LITMIR.BIZ

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the military had trained him well not to show emotions during the course of a mission.

      But nothing could keep him from having them.

      Especially not these.

      And now that he was off duty, they rose to the surface.

      To Beau the wrongs that were done in the name of building Camden Incorporated were disgraceful. It was still a struggle to resolve the fact that those actions had been taken by men he’d loved and respected. Men he’d known were strong-willed and determined—like any good marine—but men he’d believed were honest and decent, too.

      But the knowledge of what they’d done to other people was bad enough. He didn’t know how to process that his own life had been screwed with by one of H.J.’s conspiracies.

      Or what to do with the emotions that knowledge had let loose in him.

      He’d thought there was nothing worse than learning that the men in his own family had, in reality, no honor to them. And he’d fully supported the family’s plan to make amends.

      In fact, wanting to do that had contributed to his decision to come out of the service now.

      He’d told GiGi that she could give all of the projects to him from here on, that he was volunteering for that duty. That he was willing to make it his own personal undertaking to atone on behalf of the family.

      His grandmother’s response had been odd. She’d gone too quiet and very pale. She hadn’t seemed to be able to make eye contact with him. But he’d taken her excuse that he needed time to get his land legs back at face value.

      Now he knew what had really been going through her mind. She’d already read the part of the journals that revealed what had been done to him and was just waiting for him to settle in before she broke the news to him. She’d already known what was unimaginable to Beau—that he was one of the people H.J. had wronged.

      Along with Kyla.

      And potentially their baby.

      Because if Kyla had lost that baby out of stress, or by doing something dangerous or foolhardy in hopes of ending what she didn’t want to deal with on her own, that made that loss H.J.’s fault, too, as far as Beau was concerned.

      No, he definitely didn’t know what to do with how it all made him feel...

      He’d brought Kyla’s letter with him into the den and it was in front of him. He read it for about the tenth time since his grandmother had given it to him today.

      Kyla had written it only weeks after he’d left the ranch that summer.

      When he was home again, starting his senior year of high school. Being patted on the back and congratulated on his official candidacy for admission to the naval academy at Annapolis.

      Not everyone had known because he’d received the news in June, after school was out. The news had been the reason he’d opted to spend the summer in Northbridge. Once he knew for sure Annapolis was where he was headed, he’d wanted to start toughening up for the military by doing ranch work.

      He’d accomplished that—gaining some muscle mass and stamina.

      But he’d also met Kyla Gibson...

      Today was the first time he’d seen the letter. The first time he had any knowledge whatsoever that Kyla had changed her mind about the end of that summer being the end of any contact they had with each other.

      In the letter—the letter addressed to him—she told him that she was pregnant. That she’d just found out. She said she didn’t know what to do. She said she hadn’t told her parents yet. She said she hoped that Beau would have some idea of where to go from there. That he’d get hold of her, maybe come back to Northbridge for a weekend so they could figure something out.

      Holding that letter in his hands, staring at the words written on the page, Beau could see the hope she’d had that he would offer some solution, some help, some support, anything that would tell her that she wasn’t in it alone.

      And again emotions rose that he could hardly stand.

      H.J. had written in his journal that he’d intercepted the letter. He’d visited the ranch a few times that summer. He’d seen Beau with the daughter of one of that summer’s hired hands. He’d seen how unhappy Beau was when he’d come home and had put two and two together, figuring that Beau was in the throes of his first love.

      But that summer was over and—according to H.J.—the romance needed to be, too, so that Beau wouldn’t endanger his future.

      H.J. wrote that when he’d seen the Northbridge postmark and the return address with Kyla’s name on it, he’d decided it couldn’t contain anything that would do Beau any good. Better a clean cut with the girl—that was what H.J. had written at the time.

      He hadn’t even opened the letter. He’d just tucked it away.

      He’d only learned about the pregnancy when Kyla’s father had shown up on the doorstep two weeks later.

      Which was when H.J. took the second step in keeping Beau from knowing about Kyla’s situation.

      “It’s a good thing you’re not here now, old man,” he threatened from between clenched teeth.

      Yes, going to Annapolis had been what Beau wanted from the day his great-grandfather had explained to him that that was the best course into the Marines. And, yes, a teenage pregnancy, a child, would have canceled his candidacy and the full acceptance that was contingent only on his graduation.

      And yes, that would have crushed a part of him.

      But even then, even before becoming a marine, Beau had had a marine’s mentality. Honor, courage and commitment—those were the words he’d stenciled over his bed when he’d read that they were the core values that defined a marine. He’d been eleven. And from that moment on they were his values.

      Sure, it would have taken courage and stamina to endure losing his opportunity to go to Annapolis. Courage to face all of his family with news that he’d gotten a girl pregnant.

      But he would have done it. And he would have honored his responsibility to that girl and to that baby. He would have made the commitment to them that needed to have been made. He would have taken the responsibility that was his.

      If he had known, he would never—ever—have abandoned Kyla.

      And not only because of those Marine Corps values.

      The truth that he alone knew was that he probably would have viewed it all as an excuse to do what he was fighting not to do every day at that same time—get on a bus back to her and Northbridge.

      He was seventeen. Flooded with hormones. And a beautiful, smart, funny girl had, suddenly that summer, become what he wanted as much as he wanted to be a marine.

      He’d been so in love with Kyla that he hadn’t been able to see straight and he’d physically ached to get back to her.

      It had taken the will of a marine to get him to choose, each day, not to turn his back on everything he’d ever been about and just get himself to wherever she was.

      If he’d been handed that letter then, if he’d opened it and read it, nothing would have kept him away from her.

      It would have been his sign from the universe that he was meant to change his course. Because that was what he’d been wondering at the time—if meeting Kyla had been a fork in the road that fate had created because maybe he was meant to choose her instead...

      Hell, even as a marine, every time he’d been in a situation that he might not have come out of alive, he’d wondered if maybe he was supposed to have chosen Kyla and a life with her over a life in the service.

      But his great-grandfather hadn’t had any doubt about what choice was to be made.

      So Beau had become a marine.

      And Kyla had lost the baby.

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