“Then there’s only one thing we can do.” Piper picked up her glass and held it up in a toast. “Bash or laugh?”
Bridgette felt a flicker of lightness inside her at the reference to the game they’d started when they were kids. Whenever one of them would have a bad experience, they would either bash everything about it until they were no longer angry or upset, or they’d make so many jokes they laughed until they cried.
“Fine,” Bridgette said. “But if even one of you tries to bash Bodhi, I’ll go all crazy, psycho girlfriend on your ass.”
“Laugh it is,” Piper said. “Remember the night I told you not to wear mom panties?”
Tears flooded Bridgette’s eyes anew.
“Red alert!” Willow yelled.
“I got it!” Talia yelled. “Remember when he blurted out he loved you in front of everyone?”
Bridgette buried her face in her hands. “Remember when I said I could do friends with benefits?” She looked up with teary eyes, knowing there was no quick fix for this broken heart.
The room went silent.
“If that wasn’t the biggest sack of shit I’ve ever heard, I don’t know what is,” Piper said, and finally, Bridgette smiled.
It was a start.
The start of a very long road she didn’t want to walk alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
BODHI DROVE WITH the music blaring and the window down, anxious for any distraction from the ache eating away at him. But there was no escape from thoughts of Bridgette. She’d already become as vital as the air he breathed. Too edgy to be trapped in the truck, he pulled off at the next exit and found a grassy area to walk Dahlia. He paced the lawn, wondering why he was putting them both through this. He should get his ass back in the car, drive back to Sweetwater, and tell her he was wrong, that he didn’t want to let their love go.
“Come on, Dahlia.” She jumped into the truck.
Bodhi glanced at the photo album and knew he couldn’t drive away. What if it was months before he was called in for a mission? He wanted whatever time he could get with Bridgette and Louie.
Feeling like he’d pushed a five-hundred-pound gorilla off his back, he climbed into the truck and pulled out his phone to call Bridgette. He petted Dahlia again and drew in a deep breath. Maybe they’d get lucky and have several months together before he was called away. Yes, it would be harder to leave months from now, but at least they’d have more time.
As he scrolled to his contacts, his phone rang. Darkbird’s number flashed on the screen, setting that fucking gorilla back in the middle of his chest as he answered the phone.
“Booker.” He closed his eyes as he listened to his orders to report for duty immediately. He half listened, debating calling Bridgette, but every scenario led to the same outcome. The outcome he’d worked so hard to avoid—Bridgette and Louie waiting for him to come home.
AN HOUR LATER, feeling like he’d swallowed a bucket of nails, Bodhi dropped off Dahlia with his mother. He gave her the keys to her house in Sweetwater and caught her up on the completed work. Anything to avoid the obvious. He crouched beside Dahlia, saying goodbye for what could be the last time. It had never been easy, but now, as he gazed into his dog’s eyes, Bridgette’s voice whispered through his mind, making it a hundred times harder. You’re her person. She looks at you like Louie looks at me.
“You be a good girl.” He kissed her on the center of her snout, hugged her one last time, and rose to say goodbye to his mother.
Worry lines mapped Alisha’s forehead. She was wringing her hands, the way she always did when he got called in, but it felt different. This time he didn’t see a proud mother who knew he was doing the right thing. Instead, he saw a mother who had lost her husband and knew she might also lose her son.
“Thanks for taking Dahlia,” he managed. He embraced her, remembering all the times she’d asked him to change careers—and all the times he’d told her he’d do this until the day he died. He hoped to hell this wasn’t that time.
Her body was heavy with sadness. “I hoped that bringing Bridgette and Louie here meant something.”
“It did. It meant everything. But it’s over now, and I’ve got to go.” He grabbed the bag he’d brought up with him and withdrew the photo album.
His mother’s hand covered her heart. “Oh, honey.”
He nodded curtly, needing his armor more than ever as her eyes misted over and she tugged him into another embrace. “You can’t save everyone, honey. At some point you need to accept that. No matter how many people you save, you’ll never bring your father back.”
