Not a grave.
Not fire.
A life.
I clung to that thought because the alternative was admitting I had proposed to one woman while loving another, and there were not enough painkillers in New Mexico to make that truth bearable.
“You’re right,” I said.
Georgia stilled.
I forced the words up through my ruined throat.
“You’re my fiancée.”
Her breath caught.
“I asked you,” I said. “I gave you that ring. I made a promise.”
Her tears kept falling, but her eyes sharpened on me with desperate hope.
“I meant to keep it,” I said.
The sentence tasted like blood.
Georgia leaned closer. “Meant?”
I hated myself.
“Mean,” I corrected.
Her eyes searched mine.
I held her gaze because looking away would have been too honest.
“I mean to keep it,” I said again.
There.
The line drawn.
The plan back in place.
Georgia closed her eyes, and relief moved through her so visibly it almost broke me.
Almost.
But relief was not peace.
When she opened her eyes again, they were still wet. Still afraid. But there was fight in them now.
“Then we fight for us,” she said.
Us.
Another word that should have felt like an anchor.
Instead, it felt like chains I had forged myself and handed to a woman who thought they were vows.
