Mistletoe & Kisses

by Anthology

  To keep my mind off of his eventual deployment, I was trying to keep my routine as normal as possible, and with Tanner on the range for a few days at a time it was more important than ever. I started with all of the appointments and paperwork I’d put off over the last few months to move into the house and plan the wedding. Some of them were doctor’s appointment, while others were simple things like getting my hair trimmed. For most of the appointments, I was months overdue. Then again, I still had to fill out all of the paperwork, officially changing my name and becoming Tanner’s next of kin.

  For two weeks straight, every time he was out in the field, I used that time to get it all done. This way when he came back we would have that time together. Once I’d completed all of those, it was time to the last one. The one I’d been avoiding.

  It was that time of year again. Every woman’s least favorite appointment of the year. The OB-GYN. It was one of those appointments you couldn’t miss, no matter how much you hated it, you went anyway. Although you tried to avoid it as long as possible.

  Sitting in the waiting room, I flipped through the magazines on the table, trying not to look at my phone. Tanner had been on the range for two days. When he left he wasn’t sure if it would be a three or four day stay. Knowing I’d worry, even though they were still on base, he’d promised to call me the minute they got back to the barracks. The problem? I was making myself crazy looking at my phone every ten minutes. To avoid it for a little while, anyway, I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t look at my phone the entire time I was there.

  The longer I sat there, though, the harder it was to ignore my phone. Just as I was about to reach for it, the nurse came in and called me back. I got dressed in that stupid paper gown, which was definitely worse than what you were forced to wear in the hospital. A few drops of water and you’d have a wet T-shirt contest, right there in the doctor’s office.

  There was a soft knock on the door. “Congratulations! I hear we are changing your name on all of your paperwork,” the doctor said as she walked in the door.

  I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face. It felt good to be offered congratulations instead of condolences. “Thank you. Yes we are.”

  Dr. Reese was the reason I’d been going to that office for the last ten years. She always found a way to make the whole ordeal a little less awkward. Keeping the uncomfortable silence out of the room, she kept up a conversation without breaking stride in what she was doing.

  “Tell me about your new husband. The last time you were here, you were still single, everything must have happened pretty quickly.”

  “Yeah, Tanner was kind of a whirlwind. We met last summer and got married two weeks ago.”

  “Two weeks ago? Then, what are you doing here?”

  I laughed. “He’s working, so I’m getting all of these appointments out of the way, then when he has free time we can spend it together.”

  “That’s wonderful. Tell me how you two met.”

  The whole time she was taking her tests, I told her how we met and the events leading up to the wedding. In the middle of completing her exam, her head snapped up to look at me.

  “That can’t be right,” she muttered under her breath.

  “What can’t be right?” I asked, making it clear that I wanted to know what was going on. The tone of her voice caught me off-guard, and it was starting to make me very nervous.

  Without answering me, she continued to speak to herself as she looked at my chart and then logged onto the computer to find the answer she was looking for. Flipping through the pages in my folder, I noticed that Dr. Reese continued to look back and forth between me and my chart. Finally she put my chart down and stepped up to press down on my abdomen, feeling around in different places. After a few moments she stopped and looked up at me. She looked like she wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure exactly how to phrase it.

  “Danielle, there’s something in your tests that you need to know about.”

  My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach as worry spread. “What’s wrong?”

  The trembling of my hands was too hard to control so I opted to hide them. These were the times I needed Tanner to keep my overactive imagination under control. He knew how to ground me and keep me calm when my rational mind didn’t work.

  “Well, I noticed you told the nurse that you are still taking birth control. It must have—”

  “Oh God, it gave me some kind of disease, didn’t it? What is it?”

  “No, you don’t have a disease.” Ripping off her gloves, she held onto my hand. “Danielle, you’re pregnant.”

  Time froze.

  There had to be something wrong with my hearing. There was no way what just came out of her mouth could possibly be true. I was on birth control. It wasn’t like I was taking it antibiotics, which could have reduced their effectiveness. That was a rule I always paid attention to.

  “That can’t be right, I’m on the pill.” I said, grasping at straws.

  The smile she gave me was one to comfort me, but I felt my breathing starting to speed up. “I know you are, but remember it’s only ninety-nine percent effective. Something as simple as taking it different times throughout the day can reduce the effectiveness. At this point I’m going to need you to stop taking the birth control and instead I’m going to write you a prescription for some prenatal vitamins.”

  “Oh God.”

  I’d been taking it at all times during the day, figuring as long as I took it that I’d be fine. This was not what I was expecting. The even bigger question was how I was going to tell Tanner. He’d wanted to wait to have kids, and because of my mistake that was no longer going to be the case. It felt like someone was sitting on my chest and I couldn’t get a deep breath. The spinning in my head was making hard to focus.

  “Danielle, I know this is a shock, but everything will be fine. I need you to take a deep breath and let it out again.”

