“He’s not here.”

Harmony Savitt Bracken glanced around the play area at the Jump Zone. Only Bea could be surrounded by fourteen kids from her Kindergarten class and ten or so relatives and friends and see only the man who wasn’t there.

Such was the life of a military brat.

Harmony ran her hand over the line of her daughter’s shoulders. “He said he might not make it. I’m sure he tried his best.”

Bea pouted. The effect was devastating. “I wanted him to meet my friends.”

“He will,” Harmony assured her, going down on her knees so she and Bea were eye level. “I promise he will.”

“He promised he’d be here.”

“He promised to try,” Harmony corrected. “Don’t think badly of him, Bea, please. You know he always comes through for you. He always comes through for both of us.”

“Except today,” Bea said. Her friend, Talbot, called her name and she slumped off to bounce with him on various trampolines built into the floor.

Adrian Bracken ventured over. “She looks upset.”

“Kyle’s not here,” Harmony said needlessly. Of course, Adrian knew Kyle wasn’t there. He was her son. Harmony liked her mother-in-law. They had a lot in common. Both redheads, they had both once been single mothers. The same rival family had attacked each of them. And they had both married a tall, dark, bearded man.

“He tried,” Adrian pointed out. “If anything was under his control these days, nothing would have stopped him from being here.”

“I know,” Harmony said. Still, the rapid training rotations and the increasing number of deployments for Chief Petty Officer Kyle Bracken and his SEAL team had her more on edge than usual. She’d known the reality of marrying a military man, a skilled operative who was incapable of saying no when his country needed him. “I think she senses things are escalating overseas. We haven’t told her anything, but it’s hard to know what she picks up in school…and she’s old enough now to understand what happened to Benji.”

Adrian nodded and subsided. Benjamin Zaccoe, Bea’s biological father, another Navy SEAL, had died during deployment. Bea had never known Benji. Harmony had only been a few months pregnant when he was KIA. Through the years, tales of her father had become regular bedtime stories.

It had helped having Kyle. He’d stepped in and had become the object of Bea’s affection. It had been terrifying falling in love with another active-duty SEAL, but Harmony couldn’t imagine raising her daughter with any other man. She couldn’t imagine loving anyone like she loved Adrian’s son.

While he was gone, the Brackens stepped up. They treated Bea as their own grandchild. Since Harmony worked with Adrian’s husband, James, and she and Bea lived in a cottage on the Brackens’ property, they often ate dinner together at the main house and watched Bea when Harmony needed time to herself.

“She hero-worships him still,” Adrian noted.

Harmony gave her a rueful smile. “Don’t I know it.”

“It reminds me of how Kyle felt about James during the early years,” Adrian said reminiscently. “Kyle didn’t have James in his life until he was seven. Bea’s always had Kyle.”

“From the moment she opened her eyes,” Harmony said with a sigh. Kyle wasn’t supposed to wind up in the delivery room for Bea’s birth. But he’d fought his way past every obstacle—even lying to the nurses at the desk that he was the baby’s father—so that Harmony wasn’t alone when she brought her and Benji’s baby into the world.

“It feels like you and him have been in each other’s lives just as long,” Adrian said knowingly.

Harmony silently agreed. She couldn’t remember a phase of her life without him. He’d read her books when she’d struggled to read. He’d been her first friend, her first crush…

Now he was her husband. “It’s funny how life goes, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” Adrian granted. “Your lives took you on very different paths, and you were able to figure out who you were as individuals. And you always circled back to each other.”

Harmony scanned Adrian. “You saw us together before we were?”

Adrian smiled. She bumped her shoulder lightly against Harmony’s. “Maybe I wished enough that it became true.”

Harmony bolted a surprised laugh. She let it trail off as she caught a glimpse of Bea on the rope swing. Her curls flew as she let go and landed feet first in the ball pit. “If I had your powers of manifestation, I’d wish for the same thing she would right about now—Kyle. Right here.” Right now, she thought silently. She’d been a single parent for long enough to do well on her own.

But she felt Kyle’s absence in her bed like a blade. She missed his body next to hers. She missed the way his arms folded her against him at night when he couldn’t sleep. She missed waking up knowing he would be there.

“Carrots.”

The word was spoken low behind her. She turned. Her heart hitched.

Kyle wore a huge smile underneath an unruly mop of dark waves, sparkling blue eyes, and scruffy facial hair that cloaked the lower half of his face. Harmony was tall, but she had to look up to ensure that it was really him.

She leaped at him. He caught her with a laughing “oomph.”

She didn’t care where she was. She wrapped her legs around his waist.

Kyle staggered backward but kept his feet, wrapping one arm under her shoulders and the other underneath her jean-clad bottom. He squeezed, turning his lips to her ear. “Did you miss me?”

“Shut up and hold me,” she said without heat, too overcome to speak.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said readily. He spread his feet apart and began to rock.

