The Return Home: The Aegis Network (the SARICH BROTHERS series Book 4)

by Jen Talty

  He lay on the dock, staring at the night sky speckled with a million stars. He replayed every bad dream he could remember from childhood into his early years in the Army. When his father died, he used to dream that Logan had died too. He chalked that up to Logan being the oldest and the one who did what he could to kick Dylan in the ass when it came to school or not giving their mom a hard time during those turbulent adolescent years.

  After Nick’s first wife died, when he did have a bad dream, it was always his mother standing over his grave, and she would sob like he’d never heard before. Just thinking about the sound made him want to jump out of his skin.

  He didn’t need a dream to tell him that in the back of his mind, he worried about himself, or anyone in his family, dying, yet they all took on jobs that put their lives at a high risk for injury and death.

  Besides, people died every day. It was a normal part of life.

  “Fuck it,” he mumbled, taking out his phone. He had to talk this through with someone and he trusted Kinsley, though he had no idea why. But the dreams had to be under control before he left to go back to Ft. Bragg.

  Dylan: R U up?

  He set the phone on his chest, figuring she’d already gone to bed, since it was after eleven on a work night, and his efforts were futile. He’d have to wait till morning, but his cell buzzed right away.

  Kinsley: Yes. Everything okay?

  Dylan: Can’t sleep.

  Kinsley: Dreams getting to you?

  Dylan: Yes.

  Kinsley: Come over.

  Dylan: Ok.

  He stood, feeling a little less pain than the day before. With every rising of the sun, his body got stronger and stronger.

  Now he just needed his mind to follow the same game plan.

  She greeted him at the door with a smile and a glass of red wine. “Sorry I’ve been so busy, but between my mother’s break up and work, I’ve been slammed.”

  “No worries,” he said, taking the cobbler and following her into the trailer. Hers was a two-bedroom, and one of the smaller ones in the park, but it had one of the nicer views. “How is your mom?”

  “Filled with drama, but I give her, at tops, two months before she’s got another man dropping to one knee, begging for her hand in marriage. I’m just glad she decided to stay at the Jupiter Resort. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mom, but she’s really high-maintenance and a trailer park is beneath her.”

  “I got that my entire life,” Dylan said, gently closing the screen door behind him. “I once took out a girl who, when she found out where I lived, wouldn’t even look at me at school. What was really funny, though, was she lived in the condos next door.”

  “I looked at renting in there. A lot less than here.”

  “Exactly.” He laughed. “How long is your mom staying in Jupiter?”

  “I hope not long,” she said. “And I won’t be introducing you to her either. She would put us in a church and married yesterday.”

  “Don’t ever let her meet my mother then, or we’ll be in deep shit.”

  “I know, right?”

  He swallowed a large gulp of wine before taking a seat on the sofa. The only light in the room glowed from the television, which had been muted. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “It’s no bother. I’ve felt bad that I haven’t been able to talk to you and had to cancel our date.”

  “No need to feel bad. I understand.” He wasn’t about to admit he’d been avoiding her because he’d found himself so attracted to her that he couldn’t tell the difference between wanting her help.

  And wanting her.

  “So, tell me, what’s on your mind?” She tucked her feet up under her adorable ass. She wore a thin T-shirt and a pair of boxer-type shorts that showed off her lean legs. Her hair had been pulled into a messy ponytail on top of her head, and he suspected not an ounce of makeup lined her gorgeous face.

  “The dreams are getting worse and worse. I took a nap today and woke up in a cold sweat.” He glanced around the room, avoiding her gaze. Her trailer was scantly decorated with the bare necessities.

  A couch, recliner, end and coffee tables with a small television standing on a hutch. A few coastal paintings on the walls, but he didn’t see a single picture of family anywhere.

  Even he had pictures in his bunk at Ft. Bragg.

  And in his wallet.

  Car.

  Rucksack.

  Of course, most people kept pictures on their phone these days, and he had plenty of shots and videos of his nieces and nephews there. But he still liked to hold photographs in his hands. Feel the paper between his fingers. For some reason, that made him feel like he was closer when he was in some dark hole on the other side of the world.

  “And now I don’t want to close my eyes,” he said.

  “I take it the nightmare shifted again.”

  He nodded.

  “You know, you’re talking yourself into some of this by worrying about it all day.”

  “So, why are you having me write it down?” he asked with a bit of a clipped tone. He’d become obsessed by the dreams before she asked him to keep a journal, and he wondered if that just made it all worse.

  She raised the red liquid to her lips, taking a slow draw. “What are you afraid of most in this world?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For example, I’m terrified of getting married, but I also don’t want to spend the rest of my life alone. I fear I’ll end up like one or the other of my parents, and I don’t know which would be worse.”

  “I’m not afraid of much,” he said, coating his heart with a thick layer of macho arrogance.

  “We all have fears and the ones that haunt our subconscious and affect our daily decision making are the ones that will keep us awake at night.”

  “Is that why you’re awake tonight? Because your mother is close, and you don’t want to be that person who has six husbands?”

