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“Well, I’m in. Oh, and Grady invited us to take on the obstacle course and the tower at Sanctuary tomorrow. I want to see if there’s anything there I might be able to use in the training we do at Lackland. I was going to ask if you and Riggs want to have some fun. Grady, Jasper and Mattias are jumping in.”
“Sounds good to me, I’ll run it by Riggs. What time?”
“Afternoon, around two.”
“Okay,” he saw Riggs end his call and added, “hold on.”
“Wings up in twenty, be at Grady’s in fifteen, so let’s run these guys back and make it half an hour.”
“Hooyah,” Gunner turned his attention back to Oakley. “Half an hour. We’ll set down in the closest pasture to the house, unless Grady calls and directs otherwise.”
“Works for me. See you then.”
Gunner pocketed his phone. “After you, boss.”
Riggs grinned, turned his horse, and took off. Gunner grinned, but his was due more to gratitude. He’d never let Riggs know how heavy it’d weighed on him while Riggs was going through the amputation and getting a prosthetic foot. He’d asked himself a thousand times if there was something he could have done to prevent what happened to Riggs.
Was it his fault? Had he not moved fast enough? Should he have refused to follow Riggs, defy not just a friend, but a superior? Gunner wasn’t accustomed to second guessing himself. He didn’t have cause to. He knew his job, did it well, and followed orders. A unit couldn’t succeed unless every member lived by that. To do otherwise, got people killed.
Had he somehow faltered in his duty? That thought ate at him for a long time, more than six months. Then, one evening, after all the dust settled and Riggs was married and relearning the life of a rancher, he and Gunner sat out by the fire pit behind the cottage and broke open an expensive bottle of whiskey.
Halfway through the bottle, they were pleasantly buzzed, and thanks to the fire, the sound of crickets and buzz of insects, relaxed, as well.
“Hey, Gun,” Riggs spoke softly, staring into the fire.
“Yeah?”
“You and me—we’re okay, yeah?”
“Yeah. What makes you ask.”
Riggs turned his head to look at Gunner. “’Cuz, you haven’t been yourself since the mission.”
Gunner frowned. He often hated how perceptive Riggs could be. “It was a time, you know.”
“Indeed, I do. And I think it’s way past time I said something to you.”
“What?”
“Thank you, Gun. Thank you for saving my life.”
Gunner didn’t expect that. Riggs had lost a limb. “How can you thank me? I deserve a fuck you, Gunner, for not being faster, stronger, or smarter. A half second and both those feet would be the ones you were born with.”
“Are you kidding?” Riggs’ voice raised in volume dramatically.
“Do I ever?”
Riggs shook his head. “Let me tell you something, brother. I talked to the people who survived and witnessed what happened. Every one of them called me, and every one of them said the same thing. You saved my life. If you’d been a second slower, that APC would have landed square on me, either crushed me to death or cut me in half. And Gunner, you listen to me, there is no coming back from that.
“This?” He lifted his leg. “Shit, I can do anything I could do before. I didn’t believe that was possible, but itis. And I wouldn’t be able to. Hell, I wouldn’t have breath if you hadn’t saved me. So, I want you to know that I am and always will be grateful. You’ll always have a home here. And a brother.”
Gunner was seized by an uncommon moment of emotion by Riggs’ words, and the hand Riggs extended. Gunner clasped it, and they held on for a long moment. “Brothers.” Riggs said.
“To the end.”
As men are won't to do, the emotional moment was immediately dismissed, and they polished off the rest of the bottle. But Gunner would not forget one moment of that evening, because that was the night Riggs saved him from himself. Riggs’ believe in him took away the guilt and second guessing.
If only everything in life were so easy.
