Nick nodded.
Unexpectedly, Turner was whispering, “Be smart, Nick.”
Yeah. He knew.
But Special Agent Eric Turner had taught him a lot.
So he also knew Nick had some of the skills he needed to get the job done.
And she’d taught him patience.
He’d acquire the skills he didn’t have. If it took him a decade, he’d do it.
Then he’d get the job done.
* * * * *
Five Months Later
Nick stood by the river, its banks covered in tiny but bright bursts of wildflowers, the spring thaw of the mountains having subsided, the rush of water still heavy but also soothing.
He felt him coming before he came to a stop at Nick’s side.
“Me and Cassie are glad you showed,” Deacon Gates said to him.
“You put a pink bow on your dog,” Nick replied.
“I didn’t,” Deacon returned.
“Your woman put a pink bow on your dog,” Nick said then turned to look at the man at his side. “And that dog is a German shepherd. It’s a wonder every shepherd breeder in North America isn’t rushin’ this location to put a gun to your head to demand payback for that dog’s dignity.”
Deacon grinned at him, shrugging one shoulder. “It’s a wedding.”
It was.
That day, in a gazebo by a river in the middle of fucking nowhere in the Colorado Mountains, the man known throughout the dark, harsh, fetid, hostile underbelly of this great United States as Ghost got married to one of the most beautiful women Nick had ever laid eyes on.
She was also one of the most down-to-earth.
Nick had been around Cassidy Swallow-now-Gates a number of times since it all went down and that day was the first he’d seen her wear makeup.
Even made up, her hair done in big, soft curls, pulled back at the top and sides, pins hidden with fixed daisies, she still got married in a long white cotton dress that had a two foot deep hem of lace at the bottom but other than that it just looked like a seriously fucking pretty sundress.
“Happy for you,” Nick muttered, looking back to the water.
“Worried about you,” Deacon responded.
Nick returned his attention to Deacon.
“See it in your eyes,” Deacon went on quietly.
He would. Deacon had seen the same in the mirror for years.
Nick knew Deacon’s story. Nick knew Deacon descended into that foul underbelly to find his missing wife. Nick knew Deacon stayed there after what he did but especially after what he found when he located his wife. Nick knew this not because Deacon shared this information liberally to anyone who might listen. Deacon didn’t say much to anyone, except the woman he loved, the woman an hour ago he’d made his wife.
But in the past months Knight had rallied the troops to try to pull his brother’s shit together. To yank him out of his grief. To steer him from the path he was determined to tread, even if Nick had not shared that shit with anyone either.
But Knight knew.