Free Into the Blue (A Wild Aces Romance) by Chanel Cleeton

Through the town grapevine I’d heard she made sure there were flowers on his grave every single week. It looked like today Eric had made the journey for her.
    Our gazes caught across the gravestones and he gave me a little nod, hesitating as though he wasn’t sure if he should approach me or not, as if he was waiting for me to make a move, no doubt remembering how we’d left things this morning. Part of me just wanted to be alone, but another part couldn’t turn my back on him.
    I gave a little nod and he began walking toward me, his strides slow and measured. We didn’t speak, but he sat down next to me on the wooden bench, staring at the spot where both my parents lay, in a position we’d assumed so many times before.
    I waited for him to say something, but he seemed just as content to sit in the silence as I was, and so we stayed there, close but not touching, a weird sort of peace drifting over me as the beginnings of dusk spread out over the cemetery.
    Finally I spoke. “If we’re going to be around each other, and let’s face it, in a town like Bradbury it’ll happen, I don’t want to talk about us every time. I don’t want to keep rehashing the past. I can’t.”
    “Okay.” He was quiet for a minute. “Are you okay?”
    He knew me well enough to know my habits, to know that I came here when I was upset, when I felt unmoored and needed to get my bearings.
    “I had a bad case today.”
    “What happened?”
    “DUI.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “It’s a second offense, but you know he’ll just get a slap on the wrist.” I stared at those two stones, my vision growingblurry. “But what happens next time? What if he gets into the car with a passenger or he hits someone else rather than a tree? It just seems like we should do more to protect the innocent, like there should be greater consequences for taking a life.”
    “It has to be frustrating when you don’t see justice served.”
    “It is. I know I’m supposed to believe in the system, have faith in the fact that it works the way it’s supposed to, but sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it feels like the system fails the people it’s supposed to protect and I’m just a part of it.” I leaned back, stretching my legs out, wishing I hadn’t forgone yoga. I spent so much time hunched at my desk that by the end of the day I was always sore, my muscles full of kinks. “I shouldn’t complain. I’m sorry. It was just”—I kept settling on that word—“frustrating,” I finished. “I guess I thought more justice would be served, that being an attorney meant I could help people. Sometimes I feel so impotent.”
    “You don’t have to apologize. Believe me, I get it.” He looked up at the sky and away from me. “You don’t know how many times I ask myself what I’m doing, why I’m doing it. It feels like we never really accomplish anything, and even when we do, someone just goes and undoes the work. It puts the losses in perspective, I guess.
    “My friend’s name was Joker. He was a great guy. A really great guy. He was our squadron commander, our boss, but he was the kind of guy who you could have a beer with, who cared if you were having a bad day, if there was shit going on in your life. He was like a brother, and I looked up to him a lot.”
    “I’m so sorry.”
    “He had a wife. Dani. She was amazing. Kind of anunofficial ‘mom’ to all of us. His death destroyed her. Seeing her like that . . .” His voice trailed off. “It was hard. Really hard to come back when he didn’t.
    “With Joker . . .” Again his voice faded, but then seemed to grow stronger. “I just wonder if his death was worth it. That doesn’t sound right. It’s just . . . we go into combat ready to die. No question. We all want to come home, no one wants to lose their life, but we assume that risk because there’s a purpose to our missions, the assumption that we’re giving our lives for something bigger than ourselves. But he didn’t die in