This Is the Wonder

by Tracey Ward

  “They would have hated that. They were quick. Very professional.”

  “What about your family?” I ask Jax. “What about visiting them in New Jersey?”

  “I’m still going to. I fly out there day after tomorrow.”

  My body sags, crushed by shock and disappointment. “You’re only here for two days?”

  “No, we’re only here for two days.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m taking you to Jersey with me to meet my family.”

  I frown and look over my shoulder at my dad.

  He nods encouragingly. “All part of the surprise.”

  “Holy crow.”

  Jax laughs, taking my hand in his. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I can change my flight and spend an extra couple days here with you, but there’s another part of the surprise that depends on you being in Jersey next week. Kind of a present, actually.”

  “A present for what?”

  “Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Graduation.”

  I shake my head. “You sent me a present for Christmas.”

  “One that never got to you, but I have it now. It was in Germany waiting for me. I sent it with the wrong zip code and it bounced back.”

  “Then you don’t need to get me another one.”

  “You don’t even know what it is yet.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t need a present. I just…” I hesitate, feeing awkward with my dad here with us. “I just need you,” I whisper.

  Jax’s smile is dazzling. It’s the one I crave. The one that’s about me, that says I’ve given him something he loves. “Good, because it’s a present for me too. I saved up my deployment money, all the hazard pay for being in a war zone, and I bought it for the both of us.”

  “Bought what?”

  He pulls an envelope out of his back pocket and hands it to me. I take it with nervous fingers and carefully open it. Inside are two plane tickets. One in my name, one in his. The flight leaves in eight days out of New Jersey.

  The destination floors me.

  I look at him, my lips numb and motionless but my eyes pleading for understanding. He smiles proudly, happy that he’s stunned me.

  “I meant it when I said it, Wren,” he explains. “I want to see Venice with you.”

  ***

  My dad loves Jax. I can see it in the way he talks to him. The respect in his eyes and the warmth in his voice. It makes me smile to watch them together because I’ve never seen this before and I absolutely love it. They talk football as they assemble my bookshelf and a nightstand, and by the time I come back with pizza for dinner, the empty apartment looks a little more like a home.

  We devour the pizza standing in the kitchen talking and laughing, and then my dad heads home with the promise of bringing my mom up tomorrow to meet Jax and see the apartment.

  And then we’re alone. Me and Jax in the same space for the first time in more than six months as the sun sets outside my windows and the apartment falls to darkness.

  He helps me put new sheets on the mattress on the floor and spread my plush white comforter over the top. Then before I know it I’m under him. I’m being pressed into the downy softness and his hands are in my hair and his knee is between mine and the sounds of our mouths and our breaths fill the silent apartment and echo off the bare walls around us.

  “I thought about you every night,” he whispers, his lips dancing over the skin of my neck.

  I sigh as his hand slides up inside my shirt to warm the sensitive flesh over my ribs.

  “I dreamed of you reading,” he breathes. He nips at my shoulder, sinking his teeth in lightly then kissing the feeling away.

  I gasp, gripping his arms. “You were in every book.”

  “Read to me now, Wren. I want to hear you.”

  I flush red with excitement and embarrassment but I don’t deny him.

  “You sit up and remove your shirt the way men do,” I whisper in his ear, “with a single, sexy yank that leaves me breathless.”

  He pulls back, grinning slightly, and does as I say. He reaches behind his head, grabs the neck of his shirt, and shrugs it up over his head in the blink of an eye. He tosses it aside and leans over me, watching and waiting. “Then what happens?”

  I reach up and run my hands over his golden skin, smooth and sculpted, and the hard cut of his body doesn’t make me hate my curves the way I thought it would. The small roll of my belly, the swell of my breasts, the low flare of my hips are soft and gentle under his fingers as they touch me. A contrast to him. A complement.

  I touch the hem of my shirt, about to wiggle out of it, when he stops me with his hands.

  “What happens?” he repeats insistently.

