“Glad we agree. You can sleep, Little Bird. I’ll be here.” Forever.
She slipped into sleep, and I watched her breathe, feeling utterly content for the first time in my life.
“Hey.” Josh shook me gently. “Everyone’s awake but you, hot stuff,” he joked, and I blinked myself awake.
“Whoa,” I mumbled, sitting up straight in the chair. My eyes darted to Paisley, who smiled sleepily at me.
Morgan sat on the very edge of Paisley’s bed. Will leaned against the wall behind her, with Grayson on the opposite wall. Josh stole the other chair and pulled it next to mine. “Are we having a party?” I asked.
“A celebration of sorts.” He smiled.
I wrapped my fingers around Paisley’s, the need to touch her more overpowering than anything I’d ever felt. “We have a lot to be thankful for,” she said.
“Okay, enough, will you please tell him?” Morgan asked Will.
Selection. Right. “Let’s hear it.” I slid closer to Paisley.
“Grayson was top of the OML,” Will announced.
“No shit!”
All eyes moved to him, but he just shrugged. “You two were too busy screwing each other up. I just studied.”
“What did you get?” I asked.
“Apache.”
“Congrats!” I knew he wanted it and couldn’t have been happier for him. Then there were five.
“I pulled second,” Will admitted, no malice in his features. And then there were four. “Two warrants selected Apaches next.” Two. “Then one of the Chinooks, then another Apache.”
One. It didn’t matter, I had Paisley. But damn if my heart didn’t seize up anyway.
“Fuck, how far down did I finish?” That stupid test. I hadn’t even marked an answer, just turned the thing in blank, like my mind at the time.
“Ninth,” Will answered, and my stomach dropped.
“Well, Blackhawks aren’t all that bad.”
“Are you going to let me finish?” Will asked.
“Please, continue. The sound of your voice is so soothing.” Paisley shot me a look but rubbed her thumb over my hand to take the sting out of it.
“Josh was next.” And then there were none.
I smiled over at my best friend, who had a shit-eating grin on his face. “Congratulations, man.”
“Thanks, I think I’ll like flying Blackhawks.”
My mouth dropped open. “What?”
“Well, I can’t fly medevac with an Apache, can I? I owe a little something, so I gotta pay it back. Besides, it’s not like I can’t transition easily over to Special Operations or anything.”
I shook my head. “I had no idea you were thinking…”
“It snuck up on me, but it’s where I want to be.”
“And number eight?” The room went silent, and I knew. “Apache, huh?” They all nodded. And then there were none.
“Lee-Lee? I’ll…uh…let you do the honors.” Will guided Morgan out of the room, and the rest followed suit, finally leaving me alone with Paisley.
“How are you feeling?” I asked, perching lightly on her bed.
“Like I just had my chest cracked open,” she joked. “But the pain meds are lovely. Do you want to hear the rest of the story?”
“About selection?”
She nodded. “I know how it ends.”
“I won’t mind flying a Blackhawk. I’ll get to be with Josh, and hey, I’m still flying.” I tucked a strand of pale blond behind her ear, rubbing the silk between my fingers. “And I get to come home to you, so what does it matter what I fly?”
“You selected the Apache.”
My hand froze at her cheek. “What?”
Her smile could have lit the world. “You heard me.”
I shook my head. “How? I counted. That’s impossible.”
“You didn’t count, you assumed.”
I went over the figures in my head again. “All six Apaches were selected before they got to me.”
She shook her head. “Will deferred his choice for every turn until he was next to you. He took a Blackhawk. He selected the Apache for you.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because he said he would. You trusted him to select for you.”
“He gave me his aircraft?”
She nodded, and I fumbled for words before I sprinted out the door and into the hallway. Josh and Grayson sat on the floor, braced against the wall. “He left already,” Josh answered my unspoken question. A nurse slipped into Paisley’s room behind me.
“Why would he do that? He wanted it just as badly.” I couldn’t understand.
“He mumbled something about honor and bit the bullet,” Grayson answered. “Josh, you ready to head to Nashville? My flight is in five hours.”
They both stood. “Yeah, let’s get you there.” Josh turned to me. “You going to be okay here?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I think I am.”
“Good,” Grayson answered, pressing the button for the elevator. “I packed you a bag. It’s in Paisley’s closet, complete with a new set of Apache 5&9s. Start studying, and you might have a chance to beat me for top of the OML in the Apache course.” He walked into the elevator without another word.
“Arrogant prick.” I laughed.
“Who knew, right?” Josh joined in and then followed Grayson into the elevator. “How are you feeling?”
I grinned. “Living in a land of fairy tales and unicorns, man.”
“Hell, yeah.”
“You two are disturbed,” Grayson muttered as the doors closed, leaving me alone with Paisley.
“There’s a reclining chair if you’d like to rest near her,” the nurse offered with a smile as she left Paisley’s room.
The only light came from the bathroom as I walked in. Paisley mumbled something, and I sat in the chair next to her, noting that her IV bag had been changed. “Need anything, Little Bird?”
