Chapter Twenty
Ember
Tomorrow it would be two weeks. I closed the calendar app on my iPhone, which reminded me that we were due at the Cadet Chapel in half an hour. One last pin and my hair was secured, my French twist reminding me so much of Mom that I did a double take.
I patted concealer over the dark circles under my eyes and the small bruise that Josh had sucked into my collarbone last night. I knew what he was doing every time he reached for me, using sex to escape, to hide from the nightmares that still woke him nightly, but I let him.
Maybe that made me a bad fiancée, letting him distract us both with orgasms until we were limp. Maybe I should be saying no, making him talk out the monsters in his head. But I knew he wasn’t ready, and pushing him might push him further away from me, which was something I couldn’t handle. The other part? I loved when he reached for me, connected us in a way I felt like we were just barely missing when we weren’t in bed.
I applied the waterproof mascara and declared myself well-enough done. I’d learned my lesson at Captain Trivette’s funeral a few days before. Waterproof-only for days like this.
We’d buried Josh’s copilot under giant trees in a cemetery near Fort Campbell. Josh hadn’t moved a muscle during the ceremony. He’d barely blinked, his eyes either on the casket or Captain Trivette’s two small children. We’d paid our respects to her husband, Major Trivette, and he’d hugged Josh, asking him to visit sometime, and then we’d left.
Josh hadn’t spoken on the way home, other than to answer yes or no questions, but he’d nearly ripped my dress in haste to get to my skin once we’d walked in the door at home.
“I can’t get my fucking blues on,” Josh growled, but not at me, just in my general direction. In the last couple of weeks, I’d learned the difference.
“Okay, give me a second, and I’ll help you.” I slipped the sling-backs onto my feet and finished zipping up my black dress.
I crossed our hotel room to where Josh was half dressed. His short-sleeved white shirt was starched and tucked into royal blue pants with a gold stripe down the side. The abrasions on his cheek had healed, and the laceration above his eye had faded to a deep pink line. Everything about him was beautiful, from the carved lines of his torso to the perfection of his ass in those pants. I slid my hands up his shirt and paused at his shoulder. “No stabilizer?” I asked.
“Not today.”
“Are you going to hurt it?”
“I don’t care. It’s too bulky under my jacket, and I’m not fucking with it today. End of story. It’s coming off in two days, anyway.”
Do not poke the bear. I rolled my eyes.
“Jacket?” I asked, fixing his tie first.
He sighed and handed me the thick blue jacket. I worked it over his new cast first, which ended just beneath his elbow. It was a tight fit, but we made it. Once it was on, I buttoned the front for him. “There you go.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“I’m still driving.” I smiled and took the keys off the desk before he could reach them.
“Baby, if I don’t have the stabilizer on—”
“You’ll just hurt yourself. You can get in the car, or you can stay here.” My chin rose an inch, and I held his gaze, refusing to back down.
“Fine,” he said, with a soft kiss against my lips. Over-sexed or not, his kisses were still the sweetest moments in my world.
We drove from the hotel, curving along the stone-walled roads of West Point Military Academy until we reached the parking lot, and then walked the rest of the way, my footsteps feeling heavier as the entrance came closer.
Josh took my hand as we entered the massive chapel. It was beautiful and overwhelming, the giant stone columns stretching skyward to support the panels of stained glass that let in the noon light with prismatic brilliance. The wooden pews were full of gray-uniformed cadets paying respect to one of their own, as we made our way up the center aisle toward the family.
It was such a fitting good-bye for Will.
You cannot cry yet. Hold yourself together.
A few deep breaths later, we moved to sit a couple of rows back, but Paisley waved us up and pointed to the empty pew across from hers in the front row.
Will’s casket was closed in front of us, the flag draped across it. Somehow it transformed to Dad’s in my warped mind, and I blinked the image away.
“Where is Will’s family?” I whispered to Josh as he took the seat closest to the aisle.
“His mom and dad are on the other side of General and Mrs. Donovan,” he answered. Jagger sat on the aisle, then Paisley, Morgan, and then the Donovans and Carters.
“That’s it? That’s all he has?”
Josh nodded. “And they’re not much, from what he told me.”
