Page 57 of Keeping a Warrior

Not far from her she could hear the grunts and shouts of a SEAL BUD/S class struggling to lift chunks of old telephone poles high over their heads.

The contrast was jarring. Here she was, surrounded by safety and serenity, and yet the promise of violence, of war, lurked just a few hundred yards away.

“Hey, do you mind some company?”

The deep voice behind her startled her, and Devon whipped her head around to see Shane approaching her through the sand. She nodded in welcome, her mouth going dry despite herself. He was shirtless in a pair of clingy running shorts, his feet and lower legs caked with sand. Sweat droplets slid lovingly down his ridged abs and dripped off the end of his perfect nose.

Gah.

He dropped to sitting next to her and propped his forearms on his upraised knees. “Feels good to move after sitting all day on a plane, doesn’t it?” His voice was rough with exertion, and Devon gave a delighted shiver at the sound of it.

This dude was all sorts of gorgeous, and she certainly wasn’t immune. “It feels great,” she croaked. “And I’m loving this view.”

Both in front of me and next to me. Dayum.

“It’s one I’ll never get tired of, that’s for sure.”

“Me, either.” A brief silence, and then Devon said, “Matt told me you live not far from here.”

Shane flinched a little at the sound of Matt’s name, but he answered gamely enough. “Yeah, I have a house over in IB. Which I’m actually thinking of selling.”

“Really?”

Anger at Matt’s stubbornness surged through Devon again. He’d told her about Shane’s house, about how they’d been slowly renovating it together before their breakup.

“Yeah. There’s not a lot tying me to it anymore. My grandmother is gone. I bought my sister out a couple of years ago and now she’s happily married with two kids. It’s just me.”

Her heart ached at the sadness in his voice. “Where would you live, then?” she asked gently.

“The barracks, I guess. It’d only be for a few years until my SEAL contract is up.” Shane hesitated, then shrugged as if to say fuck it. “I’m not gonna renew it.”

Devon blinked in surprise. “Wow. Because?”

“I want to go to medical school.”

Now she turned her head to gape at him. “Shit. Is this, uh, recent or—”

“Nope. It’s something I’d always had in the back of my mind as a kid, and then I got derailed.” He gave a bitter snort. “Or I let somebody derail me, I should say. Ended up in the Marines first, then here.”

“Well, you went through an awful lot to get here,” she said, nodding at the hapless BUD/S students who were now rolling around in the powdery sand at the instructors’ feet.

Shane gave a giant shudder at the sight. “Wet and sandy, ugh. Poor bastards.”

He fell silent as if gathering his thoughts, his fingers combing restlessly through the sand next to him. “It hit me like a ton of bricks the other day, Devon, that every decision I’ve ever made in my adult life has been about someone else. Pleasing someone else, supporting someone else, trying to—trying to hold on to someone else. It’s time to think of me for a change. What I want. What I need.”

Amen, brother. I’m right there with you.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” she said softly.

Shane gave an emphatic nod. “No, there damn well isn’t. I’ve been talking to Rhys about it a lot, actually. He’s been thinking of PA school himself, for after, and he’s already done a little research into it, been giving me advice on how to tick off some boxes and make myself competitive.”

“That’s great, Shane. I mean it.”

“It is great, and it’s giving me a peace of mind I haven’t felt in a long time, to finally realize, at almost thirty-one years old, that my happiness doesn’t have to depend on someone else’s.”

Ah, Matt. You’re losing him, bud.

The thought made her ineffably sad. Why did relationships have to be so complicated?