“Ember?” Gus’s small voice came from the steps where he stood. “What’s going on?”
I placed Mom’s hand back in her lap. It wasn’t like she noticed I was holding it anyway. After the deepest breath ever taken, I walked over to my little brother. I sat down next to him on the steps and repeated everything we knew in seven-year-old terms, which wasn’t anything really. But I had to repeat the one thing we knew for certain. “Daddy isn’t coming home, Gus.”
Little blue eyes filled with tears, and his lower lip began to quiver. “Did the bad guys get him?”
“Yes, baby.” I pulled him into my arms and held him, rocking him back and forth like I had when he was an infant, our parents’ miracle baby. I brushed his hair back over his forehead and kissed him.
“But it’s your birthday.” His warm tears soaked through my running shirt and immediately chilled as I held him as tightly as possible. I would have done anything to take away this pain, to unsay what I knew had to be said. But I couldn’t take the bullet from Dad.
Gus cried himself out while Captain Wilson sat, patiently observing my mother and her nonresponse. I wondered how long it would be until words like “medicate” and “psychologist” were brought up. My mother was the strongest person I knew, but she’d always stood on the foundation that was my father.
Once the last of his little sobs shook his body, I asked him what he needed, if there was anything I could do to make this better for him. “I want you to have cake and ice cream.” He lifted his head off my chest and squeezed my hand. “I want it to be your birthday.”
Panic welled within me, my heart rate accelerating, tears pricking my eyes. Something fierce and terrible clawed at my insides, demanding release, demanding acknowledgment, demanding to be felt. I grimaced more than smiled and nodded my head exuberantly, cupping Gus’s sweet face. I turned my attention to Captain Wilson. “Can we take a ten minute break?”
The captain nodded slowly, as though he sensed I was close to losing it, his one stable person in a house of grieving women and children. “Is there anything you need?”
“Could you please call my Grams and check on her? She lost her husband in Vietnam . . .” It was all I could force out. I inched closer to the inevitable scream that welled up within my body.
“I can do that.”
I kissed Gus’s forehead, grabbed my keys, and ran out the door before I didn’t have the strength to stand any longer. I flung myself into the driver’s seat of my Volkswagen Jetta, my high school graduation present from my parents. Dad wanted me in something safe so I could make it home on weekends from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Too bad he wasn’t as protected in Afghanistan.
I forced the key into the ignition, cranked the engine, and backed out of the driveway too quickly. I tore down the hill, taking the curves, heedless with my safety for the first time since I got my driver’s license. In front of the grocery store, the stoplight turned red, and I became aware of the chill seeping into me, making my fingers tingle. The car read seventeen degrees outside, and I was still dressed for treadmill running. I hadn’t grabbed my coat. I parked the Jetta and walked into the grocery store, thankful for the numbing sensation in my arms and heart.
I found the bakery section and crossed my arms. Cake. Gus wanted a cake, so I would get him one. Chocolate. Vanilla. Strawberry. Whipped icing. Buttercream icing. There were too many choices. It was just a damned cake! Why did I need that many choices? Who cared? I grabbed the one nearest to me and headed for the ice cream section where I snatched a quart of chocolate chip cookie dough on autopilot.
I was halfway to the checkout counter when I ran into a small family. They were average: mom, dad, one boy, one girl. They laughed as they decided what movie to rent for that night, and the little girl won, asking for The Santa Clause. How was it possible these people were having such a normal day, such a normal conversation? Didn’t they understand the world had just ended?
“You know, they’ll write on that for you if you want his name on it.” The masculine voice broke me from my train of thought, and I looked up into a somewhat familiar set of brown eyes underneath a worn CU hat. I knew him, but couldn’t remember how. He was achingly familiar. Of course I would take note of a guy as hot as this one. But in a university with forty thousand other students, there was always someone who looked familiar, and there were very few who I could actually name, or even remember the details of how we’d met. With a face and body like that, I should have remembered this guy, even this shell-shocked.
The guy was waiting for me to say something.
