Having The Soldier's Baby (Parent Portal 1)

She couldn’t even imagine the horror—and he’d lived it. Every single second of every day. While she’d been right there in their home in Marie Cove. Going to work every day. And safely to bed on their mattress in their room.

“We’ve made a lot of progress, Win,” she said softly, hating that she’d yelled at him. And scared to death that she didn’t have the right words for him then. It was four in the morning. It wasn’t like she could call someone. “You chose the nursery design,” she reminded him, trying desperately to think back over all of the things that had happened to give her hope. “You came to the ultrasound,” she said. “You’re joining in on every aspect of our lives. It has to be because they mean something to you.” She told him what she’d been telling herself. “You’re here, you care. That’s all that matters. The rest will come. You just need to give it more ti—”

“No.” He stood, but it wasn’t the force of the movement that had her eyeing him in shock. It was the tone of voice. Loud. Stern. So completely lacking in any tenderness at all that she didn’t even recognize it as Winston.

“No more time, Em,” he said softly.

Her entire being recognized that tone. And the way he said her name. She hadn’t heard it since the morning he left for ground training. Tears in her eyes, she turned, still on the floor, to face him where he’d dropped to sit on the edge of his side of the bed.

“Time’s what it takes, Win,” she said back, equally soft, the words filled with all of the love she had bottled up inside. “Time will take care of us.”

He knew that. Somewhere inside him, he knew that.

“I thought time would do it, too, but it hasn’t. It isn’t,” he said to her.

Jumping off the floor, Emily sat beside him, her hip pressing up against his. She took his hand and looked at him until he looked back, their lips close enough for a kiss.

“I’m not going to give up, Winston. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

Their wedding vows. She hadn’t sat down to say them. They’d just come to her. They’d promised each other, among other things, that nothing would ever separate them. He was a sailor. They’d been facing a life of him being gone for long stretches on ship. But no matter where he was, in what part of the world or for how long, nothing would separate them. They’d promised.

“I gave up, Em.” He was all Winston now. The man she knew. And loved with every fiber of her being. It was a miracle, the way the stranger in their midst had simply vanished.

“I know this is hard for you—I know you’ve been through hell. You were facing imminent death every second of every day,” she told him. “You’d seen guys you’d cared about be blown up right in front of you. But you didn’t die, Win. And you didn’t give up. You’d never have made it back if you had. But you did make it back. Just like you promised. I can’t tell you why, in a practical, technical sense, your life was spared, but what I know for certain is that when it was spared, you kept yourself alive. You came back to us. And the entire two years you were gone, I could feel you. People would tell me you were dead. Your commander, he said you’d died, but that they couldn’t find your body...but I didn’t believe it, Win. Because I could still feel you. Just like, somewhere deep inside you, you could feel me. It sounds nuts, but it’s always been that way with us, you know that. Even if you can’t feel it right now, you must remember...”

“I remember.”

Oh God, the miracle of this night. She couldn’t help the tears that flooded her eyes, the way her hands shook as she held on to him.

“You’ll feel it again, Win. I’m as sure of that as I am that you kept yourself alive for us, and that I believed you were alive the whole time. It’s who we are. It’s what we do. What we’ve always done...”

She couldn’t stop saying it. The truth was in her core and there was no silencing it anymore. She was fighting for them, and she’d never stop fighting...

“I married a woman in the Afghan desert, Em. I lived with her. I slept with her.”

The words knocked Emily’s heart unconscious.

And she couldn’t fight.

Chapter Eighteen

Winston moved out a couple of hours later. He didn’t take much with him. Just the duffel he’d come in with. A few extra toiletries he’d purchased in the interim. And some clothes. Until their lawyers could put paperwork together, until he knew where he stood with San Antonio and finances, he’d be staying at the barracks.

He’d asked if she minded keeping his things at the house for a while longer.

She’d said the house belonged to both of them and seeing that his things had been there for the past two years, she didn’t think another few months would matter. Or something to that effect.

She hadn’t asked a thing about Afsoon. Not even her name. She’d been in shock. And then she’d just shut down on him.

He’d known what it would do to her—telling her. Hadn’t meant to do so.

But he’d almost made love with her in his sleep.

No way could he do that to her—make love to her with her thinking he was what he’d always been—that he’d been inside no woman but her.

He’d been tested—he wasn’t carrying anything. But with him and Emily, their fidelity to each other hadn’t been one damned thing to do with health.

And their relationship had been everything about truth. Some guys could have a thing on the side—maybe just once in a marriage, even, a true mistake—and say nothing. He wasn’t that guy.