“I’ve lost count.” A tear streaked down her face.

“And how many times have you considered what life would be like if the tables had been turned? If Jagger had died for Will? If my happiness had cost yours?”

She startled. “I… We have Peyton.”

“You’re right. You have your gorgeous son, and he has Will’s name. And I…” I shrugged. “I don’t even have the right to grieve him or to be told that he’s getting the Medal of Honor for choosing to die for you instead of living for me.”

“That’s not what I meant. Of course you do! And I know that what you had with Will was complicated, but it breaks my heart for you to think that he was your happily-ever-after when everything was so up in the air with you two, and what you have here—”

“Up in the air? We were finally on the damned ground!”

“What?”

“Paisley, why do you think he left me a secondary life insurance policy? Left me his truck? Left me his wings and his dog tags? It’s because he left me with a promise, too. He drove down to see me before he deployed, and he told me we’d be together when he got home.”

Paisley’s breath rushed out. “I didn’t know.”

Ember’s face twisted, and she blinked back tears.

“You didn’t know a lot. I was the one who held him together after you dumped him. I was the one who had his wings engraved and then pinned them on his chest. I was the one he kissed the night of the flight school graduation ball, the one he gave a silver wings necklace to, and the one he kissed for the last time days before he died. I was the last phone call he made before that goddamned flight, Paisley, so don’t you sit there and tell me that I didn’t lose my chance. You were so lost in your own happiness that you didn’t even know I had it to begin with.”

My stomach turned at the realization that this rift had started way before Will’s death. It had been growing since she’d moved up to Fort Campbell. Funny, how I’d always stayed behind for her, but she’d left at the first opportunity.

“Oh God, Morgan,” she whispered.

“I was shattered and barely breathing, but I held it together during that funeral, and then I kept breathing when you shit all over my dream and pulverized my feelings between your sweet little fingers when you said he was never meant to be mine anyway.”