Total pages in book: 25
Estimated words: 23289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 116(@200wpm)___ 93(@250wpm)___ 78(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 23289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 116(@200wpm)___ 93(@250wpm)___ 78(@300wpm)
I cup his face, lifting it so that he’s looking into my eyes. “I’m sorry that things were so dark for you.”
“My last mission had gone sideways. I thought the darkness would always be with me. It felt like it was swallowing me whole, eating me from the inside out. I thought the only way to make the pain stop was to end things. Then Rogue showed up and stayed with me until I could see a psychiatrist. For seven months, he was my constant companion.”
“In my freshman year of high school, Dad went away for several months. Mom said that he was camping with his buddies. They never told me.” It makes sense that they didn’t. They were protecting Ace.
“He could’ve had me committed involuntarily, but that’s not like him. Instead, Rogue took me into the wilderness. He stayed with me. I was never alone for seven months. Even when it was time for the appointments, he always drove me. He watched over me.”
Admiration for my dad only grows. I’ve always known that he’s loyal. He never missed one of my mom’s cancer treatments. He was there at every appointment, her constant rock. It sounds like he was the same for Ace. I can’t imagine the strength it must have taken him to share all of this with me today. “You were so brave.”
“I don’t feel very brave,” he admits in a broken whisper. “I feel like I’m a coward. Every day, the shame is there. Rogue went through the same stuff, and he didn’t fuckin’ crack up. I told you. My brain broke.”
I take my face in his hands. I wish I could make him see himself through my eyes. “You are not broken. You are a warrior. You fought back against a cruel institution when you were a kid. You fought through a war when you were a soldier. Now you’re fighting against the demons in your head. I think that takes a special kind of bravery.”
There’s a sheen of tears in his eyes before he blinks it away. He lets out a shaky breath. “What happened tonight wasn’t your fault. I don’t want you to blame yourself for a second. He’s mad at me, for scaring him.”
I nod and put my head on his chest. It’s not the way I wanted my dad to find out, but it’s done now. We won’t get a second chance to introduce him to the idea of us. The thought reminds me of what Ace said when my dad first showed up. “Did you mean what you said, about me being your future wife?”
He rubs a slow circle on my back. “Yeah, I did. If you’ll still have me.”
I glance up at him, his beard ruffling the top of my head. “I’ll always want you. No matter what.”
He brushes a kiss across my forehead before I settle back against his chest. My voice is muffled by his t-shirt when I ask the question, “What are we going to do if he doesn’t forgive us?”
Ace
Two days. It’s been two days since Rogue showed up and caused a scene. Two days now she’s worried the relationship between them has been permanently destroyed.
I keep reassuring her that he’ll come around, but I can’t sit by and see her in pain, so it’s time to deal with this. Even if Rogue—the man who’s been my brother—hates me forever, I have to go to him. He’s not going to hurt Mackenzie. I won’t let anyone do that on my watch.
She’s busy at the hardware store today which makes this the perfect time to talk with him. I check his cabin, but he’s not there. He’s not on any of his usual handyman projects. That only leaves one last place he would go, and that’s the lake.
I drive the long, winding route to the spot where Rogue likes to go when he needs to clear his head. Sure enough, I find him on the dock with a fishing pole in his hand.
He’s staring out at the water. His brow is furrowed, trying to make sense of everything. I don’t know if I can fix what I broke between us. But I’ll fix what’s going on with him and Mackenzie. No one gets to make my girl cry.
“Wondered when you’d get here,” Rogue says as I approach the dock. He probably heard my truck coming from a mile away. All that time spent in recon means Rogue is a man who knows how to sense even the slightest change in his environment. It’s a skill that’s kept both of us alive more times than I can count.
I take a seat beside him on the dock. Shit, I remember doing this since the time we were little things, angry at the world with no one to watch our backs but each other. “You don’t have to forgive me.”