Page 59 of Grumpy Ex-Military Brewmaster’s Secret

"I've been thinking a lot lately about what I actually want," he says slowly. "I don't think I've ever said it out loud to anyone. Not even to myself, not really. But I want to say it to you tonight. I don't want to keep sitting on it."

"Okay." My heart's doing something complicated in my chest, half anticipation, half a kind of careful hope I'm almost afraid to let all the way in. "I'm listening."

"You should know I'm not just here for the easy parts. The holidays, the good days, days like today." He takes my hand and threads his fingers through mine, holding on tighter than the moment strictly calls for. "I want the whole thing. I want to be the guy who's here for all of it, every version of this family, not just the parts that are simple to love."

A sound cracks through the quiet from down the hall, high and thin and unmistakable, Josie's voice pitching up fast into something close to a wail, and Rafe's on his feet before I've fully processed what I heard, moving through the living room with the same instant, unthinking speed I've watched him move with before, no hesitation in it at all.

"Stay," he says, not unkindly, already halfway to the hall. "I've got her."

I follow anyway, a few steps behind, and by the time I reach Josie's doorway he's already sitting on the edge of her bed, gathering her against his chest while she cries into his shirt in short, hiccupping bursts, still half tangled in the nightmare she hasn't fully surfaced from yet.

"Hey. Hey, I'm right here." His voice has dropped into something low and steady, the same register he must have used a hundred times on men twice her size in situations far worse than this one, and it works on her exactly the way it works on everyone, a calm underneath the words that just says you're safe now, no explanation needed. "You're okay. Whatever it was, it's not real anymore. I promise you that."

"There was a storm," she manages, muffled against him. "And you and Mom couldn't find us. Me and Eli were lost and you couldn't find us anywhere."

"I would find you." He doesn't hesitate over it, just keeps rubbing slow circles against her back like the answer's the easiest thing he's said all day. "I'd find you in any storm there is. That's not something you ever have to worry about, not with me around."

"Promise?"

"Promise." He presses a kiss to the top of her head, still rocking her gently, patient like none of this needs rehearsing, like comforting a frightened kid at midnight is just one more thing he knows exactly how to do without having to think about it first. "I'm not going anywhere. Not in a storm, not any other day either."

I stand in the doorway watching him hold my daughter through the last of her tears, his whole attention narrowed down to keeping her steady, and something in me comes undone quietly, the same way it did the first time I watched him get down on his knees for these kids and mean it.

Whatever he was about to say by the fire, it'll keep. This, right here, already answers something I didn't know I was still asking.

Josie's breathing evens out slowly against his shoulder, and I lean against the doorframe and let myself watch it happen, in no hurry at all to interrupt him finishing what he started.

28

RAFE

Pinewood Ridge does New Year's Eve the way it does everything else, small and stubborn and entirely pleased with itself. The town square's strung with lights that have survived four different administrations without ever being replaced, there's a bonfire going in the gravel lot behind the gazebo that Gunny helped build and refuses to take credit for, and somewhere near the courthouse steps Dot Higgins has set up a folding table with a hand-painted countdown clock that's been running four minutes fast every year since before I moved here, on principle, because she claims the real countdown is for people who don't know how to have fun on their own schedule.

"It's eleven fifty-six," Josie announces, squinting at Dot's clock from twenty feet away. "But it's actually eleven fifty-two."

"Dot doesn't care what time it actually is," I tell her. "That's the whole point."

"That seems like cheating."

"You'd think. Ask me again in four minutes."

I've got a cup of cider going cold in my hand and a mind that won't sit still, no matter how many times I try to bring it back to the bonfire in front of me. The twins are darting between neighbors with sparklers Gunny definitely shouldn't have handed them, and Jenna's a few feet away laughing at something Maggie's saying. Three days from now I'll be on a plane I haven't told anyone about, flying to a conversation I've been avoiding for six years, and no amount of hot cider is doing much to quiet the part of my head already rehearsing words I don't have yet.

"You're doing it again," Jenna says, appearing at my elbow with her own cup, steam curling up between us.

"Doing what?"

"Going somewhere else. You've done it three times since we got here." She bumps her shoulder against mine, gentle, no accusation in it. "Dot cornered you about the brewery's New Year specials for a full five minutes and I don't think you heard a word of it."

"I heard enough to nod at the right times."

"That's not the same as hearing it." She studies me for a second, the fire painting moving light across her face, and there's a question sitting behind her eyes that she's clearly deciding whether to ask outright. "Is everything okay?"

I could give her the easy answer. I've gotten good at the easy answer over the years, the one that closes a door without slamming it, and some old, practiced part of me reaches for it automatically. But she's not just anyone standing here asking, and I owe her more than the reflex, even if I can't give her all of it yet.

"I've got an old obligation I need to take care of," I say slowly, picking each word like it might cost me something if I get it wrong. "Out of state. I'm flying out in a few days."

"Okay." She doesn't flinch, doesn't press, just waits with the same patient stillness she gave me the night on the ranch road, like she already knows there's more to it and has decided the more can wait until I'm ready to hand it over. "Work thing?"