Broken

by Enders, KC

  Her head dips forward, and she gathers her hair, twisting it into a braid over one shoulder, like she did so many months ago on Natalie and Liam’s deck. Silence stretches between us, layering itself on top of tension and secrets and lies of omission. I’m stubborn. Angry. Barely functioning. But for the life of me, I know I can’t look her in the eye, see the sadness there.

  “I know it’s big, whatever happened. I know it’s bad. But more than anything I know that I want to help you. That I don’t want to lose you.

  “Natalie only gave me your apartment number. Jack—Dallas’s best friend—he knows but isn’t sharing. God, you have so many people who love you, who want to help, who want to support you and heal you and help you find a way to put yourself back together. I love you, Miles. I never thought I’d feel that again after losing Dallas. Never for a minute thought I’d find someone who could fill the hole he left in my life.”

  She reaches out, placing her delicate hand on mine, and I flinch. I fucking flinch, and she pulls away, which is stupid because every cell in my body is reaching for her, yearning for her. I want to wrap myself up in her. Let her be the binds that hold me together.

  I dare to take a glance at her. A shaky sigh deflates her shoulders, curling them inward. With a nod, Chloe reaches into her bra and pulls out a folded stack of bills. Clasped in her lap, she briefly fiddles with them and then places them on the coffee table. Then, Chloe stands and walks to the door.

  “What is that for? Is that the money I gave Jake?” I can’t stop myself from looking at her now. It happens without any thought, any control.

  With her back to me, Chloe pauses. “It is.”

  “Take it back. It’s his for—”

  “He doesn’t want it, Miles. Money wasn’t what he was looking for.”

  I lean forward, elbows on my knees, head in my hands. “He can buy whatever he wants.” I pick up the cash and hold it out. When she doesn’t take it, barely even glances back at it, I toss it to the other end of the table, bills fanning out. “Just take it.”

  Chloe turns to face me, moving so fast that it almost makes me seasick—and I don’t fucking get seasick. Her face is angry, all kinds of red. “Don’t you get it? He doesn’t want your fucking money. He can’t buy what he wants.”

  The fact that she dropped the fuck-word surprises me, but I snag my wallet off the coffee table and rifle through. There’s no cash. I gave it all to Jake earlier, and it’s sitting right there. I pull out a credit card. “Here. Take this. I don’t care how much he spends, max it out. Get him whatever he wants.” I stand and take a step toward her, my arm extended.

  “I can’t. That’s not how it works.”

  “Then, what does he want?”

  “A family. And foolish or naive or whatever, over the past couple of months, it wasn’t just me who fell in love with you, but my kid did, too. He thought you genuinely cared about him.” She bats at the tears that have spilled over, trailing down her cheeks. “I’m hurt, devastated, but I’ve gotten over heartbreak once before, and I can do it again. My kid though? He lost the man who taught him how to be a man. And he’s pretty sure it’s all his fault.”

  Chloe opens the door and walks through it, letting it slam behind her, the sound punctuating exactly how alone I am.

  Jesus Christ, what have I done?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chloe

  I stumble down the stairs, tears burning my eyes. I know Jack said to fight for Miles, to make him talk to me and tell me what he’s battling against, but I won’t force him to let me in. He has to want it. Want us.

  It takes all of two minutes to drive the four blocks home, and when I get there, I almost wish that Jake were here instead of with my parents. With the house empty, my heart bruised and battered, I feel more exposed inside than I do blanketed by the warm night air.

  I pad through the kitchen and push out the back door, Bronson trailing after me. The soft glow of little landscape lights acts as a beacon, drawing me to the garden. I settle on the bench that a husband made by hand for his wife. The one that Miles took my child to get for me for Mother’s Day.

  Bronson checks the yard and then comes back and curls up at my feet, and my toes automatically rub against his belly. As soothing as it is for him, it’s just as much of a balm to me.

  We’ll be okay.

