“You still love me.”

“With every piece of my soul. Love isn’t strong enough for what I feel for you, Josh Walker. A few months and your headboard could never change that.”

“My headboard?”

Embarrassment heated my cheeks to match my hair, no doubt. “The night you won division?” He still looked confused. “Your headboard bangs against your wall, my wall.”

His eyes widened, and he had the nerve to smile that heart-stopping grin. “I wasn’t here that night. After the game, I only wanted to be with you, and I couldn’t, so I drove ten hours to my mom’s. That wasn’t me. The only woman I’ve ever taken to this bed is you. I’d rather burn it than sleep here with anyone else. God, I haven’t touched another girl in that way since we were together. You can’t replace perfection.”

The weight that held me down since that night lifted. I smiled, using his words against him. “You still love me.”

“Every fucking second I breathe. I will love you the rest of my life, December Howard, whether or not you’re around to witness it. You may think you’re weak, but you’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known.” He dug his fingers through my pulled-up hair and brought me down to his mouth.

Before I lost all sanity, I pulled back. “I can’t. Loving you is so easy, and when you touch me, I lose everything about myself in you. I can’t be what you need.”

His eyes widened, taking on a desperate sheen, and his fingers tightened on my skin. “December, you mean more to me than this, my career, this uniform. I owe four years, and I can’t get out of that, but I’ll resign. Just four years and I’ll come back for you.”

God, yes! The carefree girl inside me wanted to grasp for it, to claim him as my own. I could do four years of waiting, especially if it was for Josh. But four years wasn’t enough for him, not really. “I would never be responsible for you turning your back on this. You said you were going career, and I won’t ever be the one who holds you down.”

The tears that welled in his eyes, and the one that slipped down his face, were nearly my undoing. “How can we love each other this much and not make it? Why does a love like ours hurt us both so badly?”

I brushed his tear away and checked my own. “Maybe love this exquisite, this powerful isn’t meant to last forever. Maybe we’re meant to burn so brightly for each other right now to light whatever path we’re heading down, but there’s no sustaining a fire like this.”

He brought my hand over his heart, where the fire in his tattoo began. “I’ll carry it with me, Ember. You.” He tapped my hand against the flames. “Here. Always. It’s you, fire and ice; everything I know that’s December.” He took a shaking breath. “Will you come next Thursday? For my commissioning?”

I shook my head. “Dad’s company comes home that day, and I promised Mom I’d go.”

He nodded, disappointment etched in the sad curve of his mouth, the diminished sheen of his eyes. “Maybe it’s better this way. I leave for Officer Basic Course two days later. I guess this is a cleaner cut, right? So why the fuck does it feel like I’m being ripped in two?”

“Because I am, too.” I smiled as best as I could, knowing I had to go, knowing if I stayed one more moment I’d give in and pay for it down the road. “I guess if you put us together, we’d make a whole person.”

His grip tightened almost painfully in my hair. It felt desperate, frantic, the need that clawed through me to be with him, to stay here forever. But if he had this much of me now, how much would he have in three years? Seven? The day they came to tell me he was gone? I wouldn’t survive it. No. At least now I would live, even if it was halfhearted bullshit, and I’d settle for a love ten percent of this.

“At least we had this. Most people don’t get to experience real love, and we did. You’re not going to be a regret, Joshua Walker. You’re my biggest blessing.” I slipped off his lap and bent forward, pressing my lips to his incredible, inked skin where the flames and ice met. I pulled back far too soon, and way too late, leaving a piece of my soul embedded in that tattoo, as close to his heart as I could get.

I would never get over Josh Walker.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The Welcome Home Center on Fort Carson could have lit the world for the amount of energy emanating from the families there. Palpable excitement hung in the air. The smiles of children waving American flags astonished me with sheer beauty. This is what joy looked like.

I’d never come to a homecoming ceremony before. Mom had always gone alone, needing that time with Dad, and we’d waited at home, baking god-awful cookies that Dad would devour and claim were the best he’d ever had. It was our tradition.

I shifted in my seat on the bleachers, pulling my sundress down to cover more of my thighs. The wood was slowly putting my butt to sleep. I played with the clasp of the purse in my lap, knowing full well what was inside, knowing the time had come for this envelope. Well, almost.

A little girl, about a year old, toddled up the bleachers, holding her mom’s hand, and sat two rows down. Her tutu was red, white, and blue, matching the obnoxiously wonderful bow in her hair. Her mother fussed with her shirt, and then began tapping her foot, releasing nervous energy.

I knew that feeling, what it meant to wait, knowing everything was about to be okay. The minute he walked through that door, life would stop being a half-existence and would start in earnest again. Despite what I was here for, I smiled, taking in some of that woman’s joy.