I shook my head. “How? I counted. That’s impossible.”
“You didn’t count, you assumed.”
I went over the figures in my head again. “All six Apaches were selected before they got to me.”
She shook her head. “Will deferred his choice for every turn until he was next to you. He took a Blackhawk. He selected the Apache for you.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because he said he would. You trusted him to select for you.”
“He gave me his aircraft?”
She nodded, and I fumbled for words before I sprinted out the door and into the hallway. Josh and Grayson sat on the floor, braced against the wall. “He left already,” Josh answered my unspoken question. A nurse slipped into Paisley’s room behind me.
“Why would he do that? He wanted it just as badly.” I couldn’t understand.
“He mumbled something about honor and bit the bullet,” Grayson answered. “Josh, you ready to head to Nashville? My flight is in five hours.”
They both stood. “Yeah, let’s get you there.” Josh turned to me. “You going to be okay here?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I think I am.”
“Good,” Grayson answered, pressing the button for the elevator. “I packed you a bag. It’s in Paisley’s closet, complete with a new set of Apache 5&9s. Start studying, and you might have a chance to beat me for top of the OML in the Apache course.” He walked into the elevator without another word.
“Arrogant prick.” I laughed.
“Who knew, right?” Josh joined in and then followed Grayson into the elevator. “How are you feeling?”
I grinned. “Living in a land of fairy tales and unicorns, man.”
“Hell, yeah.”
“You two are disturbed,” Grayson muttered as the doors closed, leaving me alone with Paisley.
“There’s a reclining chair if you’d like to rest near her,” the nurse offered with a smile as she left Paisley’s room.
The only light came from the bathroom as I walked in. Paisley mumbled something, and I sat in the chair next to her, noting that her IV bag had been changed. “Need anything, Little Bird?”
“Just you,” she said, lacing her fingers with mine.
“You will always have me. That’s never going to change.”
“Still want to marry me? Or were those the drugs talking?” Her voice was sleepy.
“You’re on the drugs, not me, and I meant every word.” I leaned over and brushed my lips over hers in a soft kiss. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life loving you.”
“Good.” She smiled against my mouth. “Because I love you. And I want lots of kids. And a really big library.” Her voice wavered as she slipped off to sleep.
“I guess it’s a good thing that I have experience building those,” I whispered as I tucked the blankets around her. Then I slipped her letter out of my pocket and opened it, reading in the dim light.
Make love on the beach. See the Statue of Liberty. Visit the Parthenon.
It wasn’t a letter.
Oh, no. It said, “Jagger and Paisley’s Bucket List.”
And I was going to make sure she completed every last one…at least once…or more. That beach one sure looked promising.
Epilogue
Paisley
“I’m older than you now. Do you know how wrong that feels? I keep thinking back to when I was five, and you were seven, and I was so mad that you could ride that roller coaster, and Mama kept telling me that I’d always be younger, and I told her that wasn’t true. One day you’d be dead. I reckon I was not an easy five-year-old.
“I hated you for a minute there,” I admitted as I pulled the grass between my fingers. “But only because I loved you so very much. If I had known, I would have spent more time with you that summer. I would have made you see reason and do something about your heart…our hearts.” Another crimson leaf drifted down as the September breeze kicked up. It landed between my knees and the white stone that marked where my sister rested. As I brushed it away, sunlight caught on my watch. As much as I’d always detested it, I was more scared to let myself believe the truth—I didn’t need it anymore.
“I don’t get to hate you, because you’re not here. I don’t get to hate you because the choice you made cost you the most, but it cost the rest of us, too, Peyton. But mostly, I don’t hate you because at the very end, it was your choice, no matter how wrong it may have been, that gave me the strength to make mine. You saved me. You were stupid.” I laughed through the tear that escaped and brushed it away. “Incredibly stupid, but you died chasing what you loved, what you wanted. You died by really living, and I can’t hate you for that.” Movement caught my attention from the left as Jagger walked slowly up the path through the West Point cemetery. That sweet burn filled my chest, like it did whenever I saw him, and I smiled. “Because I finally understand having something not just worth dying for, but living for.”
I took out the folded, worn piece of paper from my pocket and opened it. I brushed my thumb over number sixteen, and the check mark I’d added in her green. Make a name for myself at West Point. “I wish you’d found another way to check this one off, you stubborn thing. I didn’t finish the rest of them, and I’m sorry, but I made my own list, Peyton, and loving him is at the top of it. I’m fierce, now, just like you wanted for me, so you don’t need to worry. It’s not your brand of fierce, or wild, but I’m exactly who I want to be. Well, I’m getting there.”