“It was an extraction,” he said. “A hostage rescue operation.”

“Sierra told me that part. She said the hostages were aid workers.”

“Ever heard of Djibouti?” It was pronounced Jabooty. He grinned at her expression. “Don’t worry. No one has. I hadn’t either, until the call came for a mission there. It’s in Africa, between Ethiopia and Somalia. Not known as a hot spot of unrest, but some American aid workers were kidnapped there while in transit. A group called Al Shabab was holding them for ransom.”

That had been his last operation, though he hadn’t known it at the time. He’d attained the rank of lieutenant commander in the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, aka SEAL Team 6. In a split second, he’d become medically retired Lt. Cdr. (SEAL) Willem Jensen.

Caroline set aside her box of sorting. Her full, quiet attention felt like a gift, the way it had the first summer they’d met as kids, when he’d told her about losing his mom.

He remembered being in the team compound when the call came in. It was one of those you hate to hear—participation was voluntary, meaning extra risky. Nobody had opted out, though. It was precisely what they had trained for.

“To get them out, it had to be a quick insert. We’d go in by helo and fast rope, extract the hostages, and disappear. Usually there’d be plenty of rehearsals, only that night, the time window was almost nonexistent. We made a plan but there wasn’t time to test it.”

He remembered a new moon, a night of perfect darkness, ideal for the operation. “Thanks to an informant, we found the workers—two nurses and an aide. Two of them were in rough shape, dazed and sick with fever. The op went as planned—until the bandits opened fire, which we expected based on the intelligence.”

Caroline winced. “You got shot.”

“Not just then. So far the kidnappers were the only casualties. The team dropped nine of them in a matter of seconds.” He could still hear the staccato sound of the fight. Sometimes he heard it in his dreams. “The extraction went as planned. Until it didn’t.”

Caroline stood looking at him, her face soft with wonder. She seemed to be listening with her whole body. “What happened?”

Here was the part he never talked about. The part that haunted him. “We had the hostages. I was bringing up the rear, running through the bush toward the helo. We thought all the bandits were down, but deep in the bush, I noticed a flare of movement in my night vision—never a good sign. I slowed down to try for some facial recognition. I had to check it out, because one guy with a big firearm could take us all out. And . . . there was this kid.”

“A kid—like a boy?”

Will could still picture the scene through his night-vision goggles: A little boy, peering through the parted grass. A little boy with an AK-47. His eyes were bright and vacant, probably from chewing khat, a kind of speed, his hands nervous on the trigger and the grip.

“A scared little kid. He was maybe ten years old, I thought. High on this stuff the natives chew. Draped in ammo and pointing an AK-47 at me.”

“Oh my God. I can’t even imagine what that was like,” she said.

“This is what a SEAL trains for. Months and years of practice drills every day—to confront and eliminate a threat without hesitation.”

“Let me guess,” she said softly. “You hesitated.”

Training and instinct had dictated that Will should eliminate the threat. But something deeper had stopped him—this was a child. A child.

Will nodded. “And he opened fire.”

The body armor had protected him from mortal wounds, but his goggles flew off on impact. When his face was hit, it felt as if half his head had been blown off.

“One of my team members took him out. I later learned the boy’s name was Hamza. He was fourteen years old.”

Caroline exhaled slowly and softly. She came around the side of the cutting table and stood in front of him, briefly touching his forearm and then taking her hand away. “I’m sorry that happened. What a horrible choice to have to make—to shoot a child or be shot. I understand why you hesitated.”

He’d faced a board of inquiry over the incident. His team had vouched for him, thank God. He realized that other than responding to the inquiry, he’d never told anyone the details of the incident. Not his dad or his grandparents or even Sierra. Only Caroline, whom he’d met when they were kids, no older than Hamza, perched on a rocky outcropping above Cape Disappointment.

“Thanks. I’m . . . I guess it’ll always be with me,” he said.

“Now you’re a teacher,” she said. “I’m connecting the dots.”

He went back to work. “Not sure about connecting the dots. I’m not that deep. My life changed in a split second. I just did the next logical thing.”

“You know how the saying goes—life is what happens to you when you’re making other plans.”

The silence between them was a companionable one. Every now and then, Will would glance over at her and catch her looking at him. They’d immediately look away from each other. It was a tentative dance, reestablishing a friendship that had been dormant for years.

Although he tried to deny it, he felt drawn to her in a way that was absolutely and completely forbidden. It was impossible to lie to himself about this. But he could lie to everyone else. And he fully intended to do so.

“I wasn’t sure what to do with these storage boxes,” she said, startling him away from thoughts he shouldn’t be having.

“What’s that?”

“These boxes over here.” She indicated a few by the door. “I wasn’t sure what to do with them.”

“Let’s have a look.” There were bankers boxes crammed with receipts and records. Another box contained college textbooks. “I’ll ask Sierra about these,” he said. “During my last deployment, she was working on getting an MBA.” The box at the bottom was oblong and unexpectedly heavy, its once-glossy white surface covered in cobwebs and dust. He lifted the lid to reveal a cellophane window in an oval shape. “Damn. Haven’t seen that in a while.”

Caroline leaned forward to have a look. “Is this . . . ?”

“Sierra’s wedding dress. The one you made for her.”

“Wow. Never thought I’d see that again.”

He set the box with the others on a hand truck. He studied her with heightened awareness. She stood close enough for him to catch the herbal smell of her hair. The not-unpleasant scent of her sweat. He fixated on the damp bow of her lips. “I never thought I’d see you again.”

“Will—”

“I mean that, Caroline. We broke apart and here we are again. Sierra and I . . .”

“Stop,” she said. “Just stop.”

Part Five

Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I’m gazing at a distant star. It’s dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the star doesn’t even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.

―Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

Chapter 21