On Broken Wings

by Chanel Cleeton

  It hadn’t escaped my notice that the squadron had begun stepping in to help out, although I hadn’t seen Easy for a while. I guessed this was his way of doing the right thing for a buddy’s wife, and as much as it made me feel guilty, I couldn’t argue with a military man’s sense of honor.

  “Okay. That’s so sweet. I really appreciate it.” I smiled. “I’ll make you a thank-you dinner.”

  “You don’t have to,” he mumbled, a slight flush covering his cheeks as soon as the word “sweet” fell from my lips.

  “I want to.”

  I hated eating meals alone; half the time I couldn’t even be bothered to cook for myself and I ended up eating cereal for dinner. And there was something about Easy that always seemed to need taking care of. He was a confirmed bachelor to the extreme and while I’d seen him with plenty of girls over the years, I couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a girlfriend or anything close to it, had never seen anyone take care of him.

  He nodded in response, his Adam’s apple bobbing. His hand left my back, running through his thick, blond hair. He looked tired and I wondered how he was really doing. All the guys who’d been in the air with Michael when he’d died had struggled in the past year.

  Easy turned, his face in profile as he scrutinized the paint cans. And what a beautiful face it was. He was teased mercilessly because he looked more like an underwear model than a fighter pilot—high cheekbones, full lips, long eyelashes, the kind of blue eyes people tried to replicate with color contacts.

  Hell, I was a little jealous of how pretty he was.

  “So what else do you need?” he asked, his gaze still on the shelf.

  I handed him my list; the words scratched there might as well have been a foreign language. I’d always handled the finances, but anything related to the house had been Michael’s domain.

  “I got most of it,” I answered. “I’ve never painted before beyond my college dorm room, and I figure this needs to look good if it’s going to impress buyers.”

  He nodded again, and I realized this was the most economical I’d ever seen Easy be with his words. Since Michael’s death, things had been . . . strained. He was polite, still willing to offer a hand if I needed it. But the friendship we’d built years ago seemed to have been replaced by the guilt he felt over the accident.

  “How have you been?” I asked, trying to pull the conversation out of him, realizing how much I’d missed our friendship. “I haven’t seen you in months.” I thought about it. “Since Thanksgiving?”

  Had we really let five months slip by? I’d e-mailed him on his birthday in February and he’d responded, but we hadn’t seen each other—

  “I saw you at the squadron in March. You were leaving with Jordan.”

  Surprise filled me. “I didn’t see you. Why didn’t you say hi?”

  He shrugged. “You guys were talking; I didn’t want to interrupt you.”

  Could this be more awkward? Did I remind him of Michael’s death? Was he just uncomfortable around me?

  I’d been walking through a fog for the past few months, and somewhere along the way I’d missed that we’d gotten to this point. And it wasn’t just Easy; I’d been so consumed by my grief that life had passed me by. Friends’ lives had changed, they’d moved on to other things, and I’d stayed rooted in that day in May, in the loss that defined and overshadowed my world. I’d lost touch with people, simply stopped trying, and I’d given up more than I’d realized, and suddenly, I wanted to make up for it, needed to fix the gap between us.

  “Hey.” I laid a hand on his arm and his entire body stiffened. A pang hit me, and then another one, piercing the numbness shrouding me.

  My voice cracked. “I miss him, too. If it’s too weird to be around me or if I remind you of everything that’s happened, and you need to take a step back, I understand. I know it’s been hard for you guys to move on from the accident, and I don’t want to make it worse. But if you need someone to talk to, I’m here. I miss our friendship. I miss you.”

  EASY

  Fuck.

  I closed my eyes for a beat, trying to drown her out, to throw the wall back up, attempting to push her out of the cracks and crevices of my heart where she’d snuck in and taken up permanent residence in my chest.

  She smelled like apples. Forbidden-fucking-apples. She looked . . .

