only had another couple of months on this QRF detail. Then it was goodbye to Quick Reaction Force and hello to a little downtime, which I usually despised but now felt mildly curious about. But Ella? That curiosity wasn’t mild in the least. I wanted to see her, talk to her, find out if the woman who wrote the letters really existed in a world that wasn’t paper or perfect.
“I’d like that,” I answered slowly. He’d offered countless times, but I’d never taken him up on it.
His eyebrows rose as his wide grin became almost comical. “Want to see Telluride, or Ella?”
“Both,” I answered truthfully.
He nodded as the five-minute warning came over the comms. Then he leaned in so only I could hear him, not that the others had a shot over the rotors anyway.
“You’d be good for each other. If you ever let your feet stand in one location long enough for something to grow.”
Worthless. You ruin everything.
I shoved my mother’s words out of my head and focused on now. Slipping into then was a disaster waiting to happen, so I slammed that door shut in my head.
“I’m not good for anyone,” I told Mac. Then, before he could dig any deeper, I ran a check on Havoc’s harness, making sure she was clipped in tight so I didn’t lose her on the way down.
Gravity could be a bitch.
Ella’s comments on that subject ran through my head. What would it be like to have someone ground you? Was it comforting to feel that safety? Or was it suffocating? Was it the kind of force you relied on or the type you fled?
Were there really people who stuck around long enough to be considered that dependable? If there were, I’d never met one. It was why I never bothered with relationships. Why the hell would you sign yourself up to invest in someone who would eventually say you were too flawed, too complicated, to keep around?
Even Mac—my best friend—was contractually obligated to be in the same unit I was, and even his friendship had limits, and I made sure to never test those lines. I knew in the pit of my stomach that he’d burn anyone to the ground who hurt Ella.
Ten minutes later we touched down, and that was the only gravity I had the time to think about.
Chapter Four
Ella
Letter #6
Ella,
Thank you for the cookies. And yeah, your brother stole them while I was in the shower. You think he’d be three hundred pounds by now.
I thought about what you said about gravity.
I’ve never really had that—anything tethering me anywhere. Maybe when I joined the army, but really that was more about my affinity for the unit than it was for anywhere or anyone. Until I met your brother, and they started pushing us through selection. Unfortunately, I am overly fond of him, as is most of our unit. It’s only unfortunate because sometimes he can be a real pain in the rear.
Why do they call me Chaos? That’s a long, unflattering story. I promise I’ll tell it to you one day. Let’s just say it involves a bar brawl, two really angry bouncers, and a misunderstanding between your brother and a woman he mistook for a prostitute. She wasn’t.
She was our new commanding officer’s wife. Whoops.
Maybe I’ll make him tell you that story instead.
You mentioned in your last letter that Maisie wasn’t feeling well. Did the docs get to the bottom of it? I can’t imagine how hard that has to be for you. How is Colt doing? Did he start those snowboarding lessons yet?
Gotta go, they’re rounding us up, and I want to make sure I get this in the mail.
Catch you later,
~ Chaos
…
The only sounds in the hospital room were the thoughts screaming inside my head, begging to be let free. They demanded answers, shouted to find every doctor in this hospital and make them listen. Knowing Telluride wasn’t going to look any deeper, I’d brought her an hour and a half away to the bigger hospital in Montrose.
It was almost midnight. We’d been here since just after noon, and both the kids were fast asleep. Maisie was curled in on herself, dwarfed by the size of the hospital bed, a few leads sending her vitals to the monitors. Thank God they’d turned off the incessant beeping. Just seeing the beautiful rhythm of her heart was enough for me.
Colt was stretched out on the couch, his head in my lap, his breathing deep and even.