  “You want me to narrate everything to you?”

  He smirks. “Until you can’t anymore.”

  I quirk an eyebrow. “You think you’ve got that much game, huh?”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  “I already know.”

  “Germany was a prelude at best. That was months of buildup.”

  “So is this.”

  He rolls his hand in a ‘get on with it’ gesture, his legs straddling my hips and his body towering tall over mine. It’s a beautiful sight and I’m really in no hurry.

  “You seriously want me to talk the entire time?” I demand.

  He leans in and kisses the corner of my mouth. “I want your voice.”

  I smile, wrapping my arms around his neck. “What is it with you and my voice?”

  “It’s sexy. Better than porn.”

  “That’s really sweet,” I say dryly.

  “The way it trembles and breaks when you’re close gives me a reason to be a man.”

  I smile, about to say something sarcastic, but then it fades as my mouth falls open and his hand is under my shirt, under my bra, and he’s cupping me with the searing hot skin of his palm. “Jax,” I moan.

  “There is it,” he growls, his mouth on mine.

  I narrate for him as he removes my clothing and the rest of his. I direct him on how to be with me, how to play the melodies that will get him the music he craves, and then I’m rushing to keep up. I’m following him, falling behind as my words stumble and stutter and he’s guiding me, leading me until we’re both running uphill at a dead sprint and I can barely breathe.

  He hovers over me, panting and impatient but holding back from the final crest as his eyes dig deep into mine. “Then what?” he gasps, his chest heaving.

  I lick my lips and swallow past my own desperation. “Then you make love to me.”

  He blinks, his face frozen for a half a heartbeat before he nods. “I love you, Wren.”

  “I love you, Jax.”

  Then he shows me. He holds me, kisses me, and gives to me all night, loving me and taking from me, and we’re neither of us any less because of it. We’re more. Our blood runs deeper, our breaths are cleaner, and our eyes are clearer as a result of it. Because of this love.

  Because of the wonder.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  When we say goodbye to my family—every one of them madly in love with Jax by the time we leave—and head for the East Coast to visit Jax’s parents, I find out it’s the first time he’s seen in them in a year and half. Last year he saw his brother Joseph for a couple of hours when Joseph passed through Ramstein to head to the Middle East for a deployment, but that’s it. The entire family is scattered to the winds and it’s been three years since they were all together last. It was his cousin’s funeral that brought them together.

  Jax sleeps for most of the flight to New Jersey. I leave him alone and let him doze with his hand wrapped sweatily around mine because a) I love being able to touch him and b) dude has to be exhausted. He’s doing the Time Zone Tango here, dancing from one to the other with no care for what it’s doing to his internal clock. I thought it was how he managed to stay up with me all night that first night, but he laughed at me when I mentioned it and promised it was
n’t that at all. He said he stayed awake and alert for so many other reasons, all of them having to do with me.

  When we leave the plane, we step into the thick, hot air of New Jersey in the summertime. It’s filtering into the walkway that brings us to the abandoned ticket counter inside the airport, where the air conditioning embraces us again. People file hurriedly away from us, heading for the line of shops that brightly light the way to the next gateway to their travels, but Jax pulls me from the herd. His shoulders are instantly high and straight, his posture painfully perfect as he comes to stand in front a man I hadn’t even noticed. The second I see him, I wonder how I missed him.

  He’s an older man with a sharp cut to his graying hair that brings it nearly to his scalp. His face is chiseled, the set of his jaw firm, and the cut of his uniform a work of precision. It’s Army camo but it’s sharp and straight, not a wrinkle in sight. He has a matching cap tucked under his arm and his hands hang loosely and unmoving by his sides.

  I follow Jax slowly toward him, hanging back and watching as Jax steps sharply to a halt in front of the man. I expect him to salute, but he doesn’t. He nods once and extends his hand to him.

  “Dad.”

