A Winter Moon

by S. J. Smith

  “Really. Changed?”

  “Yes.” She thought of sleeping Daniella.

  “What the fuck changed? You decided to shack up with some guy? He the reason why you wanted to separate? You’ve been over here bangin’—”

  Danika rammed her finger into Jacob’s chest so hard she was sure she broke it. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence.”

  “Fuck sakes.” He didn’t even acknowledge her finger driven into his chest. “For the past year I went against every instinct I had leaving you alone — not interfering — letting you have your way when all the time you’re over here whoring—”

  She lifted her hand to slap him but he caught her wrist.

  “Whoring?” Heat surged through her body. “I’m a whore? Nine years of marriage. Six kids later and suddenly I’m a whore?” She could not have heard him right. “Let go of me.” She wrenched her hand free. “You are gone — all the time. Months at a time. Out there being the big bad SEAL warrior while I’m left here to raise six kids alone. Birthdays alone. Three AM fevers alone. School trips, doctor’s appointments, hospital emergencies for Zachary’s broken finger — Boy’s broken toe, Dexter’s tonsils, Daniel’s allergies. Alone. When the hell would I even have time to whore? I don’t even have time to masturbate!”

  Jacob’s eyes widened before he frowned. “Six?”

  “— who was here to attend all of your stupid officers’ wives’ club meetings, or to apologize when the boys’ baseballs went through Sargent Jackson’s window? Not you. You’re gone, night after night. Weeks of unreturned phone calls. Having no idea where you are. Alive, dead, out fucking some SEAL groupie to ease the pain of battle meanwhile I’m the whore? Me? With the dildo that wore out ages ago from over use? I can’t even go out to get batteries for the damned thing because it’s the middle of the night and can’t exactly leave my kids alone to run out to the drugstore for—”

  “Danika.” Jacob stepped closer, though she was already in his face, back to digging her fingernail painfully into his chest.

  “Nika.”Jacob grasped her shoulders.

  “You are an ungrateful asshole,” she hissed the last word as she rose to her tiptoes.

  Jacob put his fingers gently over her mouth, and the temptation to bite him was overwhelmingly real. Real.

  “What are you talking about six kids? We have five.”

  “What?” His words barely registered in her boiling hot mind.

  “You said six kids, Danika.”

  “No I didn’t, I —” She fell from her toes, her mind feeling like a bucket of ice water had been thrown on it. “I —” Mentally she forced her mind backward over everything she’d just said. She didn’t say six kids. “I —” Panic chased a wild rush of awful realization through her mind. Damn it. She clamped her mouth shut. Jacob had made her so damned mad she — Dammit. She closed her eyes.

  Jacob’s eyes were steady on hers when she opened them. “Nika,”

  She stepped back, defeated. He knew.

  “You said six, Danika.”

  “Yes,” she sighed. “We now have six children.”

  *****

  Auntie growled as Danika and Jacob neared Daniella’s room. “You got a dog?” Jacob offered the back of his hands to Auntie, letting her sniff to get used to him.

  “She’s fine,” Danika patted the protective dog’s head. “She was a rescue.”

  “I’ve had a lot of dogs as a kid. It’s okay, girl.”

  Danika watched them for a moment. He’d told her he loved dogs, but after his last one passed, he didn’t have the heart to get another, and his career also didn’t allow for it. She hadn’t been able to even think about taking on the extra responsibility of a pet with so many young kids. Now she looked at Jacob on his haunches petting and making fast friends of Auntie.

  “Is she’s our sixth?” He stood, but kept his hand on Auntie’s head.

  Danika inhaled. “No. She’s not.” She cracked open Daniella’s door, trying to breathe through the tightness in her throat. “Meet your new daughter.” She stepped aside and looked at Jacob. “I named her Daniella, after your great grandmother.”

  Jacob looked from Danika to the crib. “Daughter?”

  “This is not how I planned to tell you.”

  He looked back to her with complete confusion on his face.

