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Falling Hard (Colorado High Country #3) by Pamela Clare (25)

Epilogue

“I think this is as close as we’re going to get.” Jesse pulled into a parking place and turned off their rental car, then glanced at the app on his smartphone, his tan beret tucked into the front pocket of his dress blues.

Ellie slipped her handbag over her shoulder, picked up roses she’d brought, then stepped out of the car and smoothed the wrinkles out of her black linen dress. She glanced around. Nothing seemed familiar. Then again, it had been four years since she’d been here, and she’d been numb with grief.

She got Daniel out of his car seat and straightened his little suit. Jesse joined her with Daisy in his arms. They sat both kids down on the nearest bench, and she knelt in front of them, looking them straight in the eyes. “Do you remember what I told you? We’re in a very special place. You can’t run or play here, and you can only use your inside voices, okay? No yelling or being noisy.”

“Okay,” said Daniel.

Daisy squirmed.

Ellie stood again. “I’m not sure where to go from here.”

Jesse pulled his beret out of his pocket and put it on. “Section sixty is over there.”

He picked up Daisy and started down the sidewalk.

Ellie took Daniel’s hand and followed.

She’d come to Washington, D.C., for a nursing conference, and they’d decided to make a family vacation of it. She had attended only the workshops she’d needed to attend to keep her certifications current, giving them time to visit the sights.

But today, they weren’t tourists. They had come to Arlington National Cemetery to pay their respects. It had been Jesse’s idea, but as soon as he’d mentioned it, she’d been on board. Dan had never seen his kids, and they had never known him.

Today, she would take them to his grave.

The June sunshine was warm, the air much more humid than she was used to, living in Colorado.

“Over here.” Jesse pointed, waiting for Ellie and Daniel to catch up.

Section 60 had more graves than she remembered, but then soldiers were still fighting and dying in Iraq.

Jesse turned down a row and stopped, setting Daisy down. “Hey, Christine. So, this is where they put you.”

Ellie walked up, watching as Jesse paid his respects to the woman who had died in his arms. He knelt down, touched the white marble headstone, then pulled the chocolate bar out of his pocket.

“I brought you chocolate. It’s Godiva—the dark stuff you like so much.” He was quiet for a moment, and Ellie knew this was hard for him. “You begged me not to let you die, and I did my best. It just wasn’t enough. I’m so sorry, Christine. If I could have taken that blast for you, if I could have caught that shrapnel, I would have. If I could have worked miracles… I was supposed to protect you, but… There was just no way.”

Ellie blinked away tears. She had promised herself she would not cry today. She wanted this to be a positive experience for the kids, something they remembered not with fear, but with reverence and happiness. Still, she knew how hard Jesse had worked to put aside the sense of guilt he’d carried with him since the day of Christine’s death, and it was impossible not to get choked up.

He unpinned a medal from his uniform. “They gave me this for that day. Bunch of idiots. I want you to have it.”

He placed the medal on the chocolate bar and bowed his head, his eyes squeezed shut. When he got to his feet, there were tears on his face.

Ellie handed him a red rose.

He took the flower and stood it up against the headstone. “Rest easy, Christine.”

He stepped back, stood at attention, and saluted.

They started toward Dan’s grave, stopping along the way so Jesse could pay his respects to some of the men he’d fought with, fellow Rangers, men he’d known well. They left roses on each of their graves, too, each visit ending with Jesse giving a salute.

Another row down and one over.

The breath left Ellie’s lungs.

Oh, my God.

Daniel Thomas Meeks

Captain

US Army

Iraq

Dec 15 1985

Oct 5 2013

Silver Star

Loving husband and son

Operation Enduring Freedom

Ellie knelt in front of his grave marker, the grass cool and damp against her bare knees. She ran her hand over the smooth marble and traced his name with her finger, tears blurring her vision. The headstone hadn’t been there on the day of his funeral service. She had never seen it in person.

How strange it was to think that his body had been here every day since then, under sun, stars, rain, and snow, while the world had moved on without him.

“Daniel and Daisy, look,” she said when she could talk. “This is your daddy’s grave. When his spirit went up to become an angel, his body was buried here. Can you tell your daddy hello so he knows you’re here?”

Daisy reached out and patted the marble as if to comfort it. “Hello.”

Daniel followed his sister’s lead, doing the same. “Hello.”

