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Chapter 1
Brody
“You were the one who decided to teach the kids how to play soccer. We all just assumed you knew how to play,” Logan said to Eric
Eric laughed and didn’t say anything. “They learned quickly,” Eric said.
“Don’t you mean you learned quickly?” Logan asked, and Grace, Eric’s fiancé, laughed.
“I’m sure Eric did a fine job,” Grace said.
“As I do with everything I put my mind to,” Eric said and gave Grace a knowing look.
“Don’t I know it,” Grace replied.
“More information than I wanted about either of you,” I said.
“Then don’t listen,” Eric said.
“Touché,” Logan said, and we all laughed.
I leaned back in my chair and watched my friends, my brothers, my fellow soldiers in arms and couldn’t keep the smile off my face. They had come a long way since we had left the Navy SEALs a little less than two years ago. I never would have thought our lives would turn out the way they did, but I was glad they had.
It was good to see Eric laughing and having a good time. He had always been the most reserved of the three of us. It was partly out of necessity as the leader of our group, but also it was how he was. He was a good leader, but he was an even better friend. I would do whatever he needed and follow him wherever he needed me to go and had.
That had included moving to New York City. I never thought I would end up there. I had grown up on six hundred acres of land where my family grew hazelnuts. I was used to open spaces, not seeing a neighbor for miles, and not having to talk to a lot of people. I should have gone home when I was done with my tour and helped my sister and her husband with the farm, but Eric had needed me more.
It was a decision I never regretted. I was still adjusting to life in a concrete jungle. I had never lived alone, so when we moved to the city, Eric and I found a place together. It had worked for us, and it allowed me to keep an eye on him.
All that changed when he fell in love with Grace. They were living together and set to get married in the spring. I missed having someone around, but I was finding I liked and needed the solitude of my own place. I needed to get away from everything sometimes, if even for a little while.
It had been Logan’s idea to open up the bar and one I had been all for. We needed something to do, something to keep us all busy, and it seemed like the perfect idea. Eric had been skeptical at first, and I was sure it was because he thought Logan and I should have been doing something else. We didn’t, and we weren’t going to leave him. The bar gave us the perfect excuse to stay.
I never thought I would still be there almost two years later. I thought the reason that Eric had come to New York would have been solved by now. It hadn’t, and even if he was more grounded, even if he looked happier than I had ever seen him, he wouldn’t rest, and neither would Logan or me. Not until the man who killed his sister, Lauren, was brought to justice.
She had been living in the city while we were overseas when she was murdered. Eric had been devastated, not only because his beloved little sister was dead but because he hadn’t been there to protect her. He had needed to do something, he had needed to find the killer, and the only way to do that was by coming to New York City.
It didn’t surprise Logan or me when Eric said he was going to the city. I think we surprised him when we said we were going to join him. The rest is history, or at least we are trying to make it that way. He had done as he wanted, and he had found the person who we think killed his sister. The problem was that we didn’t have any concrete evidence. We hoped we would eventually, and Eric was working with an excellent security firm that dealt with private investigations to help get to the bottom of it. He also recently had gone public with the story, increasing the interest in the murder, and our bar, for better or worse.
He was making some headway but not nearly enough. It was while he was looking and running the bar that he met his future wife. Grace was Lauren's best friend; the women had met in college. After her failed divorce, Grace came back to New York City and started working in the bar. She and Eric had clashed from the beginning, but I could see it was because they were attracted to each other and were fighting it.
It was understandable, they were both grieving the loss of a loved one, and it felt wrong to get involved. Their attraction to each other couldn’t be denied, and they fell in love. Grace still worked at the bar and helped me with advertising and promotions while Eric ran things from the back.
They would never forget Lauren, and Eric still needed the closure of having her killer brought to justice, but he was more centered now that he was with Grace. Greif brought them together, but it also allowed both of them to heal.
I was happy that he and Grace had found each other. They both needed someone, and they were perfect for each other, almost as perfect as Logan and his girlfriend, Amber, were together. They had met when Amber had come into the bar one night. Logan had ended up going home with her only to find out she was the defense attorney for the man we suspected killed Lauren, Samuel Denton.
They clashed a little in the beginning, but they found their way to each other and were living a perfectly happy life together. If I knew Logan, and I knew him better than just about anyone, there was going to be a proposal happening soon.
Logan had a tough childhood and had seen his parents go through a bitter and horrible custody battle over him. It had left him wary of getting involved with anyone or even considering having kids. I could see that Amber was making him see he wasn’t his mother and he could be in a good and loving relationship.
We certainly didn’t come to New York City for them to find the love of their lives, but it was a happy accident. I was one who believed in fate, in that there was something or someone who was guiding us all to where we needed to be. It was why we had opened the bar and why Grace and Amber had come to it. Everything was working out the way it was supposed to, and with the trial of Samuel Denton coming up soon, we could hopefully get him behind bars.
He hadn’t been charged with Lauren’s murder but a lesser charge. We had to take the wins while we could and hope that it would give us time to find more information on him and what he was doing the night that Lauren was killed.
The bar kept us busy and gave us a purpose, but it was more than that. It was a way to make sure that women felt safe, to make sure that what happened to Lauren never happened to another woman. It helped that it was run by three former Navy SEALs, and Logan guarded the door like he was protecting the most precious of cargo. In a way, he was; we wanted women to feel they could come and be whoever they wanted, do whatever they wanted in a bar and not worry about being harassed or asked to do something they didn’t want to do. It had helped us be mildly successful and kept the doors open.
Not that we needed the money, but it allowed us to use our money to do other things, like charity work or keeping my family’s farm afloat if we needed to. I had been putting off going back to see them. I missed my nieces and would love to see them, but I knew Eric still needed me around.
