Page 4 of The Night Ride
“No.It’s about Evan.”Wyatt’s deep bass carried a hard edge and was all business.
Evan Ryder was our former commander.He was reassigned a month ago to another team and was stationed in the Middle East.In fact, we were all getting reassigned to new units since we were the last few members of our original team.“What about him?Will he be stateside soon?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“In a manner…what the fuck are you talking about?”I pinched the bridge of my nose.Sometimes Wyatt could be annoyingly obtuse and take forever to reach his point.
“Evan’s gone.Command notified me an hour ago.I’m making the rounds and letting everyone know.”
Gone?Motherfucking shit!
My heart seized.All the air expelled from my lungs in a rush.It felt like Wyatt had sucker punched me in the gut with his words.Evan was dead.I couldn’t wrap my head around the news.It didn’t seem possible.No one lived larger than Evan.He loved being alive.How the fuck could he be gone?
“How?”I croaked, wrenching the word from my throat, barely able to speak past the sudden onslaught of eviscerating grief.There’d been too many friends whose graves I had stood beside.Evan’s would be added to the tally.This was why anytime I thought about continuing past my twenty, I just didn’t think I had that much more in me to give.Even with the slogan,The only easy day was yesterday,playing on a recorded loop in my brain.
“Suicide.”
It dropped my heart through my chest like stepping on a trip wire.The single word shredded me into a thousand broken shards.
“Fuck.”I hung my head.Tears formed behind my closed eyes while I fought to maintain control.I couldn’t lose my shit.I wouldn’t allow it.I knew better than to give in to my emotions.All they did was fuck me up.
“My thoughts exactly.I’ll text you all the info on the funeral.It’s in two days up at Arlington.”
“Okay.Thanks for the call.”I hung up before Wyatt responded.
I took one step away from the counter.Then two.My knees gave out.Grief bombarded my battle weary soul and swallowed me whole.
Evan and I were tight.Over the last few years, our relationship had been strained.Totally my fault.I overstepped and broke our unwritten code.Ever since I fucked up, there had been distance between us.Try as I might, I knew Evan never forgave me for touching his sister.
In my defense, I hadn’t recognized her because she had been all grown up and drop dead gorgeous.We shared a single kiss.But I damned myself in more ways than one that night.Because I never forgot that kiss nor the way she felt in my arms and Evan hadn’t been known for forgiveness.
I’d see her again.
Beth Ryder.
The only woman who, in a single night, made me contemplate the institution of marriage again.I knew it sounded insane because it had only been one night.Yet the moment I spied her sitting alone at the bar with an empty chair beside her, I’d been drawn to her like a magnet to metal.When I asked if the seat beside her was taken, she smiled and told me that, of course, it belonged to me.The ground had shifted beneath my feet the moment she flashed that stunning, mile wide smile at me.
And I would see her at Evan’s funeral in two days.
Evan.
Fuck.Why’d you do it?
I sat back against the cabinet, lowered my head, and did something I hadn’t done in years—I cried.
***
Two Days Later
Fuck.Evan’s funeral gutted me.
I loathed every second of the pageantry because that’s all it had been, a fancy appearance superimposed over a grisly death.From now on, Evan would only be another ivory headstone in a sea of them at Arlington Cemetery.Dust to dust and all that crap.
When I pounded my trident into his casket, it took everything in me not to breakdown and sob.Again.It’s too ingrained in me when my uniform was on that my emotions were on lockdown.It’s just how it went in the military.The need to lock emotions down otherwise what we saw and did would cripple us.Those who didn’t keep their emotions locked up tight had a rough time.Some never recovered.
I would be fine because I understood that what I’d done had been necessary to keep my country and its people safe.The price I paid was worth the sacrificed parts of my soul.
Beth didn’t show.