Harmony closed her eyes, burying her face in his shoulder. When he returned home from deployment, he normally smelled like the sea. Readjusting to civilian life took time. As soon as he was released from duty, he sailed from the East Coast to their Gulf Coast home. By the time he reached land again, Kyle normally had realigned the space between head and heart, body and soul and was ready to tackle anything life threw at him.  

She lifted her head when she recognized the smell on his collar. As a pilot, it was all too familiar. Airplane fuel. She searched his face. “How did you get here?”

“I came straight from base.”

She let out a breath. “You didn’t sail?”

“I promised Bea I’d be here on time,” he told her. He smiled ruefully. “At least I got the first part right.”

“You’re forgiven,” Harmony said, wrapping him up tighter.

“Kyle!”

Harmony sighed even as a smile split her mouth. “And my time is over.”

Kyle set her feet on the floor before kneeling and opening his arms to catch Bea on a gleeful bounce. “There’s my honey bee!”

Adrian clutched Harmony’s shoulder. Harmony saw her blink rapidly against tears and reached up to take her hand. She pressed her lips together, fighting emotions of her own as Kyle raised himself to standing. He tossed Bea into the air and caught her.

“Again!” Bea cried.

“I need a hug,” Kyle said.

Bea obliged. She scrubbed her hands over his bearded cheeks before laying her head on his shoulder, much in the same way Harmony had moments before. Kyle’s eyes closed as he ran a large-palmed hand over Bea’s spine. Feelings bled to the surface as a bar appeared between his eyes.

Coming home couldn’t be easy, but moments like these made it better. Moments like these healed.

Kyle opened his eyes. His gaze passed over Harmony, then Adrian. He grinned. “Mom.”

“Son,” Adrian said with a sigh. “Oh, Kyle.” She stepped into his side and his arm circled her, bringing her in.

His father, James, rushed forward in a near-sprint. His sister, Mavis, and her husband, Gavin, gravitated toward the homecoming hero to wait their turn.

It took a little time for Kyle to approach Harmony again, Bea on his hip. “I have a surprise for my girls.”

“A surprise?” Bea exclaimed, her eyes lighting up.

“This wasn’t enough?” Harmony asked incredulously.

He took her hand. “Come with me.”

She’d follow him anywhere. They broke away from the party and meandered through the jump zone and the lobby to the parking lot.

A Jeep was parked near the front of the building. The windows were rolled down a few inches. Kyle carried Bea to the passenger door where he set her on the ground. “Wait just a second.”

Bea glanced up curiously at Harmony as he opened the door. “Do you know what it is?” she whispered conspiratorially.

“No idea,” Harmony whispered back. As Bea bounced on anticipating heels, Harmony, too, had to fight the urge to peek.

“Close your eyes,” Kyle instructed. “Both of you,” he added knowingly.

Harmony groaned but closed her eyes just the same.

“On the count of three, open your eyes,” he said. “One. Two. Three.”

They opened their eyes. Bea’s reaction was immediate. She gasped, letting go of Harmony’s hands to jump and clap her hands. “Oh, oh! He’s so cute!”

Harmony stared, open-mouthed, at the tiny black puppy curled against the center of Kyle’s wide chest. “What is that?”

Kyle laughed. “It’s a dog.”

“I know that,” she stated. “But you never said anything about—”

“Is he mine?” Bea chirped. “Is he mine, Kyle? I get to keep him?”

Kyle nodded. “He’s all yours.”

Bea squealed, turning circles with her fists in the air.

Kyle turned his eyes back to Harmony. She shook her head. “We did not discuss this,” she mouthed.

He sobered. Then he stepped forward. “Somebody put puppies in a box outside the base. They just left them there. I drove them to the nearest shelter, but I knew this guy would have trouble getting adopted.”

“Why?” she asked.

He turned the puppy over to show three legs instead of four.

“Oh,” she said. She felt herself soften. It took everything she had to keep from reaching. “The poor thing.”

“Can I hold him?” Bea asked.

“Gently,” Kyle granted. He placed the puppy in Bea’s waiting arms where he was rocked and cooed to. It lifted its nose to hers, sniffing the remnants of cake icing around her mouth before he licked her chin in enthusiastic laps. The resulting giggles rang through the air.

Kyle tucked an arm around Harmony’s waist. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask. It was an impulse.”

“It’s fine,” Harmony said, watching Bea sprawl in the grass with the dog. “I think I would have done the same thing.”

“We can call him Carrots,” he teased. “Like you.”

She pursed her lips. “I prefer Gilbert.”

“Okay,” he decided. He nodded decisively. “Gilbert.” Turning her to face him, he cupped her hips in his hands, eyes racing across her red hair and pink-tinged cheeks. “There’s only one Carrots.” Lowering his mouth to hers, he whispered, “And she’s mine.”

Harmony hummed. She linked her hands at the nape of his neck as he kissed her, bringing her up to her toes.

It was going to be a very happy homecoming, indeed.

© Amber Leigh Williams