Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 145823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
“Oh! I brought something for you!” Paisley exclaimed, dropping to her knees and digging something out of their diaper bag before standing again. “We just sent them out last week, but I wanted to give it to you in person.” She handed Morgan an envelope.
“Thank you,” Morgan said as she took it. She slid a card from the ivory casing, and her entire posture changed as she read it.
“Burgers!” Javier yelled.
I held up my finger in the universal symbol for wait a fucking minute.
“What?” Morgan whispered as her brow scrunched and her shoulders drew inward. Devastated. She looked completely and utterly devastated. What the fuck was on that card?
I rose to my feet.
“I thought you might want to come…you know. If you’re feeling up to it.” Paisley’s smile trembled.
“Kitty?” I questioned softly, coming to her side. I wasn’t going to look over her shoulder or pry into anything she wasn’t ready to welcome me into.
Morgan shoved the card at my chest and stared at the sand a few feet away.
On behalf of the President of the United States, the secretary of the Army requests the pleasure of your company at the awarding of the Medal of Honor to William Carter—
I stopped reading. Holy. Shit. Will was getting the Medal of Honor.
“He would have wanted you there, Morgan,” Paisley said softly.
Morgan shifted, and I forgot the card in my hand. My girl didn’t have an ounce of that devastation on her face now. Oh no, it was all anger and indignation.
The storm she’d fought so long and hard to keep off her coastline was here.
“Little Bird,” Jagger said softly, touching his wife’s elbow as he took in the same signs I did.
“Morgan?” Paisley stepped forward, oblivious to the danger.
“I might want to come?” Morgan’s voice was so quiet the breeze off the ocean nearly carried it away.
“Well…don’t you?” Paisley took another step with obvious, honest concern.
Ember and Sam positioned themselves so the group made a square, both watching the other women with all of the caution Paisley should have shown.
“Honey,” Jagger tried again, reaching for his wife’s elbow. She shook him off.
He looked my way beseechingly, but I took one look at Morgan’s rigid muscles, the fire in her eyes, and remembered that this was the stage in her therapy where she was supposed to confront the people who triggered her, and Paisley was the biggest trigger she had.
I slowly shook my head at Jagger and stepped to the side, effectively getting the hell out of Morgan’s way.
“I might want to come?” Morgan shouted. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Chapter Eighteen
Morgan
I’m showing up empty-handed to this party, and the most amazing thing about you is that you don’t care. You just want me, and I can’t figure out why, but I’m done fighting it. You want this mess? It’s yours. Just enjoy your last nine months of freedom—I mean, hopefully not too much or anything—because once I get home, we’re doing this thing.
Paisley drew back like I’d slapped her. Her shock and hurt were obvious, and I just didn’t care. I was beyond caring.
“You don’t want to come?” Her brow puckered.
“You sent the invitations last week? You, Paisley, were given the invitations, and then you chose not to mail one to me? Not to let me know that Will—my Will—was getting the Medal of Honor?” My voice didn’t even sound like mine anymore.
She blinked. “I told you, I wanted to give it to you in person. You said you were struggling—”
“I hadn’t even invited you here when you mailed them out! What were you going to do? Wait until the week before the ceremony, just hoping that I’d be up for talking then?”
“I’d…I hoped that you’d call. And you did. Well, you texted, which isn’t really the same, but—”
“Who the hell gave you the right to keep information about Will from me?”
Paisley’s gaze darted to Ember, then Sam. Sam took a step closer. To support or restrain me? I didn’t know, and I didn’t give a shit.
“You said you were in therapy. That you couldn’t talk about him. That you needed space! I was just trying to give you that space! I figured that when you were ready, you’d call and I’d tell you.” Sweet mercy, the woman had the audacity to look hurt.
“God, I’m trying so hard!” I screamed at the sky. “I thought I was ready for this, but maybe I’m not.”
“Don’t walk away,” she begged when I retreated a step. “Morgan, you’ve been my best friend all my life, and the silent treatment is killing me!”
“Killing you?” I fumbled for words as my soul scraped over a cheese grater, cut to tiny, shredded pieces by the blades of my anger and my own guilt for feeling it. “It’s killing you?”
“Please talk to me! If it’s the invitation, then you don’t have to come, and I wasn’t trying to keep it from you, I swear. I was just trying to protect you like you’ve protected me our entire lives.” Her hands rose beseechingly, as if she could tug me back to emotionally stable ground.