Page 108 of Keeping a Warrior

Her reasonable tone was calming, although Rhys’s heart was still tripping a mile a minute. “You’ll be around? Tell me you won’t just leave me without a word, Devon, please.”

She’d just opened her mouth to respond when a deep voice called out from the bottom of the ramp: “Ms. Lowe!”

Rhys went cold all over again. It was Beck.

“Major!” Devon snapped to attention and saluted him, even though she was in civilian clothes. “I, uh, didn’t expect a welcoming committee.”

“Just happened to be here vacationing with the family and heard your platoon was on the way back,” he said jovially, returning the salute. “Sent my wife and kids on home yesterday and waited around, thought we could go over some of the preliminaries. I can’t wait to hear the strategies you’ve come up with, the solutions to some of the things we talked about. Dinner tonight? My CIA contact can be here in two hours...”

Still chattering away, he gestured for Devon to precede him down the ramp. She cast Rhys one last impassive glance before turning and leading the way.

No, don’t go. Not yet...

Outside, the cheering hit fever pitch, and Rhys couldn’t put this off any longer. Shouldering his ruck, he pasted a smile on his face before starting one of the longest walks of his life. Lani watched him approach, her long black hair blowing in the sea breeze, her smile wide, eyes hopeful.

In spite of the dread roiling through him at the difficult conversation to come, Rhys couldn’t help but smile back at her. She’d meant so much to him once...

And of course she still did. Her unwavering friendship had gotten him through some tough and lonely times, her love had taught him what it meant to be a good man. Devon was right. He couldn’t reject her and hurt her in such a public way.

Plus, you deserve all this and more, you tool, after what you put her through.

His cheeks burned at the memory of that desperate flash-mob proposal, that last-ditch attempt to salvage what was already on its way to dying a natural death.

When he reached Lani’s side, he dropped his ruck. “Hey, pretty girl,” he said softly. “What’s all this?”

Instead of answering, Lani threw herself into his arms to the roar of the crowd. All around him, his teammates were greeting their loved ones, toddlers and babies perched in the crooks of their arms.

It was a chaotic, happy scene.

As Lani clung to him, Rhys searched frantically for Devon, finally spying her standing about fifty yards away talking to the major and Bradley.

As if feeling the weight of his stare, she turned and looked at him, a remoteness now in her eyes that sent fear rocketing through him.

It can’t end like this. Not like this.

Not without a proper goodbye.

The drive to Lani’s tiny apartment in El Cajon seemed to take forever.

Rhys silently cursed the traffic, the noise, the people who blithely drove by trash on the side of the road as if it didn’t mean anything.

“Troops in contact. We are troops in contact. Lead vehicle has hit an IED...”

“Baby?” Lani reached over and touched Rhys’s forearm. “You okay?”

The scent of her spicy perfume was strong in the car, her long, tanned legs silky smooth, makeup flawless.

Chapped lips, hair tucked under a scarf, the smell of dust on flea-bitten skin...

A wave of longing for Devon brought tears rushing to Rhys’s eyes. She was going to leave. Beck was going to whisk her away into a shadowy world of secret, clandestine missions that people only heard about when things went terribly wrong...

“Was that girl the one in those pics Sarah had?”

Desperately trying to focus, Rhys cleared his throat. “What?”

“That girl you were talking to when you first got off the plane. Was that Devon?”

Rhys let his breath out slowly. “Yeah, that’s her,” he rasped. “Why?”