  My eyes slammed open and my gaze slid over her. I blinked, not sure if it was the scent of apples or the sight in front of me that made me so fucking hungry.

  She wore a pair of white shorts that showed off surprisingly tanned legs. A faded T-shirt that likely harkened back to her days as a cheerleader at the University of Georgia. Her red-gold hair was up in a loose braid, her green eyes staring up at me.

  I’d been in detox, hoped the months apart would cure this ache inside me every single fucking time I saw her.

  They hadn’t.

  If anything, the time apart had only made the ache worse.

  I fisted my hands at my sides, looking away from her again, her words cutting through me as I focused on the paint cans as though my life depended on it. And then I couldn’t take it anymore, and my gaze slid down to the spot where she touched me, where her fingers rested on my bicep, her skin a few shades paler than mine.

  I swallowed, trying to drag more air into my lungs, her hand suddenly as dangerous as a deadly spider.

  I had a pretty solid you-can-look-but-you-can’t-touch policy where Dani was concerned. There had been moments when I bent the rules a little bit, like a few minutes ago when I’d seen her standing there amid all the painting supplies looking so lost, as though she was drowning and needed a life raft to pull her to shore, but I paid for every fucking moment in spades.

  “You don’t make it worse,” I lied, answering her original question, hating that I’d given her a reason to worry about anyone other than herself. She had more shit on her plate than most people could ever deal with, and the last thing I wanted to do was add to it.

  I shoved my hands into the pockets of my cargo shorts, breaking the physical connection between us, still not quite able to meet her gaze. Her eyes could bring the most resolute man to his fucking knees.

  I swallowed again, wondering if my voice sounded as strained to her ears as it did to mine. “It’s good to see you again.”

  Heaven and hell rolled into a knot in my stomach.

  I’d had it bad for her since the first moment I saw her, but as guilty as I’d felt wanting my friend’s wife, the desire inside me now for his widow was infinitely worse.

  I would have given everything I had to trade places with him, so he could have come back for her.

  She smiled, a real smile, one she rarely doled out anymore. “You, too.”

  Her gaze drifted past me, her smile deepening, and she stepped forward another foot, close enough so her side brushed against mine, warm and soft, the apple smell filling my nostrils once again. It had to be her shampoo. Her head barely came to my chin, her scent wafting up at me. I bent my head just an inch, barely resisting the urge to inhale, drowning in her, the warmth from her body—

  “You have admirers,” Dani commented, her teasing voice breaking me from my stupor.

  I blinked, following her gaze.

  Two girls stood at the end of the aisle—college girls by the look of the youthful glow they sported and the sorority letters stretched across their tits—staring at us, wide, curious smiles on their faces. They both blushed as they caught me staring back, exchanging whispers behind cupped hands.

  Dani nudged me, the touch sending another jolt through my body. I was hard as a fucking rock in a home improvement store and it had everything to do with the scent of apples and the allure of soft curves against me, and nothing to do with the sorority girls.

  She gifted me with another smile, this one brighter than the last, filling her gaze and spilling over into my
heart.

  My mouth went dry.

  “You can go work your magic,” she teased, her words jolting me back to reality. “I’m fine here.”

  The only thing worse than being utterly and totally in love with the one woman who you absolutely could not fucking have, who saw you more as a brother than a man, was having the same woman, the one who’d ripped your heart out of your chest time and time again, try to set you up with someone else.

  I was pretty sure there was some bitter fucking irony here considering my rep, but with my heart lying in the middle of aisle twelve, gushing blood, I wasn’t much for humor.

  I shook my head, turning away from the girls, Dani once again all I could see.

  “I’m okay.”

  “You sure? I really don’t mind. Think of me as one of the guys. Hell, I can be your wingwoman.”

  “I’m sure,” I croaked, pretty sure she’d just slayed me—death by well-meaning matchmaking and the thrust of a sharp blade that accompanied every one of her words.

