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  Unsung Hero

  A Band of Brothers Romance

  Barbara Ankrum

  Unsung Hero

  Copyright © 2019 Barbara Ankrum

  Kindle Edition

  Tule Publishing Group, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  First Publication by Tule Publishing Group 2019

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-949707-49-6

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  Dedication

  To my mother-in-law, Joan, for sharing her beautiful Laguna with us for so many years.

  As always, to my love, David.

  And to the wonderful Tule team—Jane Porter, Meghan Farrell, Sinclair Sawhney, Lee Hyat and the rest for having my back on this.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  The Band of Brothers series

  Excerpt from Once a Hero

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  His return had been a decade in the making. He’d planned, prepared and rebuilt his life from the ground up to make it happen. Now, one long weekend would tell if everything he’d done and sacrificed for had been worth it. At last he’d come home.

  For her.

  Nio Reyes slid his board onto the waves at Brooks Street Beach, his favorite old Laguna haunt, as the sun pulled itself above the cliffs behind him. With the leftovers from a storm coming up out of Mexico, the usually glassy morning water was rough and had real potential for a good ride. A quick look at the lightening horizon had him paddling west with a stir of anticipation. He’d surfed other beaches over the years, other oceans, even, but none came close to this one.

  Already the surf was dotted with a dozen locals hoping for a good morning ride. They were all kids, of course, with their skinny teenaged physiques and their suspicious, territorial looks, which he chose to ignore. Now he was the old man. The interloper past his prime.

  He could remember thinking the same at their age. That life would likely be over by the time he hit thirty. Back then, he couldn’t imagine the turns his life would take. That his life was not, in fact, the fulcrum of everything, with the world pivoting around him, but instead a satellite that circled the things and people that had come to matter to him. At least those things he’d managed to hang onto.

  He caught a wave and hopped upright on his board, skimming past a handful of locals who had misread the wave’s direction. He couldn’t keep the grin from his face. The connection with the water, feeling every dip and rise through his bare feet, up through his board, up through the swells in the ocean. Like riding a bike. It came back. The balance. The struggle. The victory.

  At the end of his ride, he kicked the board up and over the backside of the wave and flattened himself down parallel to the water once more. Adrenaline pumped through him, the cool water suddenly a part of him. God, that made him feel…alive. He should do this more often. Here. At this beach. It was like magic, this place, and he’d missed it.

  It had been here where he and his younger brother Trey had learned to surf, had saved each other more than once and where each had broken eardrums, noses and other extremities trying to outdo one another. Becca had been right beside them, too. Here, they’d been safe from the prying eyes of their parents. Brooks Street Beach, ironically enough, was the last place he’d seen her. The countless times he’d replayed that day in his memory…how she’d looked, what she’d said, just how ordinary the day had seemed.

  But that was all before he’d lost everything that mattered to him.

  Before he’d made something of his life.

  Before the war had had its way with his brother and his brother’s friends—all now retired Navy SEALs, who, half-jokingly, referred to themselves as The Band of Brothers. But their bond was no joke. All of them injured in the war, in the last throes of a years-long battle in the Korengal Valley that had nearly taken all their lives.

  This weekend marked three years, almost to the day, since Nio had arrived at that VA hospital in D.C. to see his brother, wounded in the war. Two weeks later he would return to yank out Trey, and since he refused to leave without them, two of his ‘brothers’—Mick Chester and Jase Wheeler—as well.

  In those intervening two weeks, Nio had transformed his home in Northern California into a rehab gym/PT therapy sanctuary for the men and there they would spend the next year or more recovering. Paul Dobbins would come later, after three of the surgeries on the leg he’d lost in the war. Tommy McGuire stayed for a month or two after his wife, Holly, had insisted he join the others. Even Noah Mathis, the sixth surviving member of the team, had come for a brief time—though he’d been the hardest to get to know. This weekend, he was the lone missing but essential element in the alchemy that had transformed them all. But Noah had taken a bullet for Trey in the Korengal Valley and that made him an essential part of every reunion, whether he showed up or not. The emotional wounds, the PTSD most of them still dealt with, lingered on. Yet, all were forged by the same fire. A fire that had bonded them.

  What he’d done for them, three years ago, anyone with the resources would have done. What they’d done in return for him couldn’t be quantified. They’d saved him as much as the other way around. They’d taken him into their circle. Made him an honorary member of that exclusive Band of Brothers. Though he felt less than deserving, it was an honor he didn’t take lightly. Nor the fact that they’d joined him this weekend in Laguna at the house he’d rented on the cliffs above the beach for their annual reunion.

  Because they damn well had his back in case this whole thing he’d come back to do went wrong. That’s just what brothers did.

