A Winter Moon

by S. J. Smith

  A fucking divorce!? What the fuck, Danika. What. The. Fuck!

  He gripped the steering wheel and pulled around another truck.

  His marriage, now a bleak separation from his wife was equally as important though. Danika and his five boys meant the fucking world to him. She knew that. They were what he fought for. Protected. Treasured. So when his wife, after eight years of marriage, had broken down under the pressure, he had reluctantly agreed … well belligerently allowed a separation.

  He fucking hated every minute of it, but had no choice after Danika dug in. He couldn’t fight with her forever. She was his queen and — Jacob blasted his horn when a car pulled in front of him.

  They decided that Danika would keep the boys. He left the house and stayed on base. When it was his time to see them, he stayed with them at the house while Danika left. It was the best way to make sure the boys were the least affected by their problems. Keeping them in the house meant the same schools, same friends, same everything they’d always known, and the adults going back and forth instead of the other way around, kept the boys adjusted as they soldiered on. They made Jacob proud.

  Now she wanted a divorce? No way. No fucking way. He would not lose his family. She was not walking away. It would be over his dead body that she would walk away from everything they had.

  Jacob glared out the windshield. What the hell was with all the traffic? He checked the time, then his rear-view mirror. He looked like shit. He hadn’t shaved in days, needed a haircut bad, and sported enough dark circles and bags below his eyes to rival a raccoon. Because he was in the sun most of his last deployment, his brown hair looked blond, his brown eyes bleak and like he was some kind of strung-out surfer in need of a week’s worth of sleep.

  He looked away from his sorry-ass reflection and back at the road.

  He and Danika had an understanding, dammit, and he had stuck to it even though he fucking hated it. He stayed on base when not with the boys, and she went … who the fuck knew where when he was at the house? It fucking pissed him off that she never told him where she was staying, but he backed off asking and gave her space, as requested.

  “Jacob, you take off on deployment and I have no idea where you are. I can only reach you by phone if I’m lucky. If you want to get hold of me during your time with the boys, call my cell.”

  Jesus Christ. Her fucking space was now a goddamn chasm. Why did he let her get away with that?

  Because you fucking loved her and didn’t want to lose her, would do just about anything to make sure she didn’t walk away.

  Fuck. Jacob sped past another truck.

  He was done appeasing her. He’d given her everything she asked for. Now this. Space. Time. More fucking space. He’d given in and given her everything he could think of to keep her from completely leaving with his boys and still she wanted a fucking divorce? Goddamn him if he even knew why.

  He glanced down at the package of papers beside him. Pictured them on fire. Burning to ashes that he’d bury out back behind his house. Or he could just toss them out the window, and let ’em land in a swamp.

  Divorce papers? What fucking divorce papers? I never got any god damned fucking divorce papers.

  He pulled off the highway and headed through the downtown core. In minutes, he was driving up into the hills of the neighbourhood he’d grown up in. He passed St. Augustine’s church, the centuries’ old place he had tripped home from every Sunday his whole childhood. He married the love of his life in there in front of fourteen hundred of his closest friends, family and SEAL team brothers. It had been beautiful. She’d been beautiful. The best goddamn day of his life next to every day he spent with her on their honeymoon in the Maldives. She had walked down the aisle to him in that huge fairy-tale dress. His Black-American princess came to him and promised to be his for life.

  For. Life.

  He’d waited so long for her to say yes, he’d knocked her up on their wedding night. He’d never been so horny or determined to do anything before in his life, coming in her, on her and back inside of her all night. Once she had surrendered her virginity, he couldn’t leave her alone and was inside her all night, over and over until they were both exhausted. He’d tired her out by morning, but when he got called out to deploy, four days into their honeymoon, he left completely satisfied she was replete with his seed, marked, and with his baby already growing inside her womb. It was his best fucking work. Literally.

