Worth the Fall (The McKinney Brothers, #1)(41)

Teddy hadn’t agreed. They sat in the hangar, cleaning their weapons, waiting on their ride into the jungle.

Matt reinserted the bolt on his assault rifle. “I think I’m going to talk to the commander about BUD/S training.”

“What? You didn’t get enough the first time?”

“As a trainer, dipshit.”

“What the hell for?”

“Just thinking it might be good to do something different for a while.” He turned the gun over in his hands. “You ever think about it?”

“Fuck no,” T said, reloading his Glock. “Okay, it might be fun. For a day. Chew some ass and get out some of my lingering aggression from Hell Week.”

Hell Week had been hell for sure, but Matt had left with a deep appreciation for the men who’d trained him. He knew he’d be good at it, plus it’d give him a taste of semi-normal life.

T stopped what he was doing. “You’re seriously considering this shit?”

Matt looked at his hands. Steady. Trained. Deadly. He had no problem with killing people who killed and threatened the innocent, but that’s not all his hands could be used for. “There’re other things in life, you know?” But Matt could see by the look in his eyes that Teddy didn’t know. Or he didn’t want to. The military was T’s family, the platoon his only brothers.

Teddy paused from packing his gear. “You may want to die at home an old man. Not me. I’ll die fighting, dripping my blood over the battlefield as I go.”

“Don’t say shit like that.”

“Why? It’s the truth.” T grinned. “Don’t make me go all…You can’t handle the truth.”

Matt couldn’t help but smile. T had a gift for reciting famous movie lines and all other manner of keeping things light in tense moments. He thought maybe T was going to let the subject drop. Should have known better.

“You’d really quit the team?”

Shit. Matt heard the pain in his friend’s voice. He was taking this personally. “I don’t think it’d be quitting,” Matt said. “I just don’t want to look back on my life with regrets.”

“Neither do I,” Teddy had said. Then he’d stowed his gun, picked up his gear bag, and walked out of the hangar without a backward glance.





Chapter 15


The morning sun blinked at her through the passing trees as Abby drove to school. With kid music playing in the background, she made a mental list of all the places she needed to go today, visualizing her route for optimum execution. They were a week into the new school year and she was still perfecting her routine. Doctor’s appointment at nine. Groceries. Birthday gift for Gracie’s friend— “Mom, why is that bird sitting on a wire?” Jack asked.

“What bird?” Gracie asked.

“Mom!”

Jerked out of her thoughts, Abby glanced in her rearview mirror at Jack. “I don’t know, honey.”

“What bird? I want to see the bird,” Gracie whined.

“It’s gone, baby. We passed it.”

“But, Mom, why is—”

“Because he likes it up there.”

“Oh,” Jack said and turned his face to the window for something else to ask about.

“Mommy,” Gracie said, “when is Matt tumming?”

“What?” Abby almost missed the turn for school.

Gracie repeated the question as if Abby hadn’t heard her clearly.

Abby pulled in and put the car into park, then took a second to gather her thoughts before facing her daughter. “Gracie, Matt is not coming to visit us. He was just our friend when we were on vacation.”

“He said he would come for my birfday in two thirty days.”

“Honey, your birthday is in April.”

“Yeah,” she said, as if it all made sense.

“When did Matt tell you he was coming? When we were at the beach?”

“Yes.”

“Gracie, look at me. Did Matt say to you ‘I will come for your birthday’?”

Gracie fiddled with the edges of her My Little Pony backpack.

Abby held her breath, waiting on the answer, hating the feelings running through her at the thought of seeing him. The ones that clung to the memory of his kiss, his voice, the way he’d held her hand. But Matt wasn’t coming and he wouldn’t have told her daughter that. He wasn’t that cruel.

“Look at Mommy. It’s important to tell me exactly what he said.”

Annie, Charlie, and Jack looked on silently.

“Gracie, did you ask him to come?” That would be just like her. “Gracie? Exact words.”

“I said would you come to my house and play wiff me, and he said that would be fun.”

“And?”

“And he asked what would we pway, and I said dolls, and he waughed and said he didn’t know how to pway dolls, and I said I would teach him, and he said okay.” Gracie finished with a matter-of-fact smile like she had just explained everything.

Relief didn’t begin to cover what Abby felt. Because somewhere deep down, where she didn’t want to go, disappointment lurked.

Annie checked her watch. Like everything else, she took school extremely seriously. “Mom, we need to go.”