Frozen Vows: The General's Ultimate Regret

New Year's Eve. Sinclair called. He wanted to get married. I paused, a shot of tequila halfway to my lips. Zander leaned against my shoulder, pouring another round.

I spoke into the receiver. "Didn't you already sign the papers with your dead buddy's widow? What, is collecting wives your new hobby? Keep it.

I don't do sloppy seconds." Dead air on the line. The VIP booth erupted around me. A voice echoed through his end of the phone. "Sinclair really screwed the pooch this time.

Told you to apologize to Freya sooner." Sinclair cleared his throat. "Find somewhere quiet. We need to handle our family business." "Family business." He ground the words out.

A warning. I hit end call. The screen lit up instantly. His name flashed, again and again. I switched the phone to airplane mode, tossing it onto the sticky club table.

Chapter 1 Sinclair feared his fallen squadmate's widow would lose her military housing and end up on the streets.

He had pulled our marriage application the night before it was finalized. He filed the paperwork with Sadie instead. I found out with twentyfour hours left on the clock.

Owen shifted his weight, his combat boots scuffing the linoleum. "Doctor… Sinclair said her husband took a bullet for him. He promised to look out for her. It's just on paper.

Just to get Sadie on his Tricare so she can afford her treatments. He hopes you understand." My fingers gripped my approved honeymoon leave request.

I ripped the sheet straight down the middle. "I don't. But he can have her." The torn halves fluttered to the floor.

Owen flushed a deep crimson. "Ma'am, Sinclair is just—" "It's Doctor to you." I cut him off. Owen froze.

His jaw worked silently before he dropped his gaze. "Yes, Doctor." "Sinclair wanted me to tell you… the second her medical benefits clear, he's annulling it.

He'll marry you right after.

He said you're the only one he loves." I gathered my surgical instruments, placing them into the sterilization tray. "Who he loves is none of my business.

I file my marriage paperwork exactly once. Tell him Freya doesn't keep men on the bench." All color drained from Owen's face. He opened his mouth, but my pager buzzed. ER trauma.

Ruptured spleen from a training drill. "On my way." I shoved my arms into my white coat, shooting a look over my shoulder. "Anything else?" He shook his head, stepping aside.

Footsteps echoing down the corridor, I spotted Sinclair. He stood by the end window, sharp in his dress blues, a cigarette pinched between his fingers.

Sadie pressed against his side, draping a heavy wool coat over his broad shoulders. He didn't turn. His eyes stayed locked on the stormy sky outside. Sadie caught my eye.

Her hands paused on his collar. A tiny, triumphant smirk hitched the corner of her lips. I broke eye contact, pushing through the swinging doors of the OR.

Memories of the last twentythree years with Sinclair clawed at my chest.

We grew up on the same base, where he shielded me from a stray dog's bite, and I stitched up his shredded combat boots. He made Delta Force, the golden boy of the command.

I tore through med school, becoming the youngest lead trauma surgeon at the base medical center. Everyone called us endgame.

We secured a private townhouse on the base for our family housing. The day he got the keys, he spun me around the empty living room. "Freya, we finally have a home," he grinned.

I locked my arms around his neck. "Welcome home, Sinclair." I spent months designing every inch of that house. Chapter 2 Sinclair pulled backtoback deployments.

The military owned his time. I burned my PTO, scouring every Home Depot and design showroom in the state.

The day his boots hit the tarmac, I dragged him to the front door and clapped my hands over his eyes. I dropped my hands. He stared at the gutted and rebuilt townhouse.

Silence stretched. He crushed me against his chest. "Freya. You did all this." His voice cracked.

I buried my face in his shoulder. "I'd do it a hundred times over." At our engagement party, his father Victor—a retired fourstar general—clapped a heavy hand on Sinclair's shoulder. "Brat.

You finally locked Freya down. Don't screw this up." Constance squeezed my fingers, pressing her grandmother's vintage diamond pendant into my palm. "Freya.

Keep our boy in line, will you?" My throat tightened. I forced a nod. Sinclair slid the princesscut diamond onto my finger. His breath brushed my ear. "Freya. I'm yours.

For the rest of my life." I never expected the rest of my life to have an expiration date. Sadie materialized two months after the engagement. Cameron's widow.

Cameron had caught a piece of shrapnel meant for Sinclair. That became a thorn in Sinclair's heart that could not be pulled out. Sadie grew up in the foster system.