  “It’s not the number that really scares me. I don’t need a man like my mother does. But both parents are lonely for different reasons.”

  “Are you lonely?” he asked, honestly curious about how she felt about her life. He wanted to know what her hopes and dreams were.

  “No. Not yet anyway. However, that is one of my biggest fears, and it comes to me in my dreams all the time. That said, you’re deflecting this conversation.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who keeps answering,” he mused.

  Her lips turned upward. “I do and that is a different topic for another day. Tell me, what are you afraid of the most in life?”

  “I used to think it was disappointing my mom. She gets this look on her face that just makes a man want to crawl in a hole and die.”

  “Try again.”

  “What? You don’t believe me?” He raised his bad leg, bending at the knee and letting the boot sit across the cushion between them.

  “I believe you want your mother to be happy, but if you were worried about disappointing her, you wouldn’t sabotage every date she tries to fix you up on, and you’d be married by now.”

  He opened his mouth, but snapped it shut right quick. Damn woman had a point.

  “Dig deeper, Dylan. Think about all the feelings you had when you wrote out your dreams as you remembered them.”

  He dropped his head back, closing his eyes, letting the images of the dreams and his emotions rise to the surface. “I’m really angry when I wake up.”

  “At who?”

  “Myself because I’m hurting my family. Why would I do that?”

  “You wouldn’t,” she said. The sofa shifted, and her tropical scent intensified. “Do you worry about what might happen when you’re gone? If you die?”

  He sucked in a breath. Nick had mentioned that one of the reasons he didn’t think he could ever love again had been because of what dying does to the living. Dylan had always thought Nick just didn’t want to get hurt again, but his words made sense.

  “I do, but I know my brothers and mother wi
ll survive without me. The Sarichs’ are tough.”

  “What about your brothers’ wives? Their children?”

  He raised his head, opening his eyes. She’d scooted to the middle of the sofa, her hand resting on the foam boot covering his bum leg.

  “I’m not a big piece of their life, so not sure what you’re getting at.”

  “The bigger your family gets, the more people there are to love, the more people there are to disappoint, leave behind, or die.”

  “But what does that have to do with my dreams?”

  “You keep adding people to the nightmare, it could be you’re associating the pain of losing your men to what it would feel like to lose your family, or what they would feel if they lost you, or it could be—”

  “Huh. Interesting.” It made sense, but he figured the simplicity of it was too easy. If it were that straightforward, he should be able to close his eyes and not have his heart rate sore to one hundred beats per minute. It shouldn’t bother him to see a set of jumper cables and not remember feeling his brain ignite. This nightmare was more sophisticated than that.

  But this was a start.

  “I’ve treated many patients with PTSD, and while you definitely exhibit signs, I think these dreams are stemming from something other than your mission and lost men.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I would bet that when you write in the journal, it’s all about your family, not your men.” She held up her hand. “I’m not saying the lost souls aren’t impacting you, because I know they are. I’m saying, this triggered something from your childhood you just haven’t dealt with. A deep-seated fear you might not even know exists.”

  “I had a pretty easy childhood. Other than my father dying when I was a teenager, I come from a loving, tight family unit. My brothers and I have a unique bond. I wasn’t bullied in school, nor was I ever a bully. I can’t imagine that anything other than what I went through could be causing these nightmares.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they are the cause, but they aren’t the effect.”

  “I really don’t follow.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d seen other really good soldiers lose their careers to PTSD and nightmares, and he didn’t want to be one of them, which was why he’d try like hell to make sense of what Kinsley told him.

  She leaned closer, cupping the side of his face. “You know that experiencing the torture in your dreams and hearing your men suffer, isn’t a nightmare. It’s a reality that you are dealing with. If you weren’t, we wouldn’t be sitting on this sofa talking. This dream, the moment your family entered it, became something else. I think you’re terrified you will die, leaving behind a family to suffer in a pain so great, there isn’t anything that will fill the void, and at the same time, you’re afraid that you won’t leave behind a legacy.”

  He didn’t mean to laugh but couldn’t help it. “I don’t want to cause my family any pain, but my job is dangerous, and considering what I just went through, I could very well die on the job, so what you just said, I don’t buy.”

  She dropped her hand to her lap and let out a long breath. “I know you have a limited time here and I’m rushing this process, but I think you’ve spent a lifetime trying to close the void your father left—”

  “I’ll admit, losing my father was traumatic, but my brothers and mother filled that void quite nicely.”

  “No. That’s not what I mean. Your subconscious is telling you that taking every dangerous mission handed to you doesn’t do the trick anymore. Teetering on life and death doesn’t protect your heart from the suffering of losing someone you love, especially when you’ve never loved someone outside of your family so deeply it hurts.” Staring at him with an arched brow, she sipped her wine.

  He took a moment to collect his thoughts, which weren’t too many because he couldn’t wrap his brain around her analysis. It didn’t compute. “Are you trying to tell me I’m having a recurring nightmare because I’m afraid I’ll die alone?”

