Dozens of e-mails popped up, spanning . . . almost two years? They’d been writing each other for two years? The oldest one was simple, asking Josh to consider coaching Gus’s team, Dad saying how great it would be for his injury to get back on the ice when he was ready. Something dropped in my stomach and then clawed up my throat, leaving a sickly sweet taste in my mouth. There was more to this, something deeper.
My breath shuddered as I scanned the right-hand side, looking for the paperclip that signaled an e-mail attachment. There were more than a few, mostly clips of Gus playing hockey. Josh kept Dad connected in a way none of us could, through the sport he and Gus loved and shared. Gratitude overwhelmed me.
I opened the e-mail with the subject “found the records,” from this August, and clicked.
Hey Josh,
Here are the records I found in our system. Tell the Guard to get their act together and do a backup every once in a while, eh? Better yet, come active and forget about it. I’m thrilled to help get you back on a team where you belong. Things here are the same: long hours and tough calls. Do me a favor, run by the house and force June to let you cut the grass? That woman takes on too much. Ember’s back at school now with her jerk-faced boyfriend. You know, if you’d ever like to show up and steal her away for a bit, that’d be fine with me. Hint. Hint. But really, let me know what else you need, UCCS is lucky to have a player like you.
VR,
Justin Howard
He’d tried to set me up with Josh? He had to have been kidding. Dad loved Riley, didn’t he? Had he just faked it because he thought I was happy? I pushed the question aside and clicked on the document. Josh’s medical records popped onto the screen. It wasn’t his full records, just a collection of pages that began in early July two years ago.
Why would Josh ask my dad for his records if the Guard lost them?
I pushed back from my desk. There were too many questions, and I was done feeling confused and lost. I deserved answers.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I was walking for the door.
“Where are you going dressed like that?” Sam laughed from the couch, lounged out in her pajamas.
My hair was pulled on top of my head in a messy knot, the result of no effort. I waved my hand to her and headed out the door in my jean shorts and layered ribbed tank. I didn’t bother with shoes. I told myself I didn’t care what he thought I looked like anyway as I knocked on his door.
“Hold up!” Jagger’s yell was muffled by the door, the loud television, and giggles. For the barest second, I thought about running, but it wasn’t an option, not if I wanted to figure this out. The door swung open and Jagger appeared, his eyebrows shooting up at the sight of me. “Hey?”
My smile was tight and close-lipped. “Is, um, is Josh here?” I could barely get the words out of my mouth. Saying his name was still torturous, even almost three months later.
Jagger smiled through his shock. “Yeah, yeah, come on in.”
I followed him down the hallway and made the turn that mirrored the floor plan of our own apartment into the living room. “Walker, you’re not going to believe who’s—”
“Holy shit.” Josh cut him off, immediately standing, which was unfortunate for the co-ed who had been perched on the arm of the couch next to him. He caught her just before she hit the floor, and then set her aside. “Ember?” His eyes raked up and down my frame, and I didn’t miss the stab of desire that raced through them. Glad I could stoke the fire he had for . . . oh, yes it was. Tweedledee and Tweedledum both glared at me.
Jagger hit the mute button on the TV, and whatever slapstick comedy they were watching fell silent. For a moment, I couldn’t speak; I was too lost in looking at him. For the last few months, I hadn’t let myself meet his eyes. I’d sat next to him in class, smiled in his general direction when he said something amusing to our professor, but I’d avoided looking at him like the plague. Losing myself here was the reason.
He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Neither was Jagger, but nothing affected me like Josh’s bare chest. He was still cut like a dream. If anything, his muscles were larger, more defined, especially the lines that ran into his black basketball shorts. And his tribal tattoo wasn’t just black anymore; it had ice and flames dancing through it and around it, all originating from the area over his heart. I tried not to swallow my tongue, or think about how badly I ached to kiss him. “New ink?”
Ten feet separated us, but we may as well have been naked together, or ten thousand miles apart, it was the same difference, really. “Yeah.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Tweedledum glared at me, crossing her arms under her breasts to shove them up through her neckline.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb your, eh”—I gestured to the room—“date. I just need to ask Josh a quick question.”
“You came all the way over here to ask him a question?” the girl fired back.
I looked to Josh, but he looked too awestruck to answer, refusing to take his eyes from me. My cheeks flamed. “I’m his next-door neighbor, and—”
“And she’s done explaining herself to you,” Josh interjected, finally coming to life. “Ember, what’s up?”
The way he said it, his voice curving around the words, made me want to ask him for more than information. Then I thought about the way his bed had pounded against my wall. He’d moved on. I steadied myself with a deep breath and hugged my waist. “You didn’t tell me how close you were to my dad.”
His jaw flexed, and his face paled. “That’s not really a question if you already know the answer.” His hand raked over his head, through his short hair, a style I now knew he kept for the Guard. “But yeah, we were friends.”
“What’s with the records? Why would you ask my dad for them? Why not go to Evans Hospital here?”
He swallowed. “Did you read them?”
I shook my head. “No, they’re yours. I saw the date and stopped.”