Cameron was her entire safety net. Now, she freefell.

Sinclair relocated her from some rustbelt town out Midwest, stashing her in the base's temporary housing. "Freya, I owe him," he told me. "I know." I tagged along to check on her.

Sadie looked frail, drowning in an oversized, faded cardigan. Her eyes locked onto Sinclair.

A spark flared in her pupils before she ducked her chin, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "General." Sinclair shoved a bag of organic groceries onto the counter. "Make yourself at home." Sadie shrank back.

A single tear tracked down her cheek. "I don't have a home anymore." Sinclair's spine snapped straight.

I stepped between them, grabbing Sadie's freezing hands. "We're your support system now." I dragged her to Nordstrom for a new wardrobe. I paid for hot dinners.

I even offered up the guest room in our new townhouse. Sinclair vetoed the idea. "Boundaries, Freya," he said. I thought he was protecting my peace. He was protecting his guilt.

Sadie blew up his phone. Dizziness today. Heart palpitations tomorrow. Insomnia the day after. Sinclair dropped everything. He always rushed straight to her door.

Whispers bled through the base. Wives chattered over coffee, eyeing the way Sinclair treated a dead man's wife better than his own fiancée. I brushed off the red flags.

I trusted Sinclair. I trusted twentythree years of history. Chapter 3 I clung to Sinclair's arm, the heavy silk of my custom evening gown brushing against his dress blues.

Medals pinned to his chest caught the chandelier light. We worked the room.

Crystal clinked. "To forever." "A lifetime of happiness." Sinclair flashed his signature smile, accepting every toast. We reached Victor's table.

Glasses raised—then Sinclair's phone vibrated violently against his ribs. His jaw tightened. He glanced at the screen. "Excuse me a second." He abandoned the table. I stood frozen.

The champagne flute felt heavy in my grip. The ballroom noise died out, a hundred eyes burning into my back.

Constance stepped in, wrapping her fingers around my wrist. "Freya, let him go. I'll drink with you." I forced the corners of my mouth up. I threw the champagne back.

The burn shredded my throat, settling like lead in my stomach. Sinclair reappeared minutes later. He leaned in, his breath hot and rushed against my ear. "Freya. I have to go.

Sadie swallowed a bottle of Ambien." My stomach dropped. "Is she—" "EMTs are on the way. I don't know." His voice cracked with a raw, frantic edge I'd never heard before.

The weight of his panic crashed over me. I stared at him. "Sinclair. It's our engagement party." He wouldn't meet my eyes. "I know. But it's her life.

I'll explain everything when I get back." He turned on his heel and walked out. I watched his broad shoulders disappear through the mahogany double doors.

My knuckles turned white around the fragile stem of my glass. I drank the rest of the toasts alone. Sinclair never came home. My pager went off at dawn. A critical trauma case.

I scrubbed in, operating continuously for ten hours. When I pushed through the OR doors, the sky outside was pitch black.

I peeled off my bloodstained scrubs, my muscles screaming for a bed. Then I turned the corner of the ICU ward.

Sadie sat propped up in a hospital bed, skin translucent, an IV line taped to her bruised hand. Sinclair perched on the edge of her mattress.

He held a plastic spoon, blowing on the hot broth before offering it to her lips. "One more bite. You haven't eaten all day." Sadie shook her head.

Tears welled in her bloodshot eyes. "General… I can't. I'm so useless. I only ever drag you down." Sinclair set the bowl on the plastic tray.

His large hand cupped the back of her head, his thumb stroking her hair. "Stop. I'm right here. Cameron trusted me with you. I won't let you fall." Sadie broke.

She buried her face into the curve of his neck, her thin shoulders shaking. "You're too good to me, Sinclair.

Thank you…" Sinclair wrapped his arms around her frail frame, rubbing slow circles into her spine. I stood rooted to the linoleum. A sharp chime cut through the sterile air.

My phone screen lit up the dim hallway. "Midnight. Happy Birthday, Freya." Sinclair's head snapped up. Our eyes locked. Chapter 4 Sinclair froze.

He shoved himself off the mattress. "Freya, let me explain—" Sadie shrank behind his broad back, peering over his shoulder.

Her voice trembled, small and fragile. "Doctor." The absurdity of the situation hit me. I spun on my heel.

Sinclair's heavy grip clamped around my wrist. "Freya, stop." His voice pleaded. "Sadie is just—" "Let go." The words came out hollow. Dead. His grip slackened.