  She looked away. “She looks exactly like the boys at that age, in case you question paternity.”

  “You had another baby. My daughter?” He moved very quietly to the crib.

  “Seven months ago.” She stood on the other side of the crib.

  “H … how?” He stared at her then back to the sleeping Daniella. He went to touch her then looked to Danika first.

  “Go ahead.” Danika breathed. “Just try not to wake her.”

  “But she’s so tiny … So beautiful.” Jacob picked up his new daughter with perfect skill. His big calloused hands, so familiar with weapons and combat, careful.

  Jacob eyes filled with tears. “My God, Nika. She’s so fucking beautiful.”

  A wild rush of tears overflowed from Danika’s eyes.

  “She’s so small.” Jacob tucked her into his body with his palm. “Why’s she so small?”

  “She came early. At seven months.” Danika slumped. “The doctor said it was … stress. My body couldn’t … handle it.” She looked away. She couldn’t risk Jacob’s censure. She had enough of her own. She had fallen apart the last time he left. She had just found out she was four months along when Jacob had come early to the house for his time with the boys. She was still in shock from the news so hadn’t told him. They had used protection for the past year, and for the past few months she hardly saw him. Since the twins’ birth she was determined she was not having any more children. Three boys were busy, but the twins had her losing her mind. She didn’t get any sleep — half the time she couldn’t think — days blended into weeks before she realized she’d been in a freefall downward spiral toward some kind of late postpartum depression. When Jacob announced he was on call for deployment, she snapped. Told him she wanted to separate.

  He completely lost his shit, but after a week of bitter fighting he’d come up to their bedroom, after sleeping in the basement for two weeks. He was leaving on deployment and she couldn’t say no. She never could to Jacob. Clearly seeing they had five — no six children. But that night when she woke up to him crawling over her body, sliding up her nightgown and taking her clit between his lips, she was sighing and moaning his name before she ever thought to say no. It was like it used to be, they were in that special bubble. He was her husband and she wanted him and he was leaving. Deployment could mean not coming back. It only took a few pulls of his strong lips on her body and she was holding his head and writhing beneath his mouth. It wasn’t until the test result that she realized they didn’t use anything. She supposed she just pushed the thought to the back of her mind, at least until the doctor told her.

  After that he left, and they only saw each other in passing. Until today.

  Danika briefly looked up at Jacob who was completely absorbed with his daughter, then her eyes went to the bedroom door. “I know I screwed up. I couldn’t take the pressure. I let everything get to me and … broke down. Not very good for a SEAL’s wife.” The old feelings of shame and guilt sneaked up on her again. Shame for not being strong enough. Guilt for breaking down when her boys needed her to be strong. Embarrassment for the days she just stayed in bed and stared blankly at the ceiling. Heavy and immobile. Pregnant and tired. The boys going wild in the next room. She’d been too proud to ask for help, too tired to even try to find her cell phone. Boy told her that Zachary had dropped it in the toilet to see what people sounded like when they were under water over the phone. She turned away in shame from the other SEAL wives. She could not turn to her parents. She was an only child with career-driven parents who did not have the time or patience for a daughter who married early and had a passel of kids right after college instead of starting a career. They
hadn’t put her through her school for her end up a jobless housewife.

  “Is that why you’re trying to divorce me?” Jacob’s voice was strained and rough.

  She paused at the door. “I tried to tell you, back with the twins, that I was … falling apart.” She closed her eyes against the sense of failure struggling to resurface. Depression was such an ugly beast. She stared out the door again.

  Jacob’s low voice stopped her. “We are not divorcing, Danika. I’ll never agree. Never.” He looked down at Daniella, then back to her, his eyes sharpening to that intense, focused concentration that told her he wasn’t going to move on the subject. “We are going to work this shit out.”

  Hours later, Danika had no choice but to go into the nursery again. She’d looked in on Jacob and Daniella several times throughout the day, and most times, when she looked in, Jacob was sitting on the floor, back against the wall, with Daniella in his lap either playing or sleeping. The boys came and went, wanting their father’s attention but somehow knowing they’d have to wait until he was done with their sister. The last time Danika looked in, it was time to nurse and she couldn’t delay it any longer.

