and nodded my thanks.
“Thanks, Hunter.”
He sat down next to me, a wide-ass smile on his face as Jack, his K9 partner, bounded up and sat between us. I reached over and stroked Jack’s head.
“You bet. I’ve got to admit, I was surprised when you came into the station today, Aiden. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to see you back in Boggy Creek, it’s been a while. I guess I should be saying welcome home.”
I lifted my beer to his, and we clinked them together. “Thanks for the welcome home, bro.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming home?” he asked.
I looked away from Hunter and stared out over the New Hampshire landscape of my boyhood home. I hadn’t been home in a few years. Not since I had been invited to try out for Tier 1 and got accepted onto Green Team, which was the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU team for short. If people thought that BUD/S training was bad, it was a cake walk compared to trying out for a Tier 1 team. Once I was on a Green Team, the missions came more often and were far more dangerous. I was sometimes gone for months.
Being a SEAL had been my life for the past ten years. I lived, ate, and breathed the Navy. But there had always been a part of me that was still back here in New Hampshire. A part that fought for space in my heart along with being a SEAL. And on more than one occasion, I was almost ready to give it up and come back to her.
Willamina.
That was, until she found someone else and married him. I couldn’t blame her. I hadn’t given her a single ounce of hope that we would ever be together.
I shook off thoughts of Willa and took in the sight before me. I had missed Boggy Creek more than I’d realized. The leaves were beginning to turn shades of yellow and orange, with dots of red sprinkled in as the cooler weather hinted at fall. The pond where my father had taught me to swim and fish sat a few hundred yards away from the house that my mother and grandfather now lived in.
My mind drifted as I watched a weeping willow tree dip her branches in at the water’s edge. The clear blue sky reflected in the pond, and I couldn’t help but notice the peace that settled over me as I took it all in. A peace I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
A peace I knew would be gone the moment I lay down and closed my eyes tonight.
“Aiden?” Hunter asked as I turned back to him. He lifted a brow. “You got lost in thought there for a few moments. Why didn’t you let me know you were coming home?”
I gave a halfhearted shrug as I took a long drink from my beer and then answered him truthfully. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t really want to come home. At least not like this. I wanted to come back home on my own terms, not because some fucking idiot blew out my knee with a bullet and ended my career as a SEAL.”
Hunter looked out toward the pond and sighed. “Listen, Aiden, I’m sorry to hear about your knee and all. I know how much it meant for you to be a SEAL. It’s been your life for a long time.”
I shrugged once more. “Yeah, well, the only other option was to stay in the Navy and teach other SEAL teams. I probably would have stayed and done it if my mother hadn’t told me about Granddad being so sick.”
Or the fact that Willa was getting a divorce and would be free once again. That little thought stayed tucked away though.
“Once I found out about Granddad, I decided not to reenlist. I wasn’t about to leave my mother stuck with the business, and let Carl possibly die without his son or grandson around.” I took another long drag from my beer. “Besides, maybe it was time for me to leave, start a somewhat normal life.”
The words felt like acid as I said them, yet at the same time, it almost felt as if a burden was lifted from my shoulders. They were such conflicting emotions; I wasn’t really sure how to deal with them. Never mind the fact that I was struggling with the idea of seeing Willa. God, I wanted to see that smile of hers.