He walked in through his bedroom door and motioned me inside, but I wasn’t sure I could walk into that room. “Come on, Ember. I won’t take advantage of you.” The smile he gave me was small and didn’t reach his eyes. It was gone almost as quickly as it came.
“You can take advantage of me!” Tweedledum sang after him. Then she leaned in close to whisper so only I could hear. “The body on that man is just.. . . .”
I shook her off and walked toward him before she could finish. If I had to choose between the lion’s lair and the snake pit? Well, at least I knew the lion. I glanced around, noting that nothing had changed. He’d even put the picture from state back on the wall. I thought twice about sitting on the bed and instead chose to stand while he rummaged in his closet. Finally, he came out with a gray handled filing case.
He rested it on the bed, opening it with a click. “I have to say, I never thought I’d get you in here again, but if I did, I never imagined it would be like this.”
I concentrated on the movement of his fingers and the play of muscles up his arm. “Could you put on a shirt? It’s a little distracting.” My voice sounded breathless, even to me, but I couldn’t slow my pulse, not with him standing three inches from me.
He laughed, which didn’t help my state; it only turned me on. “Could you put on some pants? Those mile-long legs of yours have me thinking about the way you loved to wrap them around my waist.”
I sputtered, and he grinned, pulling out the records from his file and handing them to me. “You’re going to find out some day, it may as well be my doing.”
I scanned the top. “You were hurt in July, two years ago?”
“Yeah, I was stupid and gave the Guard the only hard copy I had. Then when they updated their computers, they lost mine from Afghanistan. I needed them for the docs here to clear me to play for UCCS. Your dad was deployed, and I knew that hospital would have a copy somewhere. I was just lucky your dad knew where to look.”
“Same hospital, right, but why would he know where they were?” There was something righ
t there, but I couldn’t put it together.
“Right. Same hospital. They did emergency surgery there before Landstuhl.” I felt his gaze boring into me.
I shook my head, waving the papers. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“Look at the date.”
“July sixth.”
“What were you doing that summer?”
I thought back. “Um, I had just graduated high school, and Mom took me up after the Fourth of July to go to the Boulder campus because I’d decided to go to college with Riley.” Instead of Vanderbilt, where I’d wanted to apply; just another concession I made for our plan. “Mom took me . . .” Understanding dawned.
“Because your dad was deployed,” he finished.
Chills ran from my scalp down my arms.
“Look at the record, December. You know that handwriting.” His voice was gentle.
I flipped back to the start, for the attending physician. Dr. J. A. Howard.
There was no panic, no sense of betrayal, or anger, just the feeling that something had come full circle, complete. “He was your doctor.”
“He saved my life.” Josh sat on his bed and looked through his walls, lost somewhere else. “We were clearing a building when I went down. I’d only been in Theater for a month. One grazed my arm.” He pointed to the scar in his tattoo, the one I’d traced the night of the Snow Bash. “One went through my thigh and hit my femoral artery. They wheeled me into the CaSH, bleeding all over the place, and I knew I was going to die. Medics couldn’t get the artery clamped fast enough. Your dad got right down in my face and told me I was going home. He would make sure I was going home.” He looked back up to me, and I sank into those eyes. “After I woke up from surgery, that’s when he started talking to me and realized who I was. He’d seen me play when he’d taken you to a game.”
“Freshman year,” I whispered, remembering how unembarrassed I was to be there with my dad. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He reached out and took my hand. I tried to ignore the jolt that went through me at having his skin touching mine again. “You were so mad that he was ever in Afghanistan. I couldn’t tell you that if he hadn’t been there, I’d be dead. I didn’t want you to see me as the reason, your dad as the price of my life.”
“Is that how you feel?” I stepped closer, cupping his face as he looked up at me. I’d missed touching him so very much.
“Sometimes. But I’m not the only one he saved, Ember. There are countless others. He was an amazing surgeon. I wanted to tell you about it; I just couldn’t watch you walk away. You pushed me away for so long because you didn’t want to think of our relationship starting when he died. How could I tell you that he’s the reason I’m here?”
A wary apprehension stole through me. “Is that why you spent so much time with me? Being my whatever? Was all of this for my dad, to pay him back?” My heart seized in my chest, waiting to hear his answer. I needed everything to be real between us. I wasn’t sure I could handle being a pity case. “Were we real to you? I mean, you went right back to being . . . you.”
Pain lanced through his eyes before he masked it. “I have wanted you since I was eighteen.” He nodded his head toward the picture of us. “I wasn’t good enough for you back then. Hell, I’m not good enough for you now. You’re everything I’m not allowed to want, because of the things I’ve done, and the things I’ll potentially do. I had no right to love you, but I couldn’t help myself. Your dad had nothing to do with any of that.”
He pulled me into his lap, and I relaxed, powerless against him, because I wanted to be there, to steal whatever contact I could with him.
“When I saw you that day in the grocery store, you were even more beautiful than I remembered. It had been five years, and that girl who’d infatuated me grew up to be stunning and strong. I thanked fate, bowed down, and kissed her feet for bringing you my way. But when I heard you say your dad had died, I knew why I was there, in that store after a random drive.”