  “Kenneth,” the man answers, taking his hand and shaking it. He brings up his other hand to clap it solidly against Jax’s shoulder and I realize this is affection. That was a hug.

  A woman stands to the side of the man, smiling at Jax with brilliant blue eyes that I recognize immediately. Her hair is blond and styled, her clothes casual but expensive, and her purse massive and designer. She looks high maintenance, a breed of woman I’ve never interacted well with, but when she reaches for Jax and a laugh bursts from her mouth, I relax. It sounds genuine and relieved, and Jax immediately eases into her embrace. His stature changes entirely under her eyes. He’s himself, the man I know and love, not the untouchable soldier I’m trying to understand.

  “Welcome home, Ken,” she says proudly, still squeezing him.

  Jax’s dad watches them with amusement. Then his eyes find mine. They’re dark and intense, but he steps toward me smoothly with his hand outstretched.

  “You’re Wren,” he says warmly, taking my hand in both of his.

  “Yes, sir,” I reply.

  I’ve never called a man ‘sir’ in my life. It just came out of me and I have no idea if it was the right thing to do.

  He smiles, not correcting me.

  Angela releases Jax to come toward me. I let go of her husband’s hand, ready to shake hers as well, but she pushes past it and pulls me into a strong hug. She smells like lotion and lavender, like money and perfume you can’t find at Target.

  “Welcome,” she tells me, pulling back with my shoulders in her hands. She studies my face before she smiles and I assume I passed whatever test I was undergoing.

  I grin nervously. “Thank you for having me.”

  “We’re happy to. Ken hasn’t stopped talking about you since he met you.” She glances at the guys, who are watching us patiently. “We should get going, shouldn’t we, Bill? You have that meeting at three.”

  He nods, falling into step next to her as she leads the way out of the terminal. Their pace is clipped, efficient, and I feel like I’m hurrying to keep up walking behind them with Jax.

  We fall a little bit behind and I lean into him to whisper, “How did they get inside the terminal without tickets?”

  His chest shakes with a silent chuckle and he taps it, then raises two fingers. He looks at me meaningfully.

  I nod in understanding.

  Two-star general trumps TSA.

  Got it.

  We cruise out past security and I notice that people get out of General Jackson’s way. Not dramatically, but there’s a subtle parting of the seas as he passes through a crowd. Some people stop and stare, two actually salute, but just about everyone takes a moment to watch him walk past.

  A middle aged man in Army camo appears out of nowhere once we’re past security and begins to talk to the General. He nods in response to whatever he’s told and whips out a phone.

  It takes a while to get our bags and I feel bad that mine is the one that takes the longest. I fidget nervously, feeling the heavy presence of the General waiting behind me stoically. Jax must feel my nervousness because he stands next to me and slowly rubs small circles over my lower back with his palm. I smile at him gratefully.

  Once my wayward bag shows up, we head outside and I’m surprised to find a sleek black SUV waiting for us. The General slips on his cap as he and Angela immediately climb into the back and Jax takes my bag from me. He helps another man in uniform load them into the back. This guy is in the same camo uniform as the other two, but he looks much younger, closer to my and Jax’s age. He smiles and shakes Jax’s hand in thanks for the help before running around the SUV and climbing behind the wheel.

  Jax and I take seats behind his parents, the General’s assistant sits up front, and we ease away from the curb and away from the airport. I shift uneasily on the supple black leather of the car. This is too weird. And silent. And intense! Maybe it’s just me because I’m not used to it, but the air in the car is tight and thin. It feels fragile somehow. I look around without turning my head and I notice that everyone is staring straight ahead, silent and pensive.

  Everyone but Jax. I find him watching me and he doesn’t look the least bit concerned at being caught. His face is calm but his eyes are strange. They’re a weird mix of sad and uneasy.

  I frown at him questioningly. Are you okay? I mouth silently.

  He nods his head, but his face doesn’t change. He looks at me like that for a long time. Then he leans forward, places a small kiss against my temple, and whispers almost inaudibly in my ear. Just two words that I don’t understand the reason for.

