Page 60 of Mariposa (Queens Command #1)

VIOLET

Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol

A warm, summer breeze swirls into my hair as I stare at my grandmother’s charcoaled tombstone.

Grace Isla passed away a few days after Kade’s shocking return. We buried her with all her favorite things, including the blue bear and letters from Graham.

The night before my grandma passed, she had a moment of clarity. It came so abruptly, I thought I was dreaming. But when she looked at me, how she always does, with an infinite, unbreakable grandmotherly bond and a smile drawn on her pale, tired face.

It felt like taking a breath of fresh air, even though I knew the wave was coming any day.

“Are you scared of dying?” I ask her as the tears cling to my lashes.

“No,” she says confidently with no skips in her tone. “I used to be, but not anymore.”

“Grandma, if you die, I will too. I won’t ever accept it.” I grip her hand tighter, struggling to hold the sobs in my constricted chest.

“It’s a part of life. We will see each other again. Have faith. Be strong. And you do have me, you will always have me, mija, remember that.”

“I can’t believe she’s gone…” I murmur. My dry, sore eyes are completely drained from crying so much. I’ve got a soul-draining, pounding headache. I palm my lower belly as nausea creeps into my senses.

“I…I did something unforgivable,” my grandpa whispers.

“Grandpa, I’m sure it wasn’t so bad.” I quirk a brow at him, holding sympathy. I rub my hand against his back comfortingly.

“You think I don’t know my wife’s heart always belonged to someone else?”

I grow quiet as my heartbeat quickens and pulses into my ears.

“You think I didn’t know about Graham?” He coughs hoarsely. He brings a napkin to his lips and wipes his sniffles away. “She stopped getting his letters because I hid them from her.”

My brows raise.

“Grandpa!” I hiss.

“I was a jealous bastard. I wanted her to look at me the way she looked at him. I wanted her to miss me the way she missed him. I just wanted her. So I did something so selfish.”

I shift away from him, completely blindsided by his confession. He’s the reason why Graham and my grandmother thought the time and distance were driving them apart.

“She thought he forgot about her. Everyone in the diner told her to be happy because they saw what his absence was doing to her. Everyone told her she was naive for waiting for an older man. That he was probably a soldier cheating on her while he was away, she was losing weight, and the beautiful, bright, cheery glint in Grace’s eyes was gone.

I didn’t partake in the gossip, but I did intervene.

I thought it was best to make her forget him and take matters into my own hands,” he scoffs with a bitter laugh.

“She got Alzheimer’s at eighty years old, and still, she thinks about him, and not me. ”

I can’t help but feel bad.

“Did Grandma know?” I ask.

“Yes. After his funeral, and a month had passed, I told her what I had done,” he sobs. “I regretted it. I hated myself for it. I was an immature piece of crap, and now she had to really learn how to live her life without Graham.”

Chewing the inside of my lip, I turn my gaze towards her tombstone.

“For a whole year, she couldn’t look at me.

Until one day, she showed up at my house and forgave me.

Eventually, she gave me a second chance, but in the back of my mind”— he tilts his head side to side—“I wondered if every time she kissed me, it was Graham she was picturing? Was it his voice she imagined? And the final moments of her beautiful life confirmed it for me. It was always him…I was the second choice.”

I purse my lips, glancing from my grandmother’s tombstone to my hands nervously.

“She loved you both. Grandma loved you and him; you were not a second choice. I think it’s possible to experience more than one love in your lifetime.”

He shakes his head.

“All those letters you guys read together, she didn’t get most of them when he was still alive because of me.”

His freckled hand shakily reaches the inside of his black coat and slowly takes out a stack of letters. My eyes widen when I see they’re all from Graham. He slowly gives them to me.

“Take care of these for her.”

I hold them close to my chest as my grandpa continues to sulk.

I can’t imagine being married to someone for over sixty years, knowing she never got over her first love.

Grandpa loved my grandma so much that he didn’t care; he married her knowing her heart was tethered to another.

As long as he had her, that was enough for him.

I trace Graham’s handwriting as I ponder whether he knew my grandmother loved him. She sent him a letter to break things off after everyone back home convinced her he didn’t want her, but I wonder if he could see through that moment of uncertainty.

My grandfather continues to cry silently.

We sit next to each other and grieve my grandmother.

Before we leave, we sing her favorite songs and discuss our favorite things about her.

All the fun stories and recipes I’ll always get wrong because no matter how many times I try to cook them the way she taught me, the food never comes out quite like hers.

Hooking my arm with his, we leave her resting place together.

Wiping away the grief-fueled tears from my sore eyes, a flock of Monarch butterflies flies past my face.

My breath catches in my throat as I watch them travel so effortlessly, free and beautiful.

I’m enchanted. A sense of closure hits me when I see two land on my grandmother’s tombstone.

The butterflies spread their bright orange and black wings slowly, and my chest swells.

This is a sign from her .

I know it is.

She’s in heaven, dancing with Graham on a beach somewhere.

Smiling, my heart twists into my swelling chest. I take solace knowing my grandmother passed away at home, thinking her soldier made it back home to her.

