Page 70 of Everlasting Vows

“I don’t know how long we’ll be away.”

“We’ll work it out as we go. It’ll be okay,” Nix reassures.

He kisses me one last time and we go our separate ways. I head down the hallway on shaky legs to grab our bags from our guest room and head back to our bedroom to pack, catching the tail end of Nix’s conversation with Prue. He ends the call with a heavy sigh, dropping his head and rubbing the back of his neck. “She’s coming over. She’ll drive us to the airport.”

I press my hand to his back between his shoulder blades and rub soothing circles. “How did she take the news?”

He looks at me. “She was … unusually pragmatic about it all.”

I unzip one of the bags. “She’s going into self-protection mode.”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “But she has Luke for support, and they’ll be available for the plant delivery next weekend.”

I pause, the zip stuck halfway around the bag, and look at my husband—studying him closely, noting the stress he’s holding across his shoulders and the tightness in his features; the way his knuckles are white as he clutches his phone. Maybe it was unfair of me to put the burden of calling our daughter on him. I can’t imagine the horrific memories the phone call has unfurled in his mind.

23

NIX

I should have tried harder to dissuade Murphy from enlisting.

Failure uncurls in my gut, spreading through my body like a virus. Infecting every cell and vessel. Sitting heavy like a lead weight in my veins and my heart.

If I had just tried harder.

If I’d found the right words to stop him from following in my footsteps. But I’ve never been good with words. I’m more of an action man.

If I’d just tried harder.

I wouldn’t be sitting on an overnight flight to Frankfurt beside my wife, who cried herself to sleep, to be with our son who’s lying broken and battered in a hospital bed. I wouldn’t be putting Abbi through the torment of this trip for the second time. She doesn’t deserve this kind of pain again. I never wanted Murphy to experience this.

But he was so proud to enlist and even prouder to be accepted as an Army Ranger. I remember the light in his eyes, the way he glowed from the inside out. At that point, I had to respect that his life choices were his own, and I had to let him go.

I rub my sternum to stem the ache, but it doesn’t help. Pressing my head back into my seat, I close my eyes, but the images that assault me have me snapping them back open. Burned flesh, screams, fire, body parts, death, and gore. Screams so vivid I swear they’re coming over the airplane speakers and the stench of burning flesh filling the cabin that I glance around to see if others can smell it.

The captain’s voice comes over the speakers, announcing that we’ll be landing in around fifteen minutes. I shuffle in my seat, adjusting it to the upright position, then turn to Abbi as her eyes flutter open.

“I can’t believe I fell asleep,” she murmurs, her voice full of disbelief.

I’m not surprised. Her nervous system was overloaded, and all of her tears would have flooded her system with messages to calm down. I lean across and kiss her temple, gently sliding her loose hair away from her face. Her eyes are swollen and her nose is red, but she’s never looked more beautiful than she does right now.

“Did you get any sleep?” she asks as she sits up, adjusting her seat to the upright position.

I shake my head, and her eyes fill with worry.

“Nix, you need to sleep.”

I force a smile on my lips, but I’m certain she sees right through it. The pitch of the plane changes, dipping forward, and I take Abbi’s hand in mine, bringing it to my lips. “I’m okay.”

She studies my face closely and squeezes my hand. “How bad?”

I’m not going to pretend that I don’t know what she’s asking, but I don’t want to tell her.

“I need to know, Nix. I need to know what I’m going to see,” she pushes. “I need to prepare. Right now, my mind is going to the absolute worst-case scenario.”

Maybe it’s better to prepare her so it’s not such a shock when she sees him. I swallow the sawdust in my mouth and try to get the words into some semblance of order that makes sense. Everything’s so jumbled, mixed with my own experience and what my old warrant officer and friend told me over the phone. There was no requirement for him to contact me. He did it out of respect for me and our long-standing friendship. Otherwise, we’d be none the wiser that Murphy was lying injured in an American military hospital in Germany.

“He’s lost part of his leg in the explosion,” I murmur and Abbi gasps. Saying the words out loud makes it real in a way it wasn’t before.