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It was as I finished the last sentence that I felt him laughing.
I reluctantly picked my head up and twisted my neck so that I could stare up at him.
“What?” I asked.
His smile was soft as he caught my hand and started to turn my wedding ring around on my ring finger.
“Lay your head back down, honey,” he ordered. “You look like you’re about to fall asleep sitting up.”
He was right.
I was.
Which was why I laid my head back down so I didn’t do something stupid like fall forward and slam my head into the chair in front of me.
When I did, he started talking again.
“I’m a cop, so I already keep weird hours,” he said. “I like dogs and cats, so one more won’t hurt anything—we’ve already talked about this, though.”
“One more?” I asked. “I didn’t see any dogs when I was over at your house the other day.”
“That was because my mom still had them,” he answered. “I have to go pick them up when I get home. You can come with me.”
I yawned so wide that my jaw cracked.
My jaw cracking reminded me of another time that my mouth had been open really wide lately, and I felt a flush take over my face.
Thank God that he couldn’t see me due to how I was practically tucked into his side.
“I’ll go with you to pick them up if you go with me to go get a car from my dad’s place,” I said.
“A car?” he asked.
“My car,” I amended. “My dad and I built it from the ground up, actually. Not as nice as the Nova we just bought, but definitely a beautiful specimen.”
“What is it?” he squeezed my thigh.
I yawned again.
“A Roadrunner,” I murmured, sleep pulling me under. “It’s purple.”
He said something else, but at that point, the alcohol and the meds got the best of me, and I succumbed to sleep.
I wasn’t sure how long it was later when I woke up to raised voices, but when I peeled my eyes open, it was to find us still on the ground.
Only, our scenery had definitely changed.
No longer were we in Las Vegas. Now we were in Ft. Worth.
And Jonah was stiff as a board beside me as he quietly growled to the hacker.
I lifted my head from his shoulder and felt my head start to spin.
It took it a few seconds to calm down, and in those few seconds, I tried to get a read on what was going on beside me.
While I did, I stared out the window and felt my heart drop.
Because there was a baggage claim cart thingmabob connected to the side of the plane, and on that cart was a coffin. A coffin covered in an American flag that clearly meant that it was covering a soldier’s remains.
I swallowed hard and turned to Jonah, pressing my hand against his thigh to get his attention.
He turned to me, a scowl on his face. A scowl that quickly slid away when he got a look at my sleepy face.
“What’s going on?” I asked softly.
“The hold up in Las Vegas was that they were trying to load the soldier onto the plane,” he murmured. “The pilot came on and told us what was going on. The group next to us started bitching. I ignored it. We landed, and then they started getting pissy again when we stopped short of the gate so that they could unload the soldier that we were transporting home. In fact, they’re still bitching about it.”
“Bitching why?” I asked, outraged that anybody would bitch about it.
“Because apparently the new bride doesn’t believe in war.” He rolled his eyes. “And ol’ mommy dearest taught her how to act, because it wasn’t long before she started in on it, too. They ‘want off the plane now.’”
I ground my teeth at their rudeness.
“Shitheads,” I muttered, once again looking out the window to get a good look at what was going on.
What I saw made my heart hurt even more.
The coffin was now resting on a cart of some sort, which was next to a hearse that was parked at an angle next to the plane. The baggage handlers were backed away, giving the coffin a wide berth. And the attendant with the hearse was also standing a ways back.
That was because a woman with three young children was making her way to the coffin.
The woman was having a hard time keeping up with the two youngest kids that looked to be twins. They were up and down, touching this and that, laughing and skipping and ultimately having a grand ol’ time.
The two baggage handlers were watching on from their positions next to the plane, looking sad.
I felt my heart skip a beat at the innocence.
Those two little babies had no clue that their life had changed. That everything they thought they knew was no more.
