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Chapter 9
Gavin sat up straight, soaked in sweat. His eyes were open wide, but they might as well have been shut as they searched the darkness for any hint of light, any clue to his whereabouts. There were none.
His training kicked in immediately, and he didn’t move a muscle. He hoped to God he hadn’t cried out before waking, but there was nothing he could do about that now. The best thing to do moving forward was just attract as little attention as possible.
He forced his breath to be slow and shallow, making as little noise as humanly possible. His heartbeat sounded like a bass drum in his own ears, but he knew that was only inside his own body. He marshaled his formidable will and forced his heart to slow.
As the seconds passed by, each one its own fresh torture, the details of Gavin’s surroundings slowly came back to him. He was in bed, not in a war zone, but in his brother Troy’s house. He was out of the military—and that situation was a whole war zone of its own, just raging inside his gut rather than around his head.
Speaking of internal battlegrounds…
He rubbed his eyes and jumped out of bed. What might be happening between him and Genevieve was not a topic he planned to start mulling over in the middle of the night, especially not after a nightmare.
Figuring a snack or some fresh air would pull his mind back to reality, he pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and padded down the stairs and into the kitchen, moving in stealth mode to avoid waking his family.
When he stepped into the kitchen, he saw his efforts had been futile.
Mila sat at the center island, motionless on the stool, as if she’d been waiting for him to come down.
He tilted his head at her. “Hey, kid. What are you doing up?”
She shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about getting a snack. You?”
He nodded. “Same. Want some hot cocoa? That’s always been my go-to, can’t-sleep, late-night snack.”
She smiled. “Yes, please.”
Gavin gathered the necessary supplies from the cabinet and refrigerator and set about making the cocoa. As he stirred the fragrant mixture, he said, “So, what’s keeping you up at night?”
“I’m worried about you,” his sister replied, her voice frank and matter-of-fact.
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Worried about me? Why?”
She gave him a “who do you think you’re kidding?” look and didn’t reply.
He sighed and went back to stirring the hot chocolate. “Yeah, okay, fair enough.”
He divided the rich, dark mixture evenly into two mugs and set Mila’s down in front of her, placing the other one on the opposite side of the island and settling himself on the corresponding stool. “So, what exactly am I doing that has you so worried?”
“Why are you out of the military?” she shot back.
Damn. The kid got right to the point.
He decided that a direct question deserved a direct answer. “I have a medical problem. Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious,” he rushed to clarify at her sudden horrified expression. “It’s a small growth on my brain. It barely affects anything, but it keeps me from flying. And flying’s all I know.”
“They wouldn’t have given you a different job?”
“They would’ve,” he conceded. “But I didn’t want it. It would’ve been like trying to live the same life, but it was only a shadow of what it used to be. What’s the point?”
Mila considered this for a moment. Finally, she nodded. “Yeah. I get it, I think.”
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “You do, huh?”
“Yeah. I mean, it’s kind of like after Mom and Dad died. Troy moved here so that I could stay in our house and Valentine Bay. Go to the same school. Have everything exactly the same. Except, like…it wasn’t the same. And it never could be. As much as I was happy staying, because moving would’ve been crazy scary, it was also kind of sucky for everything to be so totally the same except for that one thing: they weren’t there.”
Gavin’s eyebrows shot up. “Holy shit, you do get it.”
Her jaw dropped and eyes widened, then a broad grin spread across her face.
