by Lisa Ladew
“Hawk …”
He was too quick for her, and disappeared out the door to the garage before she could reach him. She followed him, her heart in her throat. He was pulling down a large cardboard box from a high shelf.
“Hawk, are you OK?”
He didn’t answer, just dropped the box on the ground and ripped the top open. He rummaged through it. Vivian heard the door open behind her. Emma and Craig had followed them. She hoped they weren’t about to witness their first fight. Hawk was acting so strangely, she didn’t know what to think.
He pulled a sealed plastic bag from the bottom of the box, then turned towards her. He ripped the seal open and pulled out a dark piece of clothing. He shook it out, then held it to his face.
Hawk’s eyes found hers and she saw no anger there. Only deep mystery and wonder.
Hawk held out the top towards her and she saw it was the top to a military uniform. A small hole on the right shoulder caught her eye. Green thread indicated where a patch had once been sewn on, then ripped off.
“It still smelled like you until a couple of years ago,” he told her, his face solemn.
A white lightning bolt of understanding cleaved through Vivian’s mind. Hawk was her soldier. She’d missed it completely. But her body hadn’t. Her body had known Hawk from the day it first encountered him. She remembered back to her fierce desire when she’d first met him in the hospital room, after Craig had been shot. She’d never understood it then. She understood it now.
She walked to him, slowly, their eyes locked together. She took the uniform from him and pulled it to her nose. Could she smell a faint hint of the perfume she used to wear? It didn’t matter anymore. They’d found each other again. Life had brought them back full circle. Like it always does.
She put the shirt down and reached for her husband, her soldier. Her kiss was savage, passionate, wanting. She’d dreamed about kissing her soldier again so many times in the years that followed, but this was better than any dream. Hawk kissed her back, and in the kiss she felt the years finally fall away, the desperate wanting meld into sweet knowing. He picked her up as easily as he had the day she turned eighteen years old, his hands grasping her buttocks and pulling her close. She wrapped her legs around him and gave herself to him again. She belonged to him. And she was glad. He was the only man in the world for her.
***
Emma and Craig stood aside as Hawk made his way easily to the garage door, even though his full attention was on his wife, whom he was carrying and kissing at the same time.
He pushed the door open and disappeared inside.
Craig watched them go, then turned to Emma. “Maybe we should get some lunch or something. I bet they’re going to be a while.”
Emma giggled and took his hand. “You’re probably right. We’ll check back in an hour or two.”
Craig walked her to his truck and held the door open for her. “He told me about her.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I heard that exact same story a few months after it happened. But he was a bit mushier about the kiss. He said she was special.”
“That’s amazing,” Emma breathed, happy for her sister. She looked at her handsome husband and smiled at him, happy for herself too. The wedding mementoes could wait. True love was more important.
<<< The End >>>
** author’s note. There is no such patch as the one described, and there is no Bravo One unit. I fashioned it lightly after the U.S. Army’s delta force.