Everything was stationary here, like our life was on pause, but back there, hers was still turning.
“Call Will,” I said, clearing my throat and my asinine thoughts. Like a stupid fondue pot meant anything in the scheme of things.
“I don’t want to bug him. He’s getting ready to leave.”
“Yeah, well, tell him that I said to get his ass over there and fix it. You’re still feeding him every Sunday?” My heart sank a millimeter at the thought that Will was having dinner with Ember and Paisley, and while I was immeasurably thankful that he was there, helping, checking on the girls, fixing stuff they broke…well, I kind of hated him a tiny bit for it, too.
“Sunday night family dinners.” She gave a sad smile. “Just sans most of the family.”
God, I wanted to hold her, to climb through the screen for just long enough to brush my fingers along her cheek. “Soon, babe.”
“You on tonight?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m coming on shift in about ten minutes. I’m serious, you need to send in that application. It’s only for a couple months, and I’ll be home right around the time you are. Win-win.”
She sighed. “Yeah, I know. I’ll think about it.”
“You do that. Meanwhile, I’ll think about what you look like under that tank top.”
Her laughter bolstered my soul like nothing else could. “You’re incorrigible.”
“You know it.” I stood in my ten-by-ten room, careful not to bash my head on the lofted bed I’d been sitting under. Then I pulled on a clean shirt and grabbed a clean top from my closet. Ember’s sigh broke the silence.
“What’s up, babe?”
She bit her lower lip in a way that I longed to. “I just miss you,” she whispered.
I leaned in close to the camera. “I miss you, too. Every second. Every heartbeat.”
“Go save lives and come home to me, Lieutenant Walker.” She blew me a kiss.
“Counting down the minutes, future Mrs. Walker.”
We hung up without saying good-bye, because those were two words I wouldn’t ever use. Not here. I swallowed the ache that threatened to consume everything in me and pushed it to a workable distance. Then I tucked my heart away and went to work.
That day we weren’t so lucky, and I did my first Hero Flight, bringing back the body of a fallen soldier. The mission was somber, solemn, and broke my heart in a way that I’d never forget. A way that bolstered my determination to save the next soldier, and the one after that.
A way I knew I never wanted to experience again.
Chapter Ten
EMBER
One percent.
It was all I could think about that week. One percent less self-preservation than everyone else had. Not that it was really quantifiable, right? There wasn’t actually anyone inside Josh’s brain, checking out why the hell he flew like he had a death wish.
The same way he rode that damn motorcycle I hated, that four-wheeler in Alabama last year, or anything else he could push just a little beyond the red line.
He’d been gone seven weeks, and I was okay. Maybe that was the worst part. Yes, I missed him, worried about him, constantly wondered what he was doing, but I was surviving. We’d only lived together for a month before he’d deployed, and in some ways, it just felt like he was at Rucker, and I was…well, here. Other than the deployment sign I had made to hang on the front door that read, KNOCK ONLY IN CASES OF EMERGENCY, it was almost like we’d never moved in together.
Except that I slept in his T-shirts with my laptop perched next to his pillow just in case he Skyped me in the middle of the night.
“Breaker off?” Will asked from under my sink as I walked back into the kitchen.
“Yup. Your hands are safe,” I answered, hopping up onto the island counter.
He reached for another tool and went back to work. “You did a number on it.”
“I can’t believe he messaged you. It could have waited until Sunday, or I could have called someone.”
“I don’t mind. I like checking on you two.”
My feet swung under the lip of the counter. “I think Paisley fell asleep twenty minutes after dinner. Pregnancy is wiping her out.” I cringed. “I mean, in the normal way, not the I-had-a-heart-condition way.”
Will slid just far enough to smile at me, his teeth perfectly even. Huh. He was actually a really good-looking guy when Josh wasn’t ragging on him. “Don’t worry. I knew what you meant. And yeah, I worry, but checking up on you guys every week is about all I can really do, right? I’ll be gone in a couple of weeks, and then you two are on your own, broken disposals and all.” He slid back under and went to work.
“Are you going home to Alabama before you go? Maybe seeing Morgan?” I tried to keep my tone innocuous, but the pause in his work was enough to let me know I’d pushed a little too much.
“Nope. I think we said everything we could the last time she was here.”
“She loves you, you know.”
Will sighed. “Flip the breaker? I think I got it.”
I went to the breaker box and flipped the kitchen switch. “It’s on!” I called. By the time I walked upstairs from the basement, he’d already tested it.
“You’re good to go.” He ran it another few times to make sure, and then started putting his tools away in the bag.
I took two beers out of the fridge and handed one to him. “Thank you. Seriously.”