Not only would he be responsible for himself, but she’d landed the responsibilities of fatherhood on his shoulders.
And yet...she was pregnant! And Winston was home! For a woman who’d been bereft and completely alone just weeks before, the universe had clearly gifted her.
So, what was it worth to her? Was she going to buckle at the first sign of challenge? The first obstacle?
Hell no, she was not. She was going to be a dedicated partner to her husband who was struggling. And a good parent to the baby growing inside her. She was going to be the woman in this family. Loving them. Holding them all together.
Including herself.
She’d heard the door into the kitchen open and close. Winston had stopped by the entry to the office. If he’d asked, there was no way she could have told him what she was staring at on her screen.
“You can come in,” she said. “I’ve kept your computer updated.”
“I don’t want to bother your work.”
“You used to be at your desk a lot when I was in here working and it never bothered me. That hasn’t changed.” How did she know that until they’d tried?
She slowed herself down. Giving him platitudes, or throwing out anything that could be construed as barbs, whether they’d been meant that way or not, was not the way to help her marriage.
“At least, I can’t imagine it would,” she clarified. “Truthfully, it would probably help. I spent a lot of hours sitting here unable to focus because of the emptiness over there.” She nodded toward his desk.
When he still hesitated, she knew not to push. Instead, she x-ed out of her work network. “I’m done for the night anyway,” she said as he remained in the doorway.
Something on his mind?
Why else would he still be standing there?
Preparing herself not to take whatever he said personally, to remember he was in a transition frame of mind, she remembered something.
“I didn’t tell you, I’m off work for the next couple of days. Boss’s orders.” She’d meant to tell him at dinner. Got sidetracked by the divorce advice. That had turned out not to be that at all, she reminded herself. The advice had been to talk to her.
He’d taken that to the extreme.
Standing there in his khakis, top button still fastened, hands in his pockets, he looked...so damned good to her. Exactly as he’d looked so many times in the past, stopping by the door on his way into work on the days she’d been working from home. If he weighed less, had scars...anything...maybe it would be easier to remember that he wasn’t whole. Yet.
Not that she wished in any way, for any second, that he’d been physically harmed. She was grateful as all hell that he’d devised a plan that had actually allowed him to save the rest of the troops in his unit and keep his own body intact.
Unchanged.
Except...the episode in bed last night came back to her. Winston’s sexual...inability. She’d lain awake, fighting tears, completely shocked, the night before. Until she’d thought of how it must be affecting him, instead of her. For some reason an old episode of Friends came to her... A character who’d been highly sexed had been unable to get it up for his soon-to-be-wife. He’d been hugely out of whack, fearing there was something grossly wrong with him. There hadn’t been. He’d been as randy as ever soon after.
The show was a farce—and maybe the episode popping into her brain a sign that she’d spent too much time streaming old sitcoms over the past two years—but the effect on a man of being unable to perform...that was very real.
She hadn’t mentioned the episode to Chaplain Blaine. But figured that it would be dealt with in counseling at some point, if necessary.
Wanting to ask him about going to someone together, she took a look at his nondescript expression, the hands in his pockets, and figured another time would be better.
Time. It was all about time. And timing.
Like the fact that she’d been inseminated seemingly at the same time that Winston was crawling his way out of the desert.
There were no mistakes.
And him standing there...when bedtime loomed...
The man was hot. He’d tripped her trigger from the moment she’d had a trigger to trip. But...
“I’d like to ask one thing of you, if I may.”
He cocked his head, watching her. She took that as his agreement to consider her request.
“Sex is completely your call. When, or if, it happens between us again is totally up to you.” His jutted chin could have been him biting his tongue, so to speak. Or acknowledging appreciation. She’d figure out how to read this new Winston, she just needed a little time.
Time again. At least they had it now. A month ago...
“But I’d like to request that we at least sleep in the same room. In the same bed, unless there’s some reason you need to sleep on the floor. Or...something.”
She’d heard of that. Being a military wife brought exposure to some horror stories.
“I don’t think...”
“Please, Winston.” She cut him off. “We’ve said we’re going to give this time. But if you’re going to act as though we’re already apart, then you aren’t really giving us any time at all. You’re just humoring ‘us.’ In which case, you might as well just pack up and leave.”
Oh God. She wanted the words back. Instantly.
If he walked out on her... Just... Shit.
She’d said she wouldn’t push, and now she just had. But as she waited for his response, she had to admit to herself that she stood by what she said. If he wasn’t open to possibility, him being there was a farce. Didn’t mean he couldn’t come back, when he’d had time to get himself together, but it meant there was no point in him being there then.
“I’ll sleep in the bed.” As he issued the statement he turned and headed down the hall to their room. He didn’t say “our room.” Or “our bed.” She caught the gentle distinction in his word choice. Knew him well enough to know that he’d chosen it deliberately. He’d definitely changed some. But deep down, Winston was there. She was seeing signs of him even now.