I ripped my arm free and kept walking. I let myself into the dark, empty townhouse. I opened a bottle of Cabernet and sat down on the hardwood floor. My screen lit up the darkness.

Fifty unread texts. "Freya, I messed up." "Freya, where are you?" "Just text me back." I tossed the phone onto the granite counter.

I drank the bottle dry, the bitter tannins burning my throat. "Happy Birthday, Freya." The empty room swallowed my whisper. Radio silence followed.

Sinclair stalked the hospital corridors daily. I had the charge nurses run interference. "Dr.

Hayes is scrubbing in." He parked himself outside my office from shift change to midnight. The entire trauma floor noticed.

Riley cornered me in the breakroom. "Doctor, are you and the general fighting?" I shook my head. "No." It wasn't a fight. The tether between us had just snapped.

A week later, Sinclair ambushed me in the parking garage. He leaned against the driver's side of my Audi.

He reeked of stale Marlboros. "Freya, what do you want from me?" Exhaustion wrecked his voice. "We need to talk." I stared right through him.

He yanked the passenger door open, shoving me inside. He vaulted into the driver's seat and gunned the engine.

Tires screeched as we tore out of the lot, slamming to a halt in our townhouse driveway.

He cut the ignition. "I know I was wrong." He gripped the steering wheel. "I shouldn't have walked out on our engagement. I shouldn't have left you alone on your birthday.

But my hands were tied, Freya. Sadie is… she's broken. She bounced around foster care. Cameron was all she had, and now he's in the ground. She's completely alone in this city.

If I don't step up, she won't make it." I sat paralyzed in the leather seat. He turned, his eyes pleading. "Freya, you've always been the bigger person. You're so understanding.

You're not like her. You're independent. Brilliant. You'll thrive no matter what happens. But Sadie? She can't survive without me." She can't survive without me.

That single sentence completely shattered my last bit of hope. A bitter laugh scraped up my throat. Hot tears blurred my vision. "So?

So you martyr me to save her?" His jaw slacked. "That's not what I'm saying—" "Then what are you saying? Sinclair, look me in the eye and tell me.

What am I to you?" Dead silence filled the car. Chapter 5 The oxygen drained from the Audi.

Sinclair gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white. "Freya, you're the only woman I'll ever marry. I love you." Those three words tasted like battery acid. Pure irony.

After that, Sinclair still dropped everything for Sadie. She soaked up his attention, a parasite draining its host. The only difference was that they started avoiding me.

He stopped ambushing me at the VA. My screen stayed dark. No texts. No calls. We lived on the same base, yet a canyon split the ground between us.

Driving home from night shifts, my headlights caught his truck parked outside her temporary housing. It stayed there until dawn. Whispers choked the hospital cafeteria.

Wives gossiping over black coffee. Sinclair took Sadie shopping at the new outlet mall. He bought her a cashmere scarf. She moved into our townhouse.

I never factchecked the rumors. I dreaded the truth. My heart felt like it was roasting over a fire. A silent, suffocating agony. Insomnia hit hard.

I stared at the ceiling until the sun bled through the blinds. Every time I blinked, their silhouettes merged in the dark. My scrubs hung loose off my collarbones.

Mitchell pulled me into his office. "Freya, your condition is terrible lately. Issues at home?" I shook my head. "I'm fine.

Just burned out." He shoved a mandatory leave slip across his desk. I clutched the paper, drifting down the sterile hallway. Nowhere to go. I drove to the townhouse.

I needed closure. A clean break. Ice injected straight into my veins the second I unlocked the front door. A pair of black stilettos—not mine—cluttered the entryway.

Sinclair's dress blues draped over the leather sofa. I forced my boots forward. The master bedroom door stood cracked open.

A low, rumbling laugh—his laugh—tangled with a woman's soft murmur. My legs felt like lead. I stood paralyzed inches from the door. The brass handle turned. Sadie stepped out.

She was wearing my vintage silk nightgown. She froze. Then, a sickeningly sweet smile stretched across her mouth. "Doctor. You're home." Damp hair clung to her neck.

The distinct scent of my Jo Malone body wash radiated off her skin.

A chill ran through my body. "Where is Sinclair?" She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. "The general is in the shower. He completely exhausted himself today." My gaze bypassed her.

Inside the bedroom, our custom kingsized mattress lay wrecked. Tangled sheets. Two empty wine glasses caught the light on the nightstand