“Unfortunately that’s something he’ll need to do himself.” The voice on the other end of the phone was sympathetic. “Only the primary account holder can authorize additional holders, but if you have him call us back we can get that all set up for you.”
“That’s fine. Can I ask how long it’ll take to add me to the account? It’s just that he’s deploying in a little under two weeks, so if he needs to sign anything we’d have to get that done pretty soon.”
“We should be able to get everything done in that one phone call, don’t worry about that. Where’s he off to?”
“Afghanistan.”
The faint sound of typing filled the line. “Okay, I’ve noted that on our system so when he calls about the bank account, we can also review his life insurance cover and make sure that’s all up to date.”
“Great. Thanks.” Tara tapped the screen to end the call without waiting to hear Shelley’s cheerful offer of further assistance or pleasant goodbye. She put the phone on the table and stared unseeingly at the chilly gray morning beyond the window.
The four days since Chance rode to her rescue in the commissary had been great. Amazing, even. They were like an eager, newly dating couple full of brazen optimism for the relationship’s future, yet acting under a tacit agreement to slow each other down so they didn’t move too fast and ruin all this potential.
On Friday night he made the first move, reaching across the Challenger’s gearshift in the parking lot of the Mexican restaurant to touch her hand, then leaning over and kissing her, his lips still salty from the rim of the margarita glass. On Saturday night it was her turn, playfully scooting into his lap while they watched TV, mussing his short hair and straightening his T-shirt and urging his tongue inside her mouth to the soundtrack of the angsty political drama flickering on the screen.
Last night they’d finally shared the bed, although he hadn’t dared more than a fleeting touch of her breast through her shirt and she’d allowed herself only one indulgent press of her pelvis against his erection. It felt right—it was the pace they needed.
He had an early-morning PT session and the alarm went off at four o’clock. She dozed while he dressed in the dark, rolling onto his side of the bed, savoring the lingering scents and warmth left by his sleeping body. She woke up just enough to register him leaning over her, to smell his clean cotton T-shirt, to enjoy the gentle sweep of his thumb as he brushed her hair off her temple and kissed her forehead.
That kiss was more intimate than anything they’d done in the hotel room in Kansas City, more significant than their marriage license or her spousal ID card or his suggestion to add her name to his bank account. It was a husband saying goodbye to his wife, a man assuring his woman he’d be home soon, a quiet assertion that they belonged together and would be again.
It was the sincerest expression of affection she’d ever received. She thought she just might love him for it.
A wave of nauseating fear shuddered through her and she gripped the edge of her chair. Sure, in her abstract fantasies she’d imagined falling in love with Chance McKinley, finding an everlasting, eccentric accord with the only man who seemed to be as much an outsider as she was. That didn’t mean she actually thought it would be possible, that it could happen so quickly, or that he would seem so suddenly essential to her ability to breathe that she genuinely worried she might die without him.
And she sure as hell hadn’t expected she’d only have a couple of weeks to deal with it before he hopped on a plane to a warzone.
Her conversation with the bank’s customer service rep came back to her with chilling clarity. Life insurance paid out when someone died. Chance was going to Afghanistan. He might die.
The Challenger’s trademark growl rose outside, then the front door slammed. In less than two minutes he was behind her, leaning down to kiss the top of her head.
“I’ll get changed, then we can run out to Walmart.” He was referring to the plan they’d made the night before, that half-remembered list of errands they’d discussed when they still hadn’t slept in the same bed, when his deployment was a vague concept and she assumed he’d live forever. Tara resisted the urge to shake her head at that much younger, much more naïve version of herself. Could so much really change overnight?
He shifted the papers on the table. “Did you call the bank?”
“Yeah, they said you have to call to add me to the account.”
“All right, I’ll call ’em tomorrow morning.”
She drew a tight breath. “They said you should update your life insurance policy too.”
He shrugged. “Whatever.”
She flexed her fingers where they lay on the table, flattening and arching her knuckles.
“I don’t want your life insurance,” she informed her fingertips.
“What was that?” Chance was already halfway out of the kitchen.
“I don’t want your life insurance,” she repeated more clearly, turning in her chair to face him. “In case you were worried about that. Leave the payout however it is. I don’t want the money.”
An emotion moved across his face, but it wasn’t one she recognized. Uncertainty, maybe? Indecision? It was gone too fast for her to tell.
“Right now it all goes to my youngest sister. She doesn’t know that, though. I’d be worried about her leaking my location to the Taliban to speed up the process if she did.”
Tara didn’t bother to chidingly disagree. If her dad ever got a lump-sum payout from her demise, she had no doubt he’d shove her in a cardboard casket and spend the rest in the liquor store.
“I thought about giving it all to my oldest nephew,” he continued. “For college and stuff. But I figured my sister would find a way to get her hands on it somehow, blow it on a motorcycle for her boyfriend of the month.” His eyes found hers, squarely, thoughtfully. “Maybe you should get it. Spend it on my nieces and nephews like my sisters won’t. Buy your own bar, donate the rest to the VFW.”
Her breath stilled in her lungs. I’m not having this conversation, she wanted to say, turning away decisively. You’re not going to die, you’re going to come home and be the same untethered charmer I fell in love with the first time we met, and we’re going to do tequila shots and stay up too late and have sloppy drunk sex and buy a big house and fill it with babies and love each other until we’re old and gray and your damn life insurance is worth ten thousand times what it is now, and I still won’t want it.
But all she could manage was, “It’s up to you, I guess. It’s your money.”
His gaze dropped to the floor, and she felt for all the world like she’d just failed the biggest test of her life.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Anyway, I’ll get my jeans on and we can go.”
Although the registers were busy, the sheer size of the store meant they were alone in most of the aisles they perused. The atmosphere between them had been subdued since they left the house, but Tara couldn’t seem to muster even a shred of cheerfulness to fix it. She was buried in her thoughts as she followed him through the store, barely registering where they stopped or what he tossed in the cart.
The reality of Chance’s deployment had struck her like one of her father’s unprovoked slaps, and no matter how hard she tried to dig her heels into the ground she was still reeling.
It shouldn’t be this hard. They’d already spent ten months apart—what were six more? And although he’d actually been back in Kansas for a big chunk of that time, she hadn’t known that. As far as her imagination was concerned, he’d spent most of those ten months in Kunar Province, getting shot at on a daily basis. Even then it had been such an abstract concept she’d barely spared a second to fret about him, focusing instead on dissecting her memories of their brief time together and storing up every little sign that someday it might just work out for them.
At least this time he’d be able to update her on when he was safe at a post, when he was leaving for dangerous offensive missions, so her worry could be compartmentalized, saved up for when it was truly merited.
She sighed heavily, knowing full well she was lying to herself. Of course these six months would be harder than the last ten. She knew him for real now, knew how they were together, knew exactly what she was missing. And instead of wasting all that energy wondering whether he even remembered she existed, this time she knew he’d be missing her too.
At least, she hoped he would.