  As the wind picks up, promising a coming storm, I allow myself to cry, cycling through the stages of grief. I don’t really even know if those apply to this mess. I’m sure, if I felt like digging in and doing the work that my therapist encouraged years ago as I processed the loss of Dallas, I’d find that they do, that I can make my feelings fit into a box and file them away. But I don’t want to.

  Instead, I let the tears flow, unchecked, down my face.

  And tomorrow, I’ll figure out if I want to wallow in this messy place or pick myself up and get shit done.

  Bronson lifts his head, staring into the silence. He doesn’t growl, just focuses squarely on the side of the house, where the gate is.

  Miles emerges from the darkness and soundlessly makes his way across the yard. Hands shoved deep in the pockets of his shorts, his head hanging, chin practically resting on his chest.

  He clears his throat and blows out a deep breath. I can almost hear him counting the hold before he inhales slowly.

  “My daughter was barely a month old when my wife killed her.”

  Air rushes from my lungs in a searing whoosh.

  “I found them. Walked in the door and found Aly clutching a knife by the blade, blood running down her hand and dripping from the bottom of the bassinet. She’d be two now. Walking, talking, all of that, but she’s gone, never got the chance.”

  He shifts his weight and continues, “Aly didn’t do well with the pregnancy. She, uh … she suffered with depression. A lot. But the doctors were there. They were on top of things, checking in, monitoring her. No one saw her break coming. They had no idea that she was hiding not just postpartum depression, but also a full PPD psychosis.”

  My hands fly to my cheeks, finally pushing away the tears I shed for my broken heart, only to make room for fresh ones for Miles’s loss.

  “My team was gearing up, doing mission prep, and I … I was gone a lot. Working long hours, focused on the upcoming mission.” His shrug is a barely there movement, more of a shift than an actual lift of his shoulder. “I got scrubbed from the mission and placed on watch. Buried my daughter. Saw a therapist and tried to figure out how to live. It was a lot—honestly too much. I fought myself with feelings of failure. In my job, as a father, a husband. I was a mess for a while.

  “I finally figured out that I had to do something, so I took as much leave as I could and decided to separate from the navy. Thank God, Jackson—the guy who started Cole Security—hired me. I don’t know if it was pity or what, but as much as I’d like to think I was getting my shit together at that point …” The grimace that twists his face finishes the thought better than words.

  Miles sucks in a lungful of air and then blows it out his nose, preparing for whatever he has to say next. “I’m not proud of it because I knew she was sick, but the first thing I did was divorce my wife. The DA took that, ran with it at trial, and pushed for the harshest penalty for Aly. There was a lot of guilt with that.” He shifts his weight, maybe swaying a little, his head hanging low. Shame and guilt draped over him.

  “Miles, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say. Is … is that why you went to California? Not for work, but to see …” I don’t know how to address her. Aly? His wife? The woman who took what he’d obviously held very dear?

  He lifts his head and briefly meets my eyes before tilting it up to the sky, a quick flash of lightning illuminating his strong profile. “Yeah. While the DA was pushing for a sentence of life in prison, I worked closely with her doctors, family, her legal team to have her placed in a long-term facility. What she had done was awful, beyond my worst nightmare, but she was sick. Prison wouldn’t give her the
kind of mental health care she needed, so I did everything in my power to help her get what she needed.”

  Thunder rumbles in the distance.

  “Did it not … your message when you were leaving Cali sounded like whatever you were there for was a success. Did I read that wrong? I mean, obviously, I thought it was work stuff, but I thought—”

  “No,” he says, gently cutting me off. “You’re right. It was all good. When I left California, she was being transported to her new facility, but by the time I landed here, she’d taken her own life.”

  I can’t help the gasp that shoots from my lungs, the sound of it loud in the still night.

  “Yeah, I know. I did everything I could to make things right. To make sure that another life wasn’t lost to Aly’s illness. It baffled the prosecutors on her case. I lobbied for her, not against. Begged for her to get help, not just locked away. And I failed. Again.”

