Chapter Eighteen
Ember
His gasp woke me.
I blinked, begging my eyes to focus on the hazy glare of the alarm clock that read 2:45 a.m. Before I could turn, I heard his arms sweep over the covers between us. I’d moved as soon as his breathing had evened out, scared that I’d accidentally bump the laceration on his thigh or the incision on his chest in my sleep.
“Ember?” he asked, his voice panicked, his breaths quick.
“Here,” I said softly, rolling on my side to face him. I caught his hand and set it to my cheek. “I’m here, Josh.”
His sigh of relief broke my heart wide open. What had he been dreaming of? The deployment? The crash? How long did I wait before I asked him what happened? Was he going to want to tell me? Should I even ask?
Damn it, I had no idea what to do, how far—if at all—to push.
He tugged gently, and I shifted closer, pressing against his side. “Do you need anything? Water? Meds?”
He shook his head and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Just you.”
“Nightmare?”
He nodded slowly, his chin rubbing the top of my head.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Please talk about it.
“No.” His answer was whispered but curt.
“Okay.” I pressed closer, laying my hand just above his incision to feel his heart beat against his naked skin. Even with everything that had happened, my soul burned with gratitude that he was here. “But when you’re ready, I’m here.”
He swallowed, then nodded.
After the third time I woke to his panicked, searching hands, I stopped trying to give him space and slept closer.
After lunch the next day, as we were preparing to leave for Fort Campbell, Grayson called from Dover. Josh’s eyes had gone dead by the time he hung up the phone.
“Everything okay?” I asked, putting his noon meds in front of him.
“He’s got Carter,” he answered quietly. “Grayson will stay with him until he’s ready, and then he’ll take him to West Point for the funeral. Did Paisley get with Carter’s mom?”
“Yeah. Funeral is next Friday.”
“Morgan?”
“Sam flew to Alabama the day after her last final. She’s with her.”
His eyes squeezed shut, and my heart clenched. “Okay. Do we fly? Drive? Fuck this leg.”
“Jagger’s dad is sending a plane—no, don’t argue—it’s not like Jagger can get around easily in a wheelchair, and you would hate flying commercially with your leg, or being stuck in a car for fourteen hours.”
“Hotel?”
“Reservations made.”
“Captain Trivette? Do you know anything about her?” His eyes focused on his plate.
“Yeah. Hers is here, a few days before. We can make both.” It had only taken a quick call to Carol, the kind wife from the FRG, to get the details.
He nodded and looked up slowly. “You took care of everything.”
“That’s my job. I take care of you,” I answered with a smile. In every way that I know how.
He squeezed my hand and gave me a look that melted me. “Thank you.”
“I love you,” I answered, as if that were reason enough for anything. Because it was.
His eyes dropped to my ring and lost a little of their life. “Listen, about what happened in Germany.”
I tensed. “The whole non-wedding thing?”
“Yeah. I hope you know that I want to marry you. I just didn’t want those circumstances. I didn’t want that to be our story. Our wedding day should be about you and me and our forever, not some rush job in a foreign country without our family. Not because you felt forced.”
“I didn’t care. It didn’t matter to me.” It mattered when he’d said no.
He took my hand, his thumb grazing the diamond on my engagement ring. “It would have, eventually. This…moment—what we’re going through—it’s just a blip in our lives, something we’ll always remember but won’t dwell on. I didn’t want our wedding memories to be tangled up in that. Please tell me you understand.”
I came out of my chair and kissed his forehead, lingering for just a second to breathe him in. I was so lucky, so blessed to have him here. “I understand,” I whispered, then cleared our plates.
It wasn’t until after the dishes were done that I realized he hadn’t taken the pain medication.
“You ready?” he asked from the living room, dressed in a pair of basketball shorts and Under Armour shirt.
“You didn’t take your meds?” I asked, holding them in my palm.
He shook his head with a smile I knew he was faking, but I let it slide. “I’m fine. Besides, I’ve seen what they do to some guys, and I’d rather deal with the pain now than the withdrawals later. I’m fine. Seriously.”
I’m fine. It was his damn mantra.
“Okay,” I said too quickly and then pocketed the bottle in my purse. If he changed his mind later, I’d have them.
“Ready?” he asked, standing in his PTs, using one crutch to keep the weight off his leg.
“Maybe we should get you a wheelchair,” I suggested, grabbing my keys and purse.
“No.”
“It would help keep the weight off that leg.”
He made his way to the porch. “No. Final answer.”
I totally mocked his manliness behind his back as I locked the door. “You’re far too stubborn.” Turning, I saw him perched at the edge of the steps with a wry smile.
“I know my limits.” His eyes shot skyward. “Sometimes.”
I became his crutch to get him down the steps.
“Oh man, I want to take my Jeep,” he said wistfully, looking at the closed garage where I kept her.
