“Yes. Why?”
The front door to the ranch house opened and closed. Both women stopped and looked toward the entrance.
“Oh,” Shay said, “that’s Garret coming back. He was up in Jackson Hole for the last couple weeks. He’s in construction and he had projects for two ranches down there. Jackson Hole is fifty miles north of here, so he stayed in bunkhouses on those ranches. It snows a lot and he didn’t want to risk driving on icy roads.”
Nodding, Kira heard the vet stomping snow off his boots in the mudroom, then the sound of him coming down the hall toward the kitchen. “Makes good sense.”
Shay smiled. “Well, you’ll get to meet him in a few moments. He had to see Reese once he drove back from the work assignment. He’ll be coming by the kitchen here any second and I’ll introduce you to him.”
Kira nodded. “Are you sure he won’t mind a woman in his house?” Her mind snapped back to another Garret Fleming she knew for three years. The man she’d fallen helplessly and completely in love with, who had been part of her A team. Kira wasn’t even sure Garret had loved her. He’d always treated her like his sister. But she had secretly fallen in love with him. Utterly. Rubbing the red sweater she wore, Kira felt her heart ache without relief. She’d never known what happened to him. Where was he now? How he was doing? That part of her life was a black hole.
“Garret is easygoing,” Shay reassured her. “All the vets know that sooner or later they’ll get another military vet living in the same house with them. And they’re okay with it.”
Kira heard the echo of heavy boots meeting the cedar hardwood floor out in the hall. “What military branch was he in?”
Shay was about to answer when Garret came around the corner, his black Stetson in his hand.
Kira froze. Her eyes widened as Garret Fleming stood in the doorway, staring at them. Her heart crashed in her chest. His hazel eyes moved to her and stopped. And then, he blinked slowly as he stared at her sitting at the table.
Shay felt a palpable shift of energy in the room, as if a bolt of lightning had suddenly slammed into it. Confused, she looked at Garret and then at Kira.
“Kira?”
Garret’s low, deep voice, filled with disbelief, plunged through Kira’s heart. Her lips parted as she wrestled with the shock bolting through her. “Garret?”
“Yeah,” he rumbled, scowling. “What are you doing here?”
Kira gulped. “I—uh—” She choked, unable to speak, her hands against her heart as she stared up at his tall, powerful form. Garret Fleming was six foot two inches tall, two-hundred and twenty pounds of pure, rock hard male muscle. He no longer wore a beard, which all Special Forces men in the teams did when in a Muslim country. His face was shaved clean and she saw how ruggedly handsome he really was. A beard hid so much of a man’s face. Her heart stuttered and she felt swept away on the giddy joy that overwhelmed her. Garret had a square face, large, wide-spaced intelligent eyes that glittered with green, brown, and gold colors as he stared in disbelief at her. She wanted to get up and hurl herself into his arms. To kiss him. To celebrate he was alive! To Kira, he looked so strong and healthy, his face darkly tanned, exuding the vitality she knew when she was in the team with him.
“What’s going on here?” Shay asked, puzzled.
Garret shook his head and gave Shay a wry look. “Kira was a member in our Special Forces A team for three years.”
“Oh,” Shay whispered, her hand flying to her lips, her eyes suddenly huge as she stared over at Kira.
Kira managed a jerky nod, her gaze never leaving Garret’s. “Y-you’re okay? I tried to find you, Garret, but I never could . . .” Her voice died into an aching whisper of regret. She saw his eyes grow stormy, that well-shaped mouth of his thinning as he regarded her.
“It’s okay,” he rumbled. Pointing at his left temple, he said gruffly, “I had amnesia for six months after I was flown to Bethesda. I didn’t even know my own name until my memory came back on its own, Kira.” He gave her an apologetic look. “I tried to find you, but I never did. I’m sorry, too . . .”
His low, emotional explanation filtered through her shock. A lump formed in her throat and she couldn’t speak for a moment. So much had happened to them that night during the ambush. “I-I understand,” she said hoarsely. “You were shot in the head. I-I remember . . .” Kira remembered everything. Her weekly nightmares guaranteed that. She saw Garret’s face crumple with pain for a moment before he put on his game face.
“Oh, my God,” Shay said, looking at first one and then the other, “you worked together? You were on the same A team?”
“Yeah,” Garret said, moving his shoulders as if to get rid of the tension. “Black ops, Shay. Top secret.”