Having The Soldier's Baby (Parent Portal 1)

“So, what’s up?” he asked, sitting far enough away that they weren’t touching, but close enough that she could count his eyelashes when he turned to look at her.

“No,” she said. “You first.” Divorce details were far more important than past feelings.

“I wanted to ask your opinion on something,” he said, as though he was unsure of his reception. Another first for them.

“Of course.”

“I’ve been given the option to take an early honorable discharge,” he said, looking out to sea as he explained the details.

A discharge? But Winston was career navy. It’s all he’d ever talked about wanting. Going to college and entering the navy. To have them coming to him with talk of discharge, after he’d been so loyal...

She couldn’t believe they’d do that to him. There had to be someone she could talk to. As his wife, shouldn’t she have some...

What?

Like the government was going to listen to her? And what would she tell them? That she was divorcing him but that they should definitely keep him on?

“Do you have to take it?” she asked when her thoughts cleared a bit.

“No.”

Okay, then. So it was an offer, he’d turn it down, and life would go on as usual.

She looked at him. “Why are you talking to me about it?”

“I’ve been thinking about the child.”

He was confusing her. She didn’t like it. Not when her view of life was still so new and tenuous.

“What about him?”

“He needs to learn about loyalty. Duty. Protecting others.”

Her breath came in short little drags of sea air. She had no words.

“There are many things I can’t give him,” Winston continued, his face stoic as he looked out at the unending waters he’d always said he loved. “But I can teach him those things. They’re my strengths.” He turned to look at her as he finished, as though he was waiting for an answer.

But...was there a question in there? What did he want her to say?

In their old life, she’d have known what he needed, almost as though she could think through him. In the olden days she’d have asked what he thought he couldn’t give, because she’d have firmly believed that there was nothing their child would need that he couldn’t provide. And conversely, if he couldn’t provide it, their child wouldn’t need it.

The olden days were gone. She thought abo

ut what the man sitting beside her had just told her.

“Are you thinking about leaving the navy because of Tristan?” she asked, not quite sure what to make of that. On any level.

“I want to know what you think about the possibility of me going with NCIS. Or even local police.”

“Not local police,” she said instantly. Winston knew and loved ships. Every single twist and turn in every single belly of them.

“NCIS has an office in LA. I’d have to be gone for a few months of training, in Georgia, but I could put in a request to work out of the LA office, and I’ve been told that I stand a good chance of having my request granted.”

He wanted to stick around to be an active participant in their son’s life! That’s what he was telling her! How could she possibly, in that moment, focus on anything else?

A miracle was happening in the midst of everything else falling apart.

He was waiting for her to say something. Something pertinent, preferably.