Adam

  Drenched in sweat, dressed in only running shoes and shorts, I quietly stepped out of the south Florida humidity as I crossed the threshold of the front door and walked into the cool air conditioning.

  Aiming directly for the kitchen, I grabbed a glass off the drainboard and filled it with tap water.

  I was downing my second glass when I heard her light footsteps.

  “You went for a run?” Her voice sleep-rough and hoarse, she asked the question without any intonation.

  I turned.

  My gaze landing on her, I took in every detail in a nanosecond.

  Sleep shorts, long legs, mussed hair, tank top, no bra.

  Christ, no bra.

  “I did.” Turning, I filled my glass again.

  “Ten miles?” she asked, almost casually as she moved toward the coffee maker.

  “Seven.” It was hot as fuck this morning and I’d gotten a late start. I didn’t want to be gone when she woke up. She’d have to deal with that soon enough.

  “Why?” She measured grounds into the filter.

  “Why what?”

  “Why only seven miles?” She took the coffee pot to the fridge and filled it with filtered water.

  “Seven’s not enough?”

  “You usually run ten.” She bent slightly as she poured the water, looking into the coffee maker’s reservoir.

  Fuck me, I stared at her ass. “How do you know how far I run?”

  “How do you know grilled cheese sandwiches are my favorite?” She put the pot under the filter, set the coffee maker to brew and turned toward me. “How do we know anything about each other?”

  I didn’t answer, I watched her cross her arms.

  “I know you as well as I know Billy.” She looked at me with the same sad eyes as her brother. “You’re my second.”

  “Second?” I stupidly asked, wondering when the last time I’d had a conversation with a woman my own age was.

  She nodded. “Second brother.”

  In that moment, I didn’t want to be her brother. “I only ran seven because I woke up later than I expected.”

  Inhaling and dropping her head as if she suddenly remembered what today was, she nodded.

  “What would you like for breakfast?” Zulu had done a grocery run yesterday and we had more bacon than all of us could eat in a week.

  “You’re going to cook?”

  I nodded but her head was still down and she couldn’t see me. “Yeah.”

  “Then nothing.” She looked up at me. “Until you go shower.”

  If it was any other day, I would’ve smiled at her and hoped like hell I got her smile in return. Because that was what was missing.

  Her smile.

  The smile I’d grown addicted to since the first time I saw it twelve years ago.

  Swearing to myself that I would make her smile again one day, I set my glass in the sink. “Decide what you want. I’ll make it after I clean up.” I turned toward the stairs.

  “Adam?”

  I glanced over my shoulder.

  Looking small as fuck and like she needed me to protect her from everything this world could dish out, she held my gaze for a moment.

  Then she whispered two words I didn’t deserve. “Thank you.”

  With a clipped nod, I took the stairs two at a time.

  As I reached the bathroom, Billy came out of his room and glanced at me. “You go running without me?”

  “Didn’t want to wake you.”

  He glanced across the hall at Emmy’s open door. “She up?”

  I tipped my chin then shifted my gaze. For the first time, I didn’t want to talk about her with him. “Yeah.”

  “Zulu?”

  “As far as I know, he’s still asleep in the study downstairs.” I’d given Zulu the pullout couch in the Vice Admiral’s study and I’d taken the sofa in the living room. I normally didn’t give a damn where I slept. Most places were nicer than the shit accommodations I’d dealt with the first sixteen years of my life. And after BUD/S, I’d learned to sleep standing up if I needed to check out for a few. But this trip, with everything going on, with all of us in the house, I hadn’t given Zulu the study because I was being generous.

  I’d taken the sofa because the living room was directly under her bedroom. If she got up in the middle of the night, I’d hear her.

  And if I heard her, I was going to be there for her.

  As if sensing my thoughts, Billy’s gaze zeroed in on me. “How’s Emmy this morning?”

  Barely glancing at him, I toed off my running shoes. “In the kitchen making coffee.”

