“I can do six months,” she said firmly.
Maybe longer. She’d like to stop needing to move around, but she’d have to see how things played out before making any promises.
Gabe slid the folder aside and extended his hand across the desk. “Welcome to Black Heart Tactical Training Facility, Zee.”
For the first time since she’d walked into the building, she allowed herself a small breath of relief.
Outside the wide window that took up most of the wall, the Wyoming mountains stretched out, more breathtaking—and intimidating—than anything she’d ever seen.
Maybe, just maybe, this place would give her the fresh start she’d been chasing.
She clasped Gabe’s hand and gave him a smile that felt more genuine than any she’d given in a long time.
After a few minutes of going over the particulars, Gabe walked her to the door and stepped aside to let her out into the hallway.
“HR will email the paperwork this afternoon. We’d like to get you set up before the first class arrives in a month.”
“Thank you.”
She stepped into the corridor and for a moment, she stood there, letting the quiet land around her. The building was empty,but in a few weeks the place would be crawling with soldiers and instructors. A life she’d once lived and breathed. And would again, at least for a while.
The echo of boots approaching from the far end of the hallway made her glance up.
A tall man rounded the corner, his broad shoulders filling the space like he owned every inch of it. His stride was purposeful—the walk she’d seen a thousand times on every base, and from her husband himself.
The man saw her and stopped short.
For a heartbeat neither of them moved.
Grant Upchurch.
The name slammed into her before she could even process the face of her husband’s commander.
Memories blasted upward without warning—the day Matt introduced her and Church. The undertone of respect in Church’s voice when he spoke to her. The rare evenings when the team gathered together like a family before another deployment pulled them away.
And the last time she’d seen Church…the look in his eyes when he saw her at the funeral.
Good memories and bad ones tangled together in a knot that stuck in her chest.
He stared at her like he wasn’t quite sure she was real either. But beneath the shock in his expression was the glimmer that came from recognizing an old friend, and being happy to see them.
“Zee.”
He only said her name but the sound of it carried the gravity of everything that had happened since the last time they stood face-to-face.
And just like that, the past didn’t feel as far behind her as she’d thought.
Chapter Two
Church stepped through the front doors of the training facility, slowing as he passed the glass wall of the administration office. It wasn’t going to be easy to get used to seeing her here.
Zee Davis stood inside Gabe’s office, leaning over the desk with a stack of folders spread out in front of her. Her chestnut hair framed her face in soft waves, deep brown with threads of reddish warmth that glinted when the sunlight hit them.
She pointed to the paperwork. Church stopped for half a second, trapped in time and drowning in memories.
She’d been here exactly two days and somehow she already looked like she belonged—handling paperwork as if she’d been running the place for months. But of all the people he expected to see in the training facility, Zee never made the list.
“How the hell did you end up here?” he murmured under his breath.
