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

combat; he died on a training mission. What did he give his life for?
    “When he died, there was this big push in the media, like we were heroes or something, but the thing is, I don’t feel like a hero. And I don’t necessarily want to, either, but I do want to feel like the sacrifice is worth it, and right now, I just feel, I don’t know . . . like I’m coming up short or something. Like I spent my professional career trying to make my life mean something important, trying to make a difference, and at the end of the day, what have I really accomplished?
    “There was an upgrade to the jet a couple months ago. One that had been in the pipeline for a while, but just trickled down to all of the squadrons. It would have saved his life if he’d had it. Two months made the difference. Where’s the purpose in that? Two fucking months.”
    I recognized the anger, the grief, the confusion. Understood exactly how he felt. But if he’d come here looking for some kind of explanation or understanding, I wasn’t sure I had any to give. When I’d lost my parents, I hadn’t known how to deal. I’d gone to counseling, had tried to move past it, but it hadn’t been some enlightening experience; I didn’t learn the meaning of life or anything like that. All I couldsay was that I’d come through it to the other end. Somehow. Sort of.
    “I wish I had a good answer. Wish I could say something that would make you feel better. I asked myself that question so many times when my parents died. I tried to understand how it could have happened, was obsessed with the idea that if they’d just left a few seconds later, if the guy had one less beer, stayed at the bar two minutes longer, they’d still be alive.” I stared at those stones again, at the date etched there. “You go crazy thinking like that, and still, the answers never come.”
    He reached between us, taking my hand and linking our fingers, squeezing, giving me something to hold on to, even for a moment. It was blurring the lines, but I couldn’t resist.
    “I’m figuring that out. I just haven’t gotten to the letting go part.”
    “That’s the hardest part. The part that takes time. You always carry a part of it with you, but it becomes just infinitesimally smaller somehow. You still have days when it hits you, days when it’s harder to deal with than others. But you get through it.”
    “You were so young when you lost your parents.”
    “Yeah, I was.”
    “I don’t know how you did it.”
    I shrugged. “I had to. There were times when I didn’t think I could. Times when all I wanted was to be with them. That goes, too, though. As does the guilt. You find other things to live for, to get you up in the morning, other ways to honor them.”
    “Like you’re doing now.”
    “I hope so. On good days, I feel like my life has somepurpose. Like I’m helping people. On the not-so-good days, I feel like I’m drowning a bit.”
    He didn’t say anything, but then again, he didn’t need to. We’d always understood each other, always had this kind of connection.
    I didn’t know if it was the being raised by grandmothers thing, or the fact that we were both working on ourselves, both searching for something beyond us, both wanting more than what we had that brought us together, but there had been something there that had formed an instant connection, one that had yet to taper off, even as I wished it didn’t exist at all. He understood me in a way I wasn’t sure anyone else did.
    He swallowed, his voice strained. “I’m sorry about your grandmother. I heard she passed away a few years ago. I should have called.”
    “I didn’t expect you to.”
    “I still should have. I wanted to. I just didn’t think you would want to hear from me and I didn’t want to make things worse for you, to hurt you more than I already had.”
    I wondered if his grandmother had kept him in the loop about all the changes in my life, how many times he’d thought of me. I