  “Why aren’t you looking at me?”

  My jaw ticked and I met his gaze directly. “Taking my shoes off, Bravo. That’s all.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You never call me Bravo.”

  I did in the field. Always. Just like he called me Alpha. “I’m hitting the shower. I’ll make breakfast when I’m done.” I walked into the bathroom, but before I could close the door, he stopped me in my tracks.

  “Don’t walk around shirtless in front of my sister anymore.”

  “Copy that.” Making him a promise I didn’t know if I could keep, I shut the bathroom door.

  Adam

  Billy stood at the front door, saying goodbye to the last guests to finally fucking leave. The funeral had been packed, but all the people that’d come to the house with food afterward had felt even more crowded.

  Dishes littering every square inch of counter space in the kitchen and dining room, I didn’t know what the fuck we would do with it all.

  Shutting the front door, Billy leaned back against it like he needed the support. “Zulu gone?”

  “Yeah.” Lieutenant Commander Davis, Zane, and all our teammates had left directly after the service because we were being spun up earlier than we thought. The Lieutenant did what he could for me and Billy to delay, but even that didn’t buy us much more time. We had to report back tomorrow by eighteen-hundred hours. After that, we were wheels up for what Davis promised would be a long deployment.

  Staring at the open door to the Vice Admiral’s study, Billy exhaled. “Where’s Emmy?”

  “Kitchen. I’ll start the clean-up.”

  With barely a nod, Billy pushed off the door and went into his father’s study. A second later, he came out with a bottle of Jack. Aiming for the back door, he disappeared into the backyard without a word.

  Walking into the kitchen, I quickly scanned the mess, but then my gaze fell on the blonde-haired, emerald-eyed young woman who’d been quiet and composed throughout the entire day.

  Her black dress hugging every curve, her heels making her inches taller, she stood in the middle of the kitchen and took in all the dishes of food. Even with dark circles under her eyes and grief weighing down her expression, she was beautiful.

  So goddamn beautiful.

  Before I could stop it, her real name, not her nickname, was coming out of my mouth with a tone of dominance I had no fucking business using on her. “Maila.”

  Her gaze met mine and for a split second, every damn thing in the world suspended.

  Then she burst into tears.

  I didn’t think.

  I was on her faster than I had a right to be, pulling her into my arms and holding her so goddamn tight, I never wanted to let go.

  Kissing the top of her head, I fed her bullshit lies. “Shh, it’s okay. I’m here. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  She cried harder, and the place in my chest reserved only for her fucking fractured.

  “I got you.” I kissed her soft hair again as an unfamiliar perfume I’d never smelled on her ghosted around me. The scent, warm and exotic, fucked with my head and went straight to my dick. “It’s okay, baby.” My hand ran down her long hair before settling on the small of her back and rubbing tight circles. I held her closer. “Shh, I got you. You’re going to be okay.”

  “How?” she cried. “How did this happen? How do I do this?” Her tears soaked my dress blues.

  “You’re not alone. I will always be here for you, Maila. Always.”

  Her tears turned into gut-wrenching sobs. “But you’re going back.”

  Her tears destroying me, the desolation in her voice killing me, I gripped the sides of her face. Before I knew what I was doing, I was looking into her eyes like I wasn’t a second brother to her. My heart rate going fucking rogue, I stared at her like she was mine.

  Then the reality of the moment hit me and for the first time since I’d enlisted, I wondered what the hell I was doing.

  This woman, this girl, she didn’t need a Navy SEAL.

  She didn’t need a deployed brother.

  And she sure as hell didn’t need a father who was now buried next to her mother.

  She needed someone who would be there for her.

  Lost in her eyes, experiencing a weight on my chest I didn’t know how to breathe through, I opened my fucking mouth. “Maila Marie Nilsen, I’m making you a promise.”

