Prologue
Roman McNamara
* * *
Five Years Ago…
* * *
Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan
* * *
Tired of tossing and turning in my bunk, I give up on the attempt at sleep and head outside for some fresh air. There’s a cloud of smoke being blown to tatters by the cool night wind, meaning someone is already out here. I don’t smoke much, but a cigarette does sound good right about now. I saw some things out on patrol today I’d really like a way to forget.
“Can’t sleep either?” my friend, Adam, asks while offering me his pack and lighter.
“Nope. So, what’s keeping you up?” I ask as I fumble a bent cigarette out of the badly crumpled package.
He takes a deep pull and then blows it out before answering. “Tomorrow’s my anniversary.”
“Congrats. I mean, I’m assuming you mean your wedding anniversary. Did you get your wife anything?”
He’s silent for several seconds. “Do you believe in soulmates?”
“Soulmates?” I repeat with a chuckle. “What the hell are you smoking over there?” I joke.
“I’m serious,” he says, taking another drag from his cigarette and blowing the smoke out of his mouth into a little cloud between us.
“Do I believe in soulmates? I dunno, man. Maybe, for some people.”
“That’s only because you haven’t met yours yet,” Adam explains. “You’ll know when you do. One day you realize you would give them the world without asking for anything in return. It’s the person you want to just talk to for hours about all the stupid shit and big shit in your life. I’m talking the kind of love that doesn’t break, doesn’t bend.”
“Man, you have been awake too long, or this place is starting to get to you,” I tell him with a good-natured grin. “We’re out here sweating our balls off every day in this desert, most of us thinking about who wants to shoot us, or how bad our feet hurt. You’re over here daydreaming some Romeo and Juliet shit. Something about this place put some romance in you?”
“Trust me, it ain’t this place making me think about it,” Adam says, smiling back at me. “Like I said, it’s my anniversary with Charlotte coming up. I’m just missing her, you know, and thinking about how perfect we are together.” He must be worried I’m going to pick on him some more; because after explaining himself, he lapses into silence.
I think his words over for a few moments while I look around our base camp, until I see him stomp out his cigarette. “I guess you could say my parents are soulmates,” I blurt out before he goes back inside the barracks. “Growing up, it always felt like they had this sort of protective shield around just the two of them. Nothing could penetrate it no matter what the world tried to throw at them. Pops got cancer and lost his job, but my mom never left his side at the hospital. And then, when he was home, she went out and got a job at a restaurant in town, even though she had never had one before. She didn’t get upset or angry at him even though I know she hated it. They were a team, and nothing could come between them.”
“That’s it!” Adam agrees. “That’s soulmates. Your ride or die. Your shelter in a storm. When you’re with her, you feel like you’re finally home.”
“Yeah, okay. But really, man, why are you going on about soulmates in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?”
“Because I fucked up,” he says.
“How did you fuck up?”
“I think…no, I’m certain that people can have more than one soulmate.”
“At the same time?”
“Yeah, at the same time or different times. I dunno, Roman, but they’re out there and, hell, I know that it’s crazy, but I think I have more than one soulmate.”
“Someone other than your wife you mean?” I mutter.
“Yeah.”
“Sounds like you’re fucked,” I tell him with a chuckle.
“I am so fucked,” he agrees. “I never meant for this to happen. I didn’t go out looking for this shit. And now, one way or another, someone I love is going to get hurt.”
“That’s why you’re awake in the middle of the night?” I ask him. “You’re out here trying to figure out who gets hurt and who doesn’t?”
“Yeah.”
“So? What have you decided?” I ask.
“I’ve decided…both of them deserve someone a helluva lot better than me.”
“That’s probably true,” I tease him. “Show me.”
“Show you what?”
“Let me see these two women. I’ll help you decide.”
“They’re both fucking gorgeous,” he says around the fresh cigarette hanging out of his lips while he pulls out his phone and scrolls through his photos. “This is Meredith.” When he turns the phone around, there’s a young, vaguely familiar black-haired beauty smiling at the camera while Adam stands next to her, his arm around her shoulder, both of them in tan t-shirts and sand camo pants. “And this is my wife Charlotte.” He flips to another picture, and it only takes me a half a second to decide that the slightly older woman with long, straight, strawberry blonde hair and bright blue eyes is twice as gorgeous as the first.
“Honestly, man, I’m not sure how you even noticed another woman if you’ve got that hot as fuck wife back home.”
“I didn’t! I wasn’t…I never meant for this to happen.”
“You said vows. You made a commitment to Charlotte. Nothing else should trump that.”
“That’s what I thought too. I finally told Meredith that I’m a married man and that my wife has to come first,” he says as he puts his phone away and puts out his cigarette on his forearm unflinching, like he thinks he deserves the pain.
“So it sounds like you’ve made a decision.”
“I did. I had,” he agrees. “But then…Meredith told me she’s late.”
I let loose a low whistle. “The whole illegitimate child thing may put a damper on your anniversary.”
“I’m not gonna tell Charlotte, at least not until I know what Meredith is going to do. And I know what you’re thinking — I’m an asshole. I deserve to be in this position. And you’re right. But how the fuck am I supposed to choose between my wife and my kid?”
“I have no clue what to tell you, but you’re gonna have to make a decision, man, and soon.”
“I can’t!”
“You better before life decides for you,” I suggest.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you need to tell your wife about Meredith and the kid before she finds out from someone else.”
“She won’t,” he says.
“You don’t think Meredith will get pissed and tell Charlotte herself?”
“Nah. She wouldn’t do that.”
I find that hard to believe. A woman scorned can be hell on wheels.