First

Chapter 49

"Are you hungry or anything? We can stop and grab something on the way out," I asked, slipping on my sunglasses and pulling out of the parking lot.

"I'm fine. Just get me out of here," he said.

"That I can do." I nodded and headed out onto the highway, turning the music up and singing along to it. I knew my singing would relax him and put him to sleep and sure enough, within minutes, his head fell back against the headrest, a soft snore coming from his throat. I reached over and turned down the music before grabbing his hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. I breathed a sigh of relief at having him asleep and beside me. I zoned out for the rest of the drive, letting Jace's presence wash over me and the flat road soothe me. It didn't hit me until I had him back just how much I had missed him. It was always like that; I didn't know what I had until he was gone. But I cherished him so much more every time he returned back to me, safe and sound. I realized that the moment of silence could very easily have been for him and I could have been left a widow—even though we weren't married yet—never getting to grow old with him. The thought was sobering.

I was lost in thoughts of the potential of life without Jace when a soft whimper jolted me back to the present. I sighed, frowning and gently ran my hand over his arm. "Sh, Jace, you're okay. You're home." Taking my eyes off the road briefly, I studied him. His face was creased in pain but it soon smoothed back into peaceful sleep. My heart broke for him and tears welled in my eyes. You can't let him see you cry. Stop, he's home, Kade, I told myself. There was no reason to cry but my heart still hurt for him. I hated the hell he went through when he got back. He had a therapist he could talk to but it wasn't something he enjoyed or did very often. I think in the four years he had been in the military he had only been to seem the therapist half dozen times; most of those being in his first year of service. If that. Jace would rather talk to me and I wanted the same thing. Even though there were days when I wished he had talked to his therapist instead of me but I needed to know what was going on inside that head of his so I could better understand him. Understand why he had nightmares and what caused or triggered them so I could make it better. It amazed me that after four years of at least talking to a therapist about his living and sleeping hell, he had never been diagnosed with PTSD. They just kept saying that what he went through wasn't traumatic. He'd been in the middle of a war zone, watching innocent people—and his friends—die for God's sake! What part of that wasn't traumatic? But what did I know? I was just the person who woke up to her screaming boyfriend in the middle of the night.

Jace once again emitted a snore—a not so soft snore this time—that made me giggle. I laughed and the sound managed to banish my dark thoughts. Jace was home, that was all that mattered. I needed to focus on that and nothing else. Finally, after a long drive, I turned off onto our final stretch of road and reached over gently to shake Jace awake, he had been out for the entire trip and I was happy he was finally getting some rest. "Hey baby, time to wake up. We're almost there."

He slowly came awake, blinking sleepily and yawning. "How far out are we?" he asked, stretching and rubbing sleep out of his eyes. I had to admit, he looked incredibly cute and young when he did that; he always did after he just woke up. I looked forward to watching him wake up every morning.

"Fifteen minutes. I figured I'd let you wake up a little bit before we got there. Did you have a good sleep?"

He leaned over and planted a kiss on my cheek. "Yeah, it was good. As good as it could be considering I was in a car. But it was good."

I could tell that he was purposely avoiding the nightmare. I knew from experience that he remembered each and every one. "What was your nightmare about?" I asked, cutting past his bullshit.

Jace hung his head in defeat. "Normal stuff."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, I don't. I just want to forget about it, Kade," he snapped.

"Sorry," I sighed. "I just want you to know that you can talk to me."

He scrubbed at his face in frustration and turned in his seat to face me. "Kadence... shit. Don't apologize. I didn't mean to snap at you. I know I can talk to you." He sighed. "I just don't want all the shit that is in my head to be in yours. I know what it's like to have that knowledge hanging over your head. I don't want to burden you with it, Kade," Jace whispered.

"Jason, you're not burdening me with it." Jace opened his mouth to argue but I cut him off. "We don't have to talk about it now, but it's not a burden to me, alright. We're engaged... we're getting married in October. That means we share each other's burdens okay?"

He nodded and leaned back in his seat but immediately sat forward as we crested the hill and our destination came into view. "Wow," he breathed. Jace turned in his seat and smiled at me. "I think coming out here was the perfect idea."

I leaned into the palm he pressed against my cheek and sighed as we descended the hill and turned onto the gravel road. All the stresses of the past few days faded away as the lake came into view. We slowly passed cabin after cabin, nodding and waving to several people before we finally arrived at our home away from home for the next month. The lake was just beyond the road and it was a perfect blue, the sun shining and glistening off of it while boats took advantage of the weather.

"God, it's beautiful out here. I forgot how beautiful it was." Jace smiled; he was like a kid in a candy store.

"You're still high," I stated, laughing as I pulled into the driveway.

"What do you mean?" Jace asked on a laugh as I cut the engine.

Iwas about to answer him when the laughter died in my throat as I caught sightof the deck. "No way," I gasped in shock. "She told me she wasn't going to dothis!"