“There’s Grayson and Sam,” I said, waving them forward. They took the seats next to us.
“I can’t believe this is how we meet up again,” Sam whispered, taking my hand.
Four months. That was all that had passed since we’d sat in front of the fire, celebrating Jagger and Paisley’s wedding. Now we were gathered in front of Will’s casket.
Life was not fucking fair.
The service began, the minister talking about honor, duty, God, country, everything Will had stood for, and yet not what I’d remember him for. I took Josh’s hand with my free one, stroking my thumb over his fingers, which had gone cool to the touch.
General Donovan took the podium, taking a deep breath and bowing his head before he began to speak. “Lieutenant William Carter was a man of uncompromising morals and steadfast loyalty. He was a damn fine officer, but more importantly, Will was an exemplary man. He didn’t let many people into his inner circle, but once he did, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for you. He would walk into fire for those he loved.” He looked at Paisley, who leaned her head on Jagger’s shoulder. “He would go to battle for his friends.” He looked directly at Josh, then Grayson. “And he would willingly give up his life for his brother.” General Donovan’s face twisted, his lips pursing and flattening as he battled for control, but he met Jagger’s eyes. “Even had he known his fate, Will would have made the same decision.”
The first of my tears fell, sliding down my cheeks in hot streams. Josh’s fingers tightened around mine, the rough fiberglass of his cast rubbing against my skin. The slight pain grounded me somehow, kept me tethered to reality instead of the wish that this was a dream. A nightmare.
“I’ve known Will since he was a boy, watched him mature to manhood with pride. I pinned his Lieutenant bars and swore him in as an officer. For you Cadets joining us, this was a man to aspire to, a man to emulate. If even one of you graduates as just a fraction of the man Will Carter was, then this Academy will have done its job. Well, maybe not the cocky, self-righteous butter bar he was for a few months…” A low rumble of laughter rolled throughout the chapel, and Josh nodded. “…but the man he grew to be over the last couple of years. I have heard it said that only the good die young. I call bullshit. He wasn’t just good, he was the best of us. He was the first of my sons by choice”—he looked back to Jagger—“and the world will forever be just a little dimmer, a little darker for us without him.”
We sang a hymn after General Donovan finished, and then it was Josh’s turn as the final speaker. He squeezed my hand one more time and then rose to take the microphone, pulling a tri-folded piece of paper from his jacket and laying it flat. Then he steadied himself and spoke, his voice clear and steady.
“I hated Will when I first met him,” he said with an easy smile. Another rumble of laughter echoed against the stone walls of the chapel. “I thought he was a self-righteous prick who wouldn’t know loyalty if it bit him, and wouldn’t know friendship if it waved a hand in his face. In my defense, I was kind of right.” Another wave of laughter. “But I was also wrong. Will didn’t just hand out loyalty, you had to earn it. You had to prove that you could live by his code of ethics—which was damn near impossible—or you had to prove that you were worth the inches he was willing to step outside his firmly drawn lines.”
His eyes went to the casket and then back to me. I nodded, hoping that I could give him some kind of strength to finish. I swiped away another tear and forced a smile for Josh.
“I went through flight school with Carter. I nearly killed him every day of Primary. But somewhere in there, he stopped being Carter and became Will, as I realized what kind of man he was. He was the kind of guy who gave up the aircraft he wanted, because he’d been honor-bound to select for a member of his platoon.” Josh half smiled at Jagger. “He was the kind of man who took notes for me during the Advanced Course when I was exhausted from traveling to see my fiancée on the weekends, and then spent hours quizzing me so I wouldn’t fall behind. He was the kind of man who kept that quiet because he knew our friends had enough going on in their lives without worrying about me, too. He was the kind of man who proved to you that he wasn’t the second choice,” he said with a smile at Grayson, who nodded his head.
“He was the kind of guy who shouted yes, when asked to fly into an unsecured landing zone to save a downed pilot.” He looked at Jagger and blinked furiously, which sent another stream of tears down my cheeks. “To save a friend.” He looked down momentarily, squeezing the sides of the podium so tightly his knuckles turned white. “I haven’t…” He paused while he took a breath, and then another. “I haven’t talked a lot about what happened that night, but it was Will who pulled me out of our crash. It was Will who carried out my deceased copilot, who had more valor in her pinky finger than any other aviator I’ve ever met.”
