin on her plate.
“I’m Rhae Malone. Denver’s wife. You’re Zee?”
Surprised, she nodded.
“And Navy likes to beg for food off everyone’s plate like a puppy. She loves the muffins.”
“She’s welcome to it. If that’s all right with you.” She smiled at Rhae.
Rhae reached for the muffin. “May I?”
Zee pushed the plate her direction, and Rhae broke a small piece off the muffin. Navy closed her fingers gently around the confection, making it apparent she’d devoured enough of them to know that squeezing hard would crush it.
She shoved the entire thing in her mouth, eyes lighting as she chewed the bite.
Zee laughed at the sight of the girl’s cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk’s. “She’s beautiful.” Her heart flexed as she remembered the times she and Matt talked about kids. And though she’d worked through all these things over the course of three years, suddenly, it all felt fresh again.
“Hey.” Rhae’s murmur made her look up, and she realized her eyes were blurred with tears.
She held them at bay. “Sorry. It’s just that…”
“You can talk to me freely if you’d like. I’m a therapist here in the program.”
Even if she hadn’t told her, Zee felt pulled to this woman as if they’d been friends forever.
She told her she was working at the training facility, and also with Church on a job for the security team. Then she shared a little about Matt.
Rhae’s eyes glittered with her own trace of tears. “Sorry. It’s just…I understand more than you can believe. I was with Denver before I came here. He was ghost ops. So deep that he was dead to the world. Even his family.”
Zee was in awe of this woman’s strength.
“I got pregnant but I knew he couldn’t be with me. I came here with Navy to raise her around his family. Then he returned, and well…” She cradled the small bump of her stomach and a second child growing there.
Zee smiled through her tears. “I’m so happy for your family. It brings me…hope that I can be happy too.”
Navy wiggled in her lap, and she set the child on her feet. She took off running across the room, arms wide and pigtails bouncing. “Pope! Pope! Uppie!”
A man swooped her up and cradled her in his arm.
Rhae watched with a soft smile. “That’s Vander Pope. A resident in the program. And one of Navy’s favorites because he takes her to see the horses.”
Pope approached Rhae. “Looks like she found me. Mind if I take her outside?”
“Not at all. I’m going to give Zee a little tour of the ranch.” She turned to look at Zee. “If you’re up for it?”
Zee nodded. “I don’t have very much time before Church and I have to go to the movie set.”
Rhae nodded. “I promise to get you back in time.”
She looked at Pope. “I’ll swing by the paddock and get Navy. Listen to Pope, Navy.”