  He’d wanted Danika the first day he’d seen her on campus. He was already a SEAL delivering some shit for the Navy, and she was sitting at a table with her nose in a book. He asked her where he could get a cup a coffee and she didn’t even look up at him, just nodded toward the Starbucks and pushed her empty cup his way.

  He brought her another cup, and in less than a year she became Mrs. Jacob Sanders. He gave her his name. His family estate. Everything he had, he laid at her feet. He was his parents’ sole heir, and after they died there was nothing he could not afford. Everything he had he gave to his wife. His princess. His queen. The mother of his children. Where the fuck had he gone wrong?

  He never got tired of knocking her up. Seeing her get round and soft with his kid always made him hard and horny as all fucking hell. He was one of those men who loved his woman pregnant and endeavoured to see her that way all of the time. Every chance he got over the past eight years, he was on her and in her, coming as hard as he could.

  What the hell had he done to deserve a fucking divorce? They agreed, no divorce. She had to know he’d never sign those goddamn fucking papers. He’d never agree to tear their family apart. The past year of separation had pushed him far enough. Did she now want to shove him over the edge? Because her little bundle of papers had just fucked their already fucked situation even more.

  Jacob pulled his truck around his family’s estate driveway and got out. In seconds, he slid the key into the lock and slammed open his front door. He blinked in shock. What new fucking Hell was this now?

  *****

  Danika put down her finally asleep infant daughter and closed the bedroom door against the rising noise coming from the front of her townhouse. “Stay Auntie,” she patted her five-year-old Rottweiler on the head. Auntie was the second last addition to her new townhouse life and a welcome protector to her horde of children.

  She walked up the three stairs that led to the entrance foyer and froze.

  Sweet baby Jesus. Jacob!

  Her fingers trembled on the wrought iron banister. She was not ready for this. She looked back at her daughter’s closed bedroom door, Auntie now lying down dozing before it. She knew this day would come, when she would have to stand and deliver before her warrior hus— ex-husband. She had rehearsed what she’d say, how she’d handle Jacob’s dark belligerent stare a thousand times but … She swallowed against the sharp pounding of her heart. Did he know about Daniella? Finally get the divorce papers? Did he sign them? Maybe he was just here to get the boys and leave? Questions swirled and flapped like flags in her mind. Red flags. Big red warning flags.

  Jacob had never crossed the line and come to her townhouse. As far as she knew he didn’t even know where it was. They had agreed to do the “changing of the guard” with the boys at the house, and for the past year he’d respected her wishes and called or texted when he was back home from his tours and wanted his time to be with the boys. They always arranged things so he came to live at the house for at least a week at a time, or until he was recalled to deploy. What brought him here now? Unannounced?

  Danika swallowed and inhaled a shaky breath. He looked good, really good, but then Jacob always did. Tall. Extremely fit. A dark roughness to his all-American features. One look at him and you wanted to sin, drop your panties and just go sin with him. Give him anything he wanted, whenever he wanted it. She had been guilty as charged. Her husband had the ability to make her sit up and beg like no other man. This past year was the one time she’d said no to him in the ten years they been together. Danika let out the breath she
held. She had to pull her mind into focus. This was Jacob the warrior she was dealing with right now. She could do this. She could see him again and feel absolutely nothing. Face him and be as neutral as he had been with her the last time. Whenever they missed the changing of guard and had accidently run into each other back at the house, he had looked right through her as if she wasn’t even there. Angry, of course. Bitter even. Yes, he’d never forgiven her for asking to separate. The last time they saw each other he didn’t even notice she was four months pregnant.

  Now, it had been over six months since she’d last see him, and she had gained a lot of ground to her self-confidence during that time. She was not going to cave in or turn tail and run. Most of all she was not going to cry. Not anymore. She would hold her own against this man. Assert herself. Eight years of being on his pedestal, set aside on a shelf, until it was time for another baby, waiting for him to turn his attention from his career to her, doing every damned thing required to be a good soldier’s wife.

