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She frowned. “You work too much.”
I grinned at her.
Right back to telling me what I should and shouldn’t do, and we’d only been in each other’s presence for a little over three minutes.
“Are you here for good?” I asked, setting her back on her feet.
She nodded and led me over to a tree that had been recently cut down.
“Did you do this?” I asked worriedly, staring at the large sections of wood and the chainsaw that was on the ground beside the pieces.
She shook her head, the movement revealing a large amount of red, blue, and purple in her hair.
“No,” she said, nodding her head to the barn door. “The boys are home with me.”
“So you’ve moved into the loft with your brothers?” I clarified.
She grinned. “Yeah, we’ve been staying together, on and off, for the last year or so since their adoptive parents died; their real children never really got along with the boys, so we decided it was time to come home.”
She looked good, really good.
“And you’re okay…with being here?” I confirmed.
She pursed her lips and looked down at her hands. “Yes…no. I don’t know yet. We’ve got a mobile home coming tomorrow. I don’t plan on staying in the loft, or Granny’s old place on the back of the property. I don’t think I can. But the boys…they were younger. They don’t remember as much as I do.”
“If you ever need a place to stay, I’m right down the road. You know that, right?” I asked her.
She nodded, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears at my announcement.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I’m scared to be here,” she admitted.
My eyes didn’t leave her face for long moments as I stared at her, ascertaining her feelings.
“Have you spoken with anyone?” I asked quietly.
All of these questions were burning on the tip of my tongue. So many things I wanted to know.
She nodded. “Yeah. I haven’t told them exactly what happened, but I have given them the gist. They say I have a mild form of PTSD. One that doesn’t really make itself known until it’s the dark of night. I usually can circumvent any flare ups by leaving lights on, and making sure I can leave a door open…or see the outside.” Once she said that, she frowned. “Why is it, after eight years of not seeing you, you can still get me to talk? That’s really…really not fair.”
I grinned. “Maybe, if you ever come out to dinner with me like you promised you would, we can compare notes on PTSD. ‘Cause, in all honesty, I have enough PTSD to share with just about everyone in the Kilgore area and still have some to spare.
She looked down at her hands. “I’m not the same girl, Diablo.”
I snorted. “I’m not the same man, niña.”
She shot me a quelling look. “I’m not a child.”
I laughed, remembering how much she hated being called that when she was younger, too.
“Why do you think I kept calling you that then?” I asked.
She didn’t get the chance to answer because my pager went off.
A-fucking-gain.
“Jesus Christ,” I hissed, pulling it off my belt loop.
She looked at me worriedly.
911.
“Fuck,” I hissed. “I gotta go. Call me in the morning, niña. I have a present for you.”
Without waiting for a response, I started running down the driveway, making it down the half mile dirt road in less than two and half minutes.
Not bad for jeans and boots.
The last thing I saw as I pulled out of the driveway was Georgia standing at the top of the hill with a huge grin on her face.
She waved when I held my hand out of the window, and I couldn’t help the stupid little grin that stayed on my face the entire way to the station.
It was also there when I came into the station and walked to the back room where the SWAT team usually met.
I was the last to arrive, the others having been there like I was supposed to be but wasn’t.
Once I arrived, Luke, our boss and leader of the SWAT team, started talking.
“Alright, boys. We have a hostage situation at the Kwik Stop. Man with a gun is holding two older men hostage, as well as the teenage clerk,” Luke said, wasting no time getting down to business.
That was the good thing about Luke, he knew how to handle his shit, and I valued that in a man.
He outlined what we were going to do when we got there, and we were released to get dressed.
It was as I was slipping the Kevlar vest over my chest that Bennett, my best friend, walked up to the locker beside me and shot me a sideways glance.
“The men are talking,” he said as he stripped his shirt off and replaced it with the department issued black one.
I shrugged.
He grinned, “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
I shrugged again. “No.”
He sighed and finished dressing while I sat down and re-laced my boots.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile, man,” Michael, another member of the SWAT team, said from the bench in front of me.
He was lacing up his boots as well, but his eyes were on me and not what he was doing.
I shrugged again. “That’s too bad.”
He grinned, but I just stared at him blankly.
He didn’t take it personally, though. That was just how I was.
My family had me unconditionally, but it took me a while to warm up to people after my stint in the Navy. Michael, and the other men on my team, as well as two other men in this world, would always have my back. If I was being honest, I knew they were curious about me.
I wasn’t one to share my feelings with others, though.
I was a private man and had been so my whole life.
It was hard to keep anything private in a family of eight, but I somehow managed it.
It also showed in my everyday life when I didn’t let people in, being let down one too many times to truly rely on anyone.
