with his SEAL team. But if he had to spend his convalescence as a loaner to the Department of Homeland Security, it might as well be in his home state of Wyoming, and the hometown he hadn’t visited in a long time.
Seven years had passed since the last time he’d come back. He didn’t have much reason to return. His parents had moved to a Florida retirement community after his father had served as ranch foreman for a major cattle ranch for the better part of forty years. Ranching was a young man’s work, hard on a body and unforgiving when it came to accidents. The man deserved the life of leisure, soaking up the warm winter sunrays and playing golf to his heart’s content.
Ghost adjusted his seat to the upright position and ran a hand through his hair. He needed a shower and a toothbrush. But a cup of coffee would have to do. He was supposed to report in to his contact, Kevin Garner, that morning to receive instructions. He hoped like hell he’d clarify just what would be entailed in the Safe Haven Task Force. To Ghost, it sounded like a quick path to boredom.
Ghost didn’t do boredom well. It nearly got him kicked out of the Navy while in rehab in Bethesda, Maryland, at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He was a SEAL, damn it. They had their own set of rules.
Not according to Joe, his physical therapist. He’d nearly come to blows with the man several times. Now that Ghost was back on his own feet without need of crutches, he regretted the idiot he’d been and had gone back to the therapy center to apologize.
Joe had laughed it off, saying he’d been threatened with far worse.
A smile curled Ghost’s lips at the memory. Then the smile faded. He could get around without crutches or a cane, but the Navy hadn’t seen fit to assign him back to his team at the Naval Special Warfare Group, or DEVGRU, in Virginia. Instead he’d been given Temporary Duty assignment in Wyoming, having been personally requested by a DHS task force leader.
What could possibly be so hot that a DHS task force leader could pull enough strings to get a highly trained Navy SEAL to play in his homeland security game? All Ghost could think was that man had some major strings to pull in DC. As soon as he met with the DHS guy, he hoped to make it clear he wanted off the assignment and back to his unit.
The sooner the better.
He’d left Grizzly Pass as a teen, fresh out of high school. Though his father loved the life of a ranch foreman, Ghost had wanted to get out of Wyoming and see the world. He’d returned several times, the last to help his parents pack up their things to move to Florida. He’d taken a month of leave to guide his parents through the biggest change in their lives and to say goodbye to his childhood home one last time.
With his parents leaving Wyoming, he had no reason to return. Having recently graduated from the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training and having just completed his first deployment in his new role, Ghost was on a path to being exactly what he wanted—the best Navy SEAL he could be. A month on leave in Grizzly Pass reminded him why he couldn’t live there anymore. At the same time, it reminded him of why he’d loved it so much.
He’d been home for two weeks when he’d run into a girl he’d known since grade school, one who’d been his friend through high school, whom he’d lost touch with when he’d joined the Navy. She’d been the tagalong friend he couldn’t quite get rid of, who’d listened to all of his dreams and jokes. She was as quirky and lovable as her name, never asking anything of him but a chance to hang around.
With no intention of starting a lasting relationship, he’d asked her out. He’d told her up front he wasn’t there to stay and he wouldn’t be calling her after he left. She’d been okay with that, stating she had no intention of leaving Wyoming and she wouldn’t be happy with a man who would be gone for eleven months of the year. But she wouldn’t mind having someone to go out with while he was there.
No strings attached. No hearts broken.
Her words.
Looking back, Ghost realized those two weeks had been the best of his life. He’d recaptured the beauty of his home and his love of the mountains and prairies.
Charlie had taken him back to his old haunts in her Jeep, on horseback and on foot. They’d hiked, camped and explored everywhere they’d been as kids, topping it off by skinny-dipping in Bear Paw Creek.
That was when the magic multiplied exponentially. Their fun-loving romp as friends changed in an instant. Gone was the gangly girl with the braid hanging down her back. Naked, with nothing but the sun touching her pale skin, she’d walked into the water and changed his life forever.
He wondered if she still lived in Grizzly Pass. Hell, for the past seven years, he’d wanted to call her and ask her how she was doing and if she still thought about that incredible summer.
He supposed in the past seven years, she’d gone on to marry a local rancher and had two or three kids by now.
Ghost sighed. Since they’d made love in the fresh mountain air, he’d thought of her often. He still carried a picture of the two of them together. A shot his father had taken of them riding double on horseback at the ranch. He remembered that day the most. That was the day they’d gone to the creek. The day they’d first made love. The first day of the last week of his leave.
Having just graduated from college, she’d started work with a small business in town. She worked half days and spent every hour she wasn’t working with Ghost. When he worried about her lack of sleep, she’d laughed and said she could sleep when he was gone. She wanted to enjoy every minute she could with him. Again, no strings attached. No hearts broken.
Now, back in the same town, Ghost glanced around the early morning streets. A couple of trucks rumbled past the grocery parking lot and stopped at the local diner, pulling in between several other weathered ranch trucks.
Apparently the food was still good there.
A Jeep zipped into the diner’s parking lot and parked between two of the trucks.
As his gaze fixed on the driver’s door as it opened, Ghost’s heartbeat stuttered, stopped and raced on.
A man in dark jeans and a dark polo shirt climbed out and entered the diner.
His pulse slowing, Ghost let out a sigh, squared his shoulders and twisted the key in the ignition. He was there to work, not rekindle an old flame, not when he was going to meet a man about his new assignment and promptly ask to be released to go back to his unit. The diner was the designated meeting place and it was nearing seven o’clock—the hour they’d agreed on.
Feeling grungy and road-weary, Ghost promised himself he’d find a hotel for a shower, catch some real sleep and then drive back to Virginia over the next couple of days.
He drove out of the parking lot and onto Main Street. He could have walked to the diner, but he wanted to leave straight from there to find that hotel and the shower he so desperately needed. Thirty minutes max before he could leave and get some rest.
Ghost parked in an empty space in the lot, cut the engine, climbed out of his truck and nearly crumpled to the ground before he got his leg straight. Pain shot through his thigh and kneecap. The therapist said that would happen if he didn’t keep it moving. After his marathon drive from Virginia to Wyoming in under two days, what did he expect? He held on to the door until the pain subsided and his leg straightened to the point it could hold his weight.
Once he was confident he wouldn’t fall flat on his face, he closed the truck door and