  “Miles, you didn’t fail—”

  He hums in disagreement maybe. “But I did. I feel like I did, even more so now that she’s gone. You know, I worked through all the stages of grief. I took a lot of my initial anger out on Maggie and—”

  “Your truck?”

  He laughs, quick and with more resignation than humor. “Yep. I poured myself into restoring her, finding and fixing every little thing, stripping her down and building her up. And at the same time, I put myself back together. I know it sounds stupid, but working on Maggie saved me. And when she was done and Jackson saw me struggling again, he suggested taking a position here, starting over fresh.” He gives me a tight smile.

  We both came here to start over. To move on from losses so big, so life-changing. Two broken souls seeking salvation.

  “And I did. I found happiness I hadn’t thought I’d find. A job that’s, God, the next best thing to what I was doing as a SEAL. Still fulfilling but without the deployments, without the part that I blamed for missing Aly’s spiral. And when things felt good, really good, you fell into my arms. You and Jake”—he glances around my little yard—“all of this, gave me the pieces I had been missing. A family. It was all perfect, almost too good to be true. So, when Ryan—Aly’s lawyer—called to tell me she was gone, that she’d taken her life …”

  Warm drops of rain fall, landing on the top of my head like tender kisses. Wet dots bloom on the bench, raindrops getting fatter and falling harder as each second ticks by.

  “Come inside,” I say, rising to my feet. I grasp Miles’s hand, guiding him toward the house.

  “I should go.” He tugs on his hand, but there’s no way I’m going to let him go. Not now, not after all that he told me.

  I lead him into the kitchen, and as if it were waiting for us, the sky opens up as the door shuts behind us. In the bright glow of the overhead light, Miles looks even worse than he did at his apartment. Eyes bloodshot, hair and beard wild. His clothes rumpled, splotches of rain darkening his T-shirt.

  “Go sit down,” I tell him, waving a hand to quiet him when he starts to protest.

  I grab a glass of water and ease down on the couch, Miles parked in the center, elbows resting on his strong thighs.

  “Drink this and then finish what you were going to say. The lawyer called you,” I prompt, handing him the glass.

  Miles quickly drains it, setting it on the table when he’s done. “Yeah, all the ways I failed Aly and the baby hit me like a punch to the gut. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. It was like a warning to let you and Jake go before I failed you more than I already had.” Exhaustion dragging him down, Miles slumps further into the downy cushions.

  “How do you think you failed us, Miles?”

  He tenses briefly. “The bench, the robbery. I put Jake in danger, and you could have lost him. It would’ve been my fault; I’d have taken him from you. I know what that feels like, Chloe. I’d rather bear the pain of losing you both, knowing you were safe without me, than to have you suffer that loss. But turns out”—he turns his head, so his hazy brown gaze is directed right at me—“I don’t think I can live without you guys. I love you so goddamn much, it hurts. I’m tired of pain. So fucking tired of it.”

  I reach out, placing my palm on his cheek, my thumb stroking his whiskers away from his lips.

  “I love you,” Miles repeats, his lips moving against my thumb. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  I press my lips to his temple and pull his body toward me, settling his torso between my thighs and his head against my stomach. Almost immediately, Miles’s breathing evens out, his face going slack with sleep. I trace his dark, heavy brows before trailing my fingers across his cheekbones and down his nose.

  Did his daughter look like him? Did her mouth purse in sleep with the perfect cupid-bow lips, like his? Or did he see his wife—ex-wife—every time he looked at her? How did he get up each morning and get through his day, not showing any of that pain to the world?

  The press of his weight, his warmth, the soft and even puff of breath at each exhale act together, relaxing me. The drumming beat of the rain pelting against the window finally pulls me under, exhaustion consuming me.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Miles

  While Chloe forgave me for being a dumbass, Jake has been a much harder sell. I don’t blame him one bit for the attitude he gives me. Actions speak louder than words, and I shit all over the relationship we’d forged.

