Nine and a half months from now, he’d march through those hangar doors and this would be over. Our life could start, and this sputtering pause in time would be behind us. “What about the girlfriends who aren’t strong enough?” I asked Carol.

She followed my eyes to Josh and then looked back at me. “Well, let’s just say they’re not waving the signs at redeployment.”

Because their relationships didn’t last through the deployment.

But they weren’t us. Josh and I didn’t know how to fail, and we weren’t about to start now.

“She looked at my hand, Mom,” I complained a few days later as I put away another sack full of groceries. “Looked at my hand and basically declared that they didn’t want me because I’m not married to him. Like I don’t count because I’m a girlfriend.”

“Some women see a girlfriend and they think ‘temporary,’ which we both know you aren’t. You know how hard it is to make friends, and if they don’t think you’re in it for the long haul, well…some judge too quickly. Anyone who spends an hour around you and Josh knows you two are the real deal. I’m sure her attitude isn’t shared by all of them.”

“No,” I agreed, smiling as I popped Josh’s strawberry ice cream into the freezer. “I met a lot of nice girls. But she’s basically the Regina George of the FRG.”

“Regina George?” she asked.

“Mean Girls, Mom. The plastics? We wear pink on Wednesday?” Silence came through loud and clear. “Okay, well, we’re going to have to do a little movie-watching when I visit in the summer.”

“Have you thought about spending the summer here?”

Crap, I knew that hopeful tone in her voice. “I have,” I placated her. “But I like it here. This is our home. I want to be where I can still feel him.”

“That, I understand, my love. And that dig?”

I paused, and she rushed forward.

“I think it would be great for you, Ember. You can’t get experience like that just anywhere. It’s really a once-in-a-lifetime chance.”

“It’s just hard to wrap my head around something like that when he’s leaving so soon. I can’t seem to get my bearings, or really get a grip on any of it.”

“Ah, yes. That stage is awful, baby. I’m so sorry. They’re working longer days to get ready, your mind is on overdrive, and you can’t stop the clock.”

I leaned back against the counter and stared at the island, where a stack of paper had rested ominously for the last two days. “He brought me papers, Mom.”

She took a deep breath. “What are they?”

I swallowed, a lump forming in my throat. “The usual. Copies of his next-of-kin. Funeral wishes. Life insurance.” Forcing my feet to move, I went to the stack, thumbing through the forms. My mind played a cruel trick, and for just a second, it wasn’t Josh’s name on the paper, it was Dad’s. I dropped it like it was on fire and stepped back, sucking oxygen into my lungs.

“Ember?” Mom asked, her voice soft.

She would understand. Of everyone in my life, Mom would understand more than anyone. “I never wanted this. Any of this. I just wanted Josh.”

“I know, baby.”

“What do I do? I watched you go through this so many times, but I never really paid attention. I was too focused on soaking up Dad while we had him.”

“Good, then I did my job. You gather those papers up; you stick them in a binder and lock it away in your safe. Then you get a grip and you spend the next week and a half with the man you love. Don’t you dare let the fear rob you of these last few days, December Howard. They’re too precious, so you fight like hell for every second with him.”

Because you might not get another one.

Chapter Four

JOSH

Time was moving too quickly, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it. Somehow the weeks had flown, and we were down to ten fucking days. There wasn’t enough time. I hadn’t done everything around the house she needed help with. I hadn’t made love to her enough, kissed her enough, simply held her enough.

I hadn’t found the perfect time to ask the most important question of my life.

I needed it to be perfect. Not Jagger-ish and huge. No, Ember needed something understated and simple…real. But I had to ask, because if this stupid, nagging feeling didn’t get out of my stomach—well—I wanted my last name attached to her first.

Just in case.

Ember’s hands wound around my waist as she pressed against my back. My eyes closed, and I smiled as peace mellowed every tense muscle in my body. Only December could do that to me, soothe the jagged edges I sometimes felt stayed barely stitched together. I needed to bottle this feeling so I could breathe it in on the long nights to come.

Fuck, I hated Afghanistan.

“Hey,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to my back through the material of my button-up shirt.

I covered her hands with my own. “Hey, yourself.”

She peeked around my side, resting her temple against my arm. Her smile was wide and the brightest I’d seen since I’d dropped the deployment bomb on her. “It feels like Rucker,” she said softly.

I followed her gaze to where Grayson stood at the grill, lecturing Jagger about his marinade choice while Sam and Paisley roasted marshmallows over the fire pit from a couple of lawn chairs. All of this, even the sounds of Morgan and Carter bickering from the sidelines…it was incredibly precious. So hard-fought. So easily lost.