Chapter Twenty-Five
Ember
The Arizona heat hit as soon as our feet touched the oven that was aptly called a Jetway. I was sweating by the time we made our way into the air conditioning of the terminal.
I took Josh’s offered hand as we made our way to the baggage claim. As close as he was, even with his skin against mine, he was a million miles away. He’d white-knuckled the flight, pretending to watch the movie, and hadn’t said more than a handful of words to me.
I’d shoved all the Turkey papers back into my bag, sorry that I’d even brought them to look over. It was in another six weeks anyway, what did it matter right now?
As we passed through the security doors, Josh’s mom ran to him through the crowd. She was a small woman, even shorter than me, with close-cropped brown hair and brown eyes that laughed easily. He leaned down to hug her, and I briefly wondered how old he’d been when he’d passed her in height.
“Oh, thank you, God,” she said as she embraced him. Her relief was palpable, bringing a quick sting of tears to my eyes.
“Hey, Mom,” he answered, hugging her just as tightly.
She pulled back, wiping at her eyes. “I’m so glad you’re here.” She smiled, then yanked me in for a tight hug. “Both of you.”
“I’m glad we could make it.” I loved her hugs. They felt like macaroni and cheese on a cold day—just the perfect amount of comfort.
She looked me over with a critical eye. “Yes, I do believe engagement looks good on you. I approve.” Her grin was instant, and mine quickly followed.
A small wait at the baggage claim, then we piled into her Durango, heading for their house in Winslow. Josh slid into the driver’s seat, and I cringed.
“Only if you agree not to drive like a bat out of hell, Joshua,” she lectured as she fastened her seat belt.
“I’ll obey all speed limits, Mom.”
He arched an eyebrow at me in the rearview mirror, and I couldn’t help but smile, fight or no fight. I relaxed after he pulled onto the highway and stayed true to his word.
I checked my emails while Josh and his mom caught up in the front seat. She didn’t mention the crash, and he didn’t bring it up.
It was like we’d entered this tiny alternate universe where it had never happened.
“The drive seems so much shorter now.” Josh laughed around the half-hour mark.
“Than the last time we came in?” I asked.
“No, since Mom used to drive me every day. There’s no ice in Winslow, so she brought me to Flagstaff almost every day for practice.”
“‘Play football,’ I begged him.” She laughed. “‘No, Mom, hockey. It’s my passion.’” Her Josh impression was spot-on, and I couldn’t contain my giggle. “Like an eight-year-old knows what passion is.”
“Hey, I was good,” he argued.
“Keep telling yourself that.” His mom side-eyed him. “Now at nine, nine you were good. Eight…you were like a puppy with huge paws.”
“You have to embarrass me in front of my fiancée?” he joked.
She threw me a grin and a wink. “Your fiancée should know what kind of genes she’s giving my grandchildren. I’m sorry, Ember, they’re all going to have huge feet.”
“Seriously with the kids already?” Josh sputtered.
“I can wait…two years. I think two years is sufficient.”
“Mom!”
“You know what they say about guys with big feet,” I added, and the car went silent. Josh’s eyes flew to mine in the mirror, almost as big. “Really big shoes.”
His snort was drowned out by his mom’s laughter. She’d never pressure us, not really, but God, it was funny to watch Josh squirm.
Two years? Kids? Maybe not two. I’d be in the middle of my PhD program, and that wasn’t the best set of circumstances for a new mom. But maybe three years… Josh would be back at Rucker for the Captain’s Career Course, and we’d have him for a year, guaranteed no deployments.
And if we timed it just right, we could make the most of that year.
Wait. Are you planning a baby around his military career?
Yes, I was. Like everything else. Like where I was going to get my PhD. Like whether or not I was going to Turkey. As much as Josh wanted me to determine my own future, he had to understand that his was definitely setting my parameters.
It wasn’t like a marriage between us could exist any other way.
A buzzing sound woke me up from an unintentional nap the next afternoon. I lifted my head and brushed off a flashcard from where it had stuck to my cheek, and smacked my tongue against the roof of my mouth. Ugh, that after-nap mouth feeling was anything but clean. Untangling myself from the maze of books and papers on Josh’s bed, I reached for my phone on the nightstand. Four thirty p.m. I’d been asleep over two hours.