“I’m not trying to bring him back. I’m just trying to make sure no one else gets left behind. Mom, I’ve really got to leave. I haven’t been home yet, and I need to report for duty.”
She released him, her eyes more troubled than before. “Does Bridgette know you got called in? Or does she think you’re going to be training?”
“Training. It’s better anyway.” He bent to love Dahlia up one more time, then nodded toward the photo album. “Keep it safe. I love you.”
“Bodhi,” she said just above a whisper, tears welling in her eyes. “I’ll keep it safe, but you come back to me. You hear? You’ve already made your father proud. You don’t need to keep—”
He cut her off with a quick hug and reached for the door, unable to listen to one more plea. “I love you.”
When he arrived at his condo, memories of Bridgette and Louie slammed into him. He stalked down the hall with his eyes trained on the floor to keep from glancing into the guest room and remembering Louie tucked in beside Dahlia. In his bedroom he focused on packing, and not on the memories of making love to Bridgette that pummeled him every time he caught sight of the bed. He hated fending the images off when he wanted to revel in them. But now was the time for focus and determination toward his mission. He couldn’t afford to be sidetracked.
After packing, he sat down at the kitchen table and wrote a letter to his mother, and one to Shira, as he’d done before every assignment. He wished he’d received something from his father, in his father’s voice, that he could have turned to in those early days after losing him. But while Bodhi had always been more comfortable with letters than talking about his emotions, his father was the opposite. As warm as his father had been, he was not the type to pour his emotions out in something as tangible as a letter. Funny, Bodhi thought. Until Bridgette, I’d never been the type to verbalize my feelings.
He set aside the letters and pulled another piece of paper from the stack, staring at it for a long while before finally putting into words all the things he’d wanted to say to Bridgette and couldn’t. He sealed it up tight, set the letters in the cabinet above the refrigerator, with the others from missions gone by, and hoped he’d live long enough to write more. Then he called Shira.
“You’re back from your love nest?” she teased.
His gut knotted up. “I was called in.”
“Goddamn,” she said in an angry whisper. “Bodhi, what about blondie and her son?”
“Bridgette and Louie. It’s over.” Momentarily hurt into silence, he sank down to the chair, hands fisted. “We knew we had to end it.”
She was silent for a long moment.
“Shira . . .” He drew in a deep breath. “I’m already fucking torn up. Don’t make me feel worse.”
“I’m sorry. It’s not that. I just . . . I thought she might change your mind. She met your mother, Bodhi. No woman has ever met your mother.”
He ground his teeth together. If he hadn’t gotten the call to report to duty, Bridgette would be in his arms right now, even if only for another few hours, days, weeks. Whatever it was, he’d wanted it. “You know the deal—”
“I know. I get it. And you probably did the right thing, but it sucks. She must be devastated.”
“Yeah. It seems to be going around. I’ve got to go, but please tell me you’ll get the letters.”
“I’ll get the letters. But you better fucking come back.�
��
“That’s the plan.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“HANG ON,” BRIDGETTE said to Talia, who was on speakerphone. She made a U-turn and came to a fast stop on the side of the road in front of Chopstix. Her laptop and purse flew off the passenger seat. “Darn it. One sec.” She put the car in park and leaned over to pick up her things. The bracelet Bodhi had given her slid down her wrist, and a pang of longing shot through her. She hadn’t heard from him since he’d left almost two weeks ago. Not that she’d expected to, but she’d thought his training was only for a week, and she’d hoped he might be as lonely for her as she was for him. When she’d bought Louie his new backpack for kindergarten, he kept talking about how he couldn’t wait to show it to Bodhi, piling more longing onto the already mountainous ache. Every night when she put Louie to bed and tucked him in with Jeter, his Yankees hat hanging on the bedpost, she had to stifle her heartache. She’d cried herself to sleep more nights than not, but she considered getting up, showering, and working all day a major success. Dinners, however, were another story.
