Having The Soldier's Baby (Parent Portal 1)

Though Afghanistan was steeped in tea tradition, he’d been lucky enough to have good coffee the entire time he was there. Still needed it to get going in the morning.

“Em...are you okay?” he asked, using his shortened version of her name without thinking.

“Yeah.”

She wasn’t meeting his gaze. Because of the failed sex or the puking, he wasn’t sure.

“It didn’t seem that way a few minutes ago.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not sick? As in... Have you been diagnosed with something you aren’t telling me about?”

“I’m as healthy as a horse. My

most recent checkup was last Wednesday.”

Relief flooded him. Like when he’d touched down in the US for the first time in over two years.

“So what was that?”

She shrugged.

“Has it ever happened before?” Maybe she’d changed more than he thought. Had developed a weak stomach. Had it happened when he went missing? Had she developed her own form of PTSD? Was this it? Because of him?

“No,” she said. And then, moving to the dining room table, pulled out a seat. “Sit down,” she told him.

After pouring a cup of coffee, he did as she asked. He didn’t have anywhere to be until midmorning, when he met with someone from the anti-terrorist group. The questions he could answer, or insights he could give on active situations, were his reason for being alive.

She was staring at him in a whole new way. More assessing than anything. He knew that was good. That his plan was already working, as he’d known it would. She was separating from him. Questioning what she believed them to be.

He met her gaze straight on.

“I’m pregnant, Winston. Only two weeks, which I’m pretty sure is too early for morning sickness, but I guess, with the shock of this weekend, on top of everything else, morning sickness came early. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Plus, it was exactly what I read about. Came on suddenly, out of nowhere, and was gone just as quickly. Dr. Miller told me to keep a box of saltine crackers by the bed. I just didn’t think I’d need them this soon...”

He heard her voice. Watched her lips move. Stared. Focused. And couldn’t compute.

“Winston?”

She was frowning at him.

“Did you, um, say...you’re pregnant? As in, having a baby?”

He didn’t glance down at her belly. Couldn’t. But...the day before she hadn’t looked... She’d had on those tight white pants and...a loose top. Since he’d kept his eyes firmly shut when she’d climbed in the bed and gotten out of it that morning, he couldn’t say if she’d looked...

“Two weeks,” she said, calmly. Right. She might have mentioned. But she was sitting there telling him she was pregnant. Couldn’t there at least be some kind of inflection in her voice?

Shouldn’t there be?

Two weeks...

She was in a relationship with someone else and he’d just landed on her doorstep. Shouldn’t she have said something?

But how could she? They were still legally married. And he’d just come from two years of captivity. She had no way of knowing he’d walked of his own accord into that enemy camp. Or that he lived like family while he was there.

But...two weeks pregnant and she’d tried to have sex with him?

Oh, hell. Surely she hadn’t been thinking to pass the kid off as his? That would be a stretch considering that they’d been trying—and failing—to get pregnant before he’d joined the ground crew and been shipped off.