Kade

It’s extremely rare, but it happens.

I was presumed dead by the United States, given Violet’s story and the evidence at the scene.

But really, I had been captured on that mountain.

When I got shot in the chest, my armor plate stopped it from fatally wounding me.

The explosion gave me severe third-degree burns on my chest, back, and arms, but somehow, I lived.

Burned, beaten, shot, and tortured.

I found a way out of my captor’s grasp while being transported to an unknown location.

I killed three threats with my bare hands when they tried to torture me for information.

I escaped that day, jumping out of the running vehicle they had me in.

I traveled and navigated for weeks, barely surviving, until I found help at a hospital.

From there, I was rescued by a group of Army Rangers and brought back home. I told Slater to keep this under wraps so I could tell my future wife that I was back in person.

I reunited with Adam after Greenville. We’re on speaking terms, but I don’t push him for more. He knows about Violet and me, which wasn’t the most comfortable conversation to have, but it needed to be done. At first, he was angry and closed off, but as the months passed, he’s come around slowly.

After a long deployment in Latvia, my plane lands in North Carolina.

I let out a relieved breath as the pilot lands our commercial plane, the gentlest landing I’ve ever experienced.

I look out the window as we slow down. We glide by other parked planes.

I can see the tree-covered hills that surround the airport.

As for The Surgeon, he’s still on everyone’s list. There are theories that this mission will be passed off to Grim Reaper and his team.

Danny Rider and I trained alongside each other for years, even though he chose the SEALS, and I chose Special Forces.

I trained him because his father, Damian Rider, asked me to.

No one tells Damian no, but I didn’t mind the request because Danny and I are close; I consider him like a baby brother.

Our careers have driven us apart over the years, but we will always remain friends.

This was my last mission, and I don’t feel an ounce of regret.

I thought I would feel something when I packed up my gear for the last time, or when I said goodbye to my team—dread, anger, guilt…

but nothing but a ray of sunshine warms my heart when I think of the next chapter in my life.

The wheels continue to turn and head towards our gate.

I swipe off airplane mode, and my phone floods with text messages.

My brothers and sisters, my son, Penny…and my beautiful wife. A smile curves onto my face.

Violet O’Connell.

I love how that sounds.

I haven’t seen her in seven months. She got honorably discharged from the army. She’s back in school chasing a degree in English. Every time I think about her, I feel at home.

I regretted everything I said when I tried to end things with her before the helicopter crash. I regret listening to Karen’s lies. At the time, I felt the weight of my team heavily on my shoulders, the mission…and my proscriptive relationship was something I chose to push away and not worry about.

When only the three of us survived after that crash, I realized how little this woman asked of me. She didn’t want to marry or have children; she just wanted me. I was enough for her.

As soon as the seat belt sign is turned off, I stand calmly and patiently. I let everyone off the plane first until I’m the last passenger. I’m at the exit when I see most of the flight crew waiting for me in front of the pilot’s cabin.

“Welcome home, soldier.” The stewardess and pilot stand side by side with warm smiles.

“Thank you for your service,” The female pilot says with a polite nod.

I give them a nervous half-smile, then purse my lips as I readjust my army green duffel bag on my sore shoulder. I never know how to respond to those words, but I’m grateful for the gesture.

As I walk down to the tarmac, my phone starts to buzz in my hand.

It’s Slater.

Raising it to my ear, “Hello?”

“How was your flight, old man?”

I chuckle.

Asshole .

“It was pretty good. Smooth with no turbulence.”

“That’s good. Hey brother, I’m giving you a call because I just got an e-mail that says you’re being awarded the Silver Medal with Valor for what you did last year.”

“Really?”

“Yup. Booker is also getting an award. His family will be there to receive it.”

My throat thickens.

My fallen brother. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t carry the weight of losing my best friend. A part of me died that night. And if it weren’t for Violet, I don’t think I would be here today.

Slater catches my silence and changes the subject.

“I’m planning to come by your house this week to go to the range. You’re not telling me no, asshole.”

I laugh and shake my head.

“Sounds like a plan.”

We hang up.

I walk the five minutes from the gate to the lobby downstairs. It’s a small, quiet airport, so I’m not walking far. I didn’t check any bags this time, and I head straight for passenger pick-up.

Then I see her.

The woman who made me believe in love again. Dressed in that same red summer dress she wore to the Drunken Shell. It hugs all of her beautiful curves...and her swollen, nine-months-pregnant belly.

Violet holds up a bright mustard-yellow decorated sign that says: Welcome home, soldier.

She’s such a dork… but she’s my dork .

When I’m about ten steps from her, she takes off sprinting.

I laugh watching her waddle-jog toward me.

Before she collides with me, I drop my duffel bag, pick her up, and crash my mouth against hers.

We kiss like we always do. Full of passion until it’s only us in our own little world.

Not giving one single fuck who’s watching.

Placing her back down on her feet, I give her one last kiss, a low growl reverberating in my chest.

“Ready for Colorado?” she asks with infinite hope soaring in her teary eyes.

Holding the bottom of her stomach, I smile.

“Never been more ready for anything in my entire life.”

THE END