  Her entire body flinched. “Don’t you dare go down that road with me, Adam.” She wrenched out of my grip. “Do not make me promises.” She swiped at her face. “Don’t do it. Not now, not ever. As long as you wear that uniform, we both know what this is.” Making an about-face, she walked out of the kitchen, but before she disappeared around the corner, she looked over her shoulder at me and made a mockery of everything I’d ever thought about bravery. “Serve your country, Adam. Honor that Trident, and keep you and my brother safe.”

  I was still standing in the middle of the kitchen when her bedroom door upstairs slammed shut.

  A second later, her muffled crying drifted down from the second floor.

  My hands fisted, my jaw ticked and I fought from taking the stairs two at a time, but she was right. I never should’ve opened my mouth.

  She deserved better.

  Better than any empty promise I could give her while I wore the uniform.

  Shoving down impotent rage and my own selfish feelings of loss, I did what I had to do. What I always fucking did.

  I took my jacket off, rolled up my sleeves and I fucking pushed through.

  Emmy

  Unable to stop the tears, I tried to muffle my cries into my pillow, but that only made his scent stronger.

  Even in his dress blues, Adam’s masculine scent smelled like the cold wind of unattainable dreams and the sharp angles of stoic disconnectedness.

  Cold wind and sharp angles.

  That was Adam.

  My Adam.

  Except he wasn’t my anything.

  He was a Navy SEAL and my brother’s best friend. Not to mention Daddy had taken Adam in the second he’d laid eyes on him like Daddy knew the boy with the worn-through sneakers and a stark look in his eyes needed us.

  But I’d never thought Adam needed us.

  Instead, I’d always thought we needed him.

  I needed him.

  Because the moment he walked into our house twelve years ago, it felt like the pieces of a puzzle had fallen together.

  Then Adam had grown into a man so handsome and so austere that my heart never had a chance. I knew I was only seventeen and he was twenty-eight, and I shouldn’t be thinking about his arms around me in the kitchen just now.

  But I was.

  Lord save me, I was. And I was doing it on the very day of Daddy’s funeral. I was also selfishly thinking that I didn’t want Billy or Adam to go back. I wanted to hold on to both of them forever, and never have them on the front lines again, but I knew how this life worked. I’d been painfully aware my whole life how the Navy worked.

  You didn’t serve without honor.

  To ask my own brother, let alone Adam, to leave that service, that commitment they’d each made—I might as well ask them to commit treason.

  I couldn’t do it.

  I wouldn’t do it.

  I had to be brave.

  Daddy had always told me this day would come. That I would eventually be without him. He’d told me that I’d have to be strong when that happened, and stand proud on my own two feet knowing my father had lived a life of purpose. Except Daddy had always implied his end would come while he was in service to our country. He made it sound like he’d go down in a blaze of glory for the very freedom Billy and I had had our whole lives. He’d always said there was no greater sacrifice a man could make.

  Except that didn’t happen.

  Daddy deserved more than the indignity of collapsing and never waking up. But I couldn’t change what was any more than I could stop my heart from breaking.

  Both Mama and Daddy were gone now, and all I could do was pray they were together.

  But I wanted to pray for more than that.

  I wanted to pray that the stoic man downstairs who wore a Trident and had Mediterranean blue eyes would wake up tomorrow and decide not to go back to the very place that had made him a man.

  I wanted to pray he would stay.

  For me.

  But I knew Adam would no more stay than my own brother would.

  A fresh wave of tears shook me and I held the pillow tighter as I tried to ignore the real truth.

  Even if Adam did try to stay, I wouldn’t let him.

  That same sense of duty and honor that had been ingrained into them by Daddy had also been ingrained into me.

  I couldn’t live with myself if I was the reason why Adam walked away from the Teams.

  Adam

  I didn’t sleep and neither did she.

  With dark circles under her eyes, she stood on the driveway barefoot. Her shorts showing every inch of her long, toned legs, she crossed her arms protectively around herself and glanced at my rental before looking at her brother. “You’ll call when you get to Virginia Beach?”