  “Thank you.”

  General Jackson’s house is huge. It’s on base and we roll through the gates quickly, cutting in line past several cars waiting to be checked through. At Ramstein Jax had to take me to the office at the main gate and get me a visitor’s pass for me to be able to go through with him, one I had to present any time I came on base. Here no one asks me for anything. I don’t know if it’s because I’m rolling with a general or because we’re in the States, but I imagine it’s a little bit of both.

  When we get to the house the car pulls up to the curb and drops us off, the guy driving the car unloading our luggage onto the sidewalk and waving goodbye before jumping behind the wheel again and taking the General away without a word. Angela pulls out her keys and leads us up the steps, and I glance around in shock. We’re on a quiet, tree-lined street with identical houses running up and down it, but calling them houses is an understatement. They’re tall and stately with wrapping porches surrounded by proud white columns. American flags wave from each one.

  Angela smiles happily at a black Dodge Charger parked across the street. “Cade is home,” she says.

  We go inside and the cold bliss of the air conditioning slaps me in the face with its sweet mercy. I’m breathing with relief and feeling desperate for a cold drink when a deep voice booms from the back of the house.

  “Where the fuck is he?!”

  A guy appears in half uniform—boots, pants, undershirt - his face identical to General Jackson’s but about thirty years younger, and I’m suddenly made aware of what a good-looking man the General is. It’s hard to notice it when his presence makes you constipated with its rigidity, but seeing his features relaxed and young like this paints a clearer picture. This guy’s hair is a little longer, way blonder, and the smile on his face is a sharp contrast to the resting bitch face the General wears. He rushes toward us, grabs Jax around the waist, and hoists him into the air in a growling man hug that looks more like a wrestling move. The muscles in the guy’s arms bulge and tug at the fabric of his shirt, the thick black lines of tattoos peeking out from underneath.

  Jax slaps him hard on the back, laughing and letting his big brother manhandle him for a second before shoving him away
and dropping to his feet.

  “Welcome home, asshole,” the guy says.

  “Cade,” Angela warns, but it’s weakened by her smile.

  He glances at her, his face vaguely contrite. “Sorry, Mom.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to be able to make it this afternoon.”

  “I heard Dad wouldn’t be here so I made the time.”

  Her face falls slightly but Cade doesn’t see it. He’s looking at me and the grin on his face turns wolfish. “Damn,” he breathes, reaching out and slapping Jax in the chest. “She’s hot, man.”

  “Dude,” he groans unhappily.

  “Thanks. So are you,” I tell him, meeting his brashness with my own.

  His smile grows. “I know.”

  I jerk my head toward Jax. “But he’s hotter.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion. You got any pretty friends who don’t mind lowering their standards to a runner-up?”

  “Runner-up is just the first loser, isn’t it?”

  “Ouch,” he says with an appreciative smile. “You’re brutal. I like you.”

  Angela puts her hands on his chest, ushering him back the way he came. “Jax, why don’t you show Wren her room and you two can get unpacked. And you,” she says sternly to Cade, “I need to have a word with you in the kitchen.”

  Jax and I head upstairs, lugging our suitcases behind us, trying like hell not to scuff up the pristine beige walls.

  “What’s he in trouble for?” I ask Jax quietly.

  “Everything,” he laughs. “You never know with Cade anymore. You know how I said that Amber was the wild one?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, in the last couple years Cade has been challenging her for that title.”

  “How?”

  Jax motions for me to head down the hall and he guides me into a basic bedroom with neutral tones and the softest-looking towels I’ve ever seen stacked neatly at the foot of the bed. He leaves his suitcase outside and closes the door carefully behind him.

  “He got a DUI,” he tells me, his voice hushed despite the closed door. “A bunch of stuff led up to it but the DUI was what did him in. He lost a rank, Dad lost his respect for him, and that’s when he yanked him.”