Читать книгу Cooking Up Romance онлайн | страница 16

She’d thought hard before accepting her first wedding job last month, when she’d just finished revamping her father’s food truck and had gotten all the required certifications. Weddings were a tough subject, even after all this time.

Five years ago, she’d been engaged to be married to the greatest guy on earth. She’d never believed she could feel so much love for someone other than her parents. Of course, her love for Greg had been on a totally different level, and she couldn’t wait to be his wife. Ever the military gentleman, he’d gone old-school and, in her mother’s rose garden, dropped to his knee to ask her to marry him. So thrilled and excited by his question, she’d fallen to her knees to be face-to-face with him when she’d said yes. They’d cried and laughed and hugged and kissed, and then, because she’d had the house to herself that day, they took it inside.

There’d been one problem though. He’d been called up for a six-month deployment to Afghanistan, so they’d have to wait at least that long before they could tie the knot. Going in, she’d known and accepted that this would be the life of a military girlfriend and future wife. What were a few months in a lifetime, they’d rationalized together to help make his leaving a little easier.

Two months after Greg had left, his parents called, sounding shaky and asking her to come to their house. Once there, they’d all been told together in person by an army major in their jurisdiction that Sergeant First Class Gregory Timberland had been killed by friendly fire. Lacy, though stunned, remembered thinking what a horrible job that major had, having to tell families the awful news. In his low and respectful voice with a slight tremble, the major had gone on to say that one of Greg’s own guys had killed him in a horrific mistake. It was an accident, of course, but nevertheless, who had come up with such a terrible term for what had happened? Friendly fire had to be the world’s worst oxymoron.

She couldn’t imagine the horror the other military guy—the one who’d made the mistake—must have felt when he’d realized what he’d done. At the news, she’d melted into a sadness so deep she couldn’t imagine ever seeing her way out.