He gave Havoc another pat and then stomped off toward the truck.
“He seems a lot older than six.”
“Yeah. Until this year, the twins were only really ever around adults. A few kids here and there with guests, but they’re both basically six going on sixteen. I probably shouldn’t have sheltered them so much, but…” She shrugged.
I’m ridiculously overprotective of them, but I recognize it. Letter number one.
“They definitely give their teacher a run for her money. I’m sorry you had to see that.” She stared off at the island. “It’s been a rough few months…losing Ryan, and everything with Maisie…”
“How are her treatments?” I asked, stepping my toe into waters I had no right to.
Her head snapped toward me. “You know.”
“Ryan.” Mac and I had talked about it at length, so it wasn’t exactly a lie.
She shook her head in exasperation and started walking back to the truck.
“Ella,” I called after her, quickly catching up. After almost two weeks of running six miles in the morning, I was finally adjusted to the altitude. Not that we hadn’t been dropped into similar elevations in Afghanistan, but I’d been at sea level for two months before getting out here.
“You know what?” she fired back, spinning to face me.
“Whoa!” I gripped her shoulders to keep from smacking into her, then abruptly dropped my hands. That was twice I’d touched her since I’d been here, and the contact was too much and not enough.
“I hate that you know things about me. I hate that you probably knew Colt was my son, that you know about Maisie’s diagnosis. You’re a stranger who is privy to intimate details about my life because of my brother, and that’s not fair.”
“I can’t change that. I’m not sure I would even if I could, because that’s the reason I’m here.”
“The reason you’re here is buried out on that island!”
In so many ways.
“We can go round and round. But I’m not leaving. So I will make you this offer. You can ask me any questions you want”—I held up my finger when she opened her mouth, knowing she’d ask about Mac’s death again—“that I’m allowed to answer, and I’ll tell you anything I can about me. You’re right. It’s not fair that I know so much. It’s incredibly creepy for me to know about your kids, your life…you. But Mac loved you, and he talked about you all the time. You, them, this place was the home he so badly wanted to come back to, and when he talked about you, it was like he had this tiny moment of reprieve from the hell we were living. So, I’m incredibly sorry that your privacy has been violated. You have no clue how sorry I am, but I can’t go back in time and ask him not to overshare, and if I had that magical time button, I’d use it for something far better, like saving his life. Because he should be here. Not me. But I’m the one he sent, and I’m staying.” I clenched my jaw. What was it about this woman that killed whatever semblance of a filter I had? Whether it was reading her letters, or staring into her eyes, she had a power over me that was worse than a bottle of tequila for loosening my tongue. She made me want to tell her everything, and that was dangerous to both of us.
“If Ryan wanted so badly to be here, he could have gotten out when he was up for reenlistment. But he didn’t. Because guys like Ryan—like you—don’t stay home, don’t put down roots, don’t stay, period. I can accept that I’m your…mission, or whatever, for the time being, but don’t act like you’re not temporary.”
I fought every instinct in my body that screamed to declare differently, but I knew she wouldn’t believe me, and I’m not sure I would have, either. It was only a matter of time before she realized who I really was and what I’d done. And my feelings for her wouldn’t buffer that fallout. A nuclear shelter couldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly after a few moments of silence passed between us. “I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through, if you were really that close to Ryan. And you must have been to uproot your entire life to come here.”
“I thought I didn’t have roots,” I teased.
A tiny smile ghosted across her face, but it was sad. “Like I said, I’m sorry. But imagine if I showed up in…wherever it was