Mom: Hey, I just wanted to check on you.
I blinked some semblance of awareness into my brain and rubbed some circulation into my eyes.
Ember: Day 2 in Arizona. Everything is good here. CO?
Mom: Just missing you. How is Josh?
I knew she didn’t mean it as a loaded question, but it was. How was Josh? Fine, if you asked him. Everything was fine. He slept fine, ate fine, felt fine, and we were fine. Liar.
Ember: He’s fine.
Now I was just as bad as he was.
Ember: I actually need to go find him, I’ll check in later?
Mom: Sounds good. Love you, honey.
Ember: Love you.
I stacked my study materials neatly on the little corner desk, checked to make sure my mascara hadn’t made a run for it while I was passed out, and brushed my teeth in the adjoined bathroom, smiling at the Colorado Avalanche shower curtain.
I shut the door softly behind me and walked down the short hallway. The house was a homey two-bedroom, one level with tile floors and high ceilings. Josh’s hockey pictures decorated the hall to the living room, but there was no grown-up Josh waiting there. His mom looked up from folding a pile of laundry. “Hey, how are you feeling?”
“Great,” I said, pulling my hair into a knot on the top of my head. “I must have passed out. I’m so sorry. Can I help you?”
She smiled, pulling a shirt out to fold. “Nothing to be sorry about, and no, you’re on vacation. I peeked in on you earlier when Josh went out, but you looked peaceful. What are you studying so hard at?”
“GRE’s, the test to get into grad school. It’s next week.”
“Smart girl.” She smiled at me. “I’ve always loved that about you.”
“I’m trying,” I answered. “Now that Josh is at Fort Campbell, I can eek out my PhD there. We might have another few months in lag time apart while I finish up, but it’s my best chance of getting it done between PCS moves.”
She sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t know how you do that.”
“Do what?” I said, sneaking a shirt out of the pile to fold.
She tilted her head at me but let it slide. “Plan everything out so far in advance around Josh’s moves. I hated moving from here when we went to Colorado. We’re lucky my brother kept the place up for us, rented it out while we were there.”
I shrugged. “This is the only life I’ve ever known. I moved as a kid, as a teenager, and now as an adult. I’d like to stop, that’s no secret, but I’ll follow Josh anywhere.”
She paused, looking at me way too deeply with those Josh-like brown eyes. “You should go to Turkey. Have something of your own.”
“Josh told you.”
“Just enough. He’s right. This is about you, and looking at the way he lives, the way you’re already maneuvering around his choices, well, this would be for you.”
“I can’t leave him, not now. There will be other digs, other schools, other deadlines. If I can’t get into Vanderbilt’s program, there will be another.”
She put the last folded shirt onto the pile. “Ember, I raised Josh on my own. I worked two jobs to afford hockey. I moved us to Colorado to keep him from ending up a criminal with that stupid bike—or worse, in a body bag. I know what it is to sacrifice for someone you love, to put their needs first. I get it, and I admire and love you all the more for it. You are, in every way, Josh’s perfect match because you both do whatever the other needs. But you have to understand—loving yourself, honoring your intelligence, your ambitions, that doesn’t mean you love Josh less. It means you’re staying true to the woman he fell in love with in the first place.”
“Do you regret it? Putting him first?”
Her eyebrows rose. “No, but he is my child. Children always come first. In a relationship, there’s got to be some give and take so you don’t end up looking like a parent and child.” She smiled. “Want to know a secret?”
“Sure.” I added my last shirt to the pile.
“I’m going on a date tonight.”
Her joy was contagious, and suddenly the woman in front of me wasn’t Josh’s forty-five-year-old mother. She was just a girl excited to see a boy. “With who?”
She shrugged but couldn’t fade her smile. “A very handsome police officer. It will be our third date this month.”
“That’s great!”
She nodded. “Well, I have to go get ready. You two are on your own tonight, so you know…just don’t do anything that gets the cops called to the house. That could put a damper on our evening.” She tilted her head toward the kitchen. “He’s in the garage.”
