by Alie Garnett
Or maybe he wasn’t pissed, she thought. Maybe he was just indifferent.
Chapter 25
Holden took another sip of beer, trying to get his anger settled before he talked to Dylan again. Her indifference to the house was bothering him. She said she liked it, but she only saw half of it, if that. She didn’t even bother to look upstairs.
Then she made the real estate agent think he couldn’t afford the house! For years he had saved most of the money he made, and he had a nice nest egg to draw from for a down payment. He knew exactly how much he could afford. The house was doable.
Could it be that she didn’t think he could afford it? All she had to do was ask him. Or just talk to him, not tell the real estate agent he was too poor to pay for the house by himself.
It wasn’t that he needed to do it himself—he wanted her there also. Not for the money, but because she was the main part of the life he wanted to live. But it was a life she didn’t seem to want to be a part of, however.
Tim was waking from his nap when he heard the front door finally open, letting him know Dylan was back. When they had arrived home, she had stayed in the car. Now, he heard her walk across the living room and go into the bedroom. Holden set his beer down and got up. He knew that the baby needed to eat soon, or he’d start crying.
He found her in their bedroom, still in her sweatshirt and leggings, and still as gorgeous as ever. There were clothes on the bed, and he couldn’t tell if she was putting them away or taking them out.
He walked into the room, ignoring her clothes, and handed her the baby. “Tim’s waking up.”
“He isn’t hungry yet. Just take him and play with him a while.” She tried to hand the baby back.
With a side-step, he dodged her and leaned against the wall, watching her. “What did you really think of the house?”
“It was nice. You’ll be happy there.” She sat down with the baby, and despite her words, lifted her shirt up to feed him.
“It's more than nice, Dylan.”
“It was gorgeous, Holden, and Tim will love growing up there.”
He narrowed his eyes a little. “I was thinking about a swing set in the backyard.”
“He’s a little young yet, but one day.” She took Tim’s hand and kissed it.
“I think we can get the price down a bit. It’s a little high.”
“I can give you the money for it, so I know that Tim is taken care of. I have the money.”
“I have money, Dylan! I haven’t spent much over the years. I don’t need yours.” Money would never make up for Tim’s mother not being there, not loving him as she should’ve.
“I know you don’t, but I want to make sure that Tim has everything he needs.” Her words caught him off guard—the baby had never wanted for anything in his life.
It seemed that maybe Dylan was projecting onto her son what had been lacking in her own life. Could it be that the house was something Dylan had dreamed about but wouldn’t let herself have?
“Maybe Jan is right, and there’s something just as good at a lower price,” he suggested.
“No, that was the one, and I’ll pay for half. Tim will be happy there. It’s the home he deserves.” Her eyes were locked on the baby, a baby who would be happy any place his mom was.
“You only looked at half the house. How do you even know he’ll like it?”
“I saw enough, and I’ll see the rest maybe one day. I’ve never been that picky about where I live.” She was still looking at the baby, who had nodded off in her arms.
Holden pushed off from the wall and gently took the baby from Dylan, then carried him across the hallway and laid him in his crib. Somehow, he didn’t notice that he was now in his bed and not in his mom’s loving arms.
Dylan was still sitting on the bed, staring at the closet door.
“You didn’t think the house was too big?” Holden quizzed her. He needed to know that she liked the house.
“Maybe a little, but this one is too small. Tim has a lot of stuff and probably always will.”
“The bedrooms upstairs were a little on the small side.”
“Oh, but they were big enough, right?”
Holden folded his arms across his chest. “Maybe you should have gone up and looked.”
“I didn’t need to, really. I’m sure they’re big enough.”
“Maybe we need to go look again. This time, you can go upstairs.”
“Just get the house or don’t get the house, Captain. Do what you want.” She got up and tried to push past him, but he grabbed her arm.
“Why didn’t you want to see where your son would be sleeping, Dylan?” He pulled her close to him, and her eyes flashed with anger.
“Don’t,” she hissed.
“Why didn’t you go up those stairs?”
“I didn’t need to see the room you would bring other women home to. I didn’t need it rubbed into my face.”
“Really, Dylan? What other women? I sleep with you every night.” He pointed to the bed they’d been sharing for weeks.
“It’ll be over next week. I’ll go back to my place and work, and you can start finding a new mom for Tim. He deserves a good one.” The anger was gone, replaced by the same hollowness she had when she closed off her emotions.
“He deserves you. You are the person he wants, and you’re who I want in mine.”