  Jacob stayed on the floor beside the crib while she sat down in the same chair she’d used to nurse all the boys over the years. Daniella easily latched on and nursed under Jacob’s watchful eyes, which stayed on her like he expected her to suddenly flee. Neither of them said anything while their daughter nursed, but she knew Jacob had plenty to say. He was just waiting, doing recon, gathering up all his thoughts and facts before he said anything. Did anything. Occasionally, she’d look up to meet his unwavering eyes, his expression unreadable. Sometimes he’d look out the big floor to ceiling window that overlooked her small backyard, sometimes he’d stare out the door, his eyes tracking something in the house, most likely the boys as they passed by, until finally she looked again to him with his head leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed.

  She quietly put Daniella in her crib, then went to corral the boys into their bedtime routine. Not until after three hours of chasing them; bathing the twins in the roman bath, bubbles and bath toys abandoned on the floor; a half hour of Sid jumping on the bed; dealing with Zachary’s new fascination with flashlights and Morse code; reading books to them all; Boy’s homework finally done; Dexter and Daniel’s sudden and desperate thirst and need of water; and Zachary’s rolling under his bed to sleep incognito — something he’d insisted on doing lately and had convinced Sid to do the same — did she fall into her own bed, too exhausted to undress. Though she must have dragged herself up to change because when she became conscious again, she was immediately aware of a few strange things. First of all, it was pitch black in her room so hours must have passed. She was in her nightgown — the one she’d left at the foot of the bed — and Daniella was sound asleep beside her, tucked below her chin. Jacob’s big body was firmly wrapped around her from behind; his heavy forearm lay diagonal and intimately between her breasts, his fingers on her shoulder, his elbow near her hip.

  “It’s okay, honey, don’t move.” His gravelly drawl was right against her ear. “I brought her to you about a half hour ago. She started fussin’ and wantin’ her mama. Soon as I laid her down with you she settled and went back to sleep.”

  Danika ran her hand over her baby’s fine hair.

  “Figured it’d also make it easier for you to nurse her tonight.”

  Danika smiled. “You never did mind the family bed.”

  “No. I like my family right by me where I can see and protect them.” His fingers flexed on her bare shoulder. Her nipples tightened in response. Then they started to leak.

  Daniella shifted and started to fuss, most likely because she smelled the milk.

  Jacob ran his hand over her breast and circled her wet nipple. She could feel the smile in his voice when he spoke. “She’s hungry now. Has a nose for her dinner.”

  Danika stroked Daniella’s head as the baby fussed louder. “That she certainly does.”

  Jacob lifted onto his elbow, and gently pulled down the strap of her nightgown, she shifted and pulled Daniella to her exposed breast. Jacob put a hand on her hip and rolled them both so they faced him, the baby tucked between their bodies as she reattached on and suckled Danika’s breast.

  Jacob stayed on his elbow, looking down at them both. He stroked Daniella’s hair, his eyes on Danika’s through the dark. Every few minutes he’d look down her body, then use his leg to pull her closer. “You have no fucking idea how much I’ve missed this. You. The boys. Now her. My family.”

  Danika looked at the hardness and wonder that mixed in his eyes. “Jacob, I need to explain —”

  “No. Not now.” He leaned down to her mouth and rubbed his lips over hers. “Tomorrow. We’ll figure it out tomorrow. For now, don’t talk.” He settled back and lay his head down, sharing the pillow that Danika used, Daniella still nursing, his hand back to stroking her small head. “So fucking beautiful,” he murmured over and over, kissing Danika’s lips and staring into her eyes before stroking his daughter’s hair. “Tell me you never stopped being my wife.”

  She looked at him across the pillow. “No, I never stopped.”

  “Promise me you won’t ever. No matter what shit’s happened. That doesn’t change. This doesn’t change.”