  Turning toward the shore, he scanned the beach for a glimpse of Becca. The beach was littered with people: early morning surfers preparing their boards, beach walkers, a few dogs. The sunrise glinted off them all like castaway shells but he saw no sign of her. Disappointment threaded through him but he caught sight of Trey instead, paddling out toward him, and he lifted a hand in greeting. No wetsuit for him.

  “Thought I’d find you out here,” his brother called, bringing his board up beside Nio’s. Like old times.

  “Couldn’t stay away,” Nio admitted with a grin.

  “How’s it feel? Bein’ back after so long?”

  Nio stared out over the ocean, the fragrance of the salty air, the ropey twines of seaweed littering the beach filling his senses. “Like coming home.”

  “That’s cause this is home, Bro. And it’s about damned time. Pops can hardly contain himself that we’re both here at once.” He sat up on his board, dangling his legs in the waves. “I see he gave you his old truck to drive. A little below you
r pay grade now, wouldn’t you say?”

  Nio shrugged, paddling beside him. “Traded mine out with him for the weekend. Just wouldn’t be the same, driving around here without that old truck. So, where are the guys?”

  “Oh, uh…” Trey said, looking back at the house on the cliff, “getting ready for the fishing charter, I guess. You’re comin’, right?”

  They slid down the backside of a wave in tandem. The water felt warmer now as they pushed through it. “No. I’ve got to meet with the contractor at the cottage after this. Half his landscaping crew is out sick and no way are we gonna miss that deadline. Pops is coming up from San Clemente on Sunday morning and half the furniture has already been delivered.”

  “I saw. I’ll come over with you. I can—”

  “No, no, you guys go fishing. It’s going to be an amazing day out there. This is your vacation, remember?”

  “And yours,” Trey pointed out, paddling beside his brother.

  “Not exactly. Culmination of a long-term plan, maybe.”

  “Here’s to it, Brother.” The men high-fived each other.

  As kids, people used to mistake them for twins, they’d looked so much alike, but Trey’s looks were uniquely his own now. He lived and worked mostly up in some little town called Marietta, Montana now as a private investigator for some attorney there. Still single, a lone wolf like himself, Trey’s reasons for being alone were his own. Yet, his sometimes dark, guarded nature seemed to relax here. The ocean seemed intent on stripping darkness away.

  Home.

  “What are you doing up so early?” he asked Trey. “Sun’s barely up.”

  The pink sunrise winked in a wave as they paddled over the top of another shapeless set. “You think I’d willingly miss beating your ass in a little competition?” He shot down the backside with a laugh and took off paddling toward a set with potential in the distance. “First one to catch that next wave and rides it in pays for breakfast!”

  “I’m already paying for breakfast!” he called back. But with a smile, he watched him go—holding back, in no hurry to beat him. His younger brother’s dark hair whipped back in the ocean spray as he cut through the water. He looked strong and fit, and except for the physical scars—remnants of that last day in Afghanistan—he bore only a trace of the brokenness he’d returned from the war with. And miles away from the troubled kid who’d left Laguna at eighteen and grown up to command a SEAL platoon.

  Nio caught the next wave and hopped to his feet, feeling the water move under him like an extension of his board. Instinctively he found his balance, moving forward, back, bending low and crouching down as the wave tutored him, checked him and did its best to dump him. He loved every second of it. When the curl of the wave caught him, he ducked, skimming his hand along the backside for balance, then, as it began to flatten out, he kicked up and out and sank down on the backside.

  Ahead, Trey, who’d already done the same on the previous wave, tossed a victorious look back at him. “Nice ride, but you’re gettin’ slow in your old age.”

  “Ha! Who you callin’ old?”

  A kid with bleached-out dreads on a nearby surfboard answered, “You, brah!” and laughed uproariously with his friend until Trey turned his alpha-dog look on the kid, who made the calculated decision to paddle toward the next wave.

  “Yeah,” Trey murmured after him, grinning. “That’s what I thought you said.”

  “Good thing he’s in the water,” Nio murmured back. “Just sayin’.”

  Trey gave a bark of laughter. “That was us once. Minus the blond dreads. You believe that? Hell. Feels like a lifetime ago.”

  Nio shrugged. “They say every seven years or so, the body recreates itself. Every cell, new. I don’t guess there’s much left of the old us now.”

  Trey stretched himself on his board and passed a meaningful look to his brother. “Maybe that’s a good thing.”

  Neither of them would go back to those long-ago days, to the things that had torn their family apart.

  “Hey,” Trey said, glancing back at the beach. “Speaking of which, there she is. Right on time.”

  Still straddling his board, Nio jerked a look back at the shore, searching for a glimpse of her.

  “To the right, by the rocks,” Trey instructed.