“You’re not even attracted to me anymore, Captain. I was just a fling, someone you forgot about the moment you came home. If it hadn’t been for Tim, I wouldn’t be here. I understand that.”
“In what way am I not attracted to you, Dylan? I walk around this house with an erection from morning until night! I can barely keep my hands off of you, ever.” He argued, as if she hadn’t noticed.
“You do a fairly good job of it,” she said petulantly.
“That’s because I know if I touched you, let alone kissed you, I wouldn’t stop until my cock was buried in you so deep you’d have no idea where you ended and I began. But you clearly aren’t ready to have sex yet, so I don’t touch you because I can’t trust myself around you. Not your lips when you bite them, not your neck that I know smells of lilacs in the spring, and not your breasts that I get to see almost every day as they nurture our son. The son we created that grew in your body, the one you loved and cared for as it happened.” His free hand skimmed over her stomach and cupped her bare breast firmly.
“You never let on,” she breathed out.
“What was the point? You were recovering from giving birth to our son. There was nothing I would rather see you do than that. It’s hands down the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he admitted, not carrying that it made him seem weak.
“You clearly don’t know what sexy is.” Her lips curled into a slight smile.
“Sexy is watching you feed our son in the same spot every day. Sexy is you reading book after book on how to raise our son. Sexy is you sleeping in a bed right next to our son, keeping a hand on him and never letting anything bad happen to him. Sexy is you right now in those fucking pants, letting me see the ass and legs I constantly dreamt of as I lay in a hospital bed with my back ripped apart.”
Her eyes went wide for a second, then drifted to the floor between them. “I don’t feel very sexy.”
“Then let’s change that,” he whispered and pulled her tight to him.
His lips claimed hers and were met with equal passion. Her hand wrapped around his neck as their lips, tongue, and teeth met in a frenzy. Lifting her up, Holden carried her to the bed he had wanted her in like this since she’d walked back into his life. Hell, since long before that.
Chapter 26
Dylan cursed as she glanced at the time displayed on the car’s radio. Her errands had run long, too long, and she still had one more stop to make before heading home. It was her first time away from Tim since his birth, and she missed having him around.
Though she knew she really didn’t have to, she had gone to the VA to make sure everything was ready for her r
eturn. Dr. Roads, head of surgery, was happy to see her back since he was taking on the extra work while she was gone. Having looked over her schedule, she knew what to expect from her return: boring, ordinary surgeries.
She wasn’t even back yet and already felt bored with the work, knowing who and what was coming next. She knew she had spent too much time in Afghanistan, but she missed the fast pace of it.
After the hospital, she had stopped at her apartment, which she hadn’t been to at all since Tim was born. It helped that Holden had grabbed almost everything she owned from it. Today she would grab the rest; there was no need to keep an apartment she wasn’t living in.
Now that she and Holden were more than just sleeping side by side, she didn’t think he would mind if she brought over the last of her stuff. After loading the two boxes into the car, she went back and grabbed a small bag she had hidden from herself in the closet. When she had first found out she was pregnant, she had quickly found herself buying an outfit for the baby.
After traveling with the outfit for months, she had hidden it in the closet in hopes of forgetting that she wanted to see it on the baby. She knew she never would. Now, she didn’t have to worry.
Pulling to a stop in front of Jan and Jen’s reality, she hoped that neither would be in the office today. She wasn’t there for a family reunion, she was there to buy a house for her son and Holden. And maybe a little for herself, a safe place for her family, with or without her.
Taking a deep breath, she pushed into the office and was met by a smiling face, one that didn’t belong to her sister or her mother. With a quick look around, she didn’t notice either of them there.
“Welcome to Jan & Jen. What can I help you with, officer?” a brunette asked in a cheerful voice.
Dylan had forgotten that she was in her fatigues. They were so familiar, she forgot that they weren’t the usual attire for everyone. After six weeks, she was just as comfortable in leggings, but since she was visiting the hospital, she wore the fatigues.
“I want to buy a house,” she said, her plan set. Even though she knew Holden would argue with her about buying the house, she had to do it.
“Anything in particular?”
“506 Elmwood Drive,” she answered from memory, loving the warmth of the house and knowing Holden and Tim would be happy there.
The woman looked at her computer for a few minutes, then turned in her chair and called out to someone in an office behind her. “Jen, is the Elmwood house sold?”
“Yes, this morning,” her sister’s voice floated through the office.