  “I’m saying you’re afraid you won’t have anything to leave behind when you do die.” She reached out, curling her fingers around the bottom of his T-shirt. “These scars are constant reminders of good men who died, and you will have them with you, as if they left a piece of them on you. You carry pictures of your family and talk about your nieces and nephews as extensions of your brother’s life. Not yours. If anything, you keep them in this little box, protected from you and your world, as if you don’t matter as much as they do.” She tapped the center of his chest with her index finger. “And you said so before.”

  “I did not,” he said with a furrowed brow, backtracking the conversation.

  “Right now, you don’t see your life as mattering as much as all the men who died, your father, and even your brothers.”

  His CO once told him that if something made him really angry, then there was a layer of truth he needed to look at.

  Dylan swallowed the rage boiling in his gut. “I’m not some guy on a death wish. Ramey was a huge adrenaline junkie and even he didn’t push the envelope to the point he flirted with death.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “What is the point?” he said with a harsh tone. One he wished he could take back. He truly wasn’t upset with her or her analysis of his dreams, but the idea she could be right made him want to volunteer for another mission.

  Meaning, she was right.

  “Tell me, are you and your brothers as tight as you once were?”

  He drew his lips into a tight line. Being the baby, he’d sometimes felt like he was one step behind his brothers. That said, he knew his brothers would always have his back.

  If he asked.

  He just never asked.

  Not even when he needed them.

  “All right,” she said, tightening her ponytail. “Answer me this then. How many of the nine men were married? Fathers?”

  “All married, four were fathers.” He clenched his fists. “It should have been me,” he whispered.

  “Because you don’t have a wife or children,” she said matter-of-factly. “I think you’re hurting your family in the dream because they all represent what you don’t think you deserve.”

  “Now that is some crazy-ass bullshit.” He put his glass on the coffee table. “No offense and I appreciate the time, but—”

  “Don’t finish that statement.” She stood, patting his shoulder. “Go home. Get some sleep. Call me if you want to or need to. I’ll leave my phone on all night.”

  “You’re a good person, Kinsley, but you’re wrong.”

  “I’ll talk to you soon,” she said with confidence as she held open the door. “I told my mother I had to work late tomorrow.”

  “And you don’t?”

  She laughed, shaking her head. “Want to go down to Palm Beach Gardens and get a drink at Topper’s with me?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll text you when I’m done. You can Uber down, and I’ll drive us home.”

  He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Sweet dreams, Kinsley.”

  God, he hoped his dreams were filled with sunshine and unicorns.

  Chapter 8

  Kinsley took the hottest shower she should could tolerate right after Dylan left. Her muscles ached, and her brain hurt, but not because of him.

  She’d spent hours earlier in the day letting her mother cry on her shoulder, again. Knowing that in a few months, she’d find her ‘soulmate.’

  Again.

  And that was too bad, because husband number six had seemed like a genuine keeper and he had really loved her mother.

  But Kinsley could handle all that. What drove her mad was when her mother started babbling about calling Kinsley’s dad. After the first few break-ups, her dad took her mom back, and it had been hell watching her mother break her dad’s heart.

  Over and over again.

  Her father had learned, but he always took the phone call.

  Always came running to her mother’s side for moral support.


  After towel-drying her hair, Kinsley put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, letting her thoughts wander back to Dylan.

  She desperately wanted to help him understand that loving someone didn’t make him responsible for their lives. He felt responsible for the men in his unit, which meant, no matter what happened on a mission, when it went bad, Dylan soaked it all in like an emotional sponge, always wishing it had been him who had died.

  But when it went well, he never once considered he might be part of the success. No. He was just there, riding on the coattails of everyone else. He viewed his success as a byproduct of his brothers.

  And his father.

  That’s where it began.

  Whatever happened in that hospital room moments before his father died, changed Dylan forever.

  She twisted her hair into a braid and headed for the kitchen. One more glass of wine. While pouring the rest of the bottle, she glanced out the window and gasped.

  “Dylan?” she whispered, staring at him sprawled out on her beach chair. Tip-toeing to the front door, she peeked outside. “Dylan?” she repeated. “What are you doing?”

  He rolled his head to the side. “Stargazing.”

  “On my porch?”

  “I didn’t want to go home just yet.”

  “Why didn’t you text me or knock on the door?” She leaned against the doorjamb, her heart crumbling into a bunch of tiny pieces for the man with a heart of gold and a soul that needed some serious healing.

  He dropped his feet to either side of the chair and patted the cushion.

  She hesitated for only a couple of seconds and eased between his legs, facing him. She crisscrossed her legs and let out a long breath, staring into his ocean-colored eyes that called to her like her favorite ice cream.

  “That’s a big-ass glass of wine,” he said, taking it from her hand and sipping.

  “Figured I might as well finish the bottle.”

  “Afraid to go to sleep, too?” he asked.

  “Not afraid, but I get insomnia, and tonight is one of those nights.”

  “Hence the massive amount of alcohol. This has to be half the bottle.”