“Because you owed my dad for saving you, so you saved me.” As close as we were, my whisper was all we needed. “The funny thing is that I’m not even sure I care. You brought so much into my life, Josh. You broke me free of everything that held me back, and showed me what it was to be loved, really loved. If any part of that had anything to do with Dad, then it’s just something else I’m thankful to him for.”
“December, don’t you understand? I didn’t take care of you because I owe your dad; I went after you in spite of what I owe your dad. Me staying away from you for these last months? Not beating down your door at two in the morning when it’s killing me that we’re only separated by six inches of wall? That is what I owe your dad, staying away. I know you don’t want this lifestyle I’m about to lead. I know that regardless of what he thought, I’m not everything you need. But I also know there’s no one on this earth who can love you as well as I can, and I wish it was enough.”
My fingers stroked down his cheek, memorizing the feel of his skin, the rough scrape of his day-old scruff against me. My thumb grazed across his lips, the only concession I’d allow myself when it came to his mouth. “It’s not about love, Josh. It’s about fear, and it doesn’t matter how much I love you, or how desperately I want to be with you. I can’t live in fear of a doorbell. I won’t ever open a door to that again. I barely made it through losing Dad, and I know that was because you held me up. I wouldn’t survive losing you; it would crush my very soul and leave me to where I’d be dead, too, only I’d still have a heartbeat.” My lower lip trembled, and I lost myself to his eyes, the dark swirling depths and gold flecks that made him Josh. “You are an amazing man. Never say that you’re not good enough, because you are better than any of this.” I pointed to the door, where the girls waited for him. “Better than any of them. My fear doesn’t make you any less perfect. It makes me a self-preservationist. You—God, what I would do for you.”
“You still love me.”
“With every piece of my soul. Love isn’t strong enough for what I feel for you, Josh Walker. A few months and your headboard could never change that.”
“My headboard?”
Embarrassment heated my cheeks to match my hair, no doubt. “The night you won division?” He still looked confused. “Your headboard bangs against your wall, my wall.”
His eyes widened, and he had the nerve to smile that heart-stopping grin. “I wasn’t here that night. After the game, I only wanted to be with you, and I couldn’t, so I drove ten hours to my mom’s. That wasn’t me. The only woman I’ve ever taken to this bed is you. I’d rather burn it than sleep here with anyone else. God, I haven’t touched another girl in that way since we were together. You can’t replace perfection.”
The weight that held me down since that night lifted. I smiled, using his words against him. “You still love me.”
“Every fucking second I breathe. I will love you the rest of my life, December Howard, whether or not you’re around to witness it. You may think you’re weak, but you’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known.” He dug his fingers through my pulled-up hair and brought me down to his mouth.
Before I lost all sanity, I pulled back. “I can’t. Loving you is so easy, and when you touch me, I lose everything about myself in you. I can’t be what you need.”
His eyes widened, taking on a desperate sheen, and his fingers tightened on my skin. “December, you mean more to me than this, my career, this uniform. I owe four years, and I can’t get out of that, but I’ll resign. Just four years and I’ll come back for you.”
God, yes! The carefree girl inside me wanted to grasp for it, to claim him as my own. I could do four years of waiting, especially if it was for Josh. But four years wasn’t enough for him, not really. “I would never be responsible for you turning your back on this. You said you were going career, and I won’t ever be the one who holds you down.”
The tears that welled in his eyes, and the one that slipped down his face, were nearly my undoing. “How can we lo
ve each other this much and not make it? Why does a love like ours hurt us both so badly?”
I brushed his tear away and checked my own. “Maybe love this exquisite, this powerful isn’t meant to last forever. Maybe we’re meant to burn so brightly for each other right now to light whatever path we’re heading down, but there’s no sustaining a fire like this.”
He brought my hand over his heart, where the fire in his tattoo began. “I’ll carry it with me, Ember. You.” He tapped my hand against the flames. “Here. Always. It’s you, fire and ice; everything I know that’s December.” He took a shaking breath. “Will you come next Thursday? For my commissioning?”
I shook my head. “Dad’s company comes home that day, and I promised Mom I’d go.”
He nodded, disappointment etched in the sad curve of his mouth, the diminished sheen of his eyes. “Maybe it’s better this way. I leave for Officer Basic Course two days later. I guess this is a cleaner cut, right? So why the fuck does it feel like I’m being ripped in two?”
“Because I am, too.” I smiled as best as I could, knowing I had to go, knowing if I stayed one more moment I’d give in and pay for it down the road. “I guess if you put us together, we’d make a whole person.”
His grip tightened almost painfully in my hair. It felt desperate, frantic, the need that clawed through me to be with him, to stay here forever. But if he had this much of me now, how much would he have in three years? Seven? The day they came to tell me he was gone? I wouldn’t survive it. No. At least now I would live, even if it was halfhearted bullshit, and I’d settle for a love ten percent of this.
“At least we had this. Most people don’t get to experience real love, and we did. You’re not going to be a regret, Joshua Walker. You’re my biggest blessing.” I slipped off his lap and bent forward, pressing my lips to his incredible, inked skin where the flames and ice met. I pulled back far too soon, and way too late, leaving a piece of my soul embedded in that tattoo, as close to his heart as I could get.
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