  I tried following her directions, sucking in a deep breath of air and letting it out slowly. All the while Dr. Reese was holding my hand. It took a few moments, but eventually I was able to drag enough air into my lungs that my breathing returned to normal. Once I had calmed down, Dr. Reese looked at me.

  “I don’t want you driving home by yourself. Can we get a hold of Tanner to pick you up?”

  I shook my head, my mind still swirling in circles over the new reality I was faced with. “No, he’s on range training.” It wasn’t like I wanted to call Tanner anyway. How was I supposed to tell him? This was going to change all of the plans we had. That was something I could worry about later. At that moment I needed to think of someone who could pick me up. Dr. Reese was right: I was in no condition to drive. My body was a complete frenzy of emotions.

  “I can call my friend Marissa,” I offered.

  “Okay. You make the call then get dressed. I’ll take you to my office to wait and maybe talk some more.”

  Marissa answered on the first ring and agreed to pick me up, but she wanted to know why. I promised to tell her when she arrived. She only worked about five minutes away from the doctor’s office and she was there in no time. One of the nurses led her back to the office. I still felt like I was going to have a panic attack at any moment.

  “Does anyone want to tell me why I’m picking up Danielle when she has a perfectly good car out front?” Marissa stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips.

  Luckily Dr. Reese answered for me. “I felt that in her current frame of mind, it was too dangerous for her to get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.”

  “Okay, but why is she freaked out?”

  Both Dr. Reese and Marissa looked pointedly at me. I knew Dr. Reese wasn’t allowed to release medical information unless I gave her permission. I didn’t want to talk about it, but I was going to need a friend to lean on. The blood continued to thrum in my ears. Looking up at Marissa, I answered her question.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “Congratulations! That’s so exciting,” s
he squealed. Then she took a look at my expression. “This is a good thing, why do you look like you’re about to lose it?”

  “Tanner’s not ready to have kids.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says Tanner.”

  “I bet he’ll change his mind when you tell him.”

  “I can’t tell him yet.”

  “What do you—” Marissa stopped and wrapped her arms around mine. “We can talk about this in the car. Right now, let me get you out of here. We’ll figure the rest out.”

  I followed Marissa to her car, but my mind couldn’t focus, swirling with thoughts about having a baby. It was still hard to wrap my head around the fact that all of it was real and not a dream. Once she’d pulled out of the parking space.

  “Now do you want to explain why you can’t tell him yet?”

  “I need to find the right moment, which is not today because I need to wrap my head around it myself first, plus he’s still in the field for another day.”

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. If you tell him, you can work it out together and have his support.”

  “But what if he doesn’t change his mind and really doesn’t want this baby, what am I supposed to do then?”

  “Are you insane? That man loves you more than life itself. There is no way he wouldn’t want a child you made together.”

  “Can we just drop it and let me deal with this in my own way?” I replied, frustration leaking into my tone.

  “Fine, I’ll agree to drop it for today, but only because I know this is a huge thing to be dropped in your lap. Just remember, I’m going to keep bugging you about it until you do the right thing.”

  The right thing? She was sure that included telling Tanner. Tanner, my husband, who just the other day admitted that he wasn’t ready to have kids. How was I supposed to sit down and tell him, especially with his deployment only about two weeks away? For now I was going to have to deal with it on my own, unless the perfect opportunity came up before he left. Otherwise I would tell him when he got back. He needed to be focused during his deployment. It was the only way to keep him safe and bring him back to me. There was no reason for him to spend the three months worried about me.

  ***

  The next two weeks went by in the blink of an eye. As tired as I was, I had a hard time sleeping at night, my thoughts plague with ‘what if’ questions. Tanner still didn’t know I was pregnant, and Marissa made sure to call or stop by every day in her attempt to get me to change my mind.

  Tanner had driven us over to the ceremony for deployment, with Marissa meeting us there. Tanner stopped to grab his bags out of the back of the car while Marissa dragged me a few steps away and whisper-yelled, “You still haven’t told him yet have you?”

  “No. Now drop it.”

  “You realize you won’t see again for three months, right?”

  “I know. He doesn’t need another thing to worry about.”

  “Bullshit. This is his child we are talking about here.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tanner approaching. “Drop it.”

  She looked complete pissed off, but at least she didn’t tell him anything.

  “Everything okay, girls?”

  “Yeah,” I said softly.

  He tucked me into his side. “We’ll back before you know it.”

  If only he knew that was the least of my concerns at the moment. Like we did at all of the deployments, we kissed goodbye, then I watched them load the buses and leave. At that point it was all routine, and normally I got a little teary eyed.

  Not this time. This time I was I full hysterics with Tanner doing his best to calm me down. He hugged me tight to him and whispered in my ear.

  “Everything is going to be fine. There’s no reason to cry.”

  Marissa continued to shoot me dirty looks, understanding exactly what was making me act completely irrational. There was nothing I could do to stop the tears.

