The Last Letter (Page 48)

“She’s tired,” I said to Ella, taking her hand as we followed the kids.

“Exhausted. She had a transfusion while we were there, but her appetite is still off, her red counts are low, and she’s just… Is that a tree house?” Ella stopped, gawking up at the tree house we’d built between two pines.

“Like it?”

She laughed. “You built him a tree house. He always wanted one.” That laugh turned to a small indrawn breath as her face contorted with sadness for a moment. Then she squeezed my hand and forced a smile. “Thank you. Ryan…he and…well, you built it, and it’s amazing.”

Ryan and Chaos. I knew exactly where she’d been going with that one.

I’m right here. I never left you. But I did destroy you.

I didn’t say any of those things, simply kissed her wrist. “Want to see?”

“Yes!”

I led her to the ladder, where Colt and Maisie stood. “Okay, Colt, why don’t you take your mom up?”

“Okay!”

“You sure this thing can support our weight?” Ella asked as she watched Colt climb. The kid scurried up the ladder with a freakish quickness. He was going to be one hell of a climber when he grew up.

“It had half the search and rescue team on it last week,” I told her. “Unless you’re going up there with ten of you, we’re good.”

“Called in the big guns, huh?” she teased.

Colt screamed, and I looked up to see him fall from the top of the ladder.

Shit!

I stepped forward, arms outstretched and ready as Ella gasped.

Just before he would have reached me, he caught himself, his little hands grasping the thick center of the wooden rung.

“Colt!” Ella shrieked.

He found his footing on the rung above my hands and looked down on us with a huge grin. “That was cool.”

I sucked in a lungful of air and blew it out slowly, willing my heart to get out of my stomach. That kid was going to be the death of me.

“That was not cool!” Ella yelled, her voice pitched high and borderline panicked.

“I’m fine. See?” He let go of the ladder in a quick release and grabbed it again before falling back.

“Knock it off! I’ve spent weeks in the hospital with your sister, and I’m not prepared to go back!”

“Okay, okay,” he muttered and climbed back up, making it to the top of the ladder and disappearing through the hatch.

“You okay?” I asked Ella.

She took two steps and buried her face in my chest with a huge sigh.

“He’s fine. It was just a slip.” My arms closed around her, and I kissed the top of her head. “Accidents happen.”

“I don’t have enough energy for accidents. Can’t we just put them both in a bubble?”

“I’ll work on building one of those next.” I glanced over at Maisie, who was studying the tree house supports. “What do you think?”

“It’s awesome!” She grinned.

“Today, you’re my favorite.”

“I heard that!” Colt yelled down, directly above us. “Send her up or walk the plank!”

“No one is walking a plank,” Ella warned me as she left my arms and started up the ladder.

“There’s no plank,” I promised her.

“I think you have that backward,” Maisie called up to Colt. “We’re already down here.”

“Whatever! Get up here!”

“Watch this,” I told Maisie, pulling the net harness down from where it was stored on the tree. I spread it out with one hand and sat her in it with the other. “Now hold on to the sides.”

Her eyes lit up as the net rose around her, and she grasped the edges, hooking her fingers through the white loops. “Really?”

“Ella, prepare to receive!” I called up. I looked through the secondary hatch and saw Ella nod, confused but ready. Then I went to the pulley and started to heft Maisie upward.

“Ahhh! This is so cool!” she squealed.

She made it through the hatch, and Ella got her out of the seat. Then I took the ladder and met my little family on the porch. We were about fifteen feet in the air, and we’d chosen a spot where the kids could see the lake. The kids, who were currently checking out the cool things Colt had asked for in the tree house, like a table and chairs, a play kitchen, and a giant cardboard tube we’d painted red because he wanted to call the tree house “the Death Star.”

“This is amazing,” Ella said, wrapping her arms around my waist. “Ryan would have loved it.”

“Yeah, but he’d wanted a giant trampoline for Colt to jump on from up here.”

Her eyes flew wide.

“Well, Colt asked for a zip line.”

“From up here?”

“Hey, he’s your kid,” I said with a shrug and hugged her closer to me.

“I like this,” she whispered. “Coming home to you, knowing Colt wasn’t lonely.”

“Me, too.” I kissed her forehead. “It’s all really normal, and I know it sounds crazy, but I’m really loving normal. Spending time with you and the kids, getting you alone whenever I can, it’s really…”

“Perfect,” she supplied.

