“You will if she’s not here in ten minutes.” I leaned in. “You promised you’d do as I asked out here, and I’m holding you to it. We’re leaving in ten minutes, whether or not Serena is on board.”
Izzy’s body tensed and her eyes narrowed at me. “And spend the next . . . however long wondering if she’s alive or dead? Wondering if I could have done or said something that could have brought her home? No, Na—” She grimaced but recovered quickly. “Sergeant Green, I’m not going to do that, not again.”
“I don’t think she’s talking about her sister anymore,” Torres whispered before backing away.
“Point made,” I replied, and she lifted her stubborn little chin. “Ms. Astor,” I started again, dropping my voice, more than aware of the people around us, “you can’t control the decisions other people make, nor do you bear the blame for the consequences of their choices.” The fact that we’d made it this far without having this discussion was a miracle, but I sure as hell wasn’t getting into this using some code language, and this was far from the appropriate place.
“You sure about that?” She wrapped her arms around her waist, careful not to catch the printed silk scarf that covered her hair. “Because I’ve had a few years to think about it, and I’m pretty sure if I’d just looked at someone and said, ‘Please come home,’ maybe they would have.” Her eyes searched mine, and I struggled to pick my heart up off the goddamned floor.
She’d never asked. Not outright. Then again, I’d never given her a reason to think I would have stayed.
“Hey, Isa, you ready to head out?” Holt asked as he walked over, stopping to glance between us, his perfectly groomed eyebrows rising. “Did I interrupt?”
“No,” I answered.
“Yes,” Izzy fired back.
“Okay, well, I’m going to head out with Baker and Turner,” he said, retreating slowly.
Kellman whistled as he walked by, herding Holt out the door behind us, leaving only Graham and a couple other operators in the room. If I hadn’t promised her these ten minutes, Izzy would’ve been buckled in on the Blackhawk by now.
“Did you ever think about me?” she questioned, her voice dropping to a whisper.
I clenched my jaw, fighting off the urge to tell her the truth. Every fucking day.
“That’s a loaded question,” I answered finally.
She blinked. “Not like that. I mean, did you ever think about what it felt like to sit there for years and wonder if you were out there somewhere fighting, or if you’d . . . died?” The last word came out strangled. “Do you have any idea how many times I cried myself to sleep, terrified of the possibility that you were buried somewhere? That I wouldn’t even know where to visit your grave?”
Shit. My stomach dropped, and I blew out a slow breath, more than aware of my team trying to give us space. “This isn’t the time.”
“It’s never the time,” she retorted. “That was always the problem, so I guess it’s nice to know some things don’t change. You ask me to ignore”—she gestured between us—“everything, and then you go and pull that bullshit by playing that song in the helicopter? Sorry, Sergeant Green, but not all of us are capable of walking away without so much as looking back like you are. But you moved right on to the next assignment, didn’t you?”
Graham raised his eyebrows where he stood at the middle of the room, then turned his back on us when I sent a glare his way.
“It looks like you moved on just fine,” I whispered, glancing meaningfully to her ring.
She swallowed, then tucked her left hand into her elbow, hiding the ring, and she had the decency to look . . . shit, what was that? Remorseful? “Every day,” she said quietly. “I searched your name on Google every goddamned day, Sergeant Green, terrified that an obituary would pop up. Don’t forget that you were the first term I ever used for a Google Alert. It will destroy me if I have to do the same for Serena.”
I looked away, my ribs squeezing my lungs painfully at the imagery she’d used. That alert had saved my sanity in the past. She had saved my sanity. I owed her more than I’d ever be able to repay in that department, but that didn’t mean I was willing to eviscerate myself by throwing our relationship on the autopsy table. There were things I’d never be able to say to her, never revisit or rehash just so she could have some of that precious closure everyone prattled on about. But this? This I could give her.
“I never changed my next of kin form,” I told her softly, lowering my voice so only she could hear, since we’d somehow gotten back to damn-near yelling.
“What?” She blinked.
“I never changed the paperwork.” I shook my head. “If anything had ever happened to me, someone would have told you. Probably not the details of where, or how, or why. But they would have told you I was dead. Though it might have taken a couple days to track you down, since the last address I had for you was in New York.”
Her entire expression softened, and the sorrow radiating from her eyes sliced into me with lethal precision.
“So now you’ll know when you head back to your real life,” I continued, my hands curling at the thought of the giant rock on her left hand. “No news is good news. Unless you want me to change it, given that your last name probably won’t be Astor for long, and it might make the fiancé wonder why you’re getting notified—”
“No.” She shook her head vehemently. “Don’t change it. I mean, unless someone comes along who needs to know more than I do, of course.” She shifted her weight and glanced away before slowly dragging her gaze back to mine. “Is there someone else who should know?”
“Right through here,” Elston said as he pushed through the front door, saving me the awkwardness of replying to Izzy.
“Thank you, Sergeant Rose,” a female voice replied from behind him.
A voice I recognized. My head swung in the direction of the door as my pulse leapt with hope that this had actually worked.
Izzy took off running, and I didn’t bother to stop her as she dodged the tables and blew by Graham. Elston barely got out of her way before she flung herself at the woman. “Serena!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
IZZY
Tybee Island, Georgia
June 2014
“I never would have taken you for a cookies and cream kind of guy,” I said, taking a lick of my two scoops of butter pecan as Nate and I wandered Tybee aimlessly. I’d tossed my hair up into a messy bun to combat the humidity, leaving my neck and shoulders bare to the June sun.
“Never would have taken you for an ‘ice cream at ten a.m.’ girl, but here we are,” he replied, flashing that damned dimple. And his eyes? Yeah, those were still just as heart stopping as I’d remembered.