by A. Gorman
If you fuck up—fix it. Justin. Again. I’m more like my father than I can stomach, but it doesn’t stop me.
I grab Gus, and we run. I run away from the past, from Justin and the girl who threatens the rules that have kept me alive.
August 31st
Dear Justin.
No one ever surprised me. Not even Santa Claus, because my parents didn’t play games. I knew the secret when others believed. But I was shocked speechless this morning, Daddy.
x Piper
Chapter Four
Hello and Goodbye
Piper
IF I have been one thing in life, it’s someone’s responsibility. I started off as an obligation to parents who never wanted children. An abortion wasn’t an option by the time my mother confirmed her pregnancy, a detail she was never above mentioning. To say we’re not close is an understatement the size of the Sierra Nevada. They don’t know about Justin or the baby. I haven’t spoken to them since I packed my car and landed in Lilyfalls. Their commitment is over. So the last thing I’ll ever be to anyone again is a duty, a mission, a task for completion. It’s time to set this fact straight with Caden.
I haven’t seen him since he busted out of the bakery at half past six this morning. Cara drops me off to an empty house after we close the shop at two. At some point, he was here. The boxed up crib that had been waiting for Dax to assist in its assembly is complete, with a mobile hung above sheets already stretched on the mattress. Dax spent the day with Willow, so that means my missing SEAL is Mr. Fix-It.
I’m uncomfortable and hot. My back hurts and my stomach has been cramping during the hours I’ve spent waiting for his return. I try to relax while baking and listening to a medley of early 80s pop-rock but nine-months-pregnant dance moves to “Like a Virgin” leave me winded and wound up. Twelve-dozen pastries later and the sun hits the horizon as the last batch comes out of the oven.
Where is Caden? I clean up the kitchen and when putting away the milk, I glance at a photo of me and Justin pinned to the fridge. A selfie he took with me hanging on his back, my lips on his cheek as a smile lights up his face. He was so happy. Emotion clogs my throat. Seeing his picture is hard; saying goodbye at his funeral was harder. Caden never had the chance.
With sinking intuition, I leave the house and walk the ten blocks to confirm my suspicions. The added activity intensifies the tightening along my torso, and I rub out the ache as I take the final steps up the hill.
Subtle sounds of summer mask my footsteps as I approach Justin’s grave. Caden lies in the grass with Gus curled up next to him.
“Piper?”
His voice is rough and reaches me in a way it shouldn’t, not for really knowing him all of twenty-four hours. But I’m beginning to suspect Cara was right. Something is between us. Not the panty-ripping, I-need-to-fuck-you kind of something, although that potential simmers under the surface. But we have a deeper affirmation. Every step brings us closer together, testing self-imposed boundaries. “Caden?”
“Are you going to hit me again? I’m not saying I don’t deserve it; I’d just like to prepare for the blow.”
I smile despite our location. “Truce, remember?”
“I’d understand if you came armed.”
“Fear of my muffins has you sleeping under the stars tonight?” I ask as I find my way to the ground to lie beside him.
“Not sleeping,” he says, holding out a hand to help me get settled. “Listening.”
“To what?”
“Everything.” He rolls up on his elbow, pinning me with eyes churning with vulnerability and an innocence that remains even after everything he’s experienced. War is hard on a man—finding peace with his part in it might just be harder. Coming home was Caden’s first step forward; coming here is his first chance to say goodbye. “I’m sorry.”
I’ve seen regret before—Justin’s on the day he left; my father’s as I fled faster than he could talk me out of leaving before his deal soured. But Caden’s guilt is layered in a painful way that makes my heart hurt. I didn’t think about how hard being in Lilyfalls would be for him. “You don’t owe me anything. Don’t stay because of a promise. I don’t want you to be unhappy.”
He falls to his back, his hands finding their way under his neck. “I’m not. Honestly, I’m terrified.”
“Of what?”
“You. One look in your eyes and I forget the world exists. That’s a terrifying prospect for a man trained to notice minute details.”