“Perfect,” I agreed, looking over my shoulder to make sure the kids were occupied before I kissed her.

Our lips met, and then Ella deepened it. I was more than happy to oblige. Our tongues touched briefly, and then we broke apart, hearing the kids coming.

“Isn’t it so cool? It’s like you’re all alone up here!” Colt said.

“Almost alone,” Ella answered, shooting me a knowing smirk.

“Almost, but not quite,” I agreed over the kids’ heads as they looked out at the lake.

“I love it,” Maisie told me with a grin.

“Then it was all worth it.”

They ran to the other side of the house, and Ella leaned against my back, wrapping her arms around me.

“Can I get you alone later?” she asked, her hands skimming under my shirt to run the lines of my abs.

“Yes, as many times as you can handle.” God, I wanted her. Needed to get her under me, over me, around me. Needed to feel connected to her in the way that only sex gave us, the moments when there were no worries, no cancer, no kids underfoot, just us and the love we had for each other.

Before she could answer, my phone rang. I reached between us to my back pocket and pulled it out, swiping to answer. “Gentry.”

“Hey, I know you’re not on call this weekend, but we’ve got some lost hikers,” Mark’s voice came through the line.

I sighed. All I wanted to do was have dinner with the kids, tuck their smiling faces into bed, and then get very alone with their mother.

“How lost?”

“They missed their check-in four hours ago.”

“Go,” Ella urged, kissing my arm where skin met shirt. “I know you’re needed. Go.”

“I’ll be there in twenty.” I hung up the phone and pulled Ella into my arms. “I’m so sorry. This is the last thing I want to do right now.”

“Oh, trust me, you’re the only thing I want to do right now,” she said with a kiss on my chin before releasing me. “Stay with me tonight after you’re done?”

I nodded. We limited sleepovers, but I wasn’t arguing. Not tonight. “I’ll be back as soon as possible. I promise,” I told her before kissing the kids on the forehead as they ran by again. “Can you get Maisie down?”

“I’ve got this. Go,” Ella ordered.

I let my eyes roam her body and sighed in a pout. “Tourists.”

She flat-out laughed. “Hey, this is normal life. You were the one championing normal, right?”

“As long as normal means I come home to you tonight, I’m good with it.”

And I was. Me, the guy who never wanted roots, was all about laying them deep here. This was what I wanted. This life. Ella. Colt. Maisie.

Normal. Everyday, ordinary normal.

I just needed Maisie to live, because there was no normal without her in it.

Six Months Later

Chapter Twenty

Ella

Letter #5

Ella,

Ah, the dating question. I honestly don’t really date. Why? Because my life isn’t fair to any woman. We head out at the drop of a hat. And not like, “Hey, I’m leaving next week.” More like, “Sorry, I won’t be home for dinner…for the next couple of months.” Seems like a crap way to start a relationship when I never know when we’ll get home. Take this trip for example. We figured it would be a couple of months. Definitely not the multiple-stop journey it has been. I couldn’t imagine leaving a girl at home to wait through that.

So, without sounding…like a douche, I just prefer to not have long-term relationships. On some level, I’m also not sure I’m capable. When you grow up knowing nothing of a working, good relationship, it’s pretty hard to see yourself in one.

As for Robins, if you want to go, go. Don’t hide behind your life, or your kids. If you’re scared to get out there and risk yourself, then say that. Own it. What you went through would make any normal person a little gun-shy, no doubt. No one is going to think less of you. Just don’t hide behind excuses. You’ll be stronger when you identify what sets you on edge. And honestly, I’ve seen pictures of you. You’re not going to end up as the crazy cat lady, I promise.

Am I happy single? I think happiness is a relative term, no matter what the subject. I quit striving for happy when I was about five. Now I go for content. It’s easier to attain and doesn’t leave me feeling like there’s something missing. Eventually I’ll get out of the military, and then maybe we’ll see, but that’s a decade or more away. For now, this is the life I love, and I’m content. Goal attained.

Tell me a little bit about Telluride. If I came into town as a tourist, what absolutely has to be seen? Done? Eaten?

~ Chaos

…

Content. I’d been looking for the right word to describe my feelings about my blur of a life lately, and that was it: I was content.

I loved Beckett with an intensity that was almost frightening. That hadn’t changed—and something told me it wouldn’t. But I also knew there were things about him I’d never know. Even seven months as a couple hadn’t filled in all the holes of who he had been before he’d shown up at Solitude.