  “I know this the first deployment since our wedding, but that doesn’t mean that history will repeat itself,” he said, as he continued to try and offer me comfort.

  I could see my own pain reflected in his eyes, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. Colin and Greg tried to help, but it only made it worse. Eventually, it was time for them to leave and it looked like it was killing Tanner to let me go.

  Marissa stepped up next to us. “I’ve got her and I’ll make sure she gets home safe.”

  Tanner tried to smile but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Thanks, Marissa.”

  “Don’t worry, she’ll be fine in a bit.”

  Once the boys loaded the bus, Marissa and I made our way back to the car, without another word.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell him.”

  This was getting old. I’d made my decision and it couldn’t be changed now. There was no way I was going to tell him this over the phone. I wanted to see his face when he found out.

  “I told you, I would tell him in my own time. Probably when he gets back.”

  She threw her hands up in the air. “You know what, whatever. I say it’s about a week you’re regretting not telling him, and then you’ll have to wait until he comes home—unless you want to do it over Skype.”

  Marissa got in the car without another word. I knew better than to try and reason with her when she got like this. There was no point. She wasn’t going to listen, and there was no way I was going to change my mind. I’d made my decision and I was sticking to it. Marissa was wrong.

  I wouldn’t regret my choice.

  * * *

  Except a week later I realized how right she was. I called her crying the night I realized that I should have told him before he left. It was bad enough he was going to miss part of the pregnancy since he was deployed. He at the very least had a right to know he was going to be a father.

  But there was nothing I could do about it. Even if he had gotten mad at me for getting pregnant, he still had a right to know. Over the next few months, I told Liam and my parents. They were all super excited. I’d come to terms with it myself, and was finally completely happy that I had a little piece of Tanner with me all the time.

  Tanner and I talked on Skype, but the conversations were weird and uncomfortable. I tried to keep myself from telling him, and he attempted to figure out what was wrong.

  This deployment passed by faster than any of the others as I waited for my judgment to be passed down. In a blink of an eye, three months had passed and it was time to pick up Tanner. The one thing I hadn’t anticipated was the small baby bump I was sporting. There was no hiding now. He would know as soon as he saw me.

  Practically shaking, I went inside with Liam and Marissa to wait.

  Chapter Nine

  Tanner

  IT FELT LIKE forever since I’d seen Dani. Only three months had passed, but it was a completely different feeling now that we were married. Not to mention that through all of our conversations something had seemed off. She wasn’t distant, but at times she was preoccupied. I was worried about her. She was mine to take care of, which was hard to do when I was so far away. There were a few times I tried talking to Liam and Marissa to see if they knew what was wrong, but both of them had promised that she was fine and just missed me, and that everything would be fine when I got back.

  The flutters in my stomach got stronger the closer we got to the drop off area. The bus pulled up and I immediately saw Liam and Marissa, but Danielle was nowhere in sight. The butterflies were quickly replaced by a rock, sitting heavy in my gut. Where was she? Why wasn’t she here? There was no way she’d be working.

  “Where’s Danielle?” Colin asked from the seat in front of me.

  “I have no idea. My ass needs to get off this bus and find her though.”

  Greg slapped me on the back. “I’m sure everything’s fine. Don’t freak until you know there’s a problem.

  With everyone excited to be reunited with their families, the buses unloaded pretty quickly. My bag i
n my hand, I went straight for Liam and Marissa.

  “Where is she?” I asked as soon as I was in front of them.

  They shared a look before stepping to the side. There before me was the most beautiful vision I’d ever seen. Danielle stood before me, in a pair of jeans and a tight pink top, that easily showed off the small bump along her abdomen. She was strict with her yoga routine, and I knew I was looking at the beginning of a life created by us.

  I was going to be a father.

  Dropping to my knees, I wrapped my arms around her and placed my lips on her thickened waistline. When I looked up to her face, I could see the tears sliding, unchecked, to the ground.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and didn’t understand why she’d kept it from me the entire time I was gone.

  “You wanted to wait, and I didn’t want you to be mad at me.”

  Rising to my feet, I stared at her for a moment, unable to get my voice past my lips. “How could I ever be mad at you for carrying a life we created?”

  With my thumbs, I brushed away her tears.

  “You’re really not mad?”

  Taking her hand in mine, I pulled her into my arms, rocking her back and forth. “Dani, I have never been so happy in my entire life. It doesn’t matter that this was sooner then we planned. Sometimes the unplanned moments are the most amazing.”

  Her body slumped against me, almost like I’d lifted a thousand pound weight from her shoulders, the weight of her rolling into me. Needing to feel closer to my child, I placed my hand on her stomach. “How are you feeling? When are we due? Is it a boy or a girl?”

  When she pulled her face away from my shoulder, there was now a smile on her face. “Let’s say ’bye to our friends and get out of here. Then I’ll tell you everything.”