Come Back for Me (Arrowood Brothers #1)
Corinne Michaels
Dedication
To Melissa Saneholtz, thank you for your unending friendship, laughter, and love.
Chapter One
Connor
“Arrowood! Wake the fuck up!” Someone punches my arm, and I shoot out of my seat. My eyes dart around for whatever danger is present, but only find my buddy, Liam, next to me on the plane. “Man, you sure like to talk in your sleep.”
I rub my hand over my face, trying to clear the cobwebs. “I have no idea what I was dreaming about.”
“A woman.”
Great. God only knows what I said. “Doubtful.”
“Dude, you were totally talking in your sleep.” His voice goes higher. “Oh, Connor, you’re so sexy. Yes, give it to me like that.” Then he returns his voice to normal. “I’m just saying that she was very animated.”
I know exactly what I was dreaming of—an angel. A beautiful woman with dark brown hair and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. It doesn’t matter that I spent one night with her eight years ago, I remember her perfectly.
The way she smiled and crooked her finger at me to follow. How my legs moved without my brain ever giving them permission. It was as if she were sent from above to save me.
The night my father had gotten so drunk he sucker punched me as I walked out the door for boot camp, promising never to return.
She was perfect, and I don’t even know her name.
I elbow him, knowing there isn’t a chance in hell I’m about to confess any of that. “Thank God you’re married. No woman would be stupid enough to ever go for you now. Your impressions suck and you’re an asshole.”
He grins, no doubt thinking of his wife. Some guys have it all—Liam Dempsey is one of them. He has a beautiful woman to come home to, kids, friends, and he had one of those picture-perfect childhoods.
Basically, his life is the opposite of mine.
Only things I have that are worth a damn are my brothers.
“What are you talking about? There’s a reason they call me Dreamboat and call you Arrow. I’m a goddamn dream.”
“Here we fucking go. They call me that because of my last name, asshole.”
Liam chuckles and shrugs. “Maybe, but mine is because of my glowing personality.”
Even though he’s a total idiot, I’m going to miss him. I’m going to miss all of my team. I hate that this was my last deployment and I won’t be a part of this brotherhood anymore. I’ve loved being a SEAL.
“Thankfully, you’re so vain that I will see your glow anywhere I end up.”
“Any idea where that’s going to be or what you’re going to do now?” Liam asks.
I lean back in the much too uncomfortable chair of this C-5 plane and push out a deep breath. “Not a clue.”
“Glad to see you’re on top of your life. You need to get your shit together, Arrowood. Life isn’t going to hand you shit.”
Liam has been my team leader for the last two deployments and is like a big brother to me, but right now, I’d like not to be lectured. I have three older brothers who do enough of that as it is.
Although, I guess that’s what the SEAL team is . . . brothers. Brothers who would do anything for each other, including help the other through a big transition, even if it’s one that’s been coming for a while. Three years ago, I was on deployment. It was a routine checkpoint and my leg was crushed when a car tried to run through. I had a few surgeries, all looked good, but I’m not healing right. This deployment, I was on light duty, which was basically admin. I fucking hate admin. I wanted to be out there, making sure my brothers were safe. Then the doc gave me the news that I’m going to be medically discharged.
I’m no longer fit to be a SEAL.
And if I can’t do this, then I don’t want any part of it.
“I have plans.”
“Like?” he asks.
“Kicking your ass, for one.”
“You could try, young buck, but I wouldn’t put money on it.”
“If my leg were a hundred percent . . .”
Liam shakes his head. “I’d still kill you. But, all kidding aside, you can’t sign the papers in two weeks and have no idea what to do.”
My oldest brother Declan was up my ass and saying the same thing when I called him a month ago. Dec runs a huge corporation in New York City and said he was looking for a new head of security, but I’d rather ram my bad leg through a meat processor than work for him. He’s a hothead, who knows everything, and he doesn’t pay shit. I’ve already done eight years of that, so I’d like an upgrade in the financial department.
Still, he has a point. I can only survive on what little savings I have for so long, then I’ll need to get a job.
“I’ll figure it out,” I tell him.
“Why not go back home to the farm?”
My eyes narrow, and I bite back the anger that fills me at the mention of that place. “Because the only way I’ll step foot on that land is if I’m burying the man who resides there.”
The Arrowood brothers made a vow to take care of each other, protect one another, and that was what each of us did until I could get out. Two weeks after graduation was the last time I touched that farmland in Pennsylvania. I’ll live on the streets before I go back there.