Mommy Loves The Military Man

After a quick mental calculation, he realized that the girls were just getting home from school. He could catch everyone at home and awake if he called right now.

Alex pressed a few buttons to initiate a video call and then held his breath. Hopefully Cameron wasn’t driving the girls somewhere and could answer.

Finally, the line connected, and he heard her garbled voice through the phone. “Girls, come in here, quick. Alex is Facetiming.”

The picture cleared, and there was Cameron’s smiling face. “Hey Alex. Hold on, I just yelled for the girls.”

“How’s everything on that end? Is Mariana feeling better?” In her daily text updates, she said that Mariana had gone to school. That had surprised him, but he wanted to make sure Cameron wasn’t whitewashing her illness so he wouldn’t worried.

“Miraculous recovery. It’s almost like she wasn’t even sick.”

Her laugh echoed through the phone. Was the joke on him? He didn’t care at the moment because hearing her voice made him miss her even more.

“Daddy!” Mariana skidded into the picture and grabbed for the phone, Lizzie right behind her. “I miss you, Daddy,” and “Hi, Alex,” echoed through the phone as the girls pressed their heads together to fit in the picture.

“Hey, girls. I miss you, too. Are you behaving for Cameron?”

“Yes, Daddy. Guess what happened at school today?”

Mariana proceeded to fill him in on her science project and how she’d finished second in her class in the spelling bee. She sounded happy. And perfectly healthy. Did chicken pox clear up that fast? He didn’t think so.

Lizzie was in the middle of a story about something that happened in lunch yesterday when Cameron’s head popped into the frame behind the two of them.

“Okay, that’s enough, girls. Alex doesn’t have much time, so how about we save some of the stories for when he gets back?”

“All right. Bye, Daddy. Love you.” Mariana blew kisses and Lizzie waved before the girls handed the phone back to Cameron.

“Dinner in thirty minutes,” Cameron yelled as Lizzie and Mariana scurried out of the room.

He loved talking to the kids. Both of them. He had to find a way to fix his relationship with Cameron. He’d found everything he ever wanted in a wife. He just had to convince her. “It sounds like everything’s going okay there.”

“Yeah, it is.” She settled into one of the kitchen chairs but didn’t say anything else right away, her lips pressed into a straight line. “You look tired.”

He chuckled. She could say that again. Eighteen-hour days. Very little sleep. He loved it… and he couldn’t wait to be done with it.

“I’m sorry. That was rude.”

“Don’t be. I am tired. We’ve been putting long hours in here. I want to finish up as soon as possible so I can come home. No sense wasting any time while I’m gone.”

“You’ve clearly been busy, if what’s been happening around here is any indication.”

“What’s been happening?” He feigned ignorance, but he couldn’t hold back the smirk. His buddies had been updating him via email.

“Well, my lawn has been mowed, dinner’s been delivered, my oil’s been changed, and there is a beautiful bouquet of flowers on my bedside table. Of course, the door is closed or Boomer would be having a field day.”

He smiled. “Oh, that. It was nothing. I just called in a few favors. I wanted you to know I was thinking about you every minute I was gone.”

Her gaze softened. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“No thanks are necessary. I wanted to ask you something, though.” He paused and scanned behind him. Corporal Hatch had slipped his headphones on and was leaning into the computer screen. Enough of a semblance of privacy for Alex to ask the question burning in his heart. “I sensed when I dropped Mariana off that you were feeling better about my trip. And in your emails, I guess, I’m just wondering if you’re willing to give me, give us, another chance.”

Her expression remained neutral, but she didn’t reject him outright. That was a good start.

“Being away from you and the girls convinced me of something I already knew… I need you in my life. In my daughter’s life. You healed a hole in my heart that I thought would always be broken.”

“Oh, Alex.” Tears pooled in her eyes. “I’ve missed you, too. I guess after Josh I just wondered if I was the reason he didn’t hang around.”

“Josh is a jerk. That’s not about you, that’s about him. Please, just tell me you’ll think about it?”