Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 145823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Having her phone number made it something more than neighborly concern, not that I wouldn’t have given her mine if she hadn’t shut the door and raced away.
I snagged my iPad on the way to the couch, barely glancing at the sheets of rain pounding my deck, and already had the browser open before my conscience could get the best of me.
I had to know.
The second the sun had flashed on the silver wings pinned to the truck’s visor, I’d gotten a sick feeling in my stomach.
Basically, I’d been nauseated for the last five hours.
I tapped on the browser, and my keyboard appeared on the screen. Don’t do it.
I should have waited for her to tell me. Should have been that patient, good guy she thought I was, capable of sitting quietly while she healed enough to tell me what happened to her—to him.
But I’d already warned her that I was a selfish, careless asshole…and the asshole in me wanted to know. I wasn’t willing to wait.
Carter, William D. U.S. Army.
I typed the name I’d read on both the registration and the dog tags that hung from the rearview mirror and cursed as the results populated.
A guy in his midtwenties with wavy brown hair and brown eyes appeared on my screen in a series of pictures above a list of links. I bypassed the picture of him in uniform and clicked on the one where he smiled. It took me to a social media profile.
The cover photo stopped me in my tracks. It was a group photo taken at a military formal, with four lieutenants in dress blues and their dates. Instead of one of those posed, formal pictures, it was a candid, everyone laughing, smiling—or in the blond couple’s case, kissing. I immediately recognized Sam, the girl who’d helped Morgan move in, standing near the center with one of the lieutenants.
Next to her stood the guy whose name tag read “Carter.”
And there was Morgan.
She was midlaugh in a hell of a dress, her nose scrunched and her head tilted slightly toward Carter. So beautiful, joyous, with none of the shadows that haunted her in her eyes. His arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her close, and his eyes were locked on hers in a look full of so much awe that I almost felt like I was intruding on something.
You are, dumbass.
But…I looked closer. There were no wings on any of the lieutenants. I sent up a little prayer that the wings in the truck were just a coincidence. Any kind of coincidence. I noted that the picture was taken two years ago December and minimized it.
“I’ll only look at a few more,” I mumbled, like it was any kind of excuse for what I was doing.
I clicked on the highlighted photos, and the first popped up full screen. It was the same truck, covered in mud in the middle of a field, and leaning against it was Morgan. Her head was tilted down, the brim of a maroon baseball cap covering her face, but I’d recognize those legs anywhere.
The next was a candid of Will wearing the same hat.
Next—shit. There was Morgan, her hair pulled back on one shoulder, pinning a set of shiny silver wings on his chest while he stood in his dress blues, looking stoically ahead.
Fuck. Those had to be the same wings on the truck’s visor.
Raking my hands over my hair, I let out a deep sigh. Then I closed out the social media page without looking at any of his posts and went back to the search, clicking on the news story listed second.
Local Pilot Killed in Afghanistan
The family of William Carter has confirmed the reports that he was killed this weekend in Afghanistan. Carter, an Enterprise High School alum turned West Point graduate, was serving his first tour overseas as a medevac pilot when he fell to small arms fire that followed a helicopter crash. Carter and his crew had been on a rescue mission for another downed aircraft.
According to a spokesman from his unit at Fort Campbell, Carter saved the lives of three other soldiers before his death, personally pulling four pilots from the cockpits of the dual crash, two of whom were already deceased. Going above and beyond the call of duty, and with blatant disregard for his own safety, Carter stood alone, discharging his weapon to protect the wounded soldiers, although he had been wounded in the crash himself. He was killed shielding the wounded men.
“I cannot put our grief into words at the loss of Lieutenant Carter,” Brigadier General Richard Donovan, the previous CG of Fort Rucker, told us by phone. “It doesn’t surprise me that he gave his life for others. That’s simply who he was.”
William Carter is survived by—
I put my iPad on the coffee table, having read more than enough.