  She was done. Soooo so done. She’d gone rogue with no intention of ever coming back. She’d gotten a life and it was her time now. Danika lifted her chin and started toward the scene at her front door. If not for the seriousness of the situation, she might have laughed at how ridiculous it all looked.

  Max, her Cuban hottie nanny and housekeeper, stood staring up at Jacob with his chest puffed out, kitchen towel in his low riding jean’s back pocket. He crossed his arms to bar the doorway that led to the rest of the house.

  Bless the gay man’s good heart, but if Jacob wanted to get past him, he would get past him. There was nothing Max could do to stop him. Except maybe shoot him. But a couple of bullets wouldn’t bring Jacob down. He’d been shot before and just kept going, not to mention her ex had about a hundred pounds and five inches on the other man, plus years of deadly training. Oh yes, Jacob would make very short work of Max if provoked. And she never provoked Jacob unnecessarily.

  None of this, however seemed to deter her nanny, whose back was straight with protective determination. He looked like a French Bulldog staring down a Mastiff.

  Her five young children were, of course, over the moon, talking and yelling over each other, none of them caring if anyone was actually listening as they hung off their father in absolute delirium. Not one of them even remembered they had left their friends outside in the yard, their Sunday play-dates were a distant memory. Her three-year-old twins, Dexter and Daniel, were each wrapped around one of Jacob’s legs, and telling their father about some computer game. Sid and Zachary, her middle five- and six-year-old wild children were appropriately clutching the bottom of their father’s shirt, yelling to be heard over each other, and jockeying to oust the twins from their enviable posts around their father’s legs. And Boy, lovingly nicknamed for the fact that Jacob was forever asking “Where’s the boy?” after he was born, stood in the middle of them all, feet spread and arms out, the spitting imagine of Jacob in every possible way, demanding his brothers all shut up and listen.

  She inwardly sighed and wished she had on something a little more … powerful ... than her boyfriend jeans and plain T but she was only now weaning Nella and needed to be comfortable. Gaa. She had envisioned this meeting with Jacob so very differently in her mind for the past six months.

  “It’s okay, Max.” She came up behind her nanny and put her hand on his shoulder. He and Jacob may as well have been alone in the way they simply stared each other down as the boys hollered and raised Hell all around them. Max she understood. He was used to her chaotic pack of children, but Jacob on the other hand was more … focused. Intensely so. And she worried about what that meant. He may have seemed wrapped up in all the goings-on with the boys, but he was doing that eerie thing he did when he closed off everything around him and concentrated on one sole target. Max in this case. Danika swallowed and as casually as she could said, “I can take it from here.”

  Max dragged his eyes from Jacob’s to her. “No, no, no. I can handle him for you. Throw him out?”

  Not likely.

  She plastered on her best plastic smile, the one she used for entertaining, the officer dinner parties and multiple get-togethers, the military functions and semi-state dinners. “Jacob. What are you doing here? How long have you been back?” Well done. She silently congratulated herself at how calm she sounded.

  Jacob looked from where her hand rested on Max’s shoulder. His brown eyes pinned her with a raging heat. Ohhh boy. She lifted her hand from the other man’s body. Jacob was pissed. Way beyond anything she’d even seen before. She could not calmly tell him he had a new baby daughter right now, with some strange man in her house and on the heels of Jacob’s being slapped with a divorce. She had to find out what he knew — before trying to explain. No. This was not the time. She had planned to explain the divorce papers and Daniella separately. Calmly. Maybe in a neutral public place with a lot of people. Definitely not in a scenario like this, when he was about to rain fire and fury down on her home.

  Her heart beat into her throat. What had she been thinking trying to slide all this by him. Jacob was a warrior and when confronted, warriors attacked. He had given her a long leash by his own standards for the past year, and now, by the fact that he was standing in her foyer, barely holding onto his shit, it was clear she was going to have to stand and deliver. Big time. Right now. Come clean about everything.

  “A half hour ago. In time to get your love letter.” He tapped the Manilla envelope she’d sent him over eight months ago on his thigh.

