Marrying Daisy Bellamy

Kind of like being in love.

Unlike love, this was an optional training exercise. Although in his opinion, when offered a chance to jump out of a plane, a guy’s only option was to go for it. His work in the field was done, but he’d never been one to say no to a jump. He might be crazy but he wasn’t an idiot who’d turn down the opportunity. He loved the feeling of weightlessness and knowing that beneath him there was nothing but sky. He could see the patchwork countryside of middle New York State—undulating hills, river-fed farmland, a spectacular array of long lakes gouged out of the landscape as if by giant claws.

His altimeter vibrated, signaling that it was time to quit admiring the scenery. He loosed the pilot chute into the airstream.

A wind shear swooped in at the worst possible moment. As the bridle of the pilot chute was supposed to be pulling out the deployment bag of the main chute, control was torn from him.

And just like that, the optional training exercise turned to a nightmare. He was sent careening off target—way off target, way too fast, at the mercy of the stream. Grinding out curses through clenched teeth, he managed to wrestle the deployment bag out. The lines were supposed to release one stow at a time, but they were a tangled mess. The main chute was lopsided, out of control. He worked the toggles to slow the wind as the stream rushed him toward a dense thicket of trees.

He signaled Mayday, let out another string of violent curses and said a prayer.

The prayer was answered, sort of. He hadn’t slammed into the ground at 150 mph, turning himself into a pancake of blood and gristle. Instead, he’d managed to navigate a little and slow down. The landing wasn’t quite what he’d been aiming for, though.

Hanging upside down in his parachute harness, he surveyed the world from a unique vantage point. Pliant branches, covered in new leaves, bobbed up and down with his weight. He could see nothing but green and brown, no sign of civilization anywhere.

Damn. This had been the final exercise of his training here, and it was supposed to go well.

He forced himself to be slow and deliberate as he considered what to do. Blood trickled from somewhere on his face. He hurt in a lot of places; nothing felt broken, though his shoulder flared with fire. It might be dislocated. His goggles were completely wrecked. Just reaching for his utility knife caused him to slip too fast toward the ground, so he went still, trying to plan his next move. Breaking his neck right before commissioning would be the lamest of moves, for sure. And Daisy—he didn’t even want to think about what it would do to his plans for her and hoped like hell this mishap was not a bad omen.

He was still pondering his options, noting the strange feeling in his head, when a crashing noise sounded somewhere in the woods. A few minutes later a small figure in a jumpsuit appeared.

“You’re a damn maniac, that’s what you are,” railed Sayers, one of his training partners. She was a no-nonsense girl from Selma, Alabama, and she reminded Julian of some of his relatives in Louisiana. Except that unlike those relatives, Tanesha Sayers was duty-bound to give aid and assistance to her fellow officer in training.

“Fool,” she blustered, “you’re damned lucky your beacon worked. Otherwise you’d be swinging here till you turn purple in the head and die. Hell, I ought to let you turn purple.”

Julian let her yammer on. He made no excuses for himself; no sense blaming the wind shear. Besides, Sayers was basically harmless. She had an uncanny ability to berate a person roundly and simultaneously get things done. Slated for commissioning, same as Julian, she would make a good officer. She chewed him out, all the while hoisting herself up into the branches where he was caught and using a utility knife to cut him free.

“You got your own knife,” she pointed out. “Why the hell didn’t you get yourself down?”

“I was going to. Wanted to make sure I didn’t cut the wrong strap and land on my—” He plunged to the ground, slamming against the forest floor. He felt the impact despite his helmet.

“Head,” he finished. “Thanks, Mom.” In the unit, Sayers’s nickname was Mom because, although she fussed and bossed everyone around, she cared about each one of them with the fierceness of a mother bear.

“Don’t thank me, fool,” she said. “Just you hold still while I put a field dressing on that wound.”

“What wound?” He gingerly touched his forehead, feeling a warm slickness at his hairline. Great.

She jumped down, landing with a grunt, and radioed the base.

He wiped his hand on his jumpsuit, and that was when he thought about the ring. He’d carried it around for a long time. Even during the jump, he had kept it in a pocket next to his heart, layers deep, zipped up tight.

