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The reminder that I had been and still was lying to my fathers was like a punch to the gut. I knew what Zach was telling me without actually saying it. “I’ll tell them when I go home for the Fourth. I’ll tell them everything.” I hesitated as my eyes roamed up and down Zach’s gorgeous body. I could still feel the weight of it as he pressed me into the mattress…
“Okay, not everything,” I amended with a grin.
Zach chuckled.
The man actually chuckled.
“I appreciate that. I’ve seen some scary shit in my time, but no training in the world could prepare me for the Lucky Reed Protection Detail. My brother’s scary-ass little dog alone would have me running for the hills.”
I felt all warm and gooey inside as Zach joked with me. I hadn’t thought about the consequences of inadvertently bringing up the fact that we’d had sex, but Zach hadn’t gone all dark and broody like I would have thought.
I met Zach’s eyes and tried not to see more in them than friendship.
“Thank you,” I said softly. I hoped he knew that I was thanking him for so much more than just listening to the crappy story that was my past. I had my answer when Zach nodded briefly and then reached out to brush his finger over my cheek for the quickest of seconds.
We let the silence fall again. Birds swooped down over the water and fat bees buzzed in a nearby flower. The sun dappled through the trees at our backs to set off faint shadows on the water in front of us.
“They rescued you,” Zach said at last. “Xander and Bennett.”
I glanced back up at him, not quite sure what his point was. “Yes.”
He barked out a laugh, jolting me into a half-jump where I sat. “You’re dedicating your life to rescuing others.”
It was a connection I’d made before, albeit reluctantly. “And, what? That’s a bad thing? What’s your point?” I asked, trying not to feel like he was laughing at me.
“I’m a search and rescue specialist too. I joined the Rangers and asked for special SAR training in addition to flight training.”
I looked at him in confusion. “Yeah, so?”
He turned to look at me, his green-brown eyes meeting mine with their usual intensity. “I searched for Jake and never found him. After that, I made it my life’s mission to search for people, Lucky.”
I finally made the connection. “You’re saying we’re a product of our own experiences. I’m not sure that’s such a big surprise.”
And, honestly, it made me feel a little stupid. As if I was somehow working out my childhood issues with some kind of misplaced rescue complex.
“No,” he said, still holding on to my arm. “It shouldn’t be, maybe, but it is to me. I never realized what drove me to it until I made the connection with your situation. I’m laughing at myself, not you.”
Zach laughed again and leaned back on the pebbled shore, crossing his hands behind his head. “I actually think that’s a good thing, Lucky. It means we have a personal connection to this work. We know the value of never giving up on saving someone.” He looked over at me and I lay down next to him so I didn’t have to crane my neck. “It means we’re exactly where we should be, doing the work we’re meant to do.”
Zach’s words were softer and his eyes carried a familiar affection I’d seen him give Jake before when praising him on his medical work. I let out a breath. “Yeah. That explains why it feels so right.”
“But that’s also the reason you need to tell them,” he said gently.
I looked up at the rich blue of the sky and traced the crisscross pattern of fading white contrails. This same sky had been my loyal companion since I’d moved west with Xander and Bennett. I’d spent countless hours in the cool green grass of our yard, looking up into the vast expanse and thinking about everything from the meaning of life to the reason Levi Katz wouldn’t flirt back with me in AP calculus class even though everyone knew he was into guys.
The morning we’d gotten the news the gestational carrier was having twins, the three of us had raced outside and danced under the same sky in our pajamas. The evening I’d gotten my acceptance letter to the University of Montana, we’d walked Bear in the thick snow and gazed up at the clear pinpoints of stars blazing across the winter night sky.
Even my very first kiss, with a boy named Calvin on our backpacking trip, had happened here in the Rockies, with the steady blue of the clear western sky overhead.
“I love it here,” I said. “I never want to leave the Rockies. It’s like… the sky is huge and it makes me feel small. But at the same time, it…” I let out a chuckle. “It makes me feel powerful. Energized. I know that sounds weird.”