  “Jacob.” How on earth could she promise that? So many things had changed over the past few months.

  “Promise me, Nika. Give me your word again, right now.”

  “There are things that have changed, Jacob.”

  “This doesn’t change. I am your husband. You are my wife. We have six kids. We work through the rest but this right here does not change.” He locked eyes with her so she couldn’t look away.

  “Okay. Jacob —”

  “You aren’t wearing your rings.”

  “They don’t fit anymore after Daniella. She changed my entire body.”

  He shifted forward on the pillow and touched his forehead to hers. “Do not fucking leave me.”

  *****

  She’s gone. Jacob was already awake and had assessed his surroundings long before opening his eyes. He hadn’t wanted to, but he’d let Danika carefully untwine herself from his body and put Daniella in the bassinet in the corner of the bedroom. He listened as she’d gentled and quieted the baby but she hadn’t come back to bed. Back to him. Instead, she’d crept quietly, impressively so, around the room getting dressed before she’d pulled the door closed with an imperceptible click.

  She thought she was getting away from dealing with him this morning, but she wasn’t. Only delaying the inevitable. They would get to the bottom of it and work through this cluster fuck of a past year if he had to bind and gag her and toss her into his truck. She wasn’t getting away from this running away anymore.

  Guess we both have a cluster fuck to deal with back home. Geoffrey’s comment from back at the end of their mission made so much more sense now. At the time Jacob had barely listened to his brother’s ramblings about their women and wives at home. He and Danika were separated so he didn’t need reminding that his situation back home was fucked.

  Jacob opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. He needed to get a handle on exactly what this fucked-up situation was now, so he could unfuck it, and like any good spec ops soldier knew, he had recon to do.

  Jacob opened his eyes and continued listening to the sounds of the house. Nothing from the bassinet, so his daughter was still asleep. His daughter. His heart raced with the knowledge. He had a daughter. A little girl. And though he should be furious that Danika had kept this from him, he couldn’t bring himself to be. What he wanted was to understand why, how? How the fuck did they end up in a place where he got her pregnant and not only did not know, she didn’t tell him.

  He blinked at the ceiling, memories of his last operation skittering across his mind and twisting the relaxed state of stomach. His team had been called out on a strike that should have been simple. Target a piece-of-shit dictator who was wrea
king havoc and had taken control over oil lines that were not his. Take him out and go home. But when they got there, they found things anything but simple. An unreported group of little girls were being kept in cages in the basement. Blowing the dictator’s compound was immediately out of the question, but the charges had already been set. Saving the girls became desperate. Within minutes, his team was in a life-or-death fire fight with caged little girls in the middle. His team had to pull out or die. He and his brothers had to stand by and watch as sixty little souls perished in a ball of fire. Sixty little girls. Gone. Their piece-of-shit captor having escaped.

  For weeks his team tracked him. Weeks that turned into months. Months where Jacob was steadily tracking justice for the girls, but was equally losing track of his own family. His own little girl born without him.

  How the hell had he let that happen? Let him and Danika get so far apart. Him so out of touch that his baby girl came into this world without him being there to catch her. All of his boys had been born into his hands. All of them. Now his daughter, his precious little girl, had come without knowing him, his hands, his touch, as one of her first sensations in life.

  A shrill scream cracked toward him. Sid. Jacob shook his head. Fuck that kid was emotional. Completely like his mother.

  “All right boys, reign it in.” Max’s voice came next.

  Jacob’s stomach tightened at the sound. He rolled out of the bed and dropped to the floor doing his first hundred push-ups, breathing in and out, holding his anger in check, pushing out the tension that gripped his body at the sound of the other man’s voice.

  Nanny. Housekeeper. Bullshit. The guy looked at Danika with a protectiveness that was out of bounds. Nobody stepped into the role of protector with his wife or boys without one hell of a fight. That role was his and his alone, and if Max wanted that right, then he’d better be prepared to earn it through one hell of a fucking battle and a shit ton of bloodshed, not a simple job offer.