Recognizing things. Like she’d just known about his choice of words being deliberate. But she caught a significance he might not have. If he was really and truly already out the door, he’d have said, “your room.” Or “your bed.”
With a grin on her face, she went in behind him to get ready for bed. Hopefully he’d have the TV on. Give them a chance to lie there and unwind without the need for interaction.
If he didn’t, she wouldn’t push again.
But it would be a damned long night.
She was going to bed wide-awake.
* * *
He’d forgotten just how sharp Emily was. Not that he’d thought her slow, at all. He knew she was intelligent. But he’d forgotten about her acute ability to hear what wasn’t being said.
That was a major fail on his part. The kind of mistake that could blow an entire plan. Make the difference between failure and success.
Over the next few days he coexisted with her, leaving for the base first thing in the morning and returning in time to help with dinner in the evening. He had no real need to be at the base that long. When someone wanted to interview him, he could be busy for an hour or two. Otherwise he worked out. Watched training videos and actual exercises. He went to the library and read everything there was to know about naval police life.
In the evenings, after dinner, he did more of the same. Researched. Read.
Started to get a little bored. And then his mind, craving stimulation, began to segue into useless questions.
Emily’s perfume, for instance. What made it so noticeable? And why hadn’t it been as obvious in the past? He knew it was the same stuff she’d always worn because he’d actually checked it out in the bathroom one morning after his shower.
He goog
led olfactory glands one night. Didn’t find anything of pertinent use.
Searched morning sickness, too, although as far as he knew, Emily hadn’t been sick other than that one time. What he read told him too much and nothing at all. Some women got it. Some didn’t. Some had it violently, some mildly. Sometimes, it came within the first two weeks. More generally it happened around the sixth week. Some had it throughout the pregnancy. A lot didn’t.
He paid a bit more attention when he read that some women actually had to be hospitalized because of it if they weren’t able to keep enough down to get proper nutrition. If she started to puke again, and it became clear that him being there was causing the stress that made it happen, he’d insist on staying elsewhere. Even if that delayed the culmination of his plan.
The last thing he wanted was her in the hospital. She needed to be healthy and strong or she wasn’t going to be happy.
On Friday of that first week back in Marie Cove, he came home to find Emily in the kitchen, stirring a big pan of kielbasa, green beans and potatoes—one of his favorites—and talking on the phone. She got off almost as soon as he came in.
“’Bye, Mom, love you!”
Shock hit him flat in the face. Which sent a spiral of panic through him that he quickly obliterated with conscious reminders that he had nothing to fear except being afraid. He’d proven he could trust himself to handle anything else.
“How was your day?” Emily’s question, aimed at him, though she hadn’t turned around, helped put his world right—bringing him fully out of the places down deep that could kill a guy if he couldn’t get out.
Of course she’d be talking to her mother. He should have asked about the woman. And his own parents... He’d put off telling them he’d been found, but his superiors had made it clear that they’d only hold off on official announcements to secondary family for a short period.
The short period was probably up. The fact that he hadn’t given much thought to either his parents or Emily’s mom and brother bothered him. A lot.
He cared about them all. Took for granted that they’d be there when he was ready. But why hadn’t he asked about them? Or needed to know what had transpired in their lives over the past couple of years?
“I was told my folks are still in Florida,” he said to Emily’s back. The pot didn’t need to be stirred continuously. An occasional swipe over the couple of hours the stew would cook was enough. And yet she hadn’t turned around.
“They are.” In another one of her short-skirted suits—navy this time—and those three-inch heels that had always drawn his attention straight to her calves—she’d obviously started dinner as soon as she’d come in from work.
“And doing well, I presume? Since you haven’t said otherwise?”
“I haven’t spoken to them since a week after you were declared officially dead,” she told him. “But they were doing fine then. Your dad’s golfing five days a week in a men’s league. And your mom’s involved with a women’s political group. Doing some rallies, making signs. Having a lot of lunches with the girls.”
They were coping, he translated. A new weight settled on him. Not so much a need as an awareness. He should call them.
Should want to see them.
He didn’t, really.
Which kind of bothered him. But not as much as it should have. When parts of you were dead to self, when you knew that duty was stronger than so-called love or the pull of family ties, you were free of some of the confines that emotions put on you.
He should put a call to them on the schedule, though.
“And your Mom?”
“Still in San Diego with Michael. Jamie’s six now and Dylan is seven. They’re getting involved in school activities and keeping her busy.”
Michael. The brother-in-law who had once been like a brother to him. Again...that shock shot through him that he’d given so little thought to them all. It just didn’t seem right.
His in-laws lived about forty-five minutes south from the base where he spent his time, in a suburb, not really San Diego proper, but still...they were a lot closer than Florida and...
“Does she know I’m back?”
