Page 5

A gentle breeze brushed ebony strands from her loose ponytail across her lips and rustled the leaves on the nearby trees. She tucked her hair behind her ear and wiped her eyes.
Her brother had been gone for thirteen years. Hard to believe. If Reese’s plane hadn’t gone down in Iraq when she was a teenager, her life would have been completely different. When her older brother died, she’d watched her parents’ hearts shatter. And with it, any dreams she’d harbored about going to college to study art.
She’d forfeited that passion for family. Gone to Oxford instead. Studied computer science. Met a sweet, shy, British boy with stunning blue eyes who became her world until she—
Nope.She slammed the brakes on the direction of her thoughts. Not going there.
Not today.
Ryder came from privilege and hadn’t needed her as her family had. Sometimes, sacrifices had to be made.
Even if they haunted you for the rest of your life.
Her work took precedence over everything. Everyone.
No man had been willing to take second place. No man had interested her enough since Ryder to make her reconsider her goals.
She shook off her maudlin thoughts and swept away new tears. Nothing good ever came from that particular trip down memory lane and now wasn’t the time to wonder what could have been when she had good news to share.
“The project you dreamed about for so long is nearly finished, Dad. It’ll be a game-changer in military aviation, just like you predicted.”
Advances in artificial intelligence had finally given her the key to developing a software platform for the fighter cockpit that would see and analyze every potential threat and proactively respond with both offensive and defensive measures in a split second, faster than the human pilot could even begin to process.
If everything went as planned and the US military bought into her design, Williams Advanced Avionics would have its software incorporated into the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter jet project, or NGAD for short. The company could expand its business, hire more people.
And she could finally close the door on the deal she’d made with the devil eight years ago.
Maybe that’s why memories were pushing their way forward today.
Talking to her father’s headstone was a poor substitute for the real man, but it was getting easier to do without tearing up. It was a comfort to sit between him and her brother and feel their presence in some intangible way.
She closed her eyes, tilting her head to let the early afternoon sun bathe her face. Such a beautiful day, the smell of freshly cut grass, the faint beginnings of fall appearing on the leaves, and if she leaned in and sniffed hard enough, the earthy, rich scent of the mums.
Sun, flowers, a gentle breeze. Just like that beautiful June morning at the Oxford Botanic Garden, right before graduation. Ryder had set up a romantic picnic and scenic backdrop for the proposal she knew was coming.
A place they both loved.
Her lungs tightened. A place she’d tainted with heartbreak.
Shivers scattered across the back of her neck that had nothing to do with the shame she still felt over how she’d treated Ryder. She pulled the edges of her navy cardigan closer and scanned her surroundings.
Someone was watching.
She could feel their eyes on her, invisible icy fingers dancing along her skin. It was happening a lot lately, this feeling.
Two rows away, a woman and two teenage children huddled around another white marker, their backs to her, their indistinct murmur of conversation barely reaching her ears. She twisted her head in the opposite direction, searching.
There.
Beneath the shade of a large maple. A man in gray pants, a white button down, dark sunglasses, and a black ball cap with a maroon “W” on it. She couldn’t make out his features from this distance, but her instincts whispered he was the one.
Or was she imagining it?
Other than the ball cap, he was dressed like he could have been coming from a graveside service.
Keeping her movements unhurried, she rose and brushed bits of grass from her jeans.
“Bye, Dad. I’ll come again soon.” She pressed the tips of her fingers to her lips and brushed the cool stone of her father’s marker, then her brother’s. “Bye, Reese.”