“Just you,” she said, lacing her fingers with mine.
“You will always have me. That’s never going to change.”
“Still want to marry me? Or were those the drugs talking?” Her voice was sleepy.
“You’re on the drugs, not me, and I meant every word.” I leaned over and brushed my lips over hers in a soft kiss. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life loving you.”
“Good.” She smiled against my mouth. “Because I love you. And I want lots of kids. And a really big library.” Her voice wavered as she slipped off to sleep.
“I guess it’s a good thing that I have experience building those,” I whispered as I tucked the blankets around her. Then I slipped her letter out of my pocket and opened it, reading in the dim light.
Make love on the beach. See the Statue of Liberty. Visit the Parthenon.
It wasn’t a letter.
Oh, no. It said, “Jagger and Paisley’s Bucket List.”
And I was going to make sure she completed every last one…at least once…or more. That beach one sure looked promising.
Epilogue
Paisley
“I’m older than you now. Do you know how wrong that feels? I keep thinking back to when I was five, and you were seven, and I was so mad that you could ride that roller coaster, and Mama kept telling me that I’d always be younger, and I told her that wasn’t true. One day you’d be dead. I reckon I was not an easy five-year-old.
“I hated you for a minute there,” I admitted as I pulled the grass between my fingers. “But only because I loved you so very much. If I had known, I would have spent more time with you that summer. I would have made you see reason and do something about your heart…our hearts.” Another crimson leaf drifted down as the September breeze kicked up. It landed between my knees and the white stone that marked where my sister rested. As I brushed it away, sunlight caught on my watch. As much as I’d always detested it, I was more scared to let myself believe the truth—I didn’t need it anymore.
“I don’t get to hate you, because you’re not here. I
don’t get to hate you because the choice you made cost you the most, but it cost the rest of us, too, Peyton. But mostly, I don’t hate you because at the very end, it was your choice, no matter how wrong it may have been, that gave me the strength to make mine. You saved me. You were stupid.” I laughed through the tear that escaped and brushed it away. “Incredibly stupid, but you died chasing what you loved, what you wanted. You died by really living, and I can’t hate you for that.” Movement caught my attention from the left as Jagger walked slowly up the path through the West Point cemetery. That sweet burn filled my chest, like it did whenever I saw him, and I smiled. “Because I finally understand having something not just worth dying for, but living for.”
I took out the folded, worn piece of paper from my pocket and opened it. I brushed my thumb over number sixteen, and the check mark I’d added in her green. Make a name for myself at West Point. “I wish you’d found another way to check this one off, you stubborn thing. I didn’t finish the rest of them, and I’m sorry, but I made my own list, Peyton, and loving him is at the top of it. I’m fierce, now, just like you wanted for me, so you don’t need to worry. It’s not your brand of fierce, or wild, but I’m exactly who I want to be. Well, I’m getting there.”
Tingles swept my feet as I stood, the blood rushing back into them. “I miss you every day, and will always love you, Peyton.”
I unclasped my watch and used it to weigh her bucket list down on the top of her stone. Then I pressed a kiss to my fingers and traced the outline of her name with my fingers, aching for the sight of her smile, the sound of her laugh, anything but the cool stone that was left in her place. “I’m going to live for me now.”
The gravel on the path crunched as I walked toward Jagger. He opened his arms wordlessly, and I slipped into them, my head finding its place on his chest. His heart beat under my ear, strong and steady. Mine was finally a match for his, just like our lives.
We spent what was left of his leave down in Destin, Florida, finishing out the only break Jagger was going to get during the Apache course. It looked the same as it had a year ago, but I had irrevocably changed. Just not in the modesty department. I clutched my cover-up to my chest and breathed in the salty air.
“Let’s go, Little Bird!” Jagger stood in the water, the waves rocking to his knees as the sun started its descent. He bounced, expelling the nervous energy that had been slowly leaking out through the tapping of his fingers on the steering wheel for the whole drive. I’d never seen him so nervous to start a new session of classes.
Another wave crashed, soaking him above his waist before receding. Water dripped down his stomach to his swim trunks, and my mouth ran dry. I knew what every inch of that skin tasted like, and I could never get enough, but it was the heart underneath those incredible looks that had me hooked. I walked forward, to where my toes hit the cool water, and watched a wave bury my feet.
“Still not close enough.” He cocked his head to the side and grinned, but I held firm until that dimple made its appearance. It was my kryptonite.
I forgot about the depth of the water and what had happened the last time we were here and concentrated on the man standing in front of me. Then I unclenched my hands and let go, the ocean breeze sweeping my cover-up away. He held out his arms, and I walked straight to him, gasping as the water hit the tiny strip of skin exposed by my tankini. “Impatient today?” I couldn’t fake being stern when his smile still took up half his face.
“Always impatient to get my hands on you.” He grabbed my rear and lifted me against him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, reveling in the warmth of his skin over the cool water.
“People are going to stare,” I murmured, leaning my forehead to his.