When the ring was offered to Daisy, it wasn’t going to be like last time, in the midst of a fistfight on a train platform, for Chrissake. This time.

He ripped open the Velcro collar tab at his throat and plunged his hand inside, fingers grappling with a zipper closure on his shirt.

Sayers knelt down in front of him. “What’s the matter?”

“Just checking for—ah.” Julian went limp with relief as his hand closed around the ring box. He pulled it out and flipped it open to reveal the prize—a certified nononflict diamond in a warm gold setting, engraved on the inner curve with “Forever.” He angled the box so Sayers could check it out.

She studied it thoughtfully. “Sorry, Jughead,” she said, using his nickname, “but I don’t love you in quite that way.”

“Sure you do.” He snapped the lid shut and tucked the box away. “You’re on your knees, baby.”

“Mmm.” She ripped open a blister pack of sterile wipes. “It’s your wounds I love. I swear, Jughead, you are a walking, talking crash test dummy. I love that about you.”

Sayers wanted to attend medical school one day. She was obsessed with blood and guts, the gorier, the better. Julian, with his penchant for going to extremes, had provided her with more than his share of abrasions, sprains, bruises and bleeders during their training.

She cleansed the gash and clamped it shut with a few butterfly bandages. As she worked, she said, “What are you doing, carrying that damn ring everywhere you go?”

“I don’t know what else to do with it,” he said. “Shoving it in the back of my underwear drawer seems a little … well, that’s where I used to stash my—never mind.” He didn’t want to go there with Sayers. “Sad to say, campus theft happens.”

Unspoken was another truth they both understood. If the jump had proven fatal, the presence of the ring box would’ve been a silent final message to the woman he loved, the woman he wanted to love forever.

“I figure I’ll keep it handy and I can pop the question when I know the time’s right.”

Sayers shook her head in disgust as she touched gentle fingers to the row of butterflies. “A word to the wise,” she cautioned. “Make sure the poor girl is present when you whip it out.”

“That’s the plan. I invited her to our commissioning ceremony, so if she comes for that—”

“Wait a minute, if? There’s some question?”

“Well, things have been a little weird for us,” he said. Understatement.

“Oh, now there’s a fine basis for a lasting relationship,” she said, putting away her gear and grabbing his hand. She yanked, helping him to his feet.

He shook out each limb, schooling himself not to wince at the pain. His nerve endings had nerve endings, but pain was only a feeling. Everything was in proper working order—that was the key. Despite the fiery aches, he was sure they hadn’t overlooked a break or sprain. Nope, he was good to go.

“See, here’s the thing,” he said, wading up the chute. “With Daisy and me—we’ve been like a moving target. Nothing is ever simple. She’s got this kid, a great kid, but he complicates things. She’s going in one direction, and I’m going in another, and we can never get on the same page.”

He and Sayers started hiking out of the woods. His heart sped up as he thought about Daisy. “I’m nuts about her, and I know she feels the same. Getting engaged is going to cut through all the extraneous crap and simplify everything.”

Sayers stopped walking and turned to him, putting her hand on his chest. “Oh, honey. Can you really be that stupid?”

He grinned. “You tell me.”

She studied his face, her expression reflecting concern, exasperation and barely suppressed compassion. “My mama once told me never to underestimate the thickness of a man’s skull. I think she was right.”

“What? She’s nuts about me, too,” Julian pointed out. “I know she is.”

“That makes two of you, then.”

It took a while to get back, make a full report, tag and submit the chute for a safety study.

Julian ignored a deep twinge of soreness in his shoulder as he returned to campus, stopping off at the student center to check his mail. He sorted through the small stack as he hiked back to the residence hall. He tried not to let the commissioning ceremony mean too much to him. It was a personal milestone, his achievement to own, and if nobody but his half brother, Connor, showed up for it, Julian would be okay with that.

Then again, he was probably telling himself that, preparing for disappointment.

Others in his detachment were planning on half the civilized world to show up. Julian simply didn’t have a ton of people in his life. His father, a professor at Tulane, had died when Julian was fourteen. Julian’s aunt and uncle, in Louisiana, had lacked the means and the space to take him in. With no other options available, Julian had gone to Chino, California, to live with his mother.