Free Deploy by Jamie Magee Page B

Declan said sharply. Their father always said that, so much so that Tobias had claimed the saying as well.
    Chasen flinched a grin. Hard roads are difficult to regret when you know if you never walked down them, the people you love the most wouldn’t exist. “When I was caught with an underage girl her parents forced us to get married. Justice’s daddy won’t do that, not in this day and time. No, son. He’d put you behind bars for statutory rape. He’ll be in your recruitment officer’s face and if he doesn’t get anywhere then he’ll march up to your drill sergeant. I don’t need to tell you how much you don’t need this.”
    “I’m aware.”
    “Are you? You get that’s the right girl but the wrong time?”
    Declan’s stare shot to his father’s. Chasen was a man’s man and was quick to tell his boys they didn’t need a woman, not beyond their grandmother Missy who knew how to keep them in line. To hear him say any girl was right for any one of his boys was a kick to the gut, and Declan wasn’t sure why. He couldn’t think about anything beyond the fact that Murdock was hip to hip with Justice just then and he was taking her to her father who liked to throw her around like a rag doll.
    “You heard me,” Chasen said, hitting him on the shoulder before walking on.
    “Holy shit,” Declan said as he noticed Nolan’s truck. The golden, diesel ford F350 had a tree laid directly across the bed.
    “Yeah, I for real needed those keys,” Nolan said as he pulled them out of the bag Chasen was carrying then tossed them to Atticus.
    “Bag feels a little lighter,” Nolan said when their dad had walked on. “I feel like my supplies have been raided.”
    “Not now,” Declan said shortly.
    “Yeah, you’re right. We have all the time in the world. It’s not like you’re leaving in six—no, five days now.”
    “Ass,” Declan said under his breath as he moved forward to look at the damage on his brother’s truck.
    “Good thing you guys are taking Declan’s truck,” Chasen said with a knowing glint his blue stare. “Because, hell, it’s like Mother Nature is all but demanding this truck stay put, right where it’s rooted.”
    “No truck is meant to stay still,” Nolan said, avoiding his father’s gaze.
    “No, a good honest machine does what it’s made to do, no stopping it. It will run as long as you take care of it. Blood, sweat, and tears can go into one; you give it all you got to make it right. Then boom , out of nowhere the last fucking thing you’d expect happens. A damn tree slams into you. Now you gotta start all over.”
    Atticus glanced from his dad to Nolan, then to Declan, feeling like the odd man out. Then again he had all night because all night their dad had been hip to hip with Nolan, saying things just like that, words that seemed to fit the conversation—but not really.
    Declan shook his head, telling Atticus to let it be. Truth be told, Declan was a bit relieved to hear his dad talk like that, it sounded like their Chasen was now crystal clear that only one of his sons was leaving for the Corps in less than a week. But he’d never come out and say it. Nope, that was not how Chasen Rawlings worked. He’d push until you crumbled and confessed. He’d let you sweat it out until you couldn’t stand it any longer.
    Declan needed all the help he could get worrying about Nolan and his adventure, because his mind was far from his family, it was with his Justice.
    The right girl at the wrong time...
    ***
    “Y ou all right? You’re shaking,” Murdock asked Justice in a low tone as they sat side by side in the back of his daddy’s cruiser. The Sheriff was on the phone in the front seat.
    Justice nodded. “It didn’t sound this bad to me...I’m just figuring out how lucky I was.”
    “You scared the shit out of me,” he said through a clenched jaw.
    She looked up hastily, not sure how to take his tone. Then again, she never really knew what to expect when he opened his