Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 128260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
It’s just because your mind is stuck on her, Stinger.
I opened my phone again, looking at the address I’d typed into my notes app. I pulled in a big breath, steeling my nerves, and then opened my mouth to ask the cab driver to take me there instead of back to my hotel. But before I could, my phone rang. Noah.
“Hey, man,” I said.
“Hey, Carson. Did you get the call yet?”
I was suddenly on alert. “What call?”
“Word just came down. Our flight’s been moved up. I guess there’s a situation that they need us to move on.”
My heart jumped. A situation. We’d been doing intensive specialized training for situations for the last eighteen months. Was I ready? I guess I was about to find out. “How soon do I need to be there?”
“As soon as possible. We leave tomorrow morning.”
Shit. I’d need to pack my stuff and head to the airport now in order to be back in time to leave in the morning. “I’ll call you when I land,” I told Noah.
“Talk to you then.”
We hung up and I opened my phone again, looking down at that address, yearning like I hadn’t felt in a long time welling up inside me, tightening my ribs. Buttercup. I stared at it another few moments before closing my phone. Fate had intervened, making the decision for me. I wasn’t going to Grace’s apartment. I was heading to Afghanistan.
CHAPTER 18
Grace
Six Months Later, December
The branches of the tree tickled my nose and I giggled as I scooted a little to the left to be closer to Julia. It was midnight, now officially Christmas, and my sisters and I were lying under the Christmas tree, staring up through the branches at the white twinkle lights—our tradition. We would sneak down after Dad had put our presents out and we would put our gifts to him under the tree, and then lie beneath it, talking until we were so sleepy that we couldn’t keep our eyes open.
“I think Evan’s going to propose today,” Julia whispered.
“What?” I whispered back. “Jules, oh my God! Are you sure?” I whispered back a little louder than her.
“Pretty sure.” I could hear the smile in her voice. “He confirmed the time he was going to get here this morning about fifteen times, and I saw the name of a jewelry store on a receipt in his car a couple days ago, right before he snatched it up and stuck it in his pocket.”
“He could have just gotten you a necklace or something for Christmas,” Audrey offered.
“Maybe, but I just have a gut feeling,” Julia said.
“Me too actually,” Audrey said. “That boy is crazy about you. I’m surprised it took him this long.”
I found Julia’s hand next to me and squeezed it. “I’m so happy for you, Jules. He’s a really great guy.”
“Yeah.” She sighed happily. “He really is.”
After a minute of silence, I said, “God, I’m really going to be an old maid now.”
Audrey giggled. “At twenty-five? I think you might have a few good years left in ya, Sis, not to worry.”
I shook my head, the branches tickling my nose again with my movement. “My eggs are drying up as we speak.”
“Oh, stop,” Julia said. “Anyway, if you want to meet someone, you have to actually leave your apartment for more than work. From what you’ve told us, that’s the only place you go.”
I sighed. “Yeah, yeah. I know. I get enough of that from Abby. I’m just too tired by the end of the day to want to do anything except collapse on my couch.”
After another minute of silence, Audrey asked, “Any more wild porn star weekends you haven’t told us about? Not that I could take it if there were—you really turned my world upside down with that story.”
“Ha-ha. You and me both. No. That was a one-time thing. Promise.” I bit my bottom lip, wondering where Carson was celebrating Christmas. I changed the subject. “Andrew would be twenty-four this year,” I said quietly.
“Yeah,” both girls said at once and we were all quiet for another minute and I knew that like me, they were thinking of our brother and who he might have been. And though time didn’t heal all wounds, it certainly made the pain more bearable, especially if you had others to help carry it.
_________
Carson
It was Christmas day, the shortest day of the year in Afghanistan, pitch-black outside though it was only six o’clock in the evening. The sounds of the desert winter night picked up all around us as me and four other SEALs sat on the dirt floor of an abandoned cave in the mountains outside Kabul.
Noah, my buddy since SEAL training, and now a member of my platoon, was the quietest of us all. When Noah spoke up, we all listened, knowing that if he took the time to say something, it was gonna be important. And there was Josh Garner from Dallas, a cocky shit-talker on the outside but a man you could trust with your life if it became necessary. I knew that because, on several occasions, it had become necessary. Also, Leland McManus, our lieutenant, the son of a casino tycoon from Las Vegas, and Eli Williams who we nicknamed “Preacher” because he was always saying some profound shit, even though he liked to talk smack as much as the rest of us.