I was caught between the excruciating grief that threatened to tear apart my heart and shock that Josh was talking about this. In front of strangers.
“He took the bullets intended for me, and as he…” He looked at Jagger. “As he died, he reached for you. He took your hand.”
The imagery would have brought me to my knees had I been standing. My eyes fluttered shut, hot tears squeezing out between my eyelashes. He hadn’t just saved Jagger, but Josh as well. God, the guilt he must feel. The weight he must carry. Why won’t he let me shoulder a little of it? Sam gripped my hand, steadying me.
“He asked me if you were alive, and I told him you were. He then ordered me to keep you that way.” Josh’s half smile turned into a grimace as two tears chased each other down his face, sending a fresh wave down mine. “He said, ‘he lives for them. No matter what, he lives.’ Will died completing his mission, and for an officer, a soldier, there is no more honorable death. But as his friend, God, it feels unfair to have lost the best of us.”
Josh hung his head, and the entire chapel waited, so silent that even breathing felt like blasphemy. He gathered himself and then faced the rest of the chapel. “The world lost a hero in William Carter, and we are a sadder, less honorable place for his passing. There will not be a day that I don’t think about him, don’t strive for his level of integrity. I am a better man for having known him, having competed against him, and having been able to call him my friend.”
Josh walked uneasily from the podium, having refused to use his crutch today. Then he stopped at Will’s casket and laid his hand over the flag, bowing his head. “See you at Fiddler’s Green, brother.”
My throat tightened at the reference; I knew the army poem well. Josh took his seat next to me and pulled me close, wrapping his arm around me. He held me steady as they performed the roll call, my heart breaking anew when they called for “Lieutenant William Carter.”
Hadn’t I just done this? Hadn’t Josh, Sam, and I just sat in a military chapel with a flag-draped coffin? How the hell did we get here again? Where was the justice in this? Hadn’t we both suffered enough already?
The bagpipes lit into “Amazing Grace,” the chapel acoustics carrying the sound so well that I felt it in my very bones. Josh stared straight ahead at where Will lay, his face unreadable but his eyes tortured in a way I couldn’t understand but desperately wanted to. Even if it ripped me apart, I wanted so badly to climb inside his thoughts and help him heal.
We sang. We prayed.
The honor guard stepped forward, one man short, confusing me until Grayson stepped forward and took his place to carry Will out.
Sam laid her head on my shoulder, her tears falling on my bare arm.
We left, following them out until Will was loaded into a glass hearse pulled by white horses. The drive to the burial was slow, keeping pace behind the horses winding down the hilly path through West Point. I reached over to Josh, rubbing his neck. He leaned into my touch but didn’t speak, and I didn’t break our solemn silence.
We turned into the cemetery and drove as far back as the paved way allowed. The burial itself was quicker than I remembered from Dad’s funeral, but this time I took in the details, where I’d merely existed through Dad’s.
The volley of gunfire caught me off guard, and Josh startled, his body jerking in his seat. I held his hand, but he didn’t look over at me, still keeping his eyes on Will.
General Donovan handed Will’s mom the folded flag, her sobs splitting the relative quiet until “Taps” began to play.
It was too final, too soon for a twenty-four-year-old man to be laid in the ground. It wasn’t right, any of it. This war was taking chunks of my soul, of Josh’s, piece by piece.
The service ended, and the seven of us stayed until we were the only ones left. Morgan, Paisley, Jagger, Josh, me, Sam, and Grayson all stood sentry as they lowered Will into the ground.
I remembered how cold it had been when we did the same for Dad, and even though the June weather was far mellower in New York, I felt just as frozen, as numb.
“I don’t understand,” I said to Sam. She turned to me, her eyes red and swollen. “I don’t understand how we’ve gone from burying our parents to burying our friends.” I glanced past her to where Morgan stood holding onto Paisley, her head high as tears marked her cheeks. “Burying the men we love. I just don’t.”
She wrapped her arm around my shoulders.
“I don’t, either. I don’t think anyone does.”
We stayed until he was at rest, and I prayed that he knew more peace in the next life than he had in this one.