“Ask me if I care.” He punctuated the last word with a kiss that consumed every protest I had. By the time he pulled away, I was beyond caring that we were making out on the beach. His biceps flexed as he lifted me even higher and ran a trail of kisses along the scar between my breasts, lowering me as he made his way to my mouth. “You taste like sunshine.”
I slid my tongue across his lips, and his grip tightened on me. “You’d better not move, or we’ll really give everyone a show,” he whispered.
“You’d better cool off, there are kids on that beach.”
He peeked over my shoulder. “There’s one other group here, and I’d hardly call those teenagers kids. Now, are you ready?”
“Ready for what?”
He flashed me a wicked smile while he turned my back to the ocean. Then he threw me into the waves. I sailed through the air with a squawk and plunged into the crystal water. My toes hit the sand, and I pushed off, clearing the distance to the surface. I took in a huge breath and located Jagger a few feet away.
Then I splashed him. “Seriously?”
He laughed, the sound stealing all of my ire away. “Better to just jump in, don’t you think?”
“That was a daring move, Mr. California.” I treaded water, rising and falling with the waves as they gently swelled the surface around us.
“You want to see daring?” he challenged. “Follow me.”
I swam after him as he crossed the small distance toward the pier. My heart beat in a steady rhythm as he cut us toward shore where he could stand, but I couldn’t. My body hummed with energy, elation at what I’d just done. “I love this!”
He lifted me against him, the water swirling around his shoulders. “I’m incredibly proud of you.” Fear flashed across his eyes, flattening his mouth, but he replaced it with a smile before I could ask what had crossed his mind. “I love you, Paisley.”
“I love you, too,” I said softly.
“I want to spend every day of my life telling you that.” He swallowed and took a breath.
“Me, too. Jagger. Are you okay?” I rested my hand over his bird tattoo. “Your heart is pounding.”
He walked us slowly toward the beach, until the water lapped at my waist, then turned so he was backdropped against the colors of the sunset. “Yeah, well, I’m nervous. Look, I know we’re young, but if there’s anything that the last year has taught me, it’s that life is short, and I’m not going to stand around waiting for what I want.” His eyes dropped to my scar, then up to my eyes. “I want you, in every way possible. I want to sleep next to you and wake up next to you. I want to fight with you, and make up, and give you everything you could possibly want, because I’m addicted to your smile, your laugh. I can’t think of anything better than building you a library so you can read to our kids, or having the same last name. I’m not exactly known for rational choices, but you are, so I’m going to trust you.”
My heart thundered, and my lips parted as I tried to breathe, to think. “Jagger? What are you—”
“Look up.”
I turned my eyes skyward over his shoulder and gasped, my fingers flexing into his skin. Where the pier had been empty a moment before, a giant banner hung from the same place I’d been thrown from last year. I read it three times before I could suck air into my lungs, or even notice that our friends and family, even Anna, stood smiling behind it. Tears built in my eyes as I looked into his.
“Paisley Lynn Donovan, I can’t imagine my life without you. You are my sunshine, my oxygen, and the captain of my soul. Will you marry me?”
My pounding heart leaped into my throat, and I took in everything about the moment, wanting to file it away so I would never forget.
“I could get down on one knee, but I don’t think you could hear me underwater,” he added, uncertainty springing to his eyes.
“Oh, no,” I replied.
“No?” he whispered, every muscle in his body tensing.
“What? No, don’t go underwater.” I smiled. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Jagger.”
“Oh, thank God.” He leaned his head back and shouted, “She said yes!”
The pier erupted in cheers, and the sky turned momentarily white over our heads as he kissed me breathless. The flap of wings caught my
attention. “Are those—?”
“Doves.” He watched my reaction like a kid on Christmas hoping he’d bought the right presents.
“Little birds.” I laughed, needing to let some of my joy out before it burst me apart. “You’re crazy!” I’d never felt stronger, happier, more loved in my entire life. He lowered me gently until I felt the sand beneath my feet.
“Well, I figured I’m only doing this once.” Then he lifted my left hand and kissed my finger before slipping a classic, perfect engagement ring onto it.
I blinked the tears from my eyes and kissed him, tasting salt on his lips. “It’s perfect. Wait. Where were you hiding a ring?”
He grinned. “You don’t want to know. It was complicated.”
I shook my head but couldn’t stop smiling. “I will love you my entire life.”
“I’m counting on it.” He carried me onto the beach to the cheers of our little crowd—our family, both biological and chosen.
I looked up at him, my chest on fire with how much I loved him, and how little that word seemed to encompass this burning. “This is where you saved me.”
“No. This is where you saved me.”
He kissed me, and my heart took flight all over again.
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Acknowledgments
My first thanks goes to my Heavenly Father, whose plans always far outshine my dreams.
To my husband—for kicking me out of the house on weekends to write this little book. For every time you kiss me, every time you remind me that we’re the lucky ones to have a love this strong. For being the guardian of my heart, the protector of our children, and my buffer to the outside world. Thank you to my children—words do no justice to the love I feel for you, or the way you inspire me to work harder, do more, be everything you deserve. Especially to our Little Miss, you’re teaching us far more than we could ever teach you.
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