  Billy threw his bag in the backseat of the rental, then he reached for her. “Of course.” Holding her close, he swayed with her in his arms. “I always call.” He kissed the top of her head. “You know that.”

  “Every week,” she replied, either agreeing with him or making sure he followed through on his promise.

  “You know it.” Billy held her tighter as I glanced at my watch.

  Her voice small and quiet, Emmy turned her face into her brother’s chest. “This next deployment’s going to be a long one.”

  Looking over her, Billy met my gaze and lifted an eyebrow.

  I shook my head once. I hadn’t told her anything about our next assignment.

  Billy rubbed his hand over her back. “It’s just another deployment, Emmy. Nothing different than all the rest,” he lied.

  Pulling out of his arms, she leaned away from him with a knowing look. “Don’t lie to me. Before he passed, Daddy told me what’s going on. This isn’t like all the other deployments. You’re going to be gone for a long time, maybe a year. You probably won’t even make it to my graduation.”

  “Of course I will.” Placating her, Billy reached for his sister to hug her again.

  Emmy stepped back and her finger came out as she pointed at Billy’s chest. “I know you’re going to be gone for a while this time, and no, Daddy didn’t tell me any more than that. So you don’t need to freak out about anything.”

  I didn’t know whether I was more fucking appalled that the Vice Admiral had given her classified intel or fucking grateful that I was seeing something besides grief in her eyes.

  Billy’s hands went to his hips. “When it comes to you, I’ll freak out about whatever the hell I want to freak out about. And for the record, Dad didn’t have any more intel on whatever the Navy has planned for us next than our own O-I-C. So whatever you think you know, or don’t know, about what’s coming, forget it. We’re just door kickers, Emmy. That’s our job. We may be the tip of the spear, but even we don’t always get advance notice of what we’re doing. We go where we’re aimed.”

  “Billy,” she stated like she knew he was full of it.

  “Calm in the chaos.” Billy kept going like she hadn’t said anything. “Eliminating targets and doing our duty.” He leaned down and kissed her temple. “Making the world a better place by keeping you safe.”

  Letting out a heavy sigh, she shook her head. Then she surprised me. Instead of giving him shit, she put her arms around him and hugged him one more time. “Doing your duty,” she agreed. “Never betray the Trident.”

  Muted by circumstance, Billy smiled. The first smile I’d seen on him in days. “You know it, sis.” He touched his lips to the top of her head. “Just serving the country I love.”

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  “Love you back, sis.” Roaring as he held her tight, he then released her and tipped his chin in my director. “Give Alpha some love. We gotta go.”

  As natural as if she belonged to me, she stepped into my embrace.

  The warm sun on her skin, the scent of her strawberry shampoo, the faint hint of the perfume she’d worn yesterday—she smelled like home.

  My home.

  “You be safe,” she whispered, burrowed against my chest like she could stay there forever.

  Emotions I didn’t allow surfaced, and I had to choke them down. Lowering my voice, I asked a stupid fucking question that didn’t have an answer, but one I wanted a reply to anyway. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “If I’m not, I’ll just call you.”

  Relief I had no right to feel, swamped me. “You better.”

  “I will.” Her arms tightened around me but then she let go and put distance between us. “No goodbyes.” She crossed her arms protectively around herself again. “You both know I hate them.”

  “No goodbyes,” Billy echoed as he got in the rental.

  I waited until I heard the car door shut. “Promise me,” I demanded.

  Her pretty emerald-eyed gaze held me captive for a full beat. But then she nodded and whispered the words I selfishly needed to hear. “I promise.”

  Taking in every inch of her in a single glance and committing it to memory, I nodded once and got behind the wheel. Still staring at her, I turned the engine over, but then I forced myself to look away as I put the car in gear.

  Leaning back in his seat, Billy watched his sister stand in the driveway while I pulled away. When I turned the corner and he couldn’t see her anymore, his gaze cut to me. “We’re gonna be gone for a year.”

 

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