  Even with strict adherence to the rules I spent months teaching him, I haven’t made a ton of progress. As June starts its downward slide, I’ve got to do something to mend the rift I created.

  “Jake, you want to come with me and grab some ice cream?”

  Chloe made a big dinner but accidentally forgot to make dessert at my request.

  “Mom doesn’t like ice cream, or did you forget?” And there’s that attitude he was full of when we met.

  Chloe huffs out a laugh. “I’m stuffed, babe. You and Miles go on without me, and I’ll get these dishes done.” She throws me a wink and mouths a silent, Good luck.

  “Come on.” I give his shoulder a light squeeze as I grab my keys from the counter.

  Jake drags his feet but follows me out to Maggie, sliding into the passenger seat as Bronson hops on the bench seat between us. “Damn it, Bronson.” He doesn’t bother using one of his substitute curses, but now is not the time for me to correct that.

  “Jake, I need to apologize to you. What I did, the way I dropped out of your mom’s life and yours, that wasn’t right. I struggle with making excuses for myself, almost as much as I struggle with accepting them from others.”

  He peers at me from behind Bronson’s back, brows lowered, his thinking face on.

  “But people make mistakes. Sometimes, those mistakes are innocent, and sometimes, they’re intentional but with good intent, no ill will. Does that make sense?”

  He nods, so I continue, wanting to explain this as best I can, “I was married before, a couple of years ago, way before I met you guys.”

  “When you were a SEAL?”

  I pull into a space at the ice cream shop and park. “Yep. My wife was …” I sigh, bracing myself. Weighing my words. “She did something bad, something very serious, that resulted in another person’s death.”

  “She killed someone? She was a murderer?” There’s no hiding the shock leaching into his voice or painted on his face.

  “She did kill someone, but it’s kind of hard to explain. She was sick.”

  “So, she murdered because she was sick?”

  Shock turns to confusion—and isn’t that the fucking thing? I don’t want to give him so many details that he’s scarred from it. I carry enough of that myself. But I want to do the explanation justice—at least, as much as I can.

  “She suffered from a mental illness, and at the time, she didn’t know what she was doing. It was wrong, very wrong.

  “When I went to California, I went there to talk to the judge and the lawyers. I wanted to help her get the care that she needed. Unfortunately, the sickness
was too strong, too much, and she died.”

  Chloe and I talked at length about how much to tell Jake, what to tell him and how to say it. I don’t know whether it’s right or wrong to fudge the details of exactly how Aly died, but for the sake of an eleven-year-old, almost twelve, boy, we decided to censor this particular detail.

  Jake’s hand goes to Bronson’s back, stroking his fur as he processes what I shared. “Miles, who did she kill?” he asks softly.

  Part of me hoped that he wouldn’t ask, but this, I won’t gloss over. That would feel too wrong. “Our daughter.”

  Sadness pulls at the corners of Jake’s eyes, and he sniffs quietly, chewing at his lip. “I’m sorry she did that. I’m sorry you don’t have a kid anymore.”

  “Thank you. That means a lot. I’m still her dad, even though she’s not here. Just like you will always have your dad.”

  I pause, letting that thought sink in for both of us.

  “So, that’s what happened, and that’s why I was really sad—pretty mad, too—and I was afraid of losing you and your mom. Afraid enough to push you guys away, thinking it would be easier for everyone, but I was really wrong. And if you’ll forgive me, I’d like to be part of your lives again.”

  He picks at his lower lip and sniffs noisily. “I would like that. A lot.”

  “There’s one last thing I need to clear with you before we go get dessert. And if it wasn’t super important, I would never ask you to keep a secret from your mom, not for anything, but I would like to ask her to marry me. I want to make sure that it’s okay with you first though.” I hold my breath because, honestly, I’m going to ask her; it’ll just be that much easier if Jake is on board.

  A smile lights up his face, and he asks, “Really?”