“What are you doing?” Talia asked. “It sounds like you’re all worked up.”
“I’m late picking up Louie, and I almost forgot to get dinner. I stopped too fast and all my crap fell off the seat.” She set her things on the seat, feeling rattled. “Okay, I’m back. Remember when you mentioned advertising outside of Sweetwater? Can you help me figure out where to advertise? I thought things at the shop would slow down, but it’s been really busy.”
“Of course. I’ll do some research tonight and let you know what I come up with.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
“How are things? Any word from Bodhi?”
Bridgette grabbed her purse and got out of the car. “No, but I didn’t expect to hear from him. I just hoped.”
“I know. Maybe his training ran longer than expected.”
“Or maybe he’s better at sticking to plans than I am.” She leaned against the car, knowing she should be rushing into the restaurant, but she needed a moment to tamp down the burning in her chest.
She’d needed lots of moments lately. She didn’t want to admit to Talia that she’d been using the jasmine massage oil her mother made on a nightly basis, hoping her love potion might work its magic. Or that she’d broken down and sent him a text last week, saying she thought they’d made a mistake and she wanted to talk. The fact that he hadn’t responded should have made it easier for her to move on, but she’d come up with a hundred excuses in her mind about why he hadn’t, and that ridiculous tactic had given her hope.
“I’m sorry, Bridge. Want me to come by tonight and hang out?” Talia asked.
“No. It’s okay.” Her sisters had come over every night for the first week to try to cheer her up. Sometimes it worked, until they left and she was alone in her bed, staring at Bodhi’s romance novel she’d never read and the walkie-talkie that couldn’t reach him. And her phone. Her stupid phone. She’d looked at their pictures too many times to count.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I don’t want you messing up my nightly routine of being strong for Louie and then falling apart like a loser.”
“Oh, Bridgette. You’re not a loser. You’re sad, and you have every right to be.”
Tears threatened. My cue to get moving. “Thanks for helping me with the ads. I have to run or Mom will give Louie ice cream and cookies for dinner.”
She raced through picking up dinner and Louie, and as she drove up the hill toward her house, she held her breath at the sight of Bodhi’s truck pulling out of his mother’s driveway. She sped up, hoping to catch him. The truck slowed as it passed, and she stopped her car, hope swelling inside her. The driver, an older man with gray hair, stopped beside her car, and her whole body slumped.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
No. I’m stopped in the middle of the road with my heart in my throat, and you’re not Bodhi! “Yes,” she said meekly. It was then she noticed a sign on the side of the truck for a roofing company.
She rolled up her window and parked in her driveway, on the verge of tears again. She hadn’t even given Louie the dog tags from Bodhi. It made the end of their relationship feel too real.
Louie unhooked his seat belt and thrust a picture over the seat. “See what I drew with Grandma?”
She took it, trying not to let him see her sadness. “Great, honey.”
“Aren’t you going to look at it?”
As she lowered her gaze, he said, “That’s me and you and Bodhi and Dahlia. See what I’m holding, Mom? What do you think it is?”
Emotions clogged her throat, and she tried to swallow past them. Louie had been fine with his friend Bodhi leaving. He didn’t need to see her lose it.
“It’s Jeter! I miss Bodhi and Dahlia, don’t you?”
A tear slipped down her cheek, and she turned away. “Uh-huh.”
“Why are you crying, Mommy? Because you miss them, too?”
She shook her head. “No. I just had a hard day.”
He climbed over the seat and wrapped his arms around her neck, making her cry harder. I suck so bad. She held her breath, trying to stop crying so she wouldn’t upset Louie.
“I’m sorry you had a hard day, Mommy.”
He was so sweet. He didn’t need to see this. Wasn’t this what she and Bodhi were trying to keep from happening? Wasn’t this the exact reason they’d made their here-and-now plan? She wiped her eyes and straightened her spine, forcing herself to pull her shit together for her son’s sake.