Oh. I don’t know what to say, lying with Caden, surrounded by the man that brought us together. His body may be buried beneath us, but Justin is in the wind and the rustle of leaves, the spark of the stars as they pop with the darkening blue sky. I feel him in the tingle of goose bumps on my skin.
“For six months I’ve basically thought of two things: Justin and you,” he says, before I can respond. “Not how you were together, but separate responsibilities. How I failed with one and figuring out how I could ever succeed with the other. I’ve thought about his death and your pregnancy. I’ve gone over every what-if and alternate ending. I’ve fucking prayed I was in a nightmare, and I’d wake up. I’ve gone over and over the steps I’d take to fix your life.”
“I don’t need—”
He holds up a hand. “I think about the mission non-stop; the voices don’t let me forget. I hear them, the sounds, the day down to the seconds, and it always ends the same. I imagined coming home and what I’d find when I got here. I never thought, not once, Piper, that I would like you. I like you. But you’re Justin’s girl.”
I nod and swallow my remorse. It hurts, but one moment changed my forever into something different. I have no choice but to accept fate and open myself to a new future. “I was for a little while.”
“God.” Caden grabs his hair and tugs. “I’ve known you for a second so this conversation is crazy, certi-fucking-fiable. They didn’t check for that before they released me, you know. I think they should have, because no one instantly feels like this when they meet someone, like things are going to get better. But I do, and I can’t wait to meet your baby. So then I get to this, and I’m sorry, Piper, I’m sorry, but I’m trying to figure out my head right now, and it got me here. What if I like you because you’re all I have left of Justin?”
My heart sinks. “I’m not sure it matters,” I murmur and glance over as he searches the horizon, maybe looking for the same things as me—peace, acceptance, a place to belong. “Caden, I like you, too. And I don’t care about the reasons why because my life got a little fuller when you walked into it. Maybe we just start over, as if we have no history and say hello. Break it down to a boy meeting a very pregnant girl.”
His jaw hardens, tense lines bronzed with his growing beard. His brow pulls down, and a straight line digs in as he stares at me with such intensity I feel the weight of it grow heavier each passing second. “Why Justin?”
His seemingly out-of-the-blue question stuns me into silence for a long moment. Why Justin? Sometimes the truth is a hard pill to swallow.
“At first it was because he was everything my parents would hate. Justin drove a motorcycle.” I hold a giggle behind my hand, even as tears rush my eyes. “He was Jax Teller come to life, roaring into town with a new kind of fairytale I wanted to find on the back of his Harley. God, my dad would’ve been mortified, and I loved that, but as it turned out I really loved being with him. Not just physically. It was like all of a sudden I had no idea how I had lived without him, and that was when I knew I didn’t want to. So much about love is timing. Right then, he was exactly what I needed.”
Caden reaches for my hand. I somehow feel better when we touch, more grounded, centered, as if gravity finally found me and I’m not floating in disbelief any longer. Time ticks by with no words—nothing but him and me and our memories.
The wind picks up, but it’s warm and salty from the sea. Gus shuffles over, nuzzling his nose into my cheek, and eventually his chin comes to rest on my shoulder.
> “Justin wanted to marry the fuck out of you, Piper. Giddy is not a word I’d use to describe him, but when he talked about you, he was the definition of happy. He made me think it could be a possibility for me too, one day, not now, but one day, with the right girl.” His shoulders shake off a chill but I press for added information.
“Who’s Leah?” I ask a lingering question that’s been hanging around since morning.
He sighs. “High school girlfriend.”
“You loved her?”
“As much as an eighteen-year-old kid could. We had a bunch of firsts together, so that made it harder to leave.”
“Why didn’t you take her with you?”
His mouth opens more than once, but he remains silent until he rolls on his side to look at me. Relaxed in jeans and a white tee stretched across the width of his chest, he looks so young with our still joined hands under his ear.