“Oh, yeah, the cake.” My thoughts were fuzzy, and I was desperately holding on to what I had left of them. I nodded my head and muttered thanks as I headed back to the bakery. My feet moved of their own accord, thank God.
The heavyset woman behind the counter reached out to take the cake and I handed it over. “Could you write ‘happy birthday’ on this?”
“Sure can, honey. Whose special day is it?”
Special day? This was a day from hell. I stood there at the counter of the grocery store, with a cake I didn’t even care about, and realized this was unequivocally the worst day of my life. Maybe there should have been some comfort in that, knowing if this was the worst day, there was nowhere to go but up. But what if it really wasn’t the worst day? What if tomorrow was just waiting around the corner, ready to pounce and bring me to a new low?
“Miss?” My eyes focused back on the baker’s face. “Whose name would you like on the cake?”
“December.”
“Yes, ma’am, it is December, but whose name would you like on the cake?”
The same griefy-panic threatened to well up again in me, choking my throat. “It’s mine. My name is December.”
A string of giggles erupted from the baker. “But, ma’am, these are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It’s a boy’s cake!”
Something snapped inside me. The dam broke, the river raged, whatever pun came to mind. “I don’t care what kind of cake it is!”
“But surely you’d be happier—”
I’d had it. “No, I wouldn’t be happier. Do you know what would make me happy? I would like to go back to bed, and for none of this to have happened. I don’t want to be standing in the middle of this grocery store, buying a stupid cake so my little brother can pretend that our dad isn’t dead! So, no, I don’t care what kind of cake it is, Ninja Turtles or Barbie or Sponge Bob freaking Square Pants!”
The woman’s lip began to tremble, and tears formed in her eyes. “Happy . . . Birthday . . . December,” she said as she slowly dragged the icing bag across the green and blue cake, inscribing my name. She handed the cake back over with shaking hands and I accepted it with a thankful nod.
I turned to see the CU guy with his hand in mid-reach for a pack of blueberry muffins, but his eyes were locked on me, wide with shock.
I couldn’t blame him; I was shocked at my outburst, too, appalled that I’d lost it in the middle of the grocery store.
Tears streamed down my face unnoticed as I stood at the register, waiting for the young girl to ring up my cake and ice cream. “Thirty-two nineteen,” she told me. I reached for my back pocket, where I normally kept my tiny wallet, but found only the smooth spandex of my running shorts.
“Shit,” I whispered, closing my eyes in defeat. No coat. No wallet. Great planning.
“I got this.” The brown-eyed guy slid a fifty dollar bill across the conveyor belt to the clerk. I hadn’t even noticed he’d been behind me.
I turned to look back up at him, stunned at how tall he was. I only reached his collarbone. The sudden turn made me sway, and he reached out to steady me, his strong hands gently supporting my arms. “Thank you.” I dragged the backs of my hands over my cheeks, wiping away what tears I could, and handed him back his change. There was something so familiar about him . . . What was it?
“Do you need me?” he asked softly, as the clerk rang up his Vitamin Water.
“What?
” I had zero clue what he was talking about.
He flushed. “Do you need me to carry that out? I mean, it looks kind of heavy,” he finished slowly, like he couldn’t believe he’d said it, either.
“It’s a cake.” He had to be the hottest awkward guy I’d ever met.
“Right.” He grabbed his bag and shook his head like he was trying to clear it. “Would you at least let me drive you home?”
Wow, did he choose the wrong day to try to pick me up. “I don’t even know you. I hardly think that’s appropriate.”
A soft smile slid across his face. “You’re December Howard and I’m Josh Walker. I graduated three years ahead of you.”
Josh Walker. Holy shit. High school. Memories crashed through me, but that Josh Walker couldn’t possibly be the one standing in front of me. No, that one had been a tattooed, motorcycle-driving, cheerleader magnet, not this clean-cut all-American nice guy. “Josh Walker. Right. I used to have a picture of you taped on my closet door from when you guys won state.” Shit. Why did I say that? His eyebrows raised in surprise, and I mentally added or still do, but whatever. “If I remember correctly, you had your head stuck too far up your hockey helmet to notice any underclassmen.” But I had noticed him, along with every other girl in school. My eyes narrowed as I assessed the lean cut of his face, only made more angular and freaking hot by quasi-adulthood. “And you had a lot more hair.”