“Dan, here they are—your twins. They’re three now. You wouldn’t believe how sweet and smart they are. Daniel looks just like you. Everyone says so. I named him Daniel Otis. I just couldn’t name him Otis Henry. Sorry. Daisy has the name you picked for her—Daisy Mae.”

“I’m Daisy Mae,” Daisy said.

“Yes, sweetie, you are.” Ellie reached into her handbag and took out the bag of things that people in Scarlet Springs had put together for Dan. “I brought some things—a little care package from home.”

And for a moment it was too much, tears spilling down her cheeks.

A big hand came to rest on her shoulder, gave her a gentle squeeze, Jesse standing behind her now, giving her his support.

She wiped the tears off her face, reached into the bag, and pulled out a photo of Denver’s football team. “Austin and Eric wanted you to have this photo from our last Super Bowl win. They’re both married now. Austin married Lexi like we always thought he would. They have an adorable baby girl. She has Lexi’s red hair.”

Ellie reached into the bag again, pulled out a tiny bottle of scotch. “Caribou Joe from Knockers sent a shot. Remember him? Joe Moffat? He tells me I have to pour it out like they did in the old days, so get ready.”

She opened the little bottle and poured the amber liquid onto the grass where it met the marble, a libation for a fallen warrior.

“Rose sent a sage candle.” She pulled it together with matches out of the bag and lit it, the breeze making the flame flutter, the faint scent of sage rising in the air. “She said something about it purifying this space and freeing your soul.”

Ellie laughed at that, then took out her gift to him. “I brought pictures of Daisy and Daniel. I wanted you to be able to keep these.”

She put double-sided tape on the back of the photos, which were laminated to protect them from the weather. Then she let the kids stick their pictures on the back of the headstone one at a time. “Good job. Now your daddy can keep pictures of you with him.”

“Can my daddy see me?” Daisy asked.

Ellie didn’t know for certain, but what could she say? “Yes, sweetie.”

Daniel stepped up. “Can he see me, too?”

“Yes, honey, he sees you, too. He loves you both very much.”

But Ellie had more to say to Dan. “Dan, you made me promise I would move on if anything happened to you. I wanted you to know that I’m engaged. I’m marrying Jesse Moretti. He was an Army Ranger. You flew him and his men in your Black Hawk a bunch of times. He says you even saved his life. I love him, Dan. He’s so good to me. He’s good to the kids, too. He made me feel alive again, and we’re happy together. We haven’t set a date yet, but I wanted you to know.”

Talking to Dan like this was harder than Ellie had imagined, tears filling her eyes again, happiness and grief tangled inside her. “We’ve started the adoption process so that Jesse can adopt the kids. It makes a lot of things easier and helps protect them. But Daniel and Daisy will always know that you are their father. We’ve decided that they’ll keep your last name. I don’t want to take that from you.”

She lay the rest of the flowers on his grave. “We will never forget you.”

She stood, smoothed her dress. “Kids, can you say goodbye?”

Daniel waved. “Bye, Daddy.”

Daisy hugged the marble stone, an angelic smile on her face. “Bye-bye, Daddy.”

Ellie turned to Jesse.

He wiped the tears from her face with his thumbs, kissed her. “Can I have a moment alone with him?”

“Sure.” Ellie took the kids by the hand and went to sit on a nearby bench, emotionally drained.

She watched while Jesse knelt down. He looked so handsome in his dress blues with all of his medals and that tan beret, though it had cost him emotionally to put on the uniform again. She tried to make out what he was saying but caught only bits of it.

“Thanks for keeping my men and me alive… I love her with everything I am… really does look just like you… sweetest little girl in the world… promise to take care of them… all I can to make her happy.”

He got to his feet, stepped back, and saluted, holding the salute for a solid few minutes. Then he reached down. “Rest in peace, Crash. I’ll take it from here.”

Ellie’s throat went tight, a bittersweet ache in her chest.

Somewhere in the distance, rifles fired a salute.

Jesse threaded his way over to her, his gaze meeting hers, the love she saw there making her heart swell.

She stood, slipped into the sanctuary of his embrace, the feel of his arms around her smoothing away her jagged edges.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She smiled, nodded. “Yeah. How about you?”

“I’m good. I thought that since these monkeys were so good, we should go get some ice cream.” He scooped the kids up, one in each arm. “You want ice cream?”

The kids nodded, big smiles on their faces.

In the distance, a bugler was playing “Taps.”

A life ended. A new life beginning.

Ellie sent a silent farewell to Dan, then fell in beside Jesse, the path ahead of them bright with sunshine.

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