Weekends, though, were for him. He allowed himself the luxury of spending time alone at his secluded cabin in the mountains. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his family, but he felt out of place. Kane was a solitary man by nature, and while he appreciated their efforts to include him, he preferred to spend his time alone.
Things were different, now, too, because four of his younger brothers were happily married and building families of their own. Jake had Taryn and their little spitfire Riley; Ian and Lexi had Patrick and another one on the way. Michael and his wife Maggie had an adorable little bruiser, Ryan. Sean and his new bride, Nicki, were still in the newlywed phase, and rarely seen. That left him, Shane, and Kieran. And of course his widowed father, Jack.
There weren’t as many missions these days to distract him, either. Wedded bliss tended to have a dampening effect on their natural urge to seek out and destroy the bad guys. The bonded males found that they preferred spending their nights in bed with their wives rather than in vermin-ridden fox holes and caves. Go figure.
Something in Kane’s chest gave a slight lurch at the thought. He’d never quite understood the desire to settle down with a woman and start a family. His brothers hadn’t, either, until they found the ones they claimed were their fated mates, their hearts, their croies. They tried to explain the experience of finding the perfect woman, of discovering the one who held the other half of their soul, but it really wasn’t something that could be conveyed through mere words. It was something you had to feel to comprehend the magnitude, they’d said.
Kane had heard their words; he had seen the effects of the unions on the men he’d known their whole lives. He didn’t doubt them, nor did he begrudge them their happiness. He just knew that he was not cut out for the same fate. He was different. He’d always been different. He was the oldest. The biggest. The strongest. The coldest. His job was to watch over the others, and to ensure their safety and well-being. It had always been that way.
But things were changing, and it left him a bit unsettled. Jake, Ian, Michael, Sean – they had their women now, their own families, ran their own businesses – all under the Callaghan family umbrella, of course. The umbrella that Kane had carefully constructed over the years, using his exceptional financial and planning skills to ensure the family would never want for anything.
He applied the same skill and expertise to the missions they undertook. They all had their parts to play, but there was no question that they looked to Kane as their leader since Jack unofficially retired. The frequency and severity of the missions had drastically decreased since last year when they almost lost Michael to a sniper’s bullet. Now Kane reserved the most dangerous missions for himself, Shane, and Kieran, unwilling to be the one to look into the faces of their wives and children should they not return.
Now, with him out of the action, he was even more selective in the missions they undertook. Not that Michael would have cleared him anyway, but even if he couldn’t be there with them physically, he could at least make damn sure they had the closest thing to a guarantee he could give them of returning home in one piece. None of them had more experience than he did.
It was hard for him to stay behind while his brothers disappeared for days at a time, always coming back with a few more scars, a few more memories they didn’t need.
Damn, he was feeling old. At thirty-six he felt more like fifty; some days, perhaps eighty would have been more accurate.
Kane was brought back from his musings by Michael’s thoughtful voice. “To be completely honest, I can’t figure out how the hell you got out of there with your hip shot up like that,” Michael was saying.
A familiar image came to Kane’s mind. What had it been, a whole five minutes since he last thought of her? He knew what got him out of the jungle without a body bag. And the answer was in the form of a five-foot-four inch honey blonde with puppy dog eyes, a core of solid steel, and a penchant for little chocolate candies.
––––––––
The wind howled loudly outside as the rain pelted against the windows. Pine Ridge, along with most of the northeast coast, was being battered by the latest in a series of hurricanes, and “Lana” was being anything but merciful. They were situated well above the river’s flood plain, though others weren’t quite as lucky. Ian was following the storm and the local help efforts on no less than four screens. Kane knew Ian was trying to keep himself occupied until his wife, Lexi, returned home from work safely. Ian, like his other mated brethren, shared a bond with his wife that defied the status quo. They weren’t two separate people; they were one, in every sense that mattered.