“As soon as you can bear weight, babe. Until then, it’s car city.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he moped, folding himself carefully into the passenger seat of my car. I’d pushed back the seat as far as it would go before getting him the night before.
“Okay, full schedule,” I said as we pulled out of the Starbucks drive-through, two white mochas in hand. Caffeine was a biological necessity to get through Josh’s afternoon. “Where do we start?”
“Airfield. They want me to meet with ASDAT.” His voice went flat.
“In English?”
“Aircraft Shoot Down Assessment Team.”
My hands tightened on the steering wheel, and my breath stuttered. “Because you were shot down?” I tried my best to keep my voice even.
The incident is under investigation. That’s all they’d told us.
“Yes.”
My eyes darted from the road to where he stared out the window. “And…” I swallowed and pushed past the boulder in my throat. “…and Will was with you?”
He didn’t move a single muscle except the one in his jaw. “Yes.”
We pulled up to the gate and I handed the guard our IDs. He scanned both, handed them back, and waved us through. My mind reeled as I drove, questions firing faster than I could even process them, knowing I shouldn’t ask. I should wait until he told me. But what if he never does? “And Jagger’s aircraft?”
We parked in front of the battalion building, but Josh didn’t move.
“Josh?”
He looked in my direction, but not at me. “Jagger was shot down. We responded and were shot down, too. Carter survived the crash—” He swallowed, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath as his fist clenched the seat. “I can only go through this once right now. I just…can’t.”
I reached across the e-brake and squeezed his hand. “Okay.”
You pushed too hard.
Once we entered the building, my Josh disappeared and Lieutenant Walker took over. He gave me a nod and disappeared into a room, the door closing behind him. Soldiers led me to an empty conference room across the hall.
I set my coffee down and pulled out my GRE study booklet and iPad. If I was going to be stuck here for hours, I may as well get some work done.
An hour later, I was bored to tears, my eyes crossing. I hadn’t tried to cram this much useless knowledge into my brain since SAT prep, and that had been years ago.
You’re the one who wanted a doctorate.
In anthropology. Was I insane? I could teach while writing. Teaching was mobile, so I could move with Josh’s career, but not successfully at the collegiate level. Are you really going to determine your career, your dreams by Josh’s?
I wanted to flick the devil off my shoulder. Of course I was going to take Josh’s career into consideration. That’s what marriage was, right? I knew he’d said he’d get out when his obligation was over, but lately he’d been hinting at doing a full twenty, just like when I’d first asked him over two years ago.
You’re commissioning. You’re going career.
Yes. That’s my plan.
But when he’d realized that it would cost him our relationship, he’d sworn that it would just be the obligation from his ROTC scholarship—that he’d get out when it was over.
I’ll resign…
I would never be responsible for you turning your back on this. I know what it means to you, what you feel your responsibility is. I won’t ever be the one who holds you down.
But what did that all mean now? Now that he was under even more years of obligation from flight school? Now that I’d adjusted to this life? Now that he’d been wounded? Seen his friends killed…again?
My cell phone rang, thankfully saving me from the downward spiral of my thoughts. Sam’s face flashed across the screen.
“Hey,” I answered.
“You sound exhausted,” she said, her voice just as weary.
“You can guess that from one word?”
“I can. How’s it going there?”
I stared at the door like I could see through it. “He’s in with the assessment team.”
“Yeah, Grayson said they’d have questions for him. Is he talking about it yet?”
“Not to me.” Shit, that came out bitchy.
“Whoa, tell me how you really feel.”
I tapped my pencil on the glass topper of the table. “I have no clue what the hell I’m doing. He’s not talking, he has nightmares, and his favorite phrase is ‘I’m fine.’”
She sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“I know it’s wrong, but I almost wish I was allowed in that room, like I can’t help him if I don’t know what happened. I feel like there’s this chapter of him I don’t get access to, and it stings. I know it shouldn’t. I know he’ll talk in his own time, but I barely know what happened the first deployment. He never talks about it. And this one… God, Sam, what am I going to do if he shuts me out?”
“I can’t imagine, Ember. Just remember that he loves you, and give him some time. It’s only been a few days.”
“You’re right. I know that logically. Emotionally, well, I’m not the most rational over here.” A self-deprecating laugh slipped free.
“You have every reason to be upset. For Josh, for Jagger, for Will, and for you. I know he’s hurt. I know what he just went through is unspeakable, but this…it happened to you, too. You get to have whatever feelings you’re having. I wish I knew how to help you.”
“Me, too. I just want him to be okay.”
“I know. When do Jagger and Paisley get home?”
“Her email said tomorrow.”
“Good. You’ll have each other.”
“How is Morgan?”
Her sigh told me all I needed to know. “Breathing. Crying one minute, silent the next, mad as hell ten minutes later.”
“I’m glad you’re there with her.”
“Me, too. It almost feels like I never left, but everything is different without you guys here.” Her voice cut out for a second. “Oh, that’s Grayson. Call me if you need me, okay?”