“Thank you, and have fun tonight. You more than deserve it.”
“I think I will.” She walked off with a little spring in her step.
I crossed the living room to the kitchen and opened the door to the garage. The sound of “Paint it Black” blasted me along with the heat, and I shut the door quickly behind me so they didn’t lose the cool air in the house.
Holy shit…he did not.
Josh’s mom’s car had been backed into the driveway, and in its place was the bane of my fucking existence. Josh’s silver Ducati Superbike.
His Harley, the cruiser? Yeah, I was okay with that. It was a laid-back form of biking in my mind, more about the ride, enjoying the moment. This thing? It was death, shined up and sexy. He’d won it when he was seventeen, in the race that eventually got him kicked out of Winslow, and unable to break her son’s heart, his mom had put it into storage.
I just wished it had stayed there.
My eyes didn’t linger on the two-wheeled death machine once Josh stood up on the other side of it, putting his tools on the workbench behind him. One glimpse and I wasn’t just hot because of the temperature.
My future husband was incredible.
His shirt was off, little beads of sweat glistening on his skin. Every line of his abs was carved, dipping down toward his low-slung board shorts, where the very fuckable V-shaped lines from his stomach disappeared. His tattoos rippled as he lifted his hands above his head, resting them on his backward Avs baseball cap.
You get to marry him. Sleep with him the rest of your life, laugh with him, kiss him, make—
“Earth to Ember,” he called out, turning off the music, and my eyes snapped from his abs to the grin that told me he knew exactly where my head was.
“Yeah, hi,” I said, blinking excessively.
“Good nap?”
I stepped down onto the concrete floor and walked around the bike until I was toe to toe with him. “It would have been better with you.” My fingers had a mind of their own and pinched his waistband, running just inside, against his skin. It was damp with sweat, and I had the most incredible, overpowering urge to lick it off.
“You need your sleep,” he said, his voice dropping.
I ran my hands over his abs, and his grin faded, his eyes darkening. I leaned forward and placed a kiss over the pink line from his splenectomy, then lightly traced the scar with my tongue.
Josh’s fingers tangled in my hair, then gently pulled me back. His attention darted between my eyes and my lips. “What’s on your mind?”
“You,” I answered, my voice more than a little breathless. “I mean, you weren’t, but then I came out here looking for you, and you have no shirt on.”
“It’s hot.”
“I’ve noticed.”
I knew I was supposed to be mad at him for shutting me out. I knew I was supposed to keep up the awkward, private stalemate we’d had since the flight yesterday, but in that moment, I just didn’t care. I needed his mouth on mine more than oxygen—and he knew it.
He kissed me, lightly at first, as though asking me permission. I opened for him as he licked the seam of my lips, and sucked his tongue into my mouth. He groaned, his grip shifting from my hair to my ass, and walked backward until he landed on a stool near the workbench.
He gripped and lifted me onto his lap with a smooth motion until I straddled him, my feet braced on the supports of the stool. “Your shoulder,” I mumbled against his mouth.
“Shh, it’s fine.”
Even that word didn’t fire off my temper. I was too consumed by his skin against mine as my tank top rode up over my stomach. “Josh,” I whispered as he ran his tongue down my neck, stopping at the spot he knew triggered my instant need for sex. It may as well have been labeled with a bull’s-eye for how well he knew my body.
“You’re so fucking sexy,” he whispered.
“Have you looked in the mirror?” I asked.
“No, but we could try it,” he answered, his mouth gliding over the neckline of my top. “Could you get into that? Me behind you, watching you, watching us.”
I groaned, his words bringing images into my mind that definitely weren’t safe for a garage with the door wide open. “That was not what I meant.”
“Oh, I know,” he replied, peeling my top down over one of my breasts and lifting it from my lacy bra cup. “Damn, I’ve missed this. How many days has it even been?”
“Too many.” I gasped when he flicked his tongue over my nipple. The heat of my body, the air around us, his skin, all blended together until I felt like I was a living fire.
“I need you,” he whispered.
