It took a heartbeat for reality to crash with expectation. His knees trembled and he expelled a long breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
Darren stood at the open back window, the flowered curtains fluttering with the breeze. He was barefoot in worn-out jeans and a T-shirt. Bennett’s gaze hung on the matte black 9mm in his hand. It was pointed at the floor. Even though Darren hadn’t acknowledged Bennett’s presence, he was too well trained not to be aware he was no longer alone.
“Why didn’t you answer the door, man?” Bennett approached like the gun was a water moccasin, ready to strike at any moment.
“Because I don’t want you here.” Darren continued to stare out the window.
“Harsh, but I appreciate the honesty. Whatcha you doing with that gun? Shooting squirrels?” Easing ever closer, Bennett forced a false casualness into his voice the same time his heart was clawing its way out of his chest.
Darren raised the gun and Bennett froze, but he just looked at it as if surprised to see it in his hand. He let it fall to rest against his leg once more. “Not really any of your business, Griz.”
“Seeing as how you’re my brother-in-arms, I’m making it my business.”
“Fuck off.” He might have been wishing a stranger a nice day by the tone of his voice.
His cold calmness scared Bennett almost as much as the gun. “Not gonna happen.”
“I don’t need witnesses.” Darren waved the gun to the side, and Bennett stepped backward, tripping over the clawed foot of the old-fashioned mahogany bed frame, but no bullet erupted from the barrel. “I left a note.”
Bennett’s gaze shot to the dresser. A white envelope leaned against Allison and Darren’s wedding picture, the front scrawled with her name.
“Letter ain’t good enough. She wants you. Sent me and Harper to find you and bring you back.”
His pronouncement elicited a response from Darren. He half-turned so he could peer at Bennett. Sunlight limned his body and left his expression a mystery, but his voice pitched higher. “Bullshit. She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you. She’s hurting and confused, but she still loves you.”
“Sophie is going to be okay.”
“I know. We dropped Libby and Ryan at the hospital so they could hug up on her. We left Sophie giggling.” Bennett paused for effect. “She asked for you. Sophie wanted her daddy.”
Darren didn’t speak, only turned back to the window and brought the gun up to rest on the sill.
Bennett continued. “They’re great kids, all three of them. Libby’s so smart. Older than her years, though, because she’s worried about you and Allison. Ryan bounds around with the energy of a puppy. Speaking of, he really took to Jack London; you should get him a dog. And Sophie’s sweet and innocent enough to still believe her daddy can conquer all.”
“I can’t, though. I can’t even conquer what’s in my own head.” He rubbed the barrel of the gun against his forehead. Bennett measured the distance to Darren and wondered if he was strong and fast enough to wrest the gun away before one of them got shot. Darren was leaner than his time in the SEALs but as fit as he’d always been. The odds were not in Bennett’s favor.
“How about you give me the gun? You’re making me nervous,” Bennett said.
“Afraid I’m going to shoot myself in front of you?”
“The way you’re waving it around, I’m afraid you’ll accidently shoot me.”
A rusty laugh came from Darren. Bennett took that as a positive sign.
“I wouldn’t kill myself in the house. Too messy. I was trying to decide whether to do it by the fence, in the middle of the yard, or in the toolshed.” Darren’s voice was back to being supernaturally calm.
Bennett debated his options. Maybe the best one was to play along until he could get the gun away from Darren. “You want Allison or one of the kids to find you with your brains blown all over the fence or grass or gardening equipment? Less mess if you hang yourself.”
“I deserve a bullet.”
Bennett swallowed and joined Darren to look out the window but didn’t attempt to wrest the gun from him. Time to dissect to the dark heart at the center. “Why do you think that?”
“Because that’s how those boys died. The ones I sent in.”
“It’s the job. We all knew the risks when we joined up.”
“Risk versus reality is different.” Darren caressed the gun. “You got out after Noah was killed. Cut yourself off from the team. Are you telling me you never thought about it?”
Suicide would have been the easy way out, and Bennett’s way had never been easy. From his time in foster care and beyond, the struggle to survive was familiar if not welcome. Living was his penance.
Besides, now there were other reasons to live that included a woman with enveloping hazel eyes and a warm laugh, even if those were more recent discoveries. “I made Noah a promise.”
Darren squinted as if looking far beyond the line of pine trees at the fence line. “I’d say you’ve gone above and beyond what Noah asked of you.”
Bennett rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, well—”
A noise, as slight as it was, whipped him around, his senses heightened. Harper stood in the doorway, her hand around her neck. Her eyes were wide, but he couldn’t discern surprise from hurt from anger. Or maybe she was all three. His stomach squirmed. Later. He would explain later. Right now, his mission was Darren.
Her demeanor changed as she took in the scene. He gave a slight shake of his head, and she backed from the doorway but stayed in the hall. Having her there gave him courage. It had not been since his SEAL days—since Noah—that someone he trusted had his back. The irony wasn’t lost on him.
“You don’t really want to kill yourself, do you?” Bennett asked.
Darren shot him a side-eye and shrugged. “I wrote a note. I’m standing here with a gun.”
“How long have you been standing here?”
Darren stared out the window like he’d spotted an extinct dodo bird and didn’t answer.
Bennett stepped closer, within reach of the gun now. “I know someone who might be able to help you.”
“I’m not going to see a goddamn shrink. Everyone would know.”
“You don’t think everyone isn’t already wondering what the hell is going on with you? You’re a fucking mess, man.” Bennett would wrestle the gun away if it came to that, but he hoped it wouldn’t. “Give me the gun.”
Darren held the gun in both hands, caressing it like a talisman, before holding it out butt first. Bennett let a long breath out and took the gun, hefting it in his hand. Something was off. He checked the magazine. Empty.
“No bullets,” Bennett murmured.
“I was going to practice a few times. Work on the angle.”
Or he really didn’t want to kill himself; he just couldn’t see another way out. Bennett could give him that. “How about this … no shrinks, no base support group. You remember Alex Ramirez?”
“Sure. What’s he doing now?”
“He’s a SEAL instructor but also works with current and ex-military who have been injured physically, mentally, and emotionally.”
“You think he can help me?”
“If he can’t, then he’ll point you to someone who can. Your kids need you. Sophie especially.”
“I’ve been a shitty dad.”
“Then work toward not being so shitty.” Bennett stuffed the gun in his waistband at the small of his back. “Look, I grew up without a dad, and my mom OD’d when I was nine.”
For the first time, Darren came out of his selfish stupor to send him a sympathetic glance. “I never knew that.”
“I went through the foster-care system in Mississippi, passed from family to family. Having a dad would have been a dream come true. Even if he wasn’t perfect.”
Darren leaned his hands on the windowsill and dropped his head. “You think I have a chance to make things right with Allison?”
“There’s always a chance to make things right.” Bennett glanced down the hall. Harper still stood sentinel at the top of the staircase.
“Okay. I’ll talk to Alex.”
Bennett pulled his phone out of his back pocket.