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“What are you boys doing here?” she asked as she finally released him and then shook her head with a laugh before he could ask why she hadn’t predicted it. “Never mind. I don’t care! I’m happy to see you. You must be Rowe.”
She moved down the line to give his brother the same engulfing hug, remarking how much he looked like Caleb, a falsehood that Rowe took with good grace. The scar down the side of his left cheek wasn’t completely covered by his full beard, but she seemed not to notice it. His brother had never mentioned what kinds of things he wrote to Serenity in his own letters, so Caleb had no idea if she knew he’d lost most of the hearing in his left ear. Rowe didn’t talk about it, so neither did Caleb.
Serenity moved on like a whirlwind determined to scoop up all five men in record time.
“I’d know you anywhere, Tristan,” she said and pulled him down into her arms, a trick and a half since he topped out at six four and Serenity was nearly a foot shorter. “That ponytail is a dead giveaway.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tristan intoned, clearly amused as he hugged her back, then let her go. “I wasn’t kidding in my letters when I said I was growing it out.”
“Hi, Serenity, it’s me, Isaiah.” He grinned as she squealed over him, and he nearly picked her up off the ground with his enthusiastic hug. “We’ve come a long way to meet you.”
“I don’t doubt that,” she said, pushing her gray hair back behind her ears as she focused on the last man in the line, her eyes softening. “I won’t make you hug me, Hudson Rafferty. But welcome to you the same.”
He nodded and shook her hand without comment, but Caleb knew she’d scored major points with him by not making a big deal out of the fact that he didn’t like to be touched. And that she’d realized that about him in the first place.
“Now listen here,” she said briskly. “Ruby, why don’t you pour me a cup of that coffee and let me sit with my boys for a bit.”
So that was it then. They were boys in this neck of the woods. Caleb couldn’t hate it though; it was kind of nice to have these ladies think of them as young, when in reality, they were a bunch of battle-hardened warriors who had blood on their hands. So much blood it weighed down Caleb’s shoulders. He felt every minute of his thirty-one years, and every breath aged him in his soul where it co
uldn’t be undone by a sweet mom type calling him a boy.
The other woman hummed her agreement. “Only if I get to join you. First I’ve heard of you having boys, so there’s no way I’m missing a second of this.”
Ruby didn’t wait for anyone’s permission. She hustled them all to a large booth in the corner that might seat a bunch of normal people comfortably but couldn’t begin to accommodate five solidly built ex-SEALs and two fascinated women.
Always eager to maintain his lone-wolf status, Hudson did his part to make room by grabbing a chair from one of the other tables and swinging it around backward to sit in it astride. Old habit. If the back of the chair shielded your torso, less of a chance of being torn up in the event either shrapnel or shots came your direction.
Even in Superstition Springs, you couldn’t take the SEAL out of the man. Discharged against his will or not.
Ruby fetched the coffeepot and filled seven steaming cups with the contents, then untied the old-fashioned half apron she wore around a simple blue dress, dropping it on the counter. She slid into the already crowded booth, nudging Tristan good-naturedly with her hip. Winking, Tristan stretched his arm across the back of the booth behind her shoulders to accommodate her, his charm out in full force as she cozied up to him, all smiles.
Granted, the seating was already cozy. But still. Caleb hadn’t had a chance to warn Marchande off his game. Hopefully Ruby had some defenses in place against a smooth dog gone wild in a small town.
“Tell me what brings you all this way,” Serenity demanded and poured sugar into her coffee without looking at it, her attention so focused on Caleb that she seemed to miss Tristan’s shenanigans. “When Mavis told Augusta Moon that a bunch of hot Navy guys had come through her store, I knew it was you. And you better be planning to stay for at least a few days so I can get to know you in person.”
Hot Navy guys. That was one he’d never heard before, at least not to his face. Marchande wasn’t too ugly if you squinted a lot, and Isaiah had weird eyes, one blue and one brown, that women fawned over for some reason. But the rest of them… Mavis was being kind.
And since she’d tipped off the lady they’d come to rescue, he owed her a word of thanks. Absently Caleb tapped the Formica tabletop full of scratches and stains that had their own stories, all of which would surely be easier to tell than his own.
“You can’t read my mind?” he teased, only he wasn’t exactly teasing—he was half hoping she could.
Then he didn’t have to explain the swirl of uncertainty that had been riding shotgun in his chest for so many months. Or how he’d failed his team, led Rowe straight into danger, and then somehow packed up five former SEALs in a Yukon headed to Texas.
It sounded crazy. All of it. Especially the part where he could earn his way into redemption by neutralizing the still-nebulous threat to this town. Which he knew nothing about. What had he been thinking?
“My extrasensory perception doesn’t work like that,” Serenity explained with an indulgent smile. “The universe announces its news to me on its own timetable. I only wish I could get it to whisper things on demand. It would save me a lot of trouble.”
A bit deflated, Caleb nodded. After that, there was no way to lead up to it, so he spilled his plan in one fell swoop.
“We’re here to help you, Serenity,” he told her as his voice cracked unexpectedly. “For as long as you’ll let us. We packed up and left California.”
She blinked. “Help me? I’m all right. What are you talking about?”
“Your letters,” he reminded her. Of course, that didn’t really narrow it down, and the guys started shifting around restlessly, which in turn made him self-conscious. “You mentioned that Superstition Springs was in trouble. We want to fix it for you. That’s why we’re here.”
“Oh, honey. That’s really sweet but…” She pinched the bridge of her nose, which did not ease the feeling that a live eel had gotten loose in his gut. “This is not your problem to fix. You boys stay a few days, see the sights, and head on home.”
“We don’t have a home,” Tristan corrected flatly, and the others chimed their agreement. “You know we’re not welcome back in Coronado.”