I knew what this would do. He was using sex to bandage the gaping wound that festered between us. I needed to care, to stop and make him talk this out, not give in to the primal need to feel him moving inside me, to let our bodies connect us. “Josh…”
“Fuck,” he growled, popping my breast back into my shirt when the door handle turned. To his credit, he didn’t throw me off his lap, but when his mom came down the steps, I wished he had.
My head hit his shoulder, and all the blood that had centered between my thighs a moment ago rushed to my cheeks.
“Mom,” Josh said with a nod.
“Uh-huh,” she said, a laugh finishing it off.
“Mom,” I mumbled, tossing up my hand as a wave but leaving my face firmly hidden.
“Well, my date should be here any minute,” she said sweetly, “so you two kids play nice, and I’ll see you later?”
“No lecture?” Josh asked, his arms wrapping around me to keep me from moving.
“Well, I did say that I wanted grandbabies,” she joked.
I groaned my mortification into Josh’s neck as a car pulled into the driveway. “No way,” he muttered, and I turned to see a nicely dressed man climb down out of the truck. “Sherriff Lane?”
Okay, that was it. I pushed back off Josh’s chest and slid until my feet touched the floor, pulling down my tank top along the way. “Hi,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster.
“I’m Dwayne.” He introduced himself with a firm handshake.
“I’m Ember.”
“Josh’s fiancée,” Mrs. Walker clarified.
“Nice to meet you,” he said with a nod, then looked past me to Josh. “Good to see you, Josh. I’ve heard you’ve grown into quite a man.”
Josh stood behind me. “Still working on that one, Sheriff.”
Dwayne’s eyes narrowed at the bike. “Well, it’s been a few years since I’ve seen that.”
“Well, you kids play nice, and have a good evening,” Josh said, using his mother’s own words, then took my hand, firmly pulling me into the house and shutting the door behind us.
“What was that about?” I asked, basking in the sweet rush of cold air.
“I cannot believe she’s dating him.”
“The sheriff? He seems nice enough.”
“He’s the one who kicked me out of Winslow. He was the deputy who caught me.”
My mouth hung slightly open for a second. “Oh.” The Josh I knew was more than a little bit of a daredevil. Hell, I even remembered the playboy from high school. But I’d never really met the Arizona version of Josh who had wound up in the back of cop cars, even when we’d been back on previous trips.
He shook his head. “You know what? Never mind. I want to take you somewhere.”
“Okay.”
He walked back to his bedroom, and I followed, backing up while he pulled a giant box out of the bottom of his closet. “I ordered everything you could possibly want.”
I peered into the box and took in the protective pants, jacket, and helmet. “No way am I getting on that organ-donation-mobile.”
“You ride the Harley at home,” he cajoled.
“Josh…”
“I’ll be careful.”
“You can’t even drive it,” I said, pointing to his air cast. “Speaking of which, how did it even get here from the storage unit?”
He wiggled his unencumbered fingers. “I can drive it just fine; that’s how I got it here. If anything, it’ll keep me from going too fast, right?”
“This is insane.”
He took my hands and kissed my fingers. “Please? December, I want to show you this place like I remember it, not just let my mom tour-guide you like the last time. I will literally give you anything you want if you ride with me.”
My teeth worried my lower lip while I debated. “It doesn’t even have a sissy bar. I’ll fall off.”
His smile was instant, and gorgeous, damn him. “First, I’d never let that happen, and second, it’s just an excuse to hold on tighter.”
“Anything I want?” Maybe this could be good. Maybe we could use this time together to recharge, not forget what had happened in the last month, but to see past it to where it was just us again.
“Anything you want,” he promised.
Tonight was going to suck.
“Fine. I want you to get off my butt about Turkey. For the remainder of the trip, don’t bring it up or try to change my mind.”
The muscle in his jaw ticked, but he nodded. “Deal. Anything else?”
“As long as I’m on the back of that bike, you do the speed limit.”
A wicked grin caressed his lips. “Deal.”
“And shower first.”
“Now you’re getting picky,” he called, already on his way to the bathroom.
I picked up the white and pink helmet that matched everything he’d ordered. “When in Rome, right?” I asked it. “Or Arizona.”