Anna gimped along behind her. “Some days I wonder how Brad puts up with you.”
“Are you serious? Somebody has to kill those bloody rays of sunshine he’s always crapping out.” She grinned, still riding the newlywed high. It was like a happiness record for her. “But they do make him kinda cute, don’t they?”
Anna winced. “If you say so.”
“Hey, Brad Skyped with Rodney the other night. He said to tell you even covered in Sprite, you’re still better looking than the goats over there. But he thinks they might sing better.”
That wasn’t nearly as embarrassing as it should’ve been.
They’d almost reached the conference room when Brad himself barreled around the corner, the receptionist jogging after him, insisting he didn’t have clearance to be in the building. His uniform blouse was unbuttoned, and he hadn’t taken his hat off. His skin matched the gray camouflage of his uniform. The sheen of grief in his eyes and his uneven stagger sucked every bit of rightness from the hallway.
Anna’s heart dipped to her toes then ricocheted up like it was on a bungee cord.
Jules went pale. “Ohmigod,” she breathed. “Rodney?”
He crushed her against him, raw pain twisting his face. He blinked rapidly over shiny eyes, and when he spoke, his voicewas husky and cracked. “Fuckers got him with an IED.”
“Is he?—”
“Gone.”
Anna’s limbs turned to silly putty. She choked on theNo!in her throat.
Jules pounded a fist on Brad’s chest. “Shut up,” she said, her tone weak and watery.
She needed to give them their privacy, but she couldn’t move. Any moment now, Brad would sayNever mind, gotcha.
Except he didn’t.
He stood clutching his wife, trembling and shaking and gasping.
Anna’s throat clogged and her chest ached. For Brad. For Jules. For Rodney. She tried to swallow, but her mouth had gone dry and her jaw was clenched too tight for her tongue to work right.
Shirley stepped outside the conference room. She surveyed the lot of them, dismissed the receptionist with a flick of her finger, then gave Anna’s elbow a tug. Anna’s joints flexed, and soon she was inside the conference room, the door closed against Brad’s and Jules’s grief.
“His brother,” Anna said. The words rolled past her lips, becoming more real as they lingered in the air.
“Goddamned war.” Shirley’s eyes took on a gloss that disappeared in a blink. “You okay?”
She wasn’t, but she nodded anyway.
Shirley seemed to get it. “Good. We might not be out in the trenches ourselves, but they count on us to get ’em in and out of there. You know enough to brief the customer today?”
She took a shaky breath. “Yes, ma’am.”
Giving the quarterly briefing wouldn’t change Rodney’s fate, but this was something small she could do for Jules. And the presentation wasnormal, organized and color-coded, something tenuous and logical.
Inconsequential in the grand scheme of life, but normal.
When it was finally over, Jules and Brad were gone. Annaslipped outside for a hit of fresh air. The stench of boiled asphalt smacked her in the face instead. She took refuge at a picnic table beneath an umbrella in a small grassy area behind the building, then pulled out her phone. Three clicks later, it rang on the other end. “Dr. Vaughn’s office,” a cheery voice with a familiar Northern drawl said.
“Hey, Trina, it’s Anna. Is Beth busy?”
“I think she’s finishing up a filling. You want me to have her call you back?”
“Yeah, that—” A lump clogged Anna’s throat. “No, actually, I need to talk to her now.”
“Okay, hon, hold on one sec, okay?”
