had helped that, without Gavin around to police things between them, Benji saw her in a new light, too. No longer the petulant tagalong but an adult. You’re a frigging force of nature, he’d sized her up after watching her train without an instructor for the first time. You know that?
The only thing that had threatened to slow down the snowball of their relationship was Gavin and Kyle’s opinion on the subject. Benji had come away from a few days with them on the Gulf with bruises and five stitches in his forehead. He’d come away smiling, nonetheless, with cautious blessings from his bosom buddies.
It had helped that Kyle had been involved in a serious relationship as well, one that had gone as far as the potential of marriage. Laurel Frye had been the bane of Harmony’s existence from the moment she started tagging along behind Kyle, too. The whole fairy-tale romance had started in early high school. Kyle had been smitten with Laurel, which had made the whole affair worse for Harmony.
High school sweethearts were rarely lasting. It had seemed that Kyle and Laurel would be one of those rare exceptions...until his first tour and the frag grenade that had torn through his left leg. Laurel wasn’t the only one who’d wanted him to quit the teams after. Harmony had gone so far as to reason with him not to re-up. But Laurel’s voice had been louder. And when he did go back close to a year later, her voice was the one that had grown embittered.
Kyle and Laurel’s relationship hit the skids shortly after. By that point, Benji was dead, and it was clear that Harmony was going to have to raise a baby alone.
Not alone, Kyle had assured her. By phone. By email. He was right. A single parent she might be, but she hadn’t been alone like she thought she’d be. Not even in the delivery room. Kyle had returned just in time for the early labor. He’d driven her to the hospital, sat with her in the delivery room until her mother was there to relieve him. And he hadn’t just checked in through the years as Gavin had. There had been FaceTime between him and Bea. For the little girl, he’d been an example of what a man should be. Not a father. He couldn’t replace Benji and had no intention to. He’d been, as always, a friend. Harmony hoped she and Bea had returned the gesture in kind.
Because that’s what they were. Friends. That was what they would remain, she was sure as she mounted the small steps to the little screened porch and held the door open for him. He entered the house that smelled like dumplings and Briar Savitt’s peach pie, Bea slung comfortably over his shoulder. As he brushed past Harmony, he even turned his head and winked.
Steady, she told her insides when they started to quake. Steady as she goes, girl.
We are not wrecking through this flight path again.
“SHE’S ASLEEP,” KYLE ANNOUNCED, hushed, as he returned to Harmony’s kitchen where she was doing the dishes. He reached back for his neck and tilted his head to work out a crick.
“How many stories did she ask for?” she smirked, knowing.
“A dozen,” he said. “She still likes Where the Wild Things Are. That was—”
“My favorite,” Harmony said, nodding. She turned to him, drying her hands. “You remember that?”
“Reading to you was always the better part of my day,” he told her.
Her lips seamed and pressed inward. She scanned his face before her attention seized on the hand massaging his neck. “You didn’t lie down with her, did you?”
“She asked me to.”
“Kyle. She sleeps in a daybed.”
“So?”
“So,” she said, “you’re six-four. I know SEALs are trained to sleep anywhere, but how did you even—”
“I was half off,” he admitted. “It’s all right. She was asleep in five minutes flat.”
“You’re a bona fide teddy bear.”
“I can accept that.” He nodded. “As long as I still get to shoot bad guys.”
She laughed. “Isn’t that what teddy bears do when children fall asleep? Defend them against the monsters in the closet?” Laying her hands on the back of one of the chairs surrounding the small round table between them, she asked, “Ready?”
“For?” he asked, blank.
“That trim,” she said.
“It’s late. You still wanna?”
She pulled out the chair. “Have a seat. I’ll get the shears.”
To Kyle, the ritual was more sentimental than anything. After the frag had torn through his lower body, he’d been in and out for weeks thanks to the powerful pain meds. His first lucid memory was waking up in a military hospital, disoriented. Then... Harmony. Harmony leaning close. Fingers skimming through his hair. It took him a moment or two to realize that she was giving him a trim and that she’d shaved his beard down to the fine black stubble he preferred off-duty.
When she saw his eyes open, she’d stopped. Said his name. Fighting against the sensation of cotton-mouth and the anxiety of not knowing where he was, he replied with, “Carrots.”
She’d gone misty-eyed. It occurred to him then that he hadn’t seen Harmony cry since she was in diapers. There was a wavering fear that she would break down and that seeing her do so might break him down, too.
She held it together, like a boss. “It’s good to have you back, K.Z.B.” And, after offering him a sip of water, she went back to trimming his hair, smiling.
She’d gone a long way toward holding him together over the agonizing months he spent recouping.
As she combed his hair now, he felt all the tension in his body slide toward extinction. As she raked wet fingers through to dampen his hair, her small nails teased his scalp. His eyes closed. Comb in one hand, shears in the other, she silently, meticulously went about the task of snipping the thick curls growing toward the nape of his neck.
He’d spent a week on the Hellraiser trying to lose himself amid wind and tide. He’d come home, a task that usually brought him necessary reprieve. But it wasn’t until now, he realized, that he’d felt truly relaxed since departing Little Creek.
Her hand rested on his head. “You’re not sleeping, are you?” she asked in a low voice that trickled down the back of his neck.
Kyle blinked. Had he been? “Why?”
“Your head started to bob.”
“Sorry.” He cleared his throat. He sounded groggy. “Long day, I guess.”
“We’ve kept you up.” She snipped strays one by one. He heard the drone of the buzzer. Using the hand on his head, she pushed his chin to his collarbone. “Let me get your neckline.”
She buzzed him down to his shirt collar, then walked around to his front. Bending to his level, she squinted at her progress.
Kyle studied her.
