Fly With Me (Wild Aces #1)(61)

“I knew I couldn’t live my life the way I had when I was single. I knew there would be times—way more times than I’d like to count—when it wouldn’t be about me. When I would spend holidays by myself, when I’d have to give up my career because his job meant we moved so much that steady employment was pretty much impossible. I knew there would be times that I would want to give up. But I told myself that no matter what, every decision I would make after I married him would be the best decision for the family we built. For our marriage. Even if sometimes it meant sacrificing what I wanted.”

“And that’s what you do?”

She nodded.

“And you don’t resent him for it?”

“For moments? Sure. But that’s where the part of finding a good man comes in. He loves me. I am the love of his life. And he has given me an amazing life. So for every moment when I’m pissed off that I’m spending another Christmas by myself, for every time I’ve binge eaten chocolate on the couch on my birthday because I’m alone, there is always a moment, every single day, when I feel like I’m the luckiest girl in the entire world, because I am loved by a man who looks at me the way he does. Who fights for me every day of his life. He would die for me. Without question. So yeah. That’s enough for me.”

I batted at the tear that trickled down my face.

“Noah loves you like that. He would be that for you if you let him. You just have to decide if you feel the same way.”

“It’s f*cking scary.”

Dani grinned. “Yeah, it is. It’s all or nothing, which makes it a leap-before-you-look sort of situation. And no matter how much you plan or try to imagine what it’ll be like, there’s no way you can know until you’re in it. It’s jumping into the deep end and hoping you don’t sink to the bottom.”

“And it’s a whole other country. I mean, it’s not just me becoming a military wife; it’s me becoming a military wife and moving to South Korea. I don’t speak the language. I’ve never even been outside of the U.S.”

“For what it’s worth, our overseas assignments were some of my favorite times in the Air Force.”

“Where have you guys been?”

“Italy and Germany.”

I’d never really been one of those people who craved adventure. My idea of a perfect night included curling up on the couch with take-out Chinese and a Friends marathon. I wasn’t Noah. I wasn’t looking to take on the world. But the problem was that now, when I looked at my idea of the perfect night, he was right there next to me.

“You could try long distance,” Dani offered, the tone of her voice conveying her true feelings on the subject.

“Noah hates the idea.”

“When they make their mind up, they tend to stick with it.”

I grimaced. “I’ve noticed. It’s super f*cking annoying.”

She grinned. “Trust me. Five years of marriage. I get it. And for what it’s worth, Joker’s even older and even more set in his ways. I’ve given up at this point.”

“How do you handle it? The bossy factor?”

“I let him run the things that are important to him, and sort of do what I want with the rest of it.”

“And that works?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes. It’s not easy. Sometimes it feels like there’s something about being a fighter pilot that takes normal annoying masculine traits and magnifies them by a thousand. But it also has its perks.”

She had a point there.

Dani reached out and squeezed my hand. “It’ll be okay. Promise. The answer will come to you.”

My voice cracked. “He doesn’t understand. He’s pissed and he doesn’t understand, and I’m worried that if I don’t decide soon, he’s going to just get fed up and give up on me.”

“He won’t. He’s scared. He doesn’t want to lose you and right now he’s worried that he’s asking too much of you. And I can promise you, he knows how much he’s asking you to give up.”

I hoped she was right. I hoped I hadn’t f*cked everything up.





TWENTY-TWO




JORDAN

The sound of my cell going off jarred me awake.

I reached for Noah and came up empty. Then it hit me—he was gone. Alaska. I was in his bed in Oklahoma by myself.

I flicked on the light, rubbing my eyes as I answered the call. The clock on the nightstand said it was six in the morning. Was it Noah? What time was it in Alaska? I tried to do the calculation, but I was too tired. At least he was calling.

“Noah?”

“Are you okay?”

Confusion filled me as Meg’s panicked voice came through the line.

“Meg? Yeah. What’s going on?”

She sucked in a deep breath. “Jord.”

There was something in the way she said my name, something that combined with the early morning phone call, filled my stomach with dread.

“What’s wrong?”

I sat up in bed now, pulling the sheets up around my chest, heart pounding.

“Are Mom and Dad okay?”

“Yeah. Mom and Dad are okay.” Her voice shook and I could hear the effort it took for her to pull herself together. “You need to turn on the news. There’s been a crash.”