His devastating grin cut through the fog of my brain, distracting me from the pain for a blissful moment. How did a hockey player have such straight teeth?
“See, I’m not a stranger.” He handed me my cake, and his smile vanished, replaced by a flash of . . . pain or pity? “Ember, I’m sorry about your dad. Please let me drive you home. You’re not in any shape to drive.”
I shook my head, tearing my gaze from his sympathetic one. For an instant, I had nearly forgotten. Guilt overran me. I’d just let a pretty face distract me from . . . everything, and it all came rushing back, shredding into me. What was I doing even thinking about him? I had a boyfriend, and a dead father, and no time for this. Dead. I squeezed my eyes shut against the pain.
“Ember?”
“I need to do it. I need to know I can.” I thanked him again for paying and headed back into reality.
I slid onto the frozen leather seat in my car and sat in stunned silence for a moment. How could something as simple as seeing Josh Walker again right a little piece of my soul when the rest had been flipped so wrong? The cold of the seat seeped through my running capris, forcing out the warm thoughts of Josh. The cake on my front seat mocked me with stupid, happy, martial-arts turtles. Gus would love it. If Gus could love it. God, what was he going to do without Dad? What were any of us going to do? Panic welled up in my chest, catching in my throat before exploding in a cry that sounded nothing like me. How was I supposed to take care of Mom without Dad? How was I going to do any of this when I wanted to curl up and deny it all?
My composure crumpled, and I sobbed against my steering wheel for exactly five minutes. Then I sat up, dried my tears, and stopped crying. I couldn’t afford to cry or break down anymore. I had to take care of my family.
Chapter Two
This wasn’t my first military funeral, but I had been a kid then, and the death of someone my parents once knew hadn’t really struck a chord with me. Dad’s funeral slowly tore me apart with each tear I held back. Every time someone hugged me, or told me they were sorry, another piece of me shut down, like my maximum pain threshold had been reached.
Riley, my exquisite, perfect boyfriend of three years, drove down from vacationing at his family’s cabin in Breckenridge to be with me. I’m not sure I could really say he was with me, though. He’d been more with his cell phone the last few days, and wasn’t even here yet. I couldn’t really blame him. It’s not like I was a joy to be around. Since the notification last week, Christmas had passed with a whisper, the New Year was upon us, and Mom still hadn’t responded to . . . anything. Thankfully, Grams had shown up, all Southern-steel backbone and silver hair, and kept the wolves off the door. No one was threatening to medicate Mom. Yet.
The chapel on post filled quickly. People I recognized and countless soldiers I didn’t took their seats in hushed tones. We’d asked for this to serve as the unit’s memorial, too. I didn’t think any of us could have gone through this a second time. April sat surrounded by a gaggle of her friends, being comforted en masse as she cried, and a small stab of jealousy sliced through me. April was allowed to fall apart. That was a luxury I didn’t get to have, not anymore.
“Oh, Ember.” Sam, my best friend from high school, pulled me in for a hug at the back of the chapel while I waited for Gus. I sagged a little against her, willing to let her take some of the weight. “This sucks.”
She always knew just what to say.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said, speaking honestly for the first time today.
“Where’s Riley?” The perfect café au lait skin of her forehead puckered as her eyebrows drew together.
I plastered a fake smile on my face. “Not sure, but he said he’s coming.”
Her furrows deepened, and I saw a flash run through her hazel eyes before she sighed. “Kayla? She’s still your roommate, right?”
“She’s in Boston with her parents, but she’s flying back to Boulder in the next few days.” I held my breath and waited for the typical sarcastic quip to come from Sam. There was no love lost between Kayla and Sam, and hadn’t been since Sam and I had grown apart last year. I’d gone off to Boulder and become roomies with Kayla, and Sam stayed to go to school here in Colorado Springs. I still loved the heck out of Sam, but it was hard to keep a friendship with such separate lives.
