CHAPTERTHREE
Mark plummeted toward the earth, buffeted by the wind rushing past him so that he felt like he was flying, like he was weightless. It was a fucking rush. Unlike Ethan and Ryan, who’d jumped ahead of him—flying tandem with an instructor—Mark got to jump unaccompanied, thanks to his Special Forces training.
Flying solo, the way he did best.
He focused on the landscape below, the green carpet of trees, interwoven with twisting mountain roads and splashed here and there with patches of fall color. For these sixty seconds, he was free as a bird, his mind blissfully empty…just free.
All too soon, it was time to pull the pin and release the chute. The resulting yank of the harness was like reality slamming back into him. It brought with it all the usual chaos in his brain, but today the knowledge that they’d likely crushed Jess’s dreams with their last offer weighed heavily on his mind.
High off the adrenaline rush of his first skydive of the morning, Ethan had insisted they go all out with their counteroffer. With Ryan in full agreement, there was no way for Mark to head them off without sounding like a lovesick idiot because they were right. This was just a business transaction.
Jess wasn’t his girlfriend, not even his friend.
So he needed to put the whole thing out of his mind because the deed was done, the offer had been made. She might hate him a little bit more now, but she hadn’t liked him much to start with so this shouldn’t really change anything between them.
And the fact that he still cared about her, still wanted her, the fact that he felt like an absolute tool for snatching this land out from underneath her? Well, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t let it. He was one-third owner of Off-the-Grid so his ultimate responsibility was to his partners and his business. Not Jess.
Below him, the trees were getting bigger as he drifted toward them. The landing field stood out as a bright rectangle of green grass amid the darker trees with the stray stripe of the runway down one side. He pulled the left toggle, steering for the middle of the field, where he could see Ethan and Ryan engaged in some kind of mock fight.
Fuckers. He felt himself grinning.
He swooped in near them, pulled down on both toggles to slow his descent, and landed at a jog.
“You don’t have to make that look so easy,” Ethan said as he walked over. “I landed flat on my ass both times.”
Mark shrugged, hiding his smile.
“It’s good for you to land on your ass every now and then,” Ryan told him. “Keeps you humble, bro.”
“Fuck you,” Ethan shot back. He rammed into Ryan with his shoulder, and they both went down, still laughing.
“Easy,” Mark said as he began unclipping himself from his harness and chute. “I promised your wife”—he pointed at Ryan—“and your future wife”—he pointed at Ethan—“that I’d bring you home from this gig in one piece.”
Two hours later, they’d just finished devouring three large plates of ribs and were ready to move on to the next stop on their brewery tour of Boone. There were three in town, and they planned to hit them all. Ryan and Ethan hoped to be totally shit-faced by the time they called it a night.
Mark would stay sober enough to drive their sorry asses home at the end of the night. He didn’t mind. He hadn’t been drunk since high school. Back then, he’d gotten hammered any chance he had and done a lot of stupid shit as a result. Since joining the Army, he preferred to stay in control of his body and his senses.
So he’d have a couple of beers, but that was it.
“You know, I keep waiting for those cold feet everyone talks about,” Ethan said. He drained his beer, looking thoughtful. “But the truth is, I can’t wait to marry Gabby on Saturday.”
“That’s because she’s The One for you, man,” Ryan said. “When it’s right, you’ve got nothing to lose. I never got cold feet with Emma either.”
“Might be because you had a shotgun wedding,” Mark commented, taking another drink of his beer.
Ryan grinned. “Yo, I make no excuses for that. It all worked out how it was supposed to. We’d have gotten married sooner or later anyway, but I’m glad it happened sooner. Hey, did you guys know we find out the sex in a few weeks?”
“You’re going to find out about sex?” Ethan said with a shit-eating grin on his face. “That ship has already sailed, hasn’t it?”
Ryan elbowed him in the ribs. “The sex of thebaby, dimwit.”
“That’s great, man,” Ethan said, sobering.
“Emma thinks it’s a girl. I’m kind of hoping for a boy, but it doesn’t really matter to me one way or the other. Our kid’s going to be outside climbing rocks and shit regardless.”
Mark felt a strange pang as he thought about Ryan and Emma becoming parents. Ethan and Gabby tying the knot this weekend. He felt empty somehow. Hollow. Like the part of him that needed to create a family had shriveled up and died all those years he’d been bounced around foster care with no family of his own.
What would it feel like to come home to a wife, a couple of kids? The idea was so foreign that he couldn’t even imagine it. A brief image of Jess flitted through his head. Jess in his arms, holding him tight. Jess beneath him in bed while he lost himself inside her the way he never had with any woman but her.
