Hallowed Ground

The living room was empty, and he wasn’t in the kitchen, either.

A sick feeling settled in my stomach, and my mouth watered like I was about to vomit. He wouldn’t. There was no way.

The dishes had been done, the dining room table was bare but for a few papers. I raced past them and flung open the door to the garage. His bags were gone.

He’d left.

A buzzing sound filled my head, and the world seemed to slow as I spun, looking for any sign that I was wrong, that he might still be here. I dialed his phone number, but the voicemail picked up on the first ring.

Jagger. Jagger would know.

I ran back into the house, through the kitchen and into the dining room, but stopped when I saw the papers again. My legs felt like they were dragging concrete as I took the last few steps.

Oh God, there was an envelope with my name on it.

“Josh, what did you do?”

I cracked the seal and pulled out the lined paper with shaking hands.

My December,

I couldn’t make you say good-bye again. This one’s on me, on my own cowardice. I’m not sure I would have had the strength to leave you. You are everything that is good and right in my world, and the only woman I have ever or will ever love. You’ve been right about so many things, especially that it’s my career that’s dominating our life, our future. So go to Turkey. Live your dream. I called Luke, and he’ll be waiting at the airport for you next week. Maybe we both need these next couple of months. You to prepare your future, me to heal my past. So take this time. Figure out what your life can look like if you’re not limited by my career…by me. You deserve everything this world has to offer, and the chance to make a choice once you actually see that your only option isn’t just the next-door neighbor you fell in love with at twenty. The whole world is open to you, just as my heart always will be.

Just don’t forget that you own me.

All my love,

Josh

I stifled a sob with my fist and sank into a chair. There, underneath the letter, was a plane ticket to Turkey with the printed itinerary, and underneath, our lease.

But it wasn’t our lease anymore. It showed that our rent had been paid through the end of this year, but it was only in my name.

I glanced around the room. His things were still here, everything but Will’s ring. He hadn’t moved out, but he sure as hell had made it easier to walk out if he needed to.

Or maybe just easier for me if something happened to him over there.

“Damn you, Joshua Walker,” I whispered as a new fear gripped me.

He’d left, deployed, and hadn’t even given me the chance to kiss him one last time, or tell him how much I loved him. But maybe that’s what last night had been. Instead of a tearful mess at the hangar, he’d made love to me until we were both too exhausted to keep our eyes open any longer.

Maybe that was his good-bye.

A knock sounded, and I dropped the lease onto the table and sprinted for the door. I flung it open, stupidly hoping, even though I logically knew he wouldn’t knock at his own house.

Paisley stood in front of me, her eyebrows drawn together, biting her lower lip. “Oh, Ember.”

“He’s gone,” I whispered.

She nodded. “Jagger took him about a half hour ago, while I was out. I didn’t know, I swear. I would have gotten you. I can’t believe he did that.”

“He’s gone,” I said again, unable to say anything else. My vision blurred, and my throat clogged until a sob tore through, hot tears spilling down my cheeks. “He’s gone!”

Paisley caught me as I collapsed to the floor, a puddle of tears and anger.

“I know,” she whispered. “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

But it didn’t feel okay. No, this was an excruciating ache that threatened to separate my heart from my body. Hell, I almost wished it would. My breaths came in heaping spurts that bordered hyperventilation, my entire being focused on the simple, unchangeable fact that he’d left, gone back to Afghanistan.

I wanted to hold him, kiss him, and promise that as angry as I was, this didn’t change a thing. I was his, and he was mine, just as it always would be. There wasn’t any other way for us to exist. I didn’t need two months away from him to know that he was the only future for me.

Paisley’s arms tightened and held me against her shoulder until I cried myself out and my sobs quieted. “What are you going to do?” she asked, stroking my hair back from my forehead like I was a child.

I thought about the lease, the house, the plane ticket.

“Pack.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

JOSH

“For the record, I think this may, in fact, be the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever seen you do,” Jagger said as I took my duffel out of the back of my Jeep.

“Volunteering?” I clarified as I shifted it over my shoulder painlessly. Part of me wished it hurt, wished I hadn’t been cleared, that this had never been an option.

“No. Going back is the definition of badass, heroic, courageous. We’re talking movie-worthy shit. I only wish I was healed enough to go with you. But sneaking out on Ember? That’s bullshit.”

The parts of my heart that still functioned ceased for a few beats as I thought of her sleeping next to me, her hair spilled around her like flames, her lips swollen from my kisses. “She knew. I didn’t sneak out. She told me she couldn’t do another good-bye, and she shouldn’t have to.”