“Right.” Organ music started to play, and Sam squeezed my hands. “That’s my cue. Ember, whatever you need, I’m here.”
“I know you are.”
She gave me a weak smile and headed to sit with her mom, who’d been a really good friend of Dad’s. I guess that’s what happens when you spend years and two duty stations with someone.
“Ember?” I turned to see Mrs. Rose, whose husband had been killed in the attack with Dad. She looked put together in a simple black sheath and matching heels. Her hair was done, makeup perfect and unsmeared. Her two little boys, Carson and Lewis, were immaculately dressed in little black suits.
“Hi, Mrs. Rose. We’re glad you came,” I answered for my family. “How are you?”
Her hands grazed the shoulders of her boys, like she was assuring herself they were still there. “We’re getting by. Your mother?”
My face flushed. “She’s having a hard time.”
Mrs. Rose nodded. “We all grieve in different ways. She’ll come around.” She smiled at her boys. “Let’s find our seats.”
They headed down the aisle, and something dark stole into me, raising my temperature. How could she be okay? How was she so perfectly poised when my mother couldn’t hold it together? The unfairness of everything weighed on me. I wanted Mom to pull herself together like Mrs. Rose had.
My cell phone buzzed, alerting me to a new text message.
Riley: On my way, but running late.
Ember: See you soon.
I slid my iPhone back into my purse as Gus emerged from the bathroom. His suit made him appear older than he really was, another thief stealing his childhood away. He fumbled with the long ends of his tie, which must’ve come undone while he was in there. Gus only had two ties, both of which my dad had tied before he left for deployment. The knots would slide up and down as we took them on and off Gus’s head for church, but we were always careful not to untie them. None of us girls in the house knew how to tie a tie. We’d never given it much thought.
“I didn’t mean to do it.” His eyes welled up with tears, siphoning my own. I forced a smile to my face, which became just a little easier each time I had to do it.
“It’s not a problem, little buddy.” I gently wiped away his tears and fixed my concentration
on figuring out his tie. A wave of grief overtook me. This was Dad’s job. He was supposed to teach Gus how to tie a tie, drive a car, flirt with a girl. How was Gus going to grow up without Dad’s example? Sure, my father would never walk me down the aisle, never hold my firstborn child, or the second, for that matter. But I’d had him for twenty years while I had grown to quasi-womanhood. Dad was etched into the very fabric of my being. It wasn’t fair that his son only got him for seven years.
My fingers fumbled with the tie, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it work. A pair of large hands reached in between us, and I looked over. Shock almost knocked me on my butt at seeing Josh Walker crouched next to me. A sad smile came to his face.
“Hey, Gus, can I get that for you?”
“Hey, Coach Walker. Sure.”
Coach? Right, Gus had told me, but I hadn’t put it together. The Josh Walker I remembered wouldn’t take the time to coach anyone, let alone a hyper group of kids. What had changed him so much in four years?
Gus turned his beautiful smile on me, and I almost hugged Josh for inspiring it. “Ember, this is my hockey coach.”
“We’ve met, Gus.” I ruffled his hair and stood up slowly, careful to keep my balance on my heels.
“I went to high school with your sister, little man.” Josh made quick work of Gus’s tie, deftly looping it around, pulling it through until it resembled my dad’s own knot. A surge of gratitude ripped through me. Josh had saved Gus’s day.
We took our seats when the chaplain directed. Gus sat next to me, then Mom, Grams, and April. One by one, the speakers came up, giving their best memories of Dad. He had saved so many lives, given so much of himself to those who needed it. He had never failed to inspire me. Well, inspire me in everything but his death. He’d been killed senselessly, helping other people. What was the point, the justice in that? Hysterical laughter bubbled up through my lips, and Grams reached her hand around Mom to steady my shoulder. What, like I was going to figure out the meaning of death and life while sitting here? Preposterous. No one understood the meaning behind war. It was hilarious to think the answer would be bestowed upon me simply because I lost someone I loved. My psych professor would have had a field day with me at that moment.
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