“The hardest job in the world is the wife left behind. It’s one thing to be in the thick of a fight—it’s something completely different to wait at home wondering how it ends. You know this. I’ve never wanted to put someone in that position, other than Cara and my mother who had no choice because I am who I am.”
“Are you going back?”
He grabs his thigh and rubs. “I honestly don’t know. There’s a good possibility I wouldn’t pass the physical fitness test even if I wanted to. My leg . . .” His voice dies off as tears cloud his vision. “And it wouldn’t be the same.”
“Justin?”
He nods, and the baby makes his presence known, or rather my stomach does in a deep pull along my sides. I close my eyes and breathe through the ache in the kind of staccato vibration they taught me in Lamaze.
Caden perches above me on outstretched arms when I’m capable of refocusing, scanning my face, my chest, my stomach, the bare length of my legs and back up. “How often has that happened today?”
“It hasn’t. Not like this.”
“Come on.” He springs to his feet, his hands reaching to help me up. “I’ve got to get you out of here.”
His fingers don’t let go when I’m standing—they’re held straight and tight to his thighs. We both look down to where we were, and to Gus as he sniffs around Justin’s headstone etched with dates and his commitment to his country and me. After a minute, and because Caden seems to need another one, I lay my forehead against his chest and breathe in his unique scent, clean sweat, musk, and maleness. He leans his cheek on my hair, and we stand long enough that another twinge tightens around me. But I stay still, enjoying a moment, a good one where the crushing weight of loneliness evaporates.
“I don’t know how to move beyond his death,” he whispers.
“Oh, Caden.” I look up only to be overcome by his sorrow. “It’s only goodbye for now. We’ll keep him alive with our memories and then one day, we’ll be together again. I have to believe that.”
He shakes his head, his features crumbling. “You don’t understand. It’s my fault, Piper.”
“No.” I reach to cup his cheek as the first tear falls over his lid. “No, it’s not. Don’t do that to yourself.”
“I gave the call to move in. The mission fell apart and when Axel got hit, it turned into my lead.”
“Stop it.” I tug on his nape, forcing him to look at me even as his pain pulls out mine.
Bending toward me, he sobs and my heart breaks. “Justin would be here if I hadn’t made the call.” He presses the words into my forehead as his tears slide to my cheeks. “I think about that split second all the fucking time. All the time, Piper—it’s beating up my mind, but I can’t take it back. I can’t fucking taking it back.”
I fight to capture his gaze, to force him to see the truth within my eyes. I don’t blame him. But he holds tight. He tucks his head into my neck, crying, silent and shaking. Minutes pass before he drags up to mumble unintelligible words into my hair. And only when he’s ready does he pull on it, freeing my face to search his. So much pain, so much sadness washes through him. His legs buckle as a moan escapes his mouth.
“Please forgive me,” he murmurs, drawing out my grief through tears I have yet to cry. He kisses me everywhere, mixing his sadness with my own. We weep through his guilt, what we lost, and into the forgiveness he so desperately needs. He finds my eyes, never breaking contact as his lips hover over mine.
“I’m sorry, please,” he begs and then presses against my mouth.
Is it possible for something to be right and wrong at the same time? This, God, this feels so good. I pull him impossibly closer. His tongue slips in and he’s fierce, demanding as he licks and bites into me until I’m drunk on feeling. I match his movements, his moans, the tug of hands in hair. Our hearts break and with the same emotion that destroyed us, we pick each other up and rebuild.
Everything deepens, the darkness behind my eyes as I squeeze my lids together just to feel him pressed tightly to my aching breasts. Our breath as it escapes in a burst when he withdraws just enough to drag in air. We’re consumed and possessed. The world narrows to two bodies longing for more than this night will bring.
Caden is greedy, but he gives as much as he takes. I like kissing him, a lot. And too much for it to continue, so I press against his shoulders. Then I groan and curse as my stomach erupts in a fireball. He breaks away, dazed. A second passes, and then I buckle forward.