“Of course not. I told you I wouldn’t tell anyone, other than the people at work, until you were ready. You know that once we do there’ll be a deluge of activity.”
“Not if we tell them we need some time. They’ll respect that.”
Something he should have seen before. Tended to. The sudden consciousness confused him.
Shrugging it off, Winston figured he’d had enough on his plate the past week, what with having to move back in with Emily and finding out that she was pregnant. He could be forgiven for a lapse or two.
“We should call them all,” he said now. And then had another thought. “Do they know about the baby yet?”
When Emily turned, he was struck by the look in her eyes as her gaze met his. The depth there...
He could almost sense it calling to him, saying something...but whatever it was, he couldn’t quite hear. And knew better than to try. Getting caught up in the fantasy would only bring unmeasurable pain. For both of them.
“I haven’t told anyone about the baby except you,” she said, leaning back against the counter. “I want to wait until the first trimester passes safely.”
She wanted to know she wasn’t going to miscarry. Because while he was sitting around looking up olfactory glands, she’d been worrying about the baby she carried. Caring deeply about it.
He was pretty sure that made him a schmuck. Something he’d already figured out about himself.
“So...you want to call them separately or together? To tell them I’m alive, I mean.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. She reached for his hand.
“Together, of course.”
He saw the mistake too late, giving her that choice. Leading her to believe that there was a possibility of “together” for them.
It was a mistake he couldn’t make again.
Chapter Twelve
Funny how when time stood still, it still flew by. Days that were mostly the same passed, one after another, broken up by cacophony on the weekends as her family and Winston’s parents descended upon them. Emily’d known his assertion that they’d give them time was ludicrous. Had figured he’d known it, too. And yet he’d seemed completely shocked when, after their initial phone calls, there were a flurry of texts and more calls—including video calls—as arrangements were made for everyone to visit Marie Cove.
With her mom and brother and the kids it was both easier and harder, because they could just drive up and be there. And they had, the Saturday morning after their Friday night calls. They’d had an hour’s notice, during which Winston had gone into their room dressed in his khakis and come out wearing a pair of blue shorts and an off-white button-down shirt. It was the first time she’d seen him in anything but pajama bottoms or his uniform since he’d walked back into her world. She’d had to excuse herself to the bathroom to wipe away tears and calm her pounding heart.
They’d met her brother’s car out in the driveway, standing there together, though not touching. It had both filled her heart and broken it, as they all had the reunion she’d often imagined for Winston’s return. He’d played his part in front the family. Giving her long looks, referring to her often, staying close to her.
And then they’d be gone and so would he—the part of him that was her loving husband, happy to be back in the home he’d “built” with her. In his stead would be the calm, unemotional though overall kind version of Winston she was coming to know.
The following weekend his parents had been there. They’d tried to insist on coming immediately, the previous Friday when they’d received the call, but they’d been better about listening to Winston’s request for time. They’d given him the week.
And so it went, one week following ano
ther. During the week they’d work, him in San Diego, her in LA, unless either of them had a work-from-home day, which they’d coordinate to make certain that they weren’t both there at the same time. On the weekends, either his parents flew in, or her mother, at least, drove up, and then they’d go to the beach, eat out, do a little trail walking—or even just stream movies. Winston had missed two years’ worth of TV and movies, and her mother made it her mission to see that he got caught up on anything anyone might be talking about so he didn’t feel lost. And she’d also insisted on cooking him every meal she’d ever made for him that he’d said he liked.
As much as Emily normally craved her independence, she was hugely grateful to have her mother around.
The warm family weekends fortified her for the rest of the week, when Winston largely withdrew into himself again.
She’d mentioned counseling several times. Had had phone sessions with a woman referred to her by Chaplain Blaine. Each time she’d suggested they go together, he let her know that his own sessions were enough for him.
And she’d gone to the clinic to see Christine. Just to chat. And had had her first scheduled visit with Dr. Miller, who would be delivering her baby. So far, so good. After that first bout of morning sickness, there’d been nothing more than a few queasy moments taken care of by the soda crackers she kept in her bag. And Dr. Miller said everything looked great.
The nursery was currently nonexistent. Their guests stayed in the spare bedroom that she’d been about to turn into the baby’s haven. And since none of them knew about the baby yet...
Sometimes, on her drives to and from work, when she wasn’t rethinking every nuance of every moment spent with Winston, looking for signs of change, trying to understand and find patience, she played around with baby names. But she always came up empty. Maybe once she knew if it was a boy or a girl.
Maybe when Winston was in a place to have the discussion with her. This was his baby, too—their baby. She didn’t want to choose a name alone.
Her stomach hadn’t changed in appearance at all that she could see. Standing in her bathroom one Thursday night the second week of August, studying her nearly naked form in bikini briefs before pulling on her nightgown, she was hard-pressed to believe she really was pregnant.
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