  I tilted my head, staring back at the girls, wondering if it would help if I did go over there, if I lost myself in two hot bodies. In my younger years, I probably would have gone for it. Now it would be another meaningless fuck in a string of them. And I didn’t want that anymore. I’d watched two of my closest friends—Noah and Thor—meet women and fall in love this past year. Noah was now married with a baby on the way, and Thor was engaged to the girl he’d loved, and lost, and somehow regained. So yeah. Maybe I couldn’t have Dani, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to meet a woman I could love, who would love me in return. At thirty-three it might have taken me a while to get here, but I was ready for something more. And if my perfect woman bared an uncanny resemblance to Dani, whatever.

  Some women slid under your skin so deep, you couldn’t carve them out no matter how hard you tried.

  TWO

  DANI

  I met up with a very pregnant Jordan for dinner at our favorite barbecue restaurant in town that night. Of all my friendships, ours had probably grown the closest in the aftermath of Michael’s death. Maybe it was that we’d been together when the casualty officers had arrived at the house; experiencing something so devastating had bonded us together.

  But even as I loved her, as I knew she understood as best as she could, I would have been lying if I didn’t admit there weren’t still moments when it was hard, when I felt the same disconnect from her I experienced with everyone else around me. She had the family I’d always wanted, and even as I was happy for her, I couldn’t deny there was a part of me that was angry—at God, fate, the Air Force, the fucking F-16, whatever it was that decided to take my husband and the future we’d imagined away from me.

  This was one of the places where the ghost of him lingered, a restaurant we’d gone to so many times over the years, where we’d sat and laughed with friends. It was crazy, but I swore I could feel his arm draped across the back of my chair, the heat of his leg pressing into mine. I pushed back against the tears pricking behind my eyelids.

  “When does Noah’s flight get in?” I asked.

  Jordan was two weeks away from her due date and her husband, Noah—known to the Wild Aces by his call sign, “Burn”—was coming back from Korea for the birth of their first child. They hadn’t seen each other since he’d returned to the U.S. in November and I knew how much she missed him.

  “Saturday afternoon.”

  I grinned at the way her face lit up when she said it. Their one-year anniversary was a couple weeks away, and despite the distance between them, she still had that “newlywed glow” about her.

  “I’m so happy for you guys.”

  “Thanks. I can’t believe everything is happening at once. It feels like I’ve been pregnant forever, and now the baby’s almost here. And I’m so excited to see Noah and have him home with us for a while.”

  “How long will he be here for?”

  “A month. He’s using this as his mid-tour leave. He’ll go back to Korea for his final month and then he’ll be back for good.”

  They’d been lucky enough to get Bryer as their next assignment, so they’d be in Oklahoma for another three years.

  “How are things going with you?” Jordan asked.

  I shrugged between mouthfuls of brisket. “Good, I guess. Nothing really new.”

  My life had become a cycle of wake up, run errands, occasionally read, fall asleep, and repeat. Sometimes I hung out with friends, but since Michael died I found myself narrowing my social circle. People meant well, but sometimes it was harder to be in social settings. I didn’t fit. Not anymore. I could laugh, could find reasons to smile. I could be happy . . . ish. But no matter how hard I tried, or how much time passed, there was a hole inside me; a piece was missing, gaping open, edges ragged, and I hadn’t a clue how to fill it. I tried. I tried so fucking hard. And still, the pain beat inside my chest, my future a yawning void without the one thing I’d built my life around.

  I’d had interests when Michael was alive, friendships, things that had kept me busy during the long stretches when he was away from home. But the heart of everything, what had given me a purpose to throw myself into every day rather than going through the motions had been the life we’d built. I’d spent so much time focused on our marriage, dreaming about our future, the family we were building, envisioning us growing old together, that he had simply become part of me. And now he was gone, leaving me fractured and alone, and the other stuff didn’t matter anymore. Everyone had a suggestion for how I should deal with my grief, and they meant well; they loved me and wanted me to be happy, but I couldn’t yoga my way through widowhood. I hadn’t achieved anything beyond coping, wondered if that was too lofty a goal.

