Instead, his big hands are on the steering wheel, knuckles white.
My stomach drops.
“Hey,” I say softly, shutting the door and tugging my seat belt on. “Sorry I’m a few minutes late. Professor Whitman kept us back to go over the exam.”
“It’s fine,” he says.
Just that. No “darling,” no little smile, no teasing comment about him storming the building if I didn’t come out in five minutes. Just two flat words, his gaze fixed on the windshield.
Ice trickles down my spine.
He puts the truck in gear and pulls out of the parking lot. The sky is already darkening, the Colorado winter evening coming on fast. Little clusters of students cross the sidewalks, heads bent, backpacks bouncing. A few of them glance at Grant’s truck, at the big, scarred soldier behind the wheel, then double-take when they see me in the passenger seat.
Usually, I’d be too busy melting from his attention to care. Tonight, I barely notice.
Something’s wrong.
I fold my hands in my lap and try to breathe around the tightness in my chest. Maybe he’s tired. He had his doctor’s appointment today, plus physical therapy. The last time he went in, he was in a bad mood for hours afterward, grumbling about being poked and prodded and told to “take it easy.”
“Did you eat?” I ask, searching for neutral ground.
He nods once. “Yeah. I grabbed something at base.”
“Oh.” I swallow. “How did the appointment go?”
His fingers tighten on the wheel.
“We need to talk,” he says finally, voice low.
Four tiny words. Four very dangerous words.
My heartbeat spikes.
Oh, God. I knew it. I knew this was too good to be true.
We’ve been married for a week, long enough to get used to the rhythm of living together, long enough to figure out which side of the bed we each like and how many pillows I need, and the specific way he takes his coffee. Long enough that I’ve let myself relax into it, into him. Into the idea that this might be real.
But it was always supposed to be temporary, right?
A deal.
A marriage of convenience.
Paperwork, he called it, back when he asked me to marry him on the sidewalk outside my crappy apartment building. Just away to get me into med school without drowning in debt, a way to use his GI Bill for something that made sense.
Not… this.
Not a life.
My fingers shake as I reach across the console and find his hand. He hesitates for half a second, then unpeels his fingers from the steering wheel and lets me lace my smaller hand through his.
His palm is warm and rough, the familiar calluses scraping lightly against my skin. My chest aches with how much I love the sensation of his hand around mine. How safe it makes me feel.
“Is it about your doctor’s appointment?” I ask, my voice coming out thin. “Grant, what’s wrong? Are you—Is everything okay?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
The truck’s headlights cut through the early evening gloom as we merge onto the road toward base housing. Snow lines the shoulders, gray and crusted in places from plows and boots. The mountains loom dark in the distance.