  Heat spiked through him as he spotted her, taking photos from the beach, a camera in front of her face. Short denim cutoffs, legs up to there. He’d know those legs anywhere. Ten years had done nothing to diminish what seeing her again made him feel. He must still have some of those old cells after all. Flattening himself down against the board, his gaze met Trey’s.

  How many days, weeks, years had he imagined this moment? How many nights had his memories of her kept him awake? Even while he was sleeping, she’d haunted his dreams. He’d distracted himself with work or some smoky bar, or simply with the making of his plan to win her back one day. Never once had she tried to contact him. But he didn’t blame her for that. It gave him pause though. And he wondered. Was there even a spark still alive of what they’d once shared?

  “You got this,” his brother advised. “Go.”

  *

  Becca Howard sharpened the focus on her secondhand Nikon, homing in on the curl of water breaking a hundred feet out. The surfers had all missed this one but she wanted the shot of the water just the same. Sunlight sparkled through the wave as it folded down in a foamy mess—a perfect metaphor for the last twenty-four hours of her life. Wait. Make that the last two and a half years.

  Beside her, Milo, her half-spaniel, half-Maltese rescue, barked at the incoming waves with a joyous abandon, hopping across the nearby sand with his unique, rabbit-like bounce. That forced the first real smile of the day from her. Milo loved everyone and everything about his new life with her, all well documented by her camera. At this hour, most of the Laguna beaches were dog friendly, as long as the dogs were on a leash. So, a few shots and they would take a walk up the coastline for a bit before the day began.

  With quick snaps of the shutter, she captured a series of photos of his antics that coaxed another smile from her before she turned her focus on the water. This time of the morning had always been her favorite. Off the beaten touristy path, this beach was a prime locals’ spot with breaks too close for boogie boarding and swimming, but perfect for surfers. She’d been coming here since she was thirteen, sliding down the crests alongside her friends, some of whom she spotted out there even today. Sometimes she still missed racing those waves, though she had quit surfing two years ago, but she contented herself with capturing them through the lens of her camera now. If she played her cards right, maybe someday she’d even work up the nerve to try again for a show at the local museum or one of the many art galleries that dotted Forest Avenue. Then, that otherwise worthless fine arts degree she’d gotten from Pasadena’s Art Center might actually pay off.

  For the last few years Laguna, in all its particular beauty, had been the focus of her photography. A few months ago, she’d been obsessed with seabirds. Lately it had been the ocean. She’d reacquainted herself with the surfer boys here at Brooks and met the new ones. Even as she set up her camera’s tripod, a cocky pair of teenagers stopped to flex for her in greeting.

  “Hi, Bogie,” she called to the short one on the right with beachy blond hair that hung in his eyes.

  “Hey, Becca. You catch that wave I rode in yesterday?” He winked at her, as if he wasn’t fourteen and his voice didn’t just crack, and he leaned down to pet Milo. “Hey, buddy.”

  “Sure did. I’ll print one up for you.”

  “Really?” He shrugged his board under his arm, trying to look casual as his friend scuffled toward the surf. “Cool, cool. I got more where that came from.”

  “I’m sure you do, Bogie.” She smiled back at him as he headed toward the water. He was going to break some hearts in a few years.

  As men do.

  As a man had less than twelve hours ago, when her life had taken a California-worthy seismic shift.<
br />
  “I’m moving to Atlanta,” her fiancé, Steven Whaley, had announced last night as she’d scraped his half-eaten meal from his plate. “There’s a second assistant director job on a new series they’re filming there. It’ll get me my first area days for my DGA membership and I’m taking it.”

  First area, a term she’d come to despise, was like a carrot that had been dangling over his head for nearly three years now, and gathering enough days to achieve it meant he could finally work on any project in L.A. and start moving up the director ladder. But she was still stuck, not on only his choice of pronouns, but by his defensive tone. “When you say I’m moving…”

  “Well, obviously, I can’t do the job from here,” he answered, as if her question was dumb. Something he’d gotten in the habit of doing a lot lately. Then: “Sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out that way.”

  “But…for how long?” She was no rank beginner when it came to separations. When he was working on a show, which was often, he crashed with a friend in Hollywood. The Directors Guild had all kinds of stumbling blocks for assistant directors becoming full-fledged union members, allowed to work in Los Angeles proper, including eighteen-hour days on low-budget features and near slave wages like he’d been getting as a sometimes A.D. on an ultra-low-budget show this season. Just getting this far in the DGA process had taken him eight years, and for two and a half of those they’d been together. Now, after years of poverty and going without, he was about to make a real living and realize his dream; his dream, which had become hers by default.

  “For as long as they’re filming, I guess.” Steven toyed with his knife, spinning it in place on their dining table, unable to meet her eye. “Six months at least. But there’s a lot of work there. I might…stay.”

  Stay? “And what about us?”

  “Yeah. We need to talk about that.”

  Doom thudded in her ears. “Apparently so.”