“No, that’s okay. I’d honestly rather read it here. With you.” Where maybe just once, I wouldn’t feel so utterly alone in my grief for Ryan. “If that’s okay?”
“Of course. Do you want to sit?” He rocked back on his heels and folded his arms over his chest. If I knew him better I’d say he looked nervous, but I wasn’t familiar enough with any of his mannerisms to really make assumptions.
“No, that’s okay.” Sitting meant staying, which I definitely wasn’t.
I opened the envelope and slid out the letter. It was lined notebook paper, the same he’d used to send me letters. The paper was even more worn than the envelope, the single page dirt-smudged at the folds. Sucking in a breath to steady myself, I unfolded the letter and immediately recognized Ryan’s handwriting.
“How many times did you read this?” I asked, my voice small.
“At least once a day since I…” Beckett cleared his throat. “Sometimes more, in the beginning. Now I keep it in my pocket to remind me why I’m here. That even though you won’t let me help you, I’m trying my best to do as he asked.”
I nodded and read through the letter in its entirety as slowly as I possibly could, savoring the last time I’d hear from my brother.
It’s not fair to ask, I know that. It’s against your nature to care, to not accomplish a mission and move on, but I need this. Maisie and Colt need it. Ella needs it—needs you, though she’ll fight you tooth and nail before she ever admits it. Help her even when she swears she’s fine.
Don’t make her go through it alone.
There it was. The truth. Ryan sent Beckett, asked him to help, or rather—guilted him so well that Beckett had gotten out of a career he loved and moved to a strange place where the person he’d moved for blatantly ignored him at every possible moment.
Ryan’s final request had been for me.
My eyes slid shut, and I counted as I took steady breaths, until the need to cry hysterically, to throw things at the lot fate had decided I was worthy of, had passed.
Then I looked at Beckett, realizing he’d retreated a few feet to lean against the wall, as if he’d sensed my need for space. But his eyes were locked on mine, the set of his mouth as stoic as I would imagine a special ops guy to be—as Ryan was.
“Thank you.” I handed the letter back to him in the envelope.
“I’m sorry that I’m here, and he’s not.”
“Why don’t you think you’re worthy of love? Of family? Everyone’s worthy of family.” Even when I was at my lowest, I’d always known that. If it wasn’t my parents, then it was Grandma, or Ryan, or Larry and Ada. Now it was my kids, too. What had happened to this guy that he didn’t have that?
He pushed off the wall, walking past me toward the kitchen, leaving the letter on the closest counter. “He wanted to be here, you know. He was getting out at his ETS date, already told the commander he wasn’t re-upping. He had every intention of being here for you from the moment he knew about Maisie.” Beckett opened the refrigerator, taking out two bottles of water, and blatantly ignored what I’d asked.
I rounded the corner of the island to follow him.
“Yeah, well, he’d said that before, right after the twins were born. He came home on leave and with them both asleep on his chest, he promised me he was getting out. That he’d come home where he was needed. Funny thing, he didn’t even last the month of leave before his phone rang, and he packed his bags and left. I stopped believing him after that. I don’t put a lot of faith in pretty promises, even from men who say they love me. Now as for you, you quit a job you obviously loved and moved across the world simply to fulfill Ryan’s request. That’s loyalty. That’s the very definition of family, and I can’t figure out why you wouldn’t think you deserve it when you have it.”
He unscrewed the first lid and took a deep drink, then put the bottle on the counter and handed me the other. I took it out of habit, not because I was thirsty.
“You heading to Denver for Maisie’s surgery in the morning?”