Page 17 of Rangers Last Promise

The anger drains out of me so fast my knees threaten to buckle.

“What?”

“She came to the tavern the day after we opened,” Wolf says. “She told us she knew exactly who we were. Then she asked us to stay away from you.”

I stare at him.

“Why would she do that?”

“She didn’t want the war coming back into your life.”

“The war never left our lives.”

“I told her that.”

“But you still agreed.”

Wolf’s expression softens.

“She’d already buried her son and your father. I wasn’t going to ignore what she believed was necessary to protect her daughter.”

I turn toward Trigger. “Did she speak to you too?”

He nods. “She asked me not to tell you anything about Grant’s final deployment.”

“You could have refused.”

“I almost did.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because she was terrified.”

The answer silences me.

My mother was the strongest woman I knew. Even after Dad died, she kept going. She never missed church. Never forgot a birthday. Never allowed grief to stop her from taking care of everyone around her.

But Grant’s death changed her.

After the funeral, she removed every photograph of him in uniform from the house. She stopped watching the news. If anyone mentioned Afghanistan, she found a reason to leave the room.

I believed it was grief.

Now I wonder how much of it was fear.

I look down at the journal clutched against my chest.

Mom hid it in a locked cedar chest. She placed Grant’s Army bag beneath her wedding dress and buried the key under a dresser drawer.

She didn’t destroy the journal.

But she made sure I wouldn’t find it while she was alive.

I turn to Sheriff Tate.