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There was no easy way to tell them, so he simply put it out there. “Conrad Fletcher got in touch and asked if I could help out on a recon mission next month.”
Thatch let out a low whistle and Aiden seemed too shocked to speak. They knew Fletch. The ex-SEAL was a legend. Right after an early retirement, he’d started a clandestine freelance business that took on overseas operations that the military couldn’t officially sanction for one diplomatic reason or another.
“I told him I’m open to it,” he went on when neither of them said anything. “If we can get everything squared away, I’ll be headed to Afghanistan in a month.”
Thatch exhaled loudly and Aiden marched up to him with a dark scowl. “You mean to tell me you’re going back to that hellhole?”
He shrugged, downplaying the significance. “I’ll go wherever I can make a difference.” He knew the dangers over there. He also knew he couldn’t stay here.
“That’s it?” his friend demanded, getting in his face. “You’re just going to up and leave when you have commitments here? What about our company? What about the ranch?”
Silas crossed his arms, not backing down. “You know as well as I do, Tess doesn’t need us as much anymore. She doesn’twantto need us.” She’d made her quest for independence clear when she’d hired three other ranch hands this spring. “In case you haven’t noticed, she’s hired enough staff now to take on most of the work. And Cowboy Construction isn’t exactly busy either. You two can keep up with the current project load without me.”
“So you’re saying you want out of the company?” Thatch’s tone struck a calmer note. He seemed surprised, but he wasn’t speaking with the same edge as Aiden.
“I’m saying that this is what I need to do right now. I won’t be gone for more than a couple of months.” At least that’s what Fletch had thought. “I can remain on here as a silent partner, take a lower percentage. Or you two can decide to continue on without me.” He wouldn’t blame them if they did.
“I don’t understand.” Aiden threw up his hands. “We fucking lost Jace over there. And now you want to go back? You know how selfish you’re being? I shouldn’t be surprised.”
Silas withstood his friend’s fury without retreating. If anything, Aiden’s reaction stirred up anger. He’d expected his friends wouldn’t be thrilled, but this was over the top. “Why shouldn’t you be surprised?”
“Because this is what you do.” His friend glared at him. “You make decisions without even thinking about how they’re going to affect other people. You do whatever the hell you want and don’t consider the consequences.”
Silas didn’t argue. That’s what had made him so good at his job. He acted. None of them had ever had the luxury of considering consequences in their line of work. “I’m not asking for your permission. I’ve already started the process.” He’d pass the background check no problem. The paperwork was only a formality. “I’ll come back.” But this would get him away for a while. Away from the monotony.
Away from Tess.
“I can’t believe this.” Aiden ripped off his tool belt and chucked it into the bed of his truck. “You know what, Silas? Screw you.” He stomped past him and headed into Kyra’s house, giving Silas’s shoulder a hard bump on the way.
At least he hadn’t sucker punched him.
Silas watched him go and then turned back to Thatch. “That went well.”
His other friend seemed to size him up. “We’re both surprised. You have to understand that. Maybe you’ve been thinking about this for a while, but this is the first we’re hearing of it.”
“Yeah. I get it. Maybe this wasn’t the best way to bring it up.” He’d been trying to get them to lay off on the whole mystery woman thing, but sitting at the café with a couple of beers might’ve been a better venue to broach this subject.
Thatch came to sit with him on the truck’s tailgate. “You sure you really want to go back to that life?”
He didn’t know what other life he could ever have. “Not full-time. But I go on one mission. Help out the bigger cause. I have nothing keeping me here.” Except for a woman who considered him a mistake. “I miss having a purpose.”
Thatch nodded as though he could relate. “You know why Aiden is so pissed off, right?”
Silas had thought he’d known their friend pretty well, but in his opinion, that reaction had been overkill. Aiden was downright angry with him. Did he really think the three of them would live the rest of their lives in Star Valley Springs working construction jobs? Aiden was moving forward—getting married. Shouldn’t they all be free to live their lives the way they saw fit? “Maybe you should enlighten me.”
“Because we won’t be there to protect you,” Thatch said, staring out at the mountains. “We were always in it together, Si. The four of us. We always had each other’s backs.”
“And still we lost Jace,” Silas pointed out. “If something’s gonna happen to me, it’ll happen whether or not you guys are there.”
“Still… he’s worried about you.” Thatch pushed off the tailgate. “And quite honestly, I am too. This all seems like kind of a rash decision. Does your rush to leave have anything to do with the woman from the party?”
Silas avoided eye contact. “Stupid question.” He couldn’t get those images of Tess out of his head. He couldn’t live day in, day out, pretending he didn’t want his dead best friend’s wife. “I need to do this. I need more in my life. Come on. You can’t pretend you don’t understand.”
“No, I do.” Thatch hesitated. “I understand a lot more than Aiden. Kyra changed his whole perspective. Funny how fast you forget what life was like before a woman changed everything.”
“I wouldn’t know.” But Thatch had had a girl back home when Silas first met him. They’d been pretty serious from what Silas could tell. And then a year later, he quit talking about her altogether. Thatch hadn’t said a word about how the relationship unraveled though. And Silas hadn’t asked. It used to be that they didn’t get too far into each other’s personal business. Until now apparently.
“Listen, I’m not gonna lecture you.” His friend walked back to the outbuilding’s foundation and started to measure out the chalk lines for the frame. “I’ve actually taken up a new venture myself recently.”
