school was important. With no money, nothing but brains and ambition, he had done exactly as she’d suggested that summer. He had qualified for ROTC to finance college. It was the only time she’d given advice and it had actually worked out. In exchange for his Ivy League education, he owed the next four years of his life to the air force, longer if he later qualified for pilot training.
This service incursion meant he might be sent anywhere in the world.
Anywhere but here, she thought, thinking about the place she called home—impossibly small, impossibly quaint Avalon, of absolute zero strategic value to the military.
She double-checked the date of the event.
Yes, she was free that day. Wendela’s Wedding Wonders employed several photographers and technicians, and Daisy wasn’t scheduled for anything that weekend. She could ask Logan to watch Charlie, and she could go to the event in Ithaca, camera in hand, to document this most auspicious moment.
She wanted to go. She needed to go. She needed to find some serious private time with Julian. After years of yearning for him, years of stumbling toward each other, only to be pulled apart by circumstances, she finally saw her chance.
Once and for all, she would do what she should have done long ago.
It was time to get real with Julian, with herself. She would have to be completely honest. Finally, after all this time, she was going to tell him exactly how she felt. Judging by his cryptic note on the back, she suspected he might be thinking the same thing.
Three
Falling through thin air at a speed of 150 mph, Julian Gastineaux exulted in the way the g-force of the wind seemed to enter his very essence. It ripped at every seam of his jumpsuit, filled his nose and mouth, turned his face into a nightmare visage of distorted features. He felt caught up in a power that was greater than any man, and it was the ultimate trip.
Kind of like being in love.
Unlike love, this was an optional training exercise. Although in his opinion, when offered a chance to jump out of a plane, a guy’s only option was to go for it. His work in the field was done, but he’d never been one to say no to a jump. He might be crazy but he wasn’t an idiot who’d turn down the opportunity. He loved the feeling of weightlessness and knowing that beneath him there was nothing but sky. He could see the patchwork countryside of middle New York State—undulating hills, river-fed farmland, a spectacular array of long lakes gouged out of the landscape as if by giant claws.
His altimeter vibrated, signaling that it was time to quit admiring the scenery. He loosed the pilot chute into the airstream.
A wind shear swooped in at the worst possible moment. As the bridle of the pilot chute was supposed to be pulling out the deployment bag of the main chute, control was torn from him.
And just like that, the optional training exercise turned to a nightmare. He was sent careening off target—way off target, way too fast, at the mercy of the stream. Grinding out curses through clenched teeth, he managed to wrestle the deployment bag out. The lines were supposed to release one stow at a time, but they were a tangled mess. The main chute was lopsided, out of control. He worked the toggles to slow the wind as the stream rushed him toward a dense thicket of trees.
He signaled Mayday, let out another string of violent curses and said a prayer.
The prayer was answered, sort of. He hadn’t slammed into the ground at 150 mph, turning himself into a pancake of blood and gristle. Instead, he’d managed to navigate a little and slow down. The landing wasn’t quite what he’d been aiming for, though.
Hanging upside down in his parachute harness, he surveyed the world from a unique vantage point. Pliant branches, covered in new leaves, bobbed up and down with his weight. He could see nothing but green and brown, no sign of civilization anywhere.
Damn. This had been the final exercise of his training here, and it was supposed to go well.
He forced himself to be slow and deliberate as he considered what to do. Blood trickled from somewhere on his face. He hurt in a lot of places; nothing felt broken, though his shoulder flared with fire. It might be dislocated. His goggles were completely wrecked. Just reaching for his utility knife caused him to slip too fast toward the ground, so he went still, trying to plan his next move. Breaking his neck right before commissioning would be the lamest of moves, for sure. And Daisy—he didn’t even want to think about what it would do to his plans for her and hoped like hell this mishap was not a bad omen.
He was still pondering his options, noting the strange feeling in his head, when a crashing noise sounded somewhere in the woods. A few minutes later a small figure in a jumpsuit appeared.
“You’re a damn maniac, that’s what you are,” railed Sayers, one of his training partners. She was a no-nonsense girl from Selma, Alabama, and she reminded Julian of some of his relatives in Louisiana. Except that unlike those relatives, Tanesha Sayers was duty-bound to give aid and assistance to her fellow officer in training.
“Fool,” she blustered, “you’re damned lucky your beacon worked. Otherwise you’d be swinging here till you turn purple in the head and die. Hell, I ought to let you turn purple.”
Julian let her yammer on. He made no excuses for himself; no sense blaming the wind shear. Besides, Sayers was basically harmless. She had an uncanny ability to berate a person roundly and simultaneously get things done. Slated for commissioning, same as Julian, she would make a good officer. She chewed him out, all the while hoisting herself up into the branches where he was caught and using a utility knife to cut him free.
“You got your own knife,” she pointed out. “Why the hell didn’t you get yourself down?”
“I was going to. Wanted to make sure I didn’t cut the wrong strap and land on my—” He plunged to the ground, slamming against the forest floor. He felt the impact despite his helmet.
“Head,” he finished. “Thanks, Mom.” In the unit, Sayers’s nickname was Mom because, although she fussed and bossed everyone around, she cared about each one of them with the fierceness of a mother bear.
“Don’t thank me, fool,” she said. “Just you hold still while I put a field dressing on that wound.”
“What wound?” He gingerly touched his forehead, feeling a warm slickness at his hairline. Great.
She jumped down, landing with a grunt, and radioed the base.
He wiped his hand on his jumpsuit, and that was when he thought about the ring. He’d carried it around for a long time. Even during the jump, he had kept it in a pocket next to his heart, layers deep, zipped up tight.
When the ring was offered to Daisy, it wasn’t going to be like last time, in the midst of a fistfight on a train platform, for Chrissake. This time.
He ripped open the Velcro collar tab at his throat and plunged his hand inside, fingers grappling with a zipper closure on his shirt.
Sayers knelt down in front of him. “What’s the matter?”
“Just checking for—ah.” Julian went limp with relief as his hand closed around the ring box. He pulled it out and flipped it open to reveal the prize—a certified nononflict diamond in a warm gold setting, engraved on the inner curve with “Forever.” He angled the box so Sayers could check it out.
She studied it thoughtfully. “Sorry, Jughead,” she said, using his nickname, “but I don’t love you in quite that way.”
“Sure you do.” He snapped the lid shut and tucked the box away. “You’re on your knees, baby.”
“Mmm.” She ripped open a blister pack of sterile wipes. “It’s your wounds I love. I swear, Jughead, you are a walking, talking crash test dummy. I love that about you.”
Sayers wanted to attend medical