  She looked at the envelope then back to the hard fury in his brown eyes. She should have known his months of silence on the matter was because he didn’t know, not because he had gotten the papers and was used to the idea and agreed. Damn military bureaucracy. Couldn’t they deliver anything on time? Time and distance had lulled her into forgetting exactly who she was dealing with.

  This was Jacob. Navy SEAL. Unyielding. Unapologetic. Protective, territorial, a family man at heart. He told her last year, when he suddenly agreed to the separation, that he would jealously and aggressively protect his family against any threat — including her attempt to break them apart. He was never going to sign those papers, especially after finding out about Daniella.

  “It’s my turn now!” Zachary’s furious shriek rose above all the other yelling.

  Jacob’s eyes did not leave hers. “Boys, go get your shit. We’re going home in T minus ten minutes.”

  “What?” Her eyes widened, “You can’t … do that.” She was about to tell the boys to stay put, but like some kind of magical words were spoken, her wild pack of children were already gone — vanished — into the house, to follow their father’s orders. Even Max looked impressed as he watched the boys round the corner that led to their bedrooms. She blinked dumbly at the empty hallway, then grit her teeth.

  “Who the hell are you?” Jacob growled the words toward Max.

  “I work here.”

  The hair on the back of her neck stood at attention at Jacob’s feral tone. She turned back to the men.

  “Doing what?”

  She stepped in front of Max before he could answer. She needed to take control of this situation immediately. “Jacob, this is Max, Max Avila. Max this is Jacob. Max is our nanny and housekeeper. Jacob is—”

  “Her husband.” Jacob spat the word out so fast they all but landed on the floor between the three of them. Then he held up his ring finger, his big bold solid platinum wedding band glaring at her with sharp accusation across the room. Hers no longer fit after Daniella, so the three-karat princess-cut rock and matching platinum band sat in her jewelry box, along with all the other glittering jewelry Jacob had bought her. As a mother of six, she no longer had time or place to wear them.

  She stared up at Jacob, then purposefully to his hand with the divorce papers.

  He held them up and bent toward her. “Fuck. These.” His eyes glittered down hard at her.

  “Oh,” Max shifted in place behind her. “You never said
you had a husband, Miss Danika. Why you never say you have a man.”

  “I’m the boys’ father.” Jacob’s eyes stayed on hers.

  “Yes. She said father but never a husband.” Max stepped past her and held out his hand to Jacob. “I always tell her she needs a man—”

  “Really, Max? That’s what you have to say?”

  “Well ...” Max shrugged and looked back at her, then back at Jacob as if seeing him in a whole different light. “He is your man. A very … big man. You should have said you have such a big man. I would have worried less.”

  Danika closed her eyes and inhaled. “Can you not hear the boys back there?” She put her hands on her hips and nodded toward the growing voices in the boys’ bedrooms. “Go sass them for a bit. Referee whatever is going on.” She widened her eyes and nodded toward Daniella’s room. “Maybe go check on —”

  He frowned at her subtle hint before finally nodding. “Oh yes. I will go see to our little —”

  “Thank you.” She cut him off.

  Max looked back at Jacob. “Good to see you here,” he clapped Jacob’s upper arm and to her horror squeezed the bicep. “The boys have missed their father and she needs a good solid man to—”

  “Max,” she nudged him toward the door, then closed it the second he was through. She inhaled what she hoped was a discrete breath before she turned back to Jacob.

  “You’ll have to excuse him. He’s—”

  “Danika.” Jacob’s jaw was so tightly clamped he barely opened his mouth to speak. “I have no idea what the hell is going on here, but whatever it is, it stops right now.”

  She held up a hand against the waves of anger that rolled toward her. “Jacob, this is my house and you don’t get to tell me what to do here. Not anymore.”

  “Explain this.” He held up the divorce papers. “What the fuck? I thought we had an agreement.”

  “We did.” She glanced at the envelope then back to him. “Things changed.”