Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 72154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
-Kayla to Parker
Kayla
The next weekend, once again, I found myself in a car with Parker.
This time, though, we were driving to Virginia where Parker would be attending the Wreaths Across America wreath hanging ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.
“Why do you come here, of all places?”
Parker grinned as he pointed out a tattoo on his arm.
It was a list of dates. All precisely placed to be in a perfect rectangle on the fleshy part of his forearm.
“I have a buddy here,” he said. “He was with me through the SEALS. On our last mission, he took a sniper bullet straight to the heart…a bullet that was meant for me.”
My mouth fell open.
“Really?”
He nodded. “Really. I’d been standing in the same place just moments before, but we got in a shoving match because he’d eaten one of my Jolly Ranchers that I’d been saving…and then he was gone.”
The idea that Parker had come so close to losing his life had never occurred to me…though it should have.
I’d seen the scars all over his body and had firsthand knowledge of what every one of those scars felt like against my lips. A man didn’t get scars like that without having at least a somewhat dangerous life.
I should have known. I mean, it was more than obvious.
But to know that a bullet had once been aimed at him, with the sole purpose of killing him, was enough to take my breath away.
I couldn’t imagine my life without Parker in it.
I couldn’t even imagine what I would do, let alone how I would react.
Just the idea of him no longer being there to talk to me when I was having a bad day was debilitating.
That point was hammered home hours later when we arrived for the Wreath Ceremony, and I saw just how many lives had been lost of people who had served our country just as Parker had.
Seeing the thousands and thousands of graves in that cemetery showed me that life wasn’t promised.
It also showed me that I was taking my life for granted. I expected to wake up every day. I also expected to go to sleep every night.
However, that wasn’t guaranteed for me, and neither was it for him.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
I swallowed and nodded, still keeping my thoughts to myself.
I didn’t want him to know that I was all of a sudden scared shitless at the thought of losing him.
It seemed like a stupid reason for me to be near tears.
But, I was.
I was scared.
Because there were some scary people in this world—like the serial killer that was sweeping the South by storm—and what if one day something completely out of the blue happened to him and took him away from me?
What would I do?
Honestly, I just didn’t know.
After the ceremony, we headed back to Parker’s truck, and he drove to the hotel where he had booked our room.
The hotel overlooked the Potomac River, and it had a stunning view—even if everything was covered in snow and ice.
I’d never once left the south, so seeing all this white stuff was like a different world for me.
Which was why I asked him if we could go take a walk in the park moments after arriving in our room.
“Can we go outside to that park? I really would love to see it up close.”
He grinned at me, and without a word, he re-donned the coat he’d just taken off, picked up his key card, and gestured to the door. “Let’s go.”
The park was within walking distance of the hotel, and I marveled at the beauty.
I was so flabbergasted with the snow—and it was everywhere!—that I didn’t even feel the cold.
We walked, and Parker stayed at my side despite his being adamant that I was getting too cold.
“Have you ever had to live anywhere like this?”
He shook his head. “No. Florida. Louisiana. Texas. And California. Plus where I was stationed overseas.”
“At least you have that. I’ve ever only lived in Texas. I feel like I’m in a different country,” I admitted.
He grunted, but he didn’t reply.
I looked over at him to see his eyes trained on something in front of us, and I turned to see what he was staring at.
A kid and a dog, as well as a clearly-not-paying-attention-to-her-kid mother who was playing with her phone on a park bench.
Parker and I watched as the kid chased after the dog.
Parker tensed, and I frowned. “Why isn’t that dog on a leash?”
But I wasn’t seeing the importance of where the dog and the boy were standing until a loud crack, followed by the boy disappearing through the layer of ice that he’d once been standing on.
I gasped, frozen in at first confusion and then fear.
Parker didn’t.
One second he was at my side, and the next he was sprinting so fast across the snow that he was kicking powder up in the air in his wake.