“Dear, Jesus.” It hurts. A lot.
“Okay,” he says, and I look up to find his hands in his hair. “Yeah, this happening.”
I stare through his shock as my own inches down my spine at the same time as my water breaks. “Caden.”
His name, my voice, or reality spurs him into action. He scoops me up, one arm under my knees, the other on my back. “Piper?”
“Caden,” I cry and arch through another burst of pain.
“You’re having a baby, sunshine.”
Tears return, and I cry. I sob into his neck out of elation, and fear, and sadness, and hope. But mostly fear when another pain takes me. They’re coming too fast. “The hospital. I have a bag at home.”
“No time for that. St. Mary’s is thirty minutes away,” he says, rushing the last ten feet to his Chevy parked in the lot. “Come on, Gus.” Caden whistles, but the pup is on our heels and scampers up and in as soon as the door is opened.
Caden sets me on the seat, tugging the belt over and around my stomach. I cry out and grab the dash. Hot pokers in the gut are easier than a spreading pelvis. What the fuck?
He tips my chin and our eyes lock. “Breathe, that’s it,” he says as I follow the pattern he mimics. “Slow, deep. Okay?”
“It hurts.”
He smiles, and I want to hit him.
I grab his T-shirt instead and pull us nose to nose. “This shit isn’t funny.”
I growl when his damn grin widens. Then I curse him as he slams my door and smacks the hood in apparent excitement while rounding it to find his place behind the wheel. The contractions double up, folding in on themselves. Time blurs. We drive. He digs his phone out of his pocket and calls Cara, telling her to find my doctor. His hand takes mine, and then his encouraging words are lost to my filthy ones. He comments on the scope of my vocabulary and teaches me new terms as the waves become faster and more intense.
“Caden,” I scream his name into long syllables as my body takes over with a sudden, desperate urge to push. He’s on the phone; an ambulance is on the way, he assures me, but he pulls over at the same time. Spitting gravel and his own expletives, he peels to a stop and hops out, and then he’s at my door with a bag in tow from his trunk. He tugs my legs toward him and lowers my back to the seat.
“What are you doing?” I pant and cry all at the same time.
“I’ve got you, sunshine. Everything’s fine; this is not my first delivery.”
“What? No,” I groan in denial through a new round of get-it-the-fuck-out-of-my-vagina pain. Mortification comes and goes and comes around again when he strips me of my soiled panties and peaks
up above the sundress he pushes past my thighs.
“My filthy girl,” he says, his eyes twinkling in the overhead light. “We’re going to talk about this.”
I do my damnedest to kick him. He laughs and then gets serious, holding my legs as I push and pause when he tells me to do so, and through minutes of pain and pressure and then relief when it ends in a rush. Time is suspended as we both become a panting, crying mess of stunted disbelief. All I see is Caden’s arms, taut with stiff actions, a flick of his wrist, and his look of sheer bliss as a baby’s wail breaks into the night.
Hope and tears rush into Caden’s eyes as he holds up the tiniest person I’ve ever seen, only to lay him on my breast. “Say hello to your son, sweet Piper.”
Emotion floods out of me as I live through the most beautiful experience of my life. One moment alters the course of many. And in this crazy, impossible, perfect blip in time, I know Justin brought us together so we could have a future full of them.
Want more Piper and Caden? Their unabridged story Sound of Silence will release in early 2017. Don’t miss it—stay connected!
About The Author
ELIZABETH MILLER: She wears many hats. Some include wife, mother of two small boys, writer, reader, lover of gummy bears and Henry Cavill. She’s a proud Indie author who adores a broken hero, a feisty heroine, and lots and lots of sexy times. In 2013 she decided to flex her writing muscles and began her debut novel: Midnight. Published in 2014, she continues writing sweet romantic, okay maybe a little bit erotic, suspenseful adult contemporary novels with characters you’re destined to fall in love with. Connect with EM, she loves to chat with readers.
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