“I will. Love you, Sam.”
“Love you, Ember.”
We hung up and I went back to studying. Another hour later the door opened, and Josh stuck his head through. He looked even paler than he had this morning, which was saying something. He was heading into Casper territory. “Hey, babe,” I said.
“You ready? We’re all finished.” His eyes looked flat, like whatever had transpired in that room had sucked the life out of them.
“Yeah.” I gathered up my things and dropped them into my messenger bag. “Where to next?” I asked him as we walked out slowly.
“Blanchfield,” he responded. The military hospital. Of course—he needed to check in with the doctors.
The hospital was huge. There was no way he was going to one-crutch it and come out the other side with a functioning left arm. It took several minutes of begging and the promise of sexual favors, but he let me put him into a wheelchair to the clinic.
“Besides,” I said, flipping through a magazine as we waited in an exam room. “It kept your leg elevated, right?”
He gave me a healthy dose of side-eye from the exam table, his leg stretched out on the paper liner. “It’s a good thing I love you.”
I blew him a kiss. “You look sexy in PT shorts.”
There was a knock at the door and a cursory pause before it opened. “Lieutenant Walker,” the flight surgeon said, glancing over his chart.
After introductions, Dr. Ortiz got right down to the exam, keeping it focused on his injuries and not how he’d received them. I did my best to keep my eyes off the sculpted lines of his chest and abs when he removed his shirt. I failed. Miserably.
After the exam, Dr. Ortiz sat on her stool to face us. “Laceration on your thigh looks good. No infection, and not swelling too badly. You need to keep off it for another week.”
“Staples?” Josh asked like a kindergartener.
She rolled forward, looking over the wound. “Another four days, and then I’ll take them out. How does that sound?”
“Like four days too long,” he answered.
She rolled her eyes in my direction. “He always like this?”
“Worse,” I answered. “He hasn’t asked you about getting on the ice.”
“Skating?”
His eyes lit up. “Soon?”
“Maybe once that cast is off your arm, Lieutenant.” Man, this woman had the mom look down pat.
“How long will that be?” I asked, putting the notes into my cell phone.
“Another five to six weeks, if I had to guess. We’ll get you in for an X-ray with ortho next week and see how it’s healing.” She jotted more notes in his chart. “Splenectomy incision looks good, too, healing remarkably fast.”
“Good nursing care,” Josh said with a smile, and gave me a wink.
Dr. Ortiz laughed. “Looks like it. He giving you trouble?” she asked me.
He has nightmares. He won’t talk to me. He won’t take pain meds. “No, ma’am. Just keeps trying to test his limits.”
“That’s a pilot for you,” she answered. “Okay, that brings us to your shoulder. Are you keeping the stabilizer on?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered. “How long is that going to be a part of my life?”
“That’s going to be up to ortho, but my best guess, seeing your chart…another three weeks in a sling, and then rehab. We’ll see if we can get you into a below-elbow cast for that arm before we yank the sling, eh?”
Josh nodded, his eyes darting back and forth on the floor like they did whenever he was analyzing something, working out a problem. “Okay, so staples out this week, and then how long for full recovery of my leg?”
Dr. Ortiz tilted her head. “Probably six weeks, if it continues healing how it is. Keep it dry for draining, then we’ll take out the staples and let you heal.”
Josh nodded. “Six weeks total for the arm.”
“Yes.”
“Stitches over my eye this week, too, right?”
“Yes.” Her eyes narrowed at the same time mine did.
He nodded again, calculating, I could tell. What the hell was he trying to figure out?
“Lieutenant, you’re in for a little rehab on that shoulder, your arm, the muscle in your leg, and you had major abdominal surgery. Take it easy. I’m putting you on thirty days of convalescent leave to start with, and then we’ll see where you’re at.”
He’d have thirty days of leave. Thirty days that I could take care of him before he’d be put on a desk job with the rear detachment. The relief that rushed through me, relaxing my posture, was almost embarrassing.
“Okay. How long until I have an up-slip?”
All that relief died a swift, painful death, and my stomach turned, nausea rolling through me. He wanted his wings back, the permission to fly. Five days. It had been five days, and he wanted back in a fucking helicopter.
My eyes bored into him, willing him to turn, to see my face.
He kept his eyes locked on Dr. Ortiz.
She turned toward me, but he didn’t. Fevered rage mixed with ice-cold fear, and I disengaged, leaning back in my chair as I realized he wasn’t asking my opinion. As much as I loved him, in that moment I hated him a little, too.
But maybe he’d need a year, right? Pilots had to be perfectly healthy to fly. Hell, even a sinus infection kept them grounded. If not a year, then maybe six months?
“Let’s get you into rehab first, see about range of motion, and then we’ll discuss an up-slip. You’re at least twelve weeks out.”
Now I hated her a little, too.