  “How are things with the house?” Jordan asked.

  “We’ve had a few showings, but nothing solid. I spent the week doing home improvement projects—planting flowers and organizing the garage. Easy’s actually coming over to paint tomorrow.”

  “Easy’s doing manual labor?”

  I laughed. He was Noah’s best friend, and he and Jordan definitely had a sibling-like relationship where they ragged on each other constantly.

  “Yeah. I ran into him while I was shopping for paint and he was nice enough to offer to help.”

  “Speaking of Easy,” Jordan said. “I was talking to Noah, and we thought it would be fun to do something as a squadron before the guys deploy. Would you come?”

  The Wild Aces continued to include me in squadron events. I tried not to overstep too much since I didn’t want to make the new squadron commander’s wife feel as though I was usurping her position, but there were enough people I cared about, so I went to the important ones.

  “Yeah, I would. Thanks for inviting me.”

  “No problem. Everyone would love to see you there.”

  I missed feeling like I belonged. I hadn’t loved everything about military life, but the friendships I’d built meant the world to me. We’d been a family when the strain of the lifestyle took your biological family away from you.

  “How’s Becca doing with the deployment coming up?” I asked.

  Becca was the newest member of our military family. She’d just gotten engaged—or re-engaged—to Thor, one of Michael’s buddies and the fourth member in the formation when he died. Thor had struggled with PTSD in the months following Michael’s death, but he seemed to be doing a lot better now, and reconnecting with his high school sweetheart had definitely played a huge role in his recovery.

  “She seems okay. A little stressed, but doing her best to be strong for Thor. She’s worried about how he’ll handle the deployment with his PTSD, but she said it’s really important to him to be there for the squadron.”

  The buildup to a deployment, especially your first one, was always the worst. This horrible event loomed large, and each day took you one day closer to the thing you dreaded most. Th
e month before my first deployment with Michael had been one of the most difficult times of my life. Well, until now. I remembered the fear that had clawed me as I’d said good-bye to him, as I’d wrapped my arms around his body, trying to memorize the weight of him, the shape of him, trying to hold him to me and keep him close enough to weather six months apart. The fear had pummeled me wave after wave—that our relationship would flounder, that he would change, or I would change, and then of course, most of all, the fear that was my constant shadow. That this would be the last time I held him, the last time I saw him, kissed him.

  And for all those times I’d tried to keep the image sharp, after a while, the years ran together and you adjusted to the life, to the TDYs and deployments, and you forgot how scary their job was. You grew used to hearing about the dangers they faced each time they flew, even when it was just a training mission, and you loosened your grip each time.

  I’d taken Michael to the squadron to fly to Alaska on a Tuesday. I remembered snippets of our conversation in the car, his fingers entwined with mine as I drove him to work, Tom Petty’s “Learning to Fly” playing on the radio, and Michael turning up the dial and singing along in his off-key tone.

  I played that song at his memorial service.

  When I thought of him now, when I clung to the memory of him, it was the image of saying good-bye to him in the squadron parking lot that always stuck with me—the last moment I’d seen him alive. It had faded with time, with the year that had gone by, like a worn photograph, and sometimes I woke in the middle of the night, panic flooding me at the possibility that I’d forgotten some detail, some moment, that eventually the memories of him would fade away, too, and I’d really be left with nothing.

  “I’ll talk to her,” I offered.

  Being a fighter wife was a sisterhood of sorts. Nothing could prepare you for it, not entirely, at least, but it helped to have someone to talk to who’d gone through deployments and TDYs, who’d lived with the fear of loving someone with such a dangerous job, who understood in a way those unconnected to the military simply couldn’t. I wasn’t as close to Becca as I was to Jordan, but we’d hung out a few times over the past few months and I really liked her. After everything he’d been through, it was good to see Thor so happy.