“We can make a fort and eat dinner in it,” Louie suggested. “Or make green slime. Or we could play superhero. Want to play superhero?”
Life was so easy in his eyes. Friends came and went. The road to happiness was paved with slime and forts and pretending to be someone else. She brushed his hair from in front of his eyes and kissed his cheek.
“You can be Spider-Man, and I’ll be Batman,” Louie suggested.
Spider-Man sounded a lot better than Sad Mom.
“Yes. I would love to play superhero. I want to be the best superhero there is.” The kind who never cries in front of her son.
THE SMELL OF sulfur permeated the cold night air. Rapid gunfire and heavy artillery blasts sounded like deadly fireworks, competing with the sound of blood rushing through Bodhi’s ears. His team had successfully completed their first mission and were redirected to help a task force of Special Forces soldiers and Marines who had captured two suspected insurgent leaders. They were ambushed, and trapped in the kill zone. The enemy pummeled them from three sides with machine-gun fire. Bodhi shouted commands into the encrypted satellite radio as he ran out from the cover of his truck, armed with seventy-plus pounds of equipment, to rescue a fallen soldier. He hoisted the man over his shoulder, returning gunfire as he carried him to safety inside the truck. An explosion rang out, sending Bodhi into the air and blowing him back with magnum force. He slammed into the earth, and his head snapped back. Bodhi cried out in agony as he tried to open his eyes, pain searing through his limbs and chest. One eye refused to open; the other was blinded by sand. He tried to sit up—his mind racing to the soldier in the truck. He listened for other members of his team, but the gunfire and chaos were too immense. Bridgette’s voice sailed through the darkness—I will always love you—just as another explosion rang out, and the world faded to black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“WHAT’S UP, STINKY butt?” Louie said when they walked in through the back door of Willow’s bakery Wednesday morning.
“Louie Dalton, you apologize to your aunt right this second.” Bridgette shook her head, sharing a silent laugh with Willow.
“I’m sorry,” Louie said despondently.
“Isn’t kindergarten wonderful?” Bridgette bent at the waist, hugging Louie around his shoulders from behind. “In the span of three days he’s learned all sorts of new phrases.”
“Wait until middle school.” Willow motioned with he
r finger for Louie to come closer.
He walked over with a serious, worried expression. “I’m sorry, Auntie Willow. I won’t call you stinky butt anymore.”
Willow pointed to her cheek. “Put a little sugar on it.” He kissed her cheek, and she said, “What does Mom say Mr. Smarty Pants can have this morning?”
“I had French toast.” Louie grabbed his stomach. “I’m too full to eat.”
Willow’s eyes widened. “French toast?”
“Uh-huh, and we have show-and-tell today.” Louie rummaged through his backpack.
“Does that mean you got some sleep last night?” Willow asked Bridgette.
“No. It means I’m trying to put things into perspective.”
Louie held up his walkie-talkie. “Look what I’m bringing in to show my class!”
Roxie walked in the back door, and Louie raced over to her.
“Grandma Roxie, can we go to school early? I have show-and-tell today, and I don’t want to be late. I’m bringing my walkie-talkie.”
“I can see that.” Roxie ran an assessing eye over Bridgette. “Give me one minute and then we’ll take off.” She sidled up to Bridgette and lowered her voice. “The boy wants to go to school early? Whose child is he?”
“Talia’s,” Bridgette and Willow said in unison.
“You got that right,” Roxie said. “Honey, I was in the grocery store last night, and two people asked if you were okay. Apparently your shop is full of blue roses?”
Bridgette shrugged, but there was no denying she’d been channeling her sadness into her business. Blue roses signified the impossible or the unattainable. “I think they’re pretty.”
Roxie arched a brow.
“Fine,” she relented, and lowered her voice. “What’s wrong with them? They are pretty. I’m trying to move on, but it has to come out somewhere.”
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