“Yeah. It wasn’t anything I planned.” He and Nate didn’t know each other well, but Jesse had to ask. “What’s it like being a dad?”
“It’s great. I love it. Megan is the best thing that ever happened to me, and the kids are right there with her.” He was quiet for a moment as if deciding whether to say more. “Megan had a rough life before I met her. Emily was four when we got together. I adopted Emily when Megan and I got married. I love that little girl like my own. She never knew a father before me. In every way that counts, I am her father.”
“Wow. Yeah. That’s great.” It felt like a revelation to Jesse.
He’d always thought that his dad had beaten him because he wasn’t truly his son. Some part of him had accepted it as natural that a man couldn’t love children that weren’t his blood. But now thinking of his feelings for Daniel and Daisy—and considering what Nate had just told him—it seemed to him that his father had beaten him because the man was an asshole.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here,” Nate said. “I don’t know you well, but I hear good things. You’re on the Team. You’re a patroller. You’ve saved lives. You’ve served your country. But don’t hurt Ellie. Dan was a good friend of mine. I care about what happens to the woman he loved and the kids he never got to see.”
Nate spoke the words in a friendly enough way, but the warning was clear.
“I don’t want to hurt her. The last thing I want to do is hurt her. I knew Dan, too. We called him Crash, short for Crashhawk. He was the pilot on at least a dozen direct actions I was involved in, and there were a handful of times when he came in for a hot extract, guns blazing, and saved our asses.”
Nate glared at him. “You were buddies, and you’re with his wife?”
“I didn’t know she was his wife.” A sticky sense of guilt had Jesse defending himself. “She and I have been neighbors for two years. I helped her one night when her car broke down, and she and Daniel were sick. I knew she was a Gold Star wife, but it didn’t click that she was Crash’s wife. It’s not like he and I were close buds. I only saw him a few times outside of his bird, and that was just in passing.”
“Okay, well, that’s different.” The anger faded from Nate’s face.
But now Jesse was pissed. “If you and Dan were so close and you care so much about Ellie, where have you been these past three years?”
“That’s a fair question. We started a college fund for her kids. The whole town contributed. She knows it’s there, but she doesn’t know we started it. We didn’t have a personal relationship, and we didn’t want to impose on her grief.” Nate’s gaze shifted to something behind Jesse. “It looks like the old man brought lunch.”
Jesse looked over his shoulder to see two horses pulling a sleigh, Jack and Emily at the reins, the women and kids piled into seats behind him and covered by blankets. “Wow.”
Nate towed Jesse over to the picnic shelter, tying off the horse’s reins while Jesse stepped out of his bindings. “Does Ellie know that you knew Dan?”
“No.” At first, she’d been sick, and it hadn’t seemed right to bring it up, and then... “I need to tell her.”
Chapter 18
Jesse was unusually quiet on the drive home from the Cimarron. Ellie didn’t notice at first because all she could do was rave about how amazing their day had been. She didn’t know what had been more fun—watching the kids ride for the first time, going for a sleigh ride, or getting up the courage to ask Jack if she could try riding. She’d also felt better after she’d watched Jesse fly through the skijoring course after lunch. It was only when he didn’t seem to hear this comment that she realized something was wrong.
The kids had fallen asleep on the drive back to Scarlet Springs, worn out from all the excitement. Jesse carried in Daniel while she carried Daisy. They put them in their beds. On the way back down the hallway, she finally asked him about it.
“Are you okay? You’re so quiet.”
“We need to talk.”
That didn’t sound good. Had she said or done something to upset him? Had something happened at the Cimarron?
“Okay. Do you want a cup of coffee or something to drink?”
“No. Thanks. I’m fine.”
They sat at the table, and she waited.
“There’s something I should have told you when we first met. At first, it didn’t seem important, and then I just let it go.”
She reached for his hand. “What is it?”
“I knew Dan.”
Blood rushed to her head. “Wh-what?”
“We all had nicknames over there, so at first I didn’t make the connection. I knew him as Crashhawk. We all called him Crash. I should have told you, but at first it seemed irrelevant and after that .. I didn’t want to stir up old memories for you. I should have told you before we got involved, and for that I’m sorry.”
But Ellie’s mind hadn’t gotten past his revelation, rage making her face burn. “You knew Dan? You knew my husband, and now you’re sleeping with me?”