It was as if time had gone back, and they were yelling through the house when Mom was away. It was her sister.
“Shoot, it’s sold, but we have a ton of nice houses for sale. If I could get your name and number, we could look at something for you.” The woman smiled, but Dylan had no interest in anything else.
“That’s okay. That was the house I wanted.” She hadn’t been ready for it to be gone, to have someone else living in their house.
She walked out of the building and let out a long sigh—she had waited too long, and now her dream was gone. Maybe that meant being a part of Holden and Tim’s lives was going to be just a dream that she lost as well. So far in life, not much had turned her way. Why would this?
Ten months ago, she had no idea what her life would be like without work. Now, she could do anything as long as Tim and Holden were there. But now their house was gone.
“Jessica?” Jenna yelled from behind her.
Dylan froze mid-step in the parking lot and slowly turned. She looked at her sister, who was no longer sixteen; time had turned her sister into their mother. From the hair to the outfit, she was exactly like Dylan had remembered her mother so many years ago.
“Sorry, not me,” she lied. She could never be the Jessica they wanted. For years, she had tried and failed. No longer was she willing to even try.
Turning again, she headed toward her car, it was time to get back to her son.
“Why didn’t you ever contact us? Just a letter or a call? Not even once.” Jenna started following her. She recognized Dylan. Scar or no scar, her sister knew her.
Dylan let out a huff and wheeled to face her sister, saying, “Because you were better off without me, Jenna. You and mom were a team, you still are. I was never a part of that.”
“It was hard to include you when you didn’t want to be included,” Jenna argued as she looked her over. Dylan knew the moment she saw the scar when her sister’s eyes widened in surprise.
“I always wanted to be included, but I didn’t want to have to beg. I wanted you two to want me there,” Dylan hissed.
“She always wanted you there.”
“She sent me away.”
“She didn’t know what to do with you.”
“She knew what he would do.”
Jenn hesitated before answering, “Did he?”
“Every day until I got on that bus to boot camp. She never came back.” Dylan said the words, knowing that they had maybe believed that life wasn’t so bad for her with Dad. But it had been.
“You never asked her to.”
Dylan shook her head and scoffed, “I didn’t think I needed to.”
“She looked for you! It took her two years to find out you joined the Army, then she started to write to you.”
“I know. I have the letters,” she admitted, though she knew she shouldn’t of.
“Did you read them?”
“Not a one,” she said as she opened the back door of the car and grabbed the box with shaky hands. A few letters fell to the floor of the car as she took it out and handed it to her sister. “You can give them back to her. Nothing she can say will be enough to make up for what he did.”
Jenna’s blue eyes were large as she stared at the box in her hand, taking in the neat rows of letter after unopened letter. “She wrote you all the time.”
“When she drove away, it gave Dad permission to do whatever he wanted to me. To do everything he wanted to do to her. Do you know what a leather strap does to your back after that many years, Jenna? I do, and so does anyone who sees me naked. No letter can heal scars that deep.”
Not wanting to see her sister's tears, she turned and got in her car, feeling nothing. No great burden had been lifted, no vindication that she was right, just the continued emptiness she always had, but now she didn’t have to carry around that damned box.
Suddenly, she missed the box she had carried around the world with her. Oddly, it had been comforting to know her mother was close, even if just in a letter.
As Dylan drove home, she thought about what had happened, and if maybe she had been wrong to tell Jenna anything. Maybe she had deserved some form of punishment for acting out, but not what her father had doled out every day for months.
Pulling up to the house, she knew it was almost an hour later than she had told Mara she would be. Once Dylan had realized how late she was going to be, she had called Holden’s mom to relieve Mara, because she had made an effort last week and Dylan had nobody else to call. Without hesitation, Donna said she would go over and watch the baby for a few minutes.
Jumping from the car, she saw a strange, middle-aged man sitting on the front step. If she was smart, she would turn and leave, but her son was in the house, and she had to make sure he was safe.
Leaving her box behind, she headed right for the man. As she approached, he stood and looked her over.
“Jessica,” he said her old name, the one everyone was calling her now.
“It’s Dylan,” she stated coolly. As she got closer, she realized who it was: Holden’s father.
“Sorry, Dylan. Nice day, isn’t it?” Glenn Marquez asked. He once accused her of killing his son. Now he wanted to talk about the weather? Yeah, no thanks.
“What are you doing here?” She wasn’t in the mood.
“Donna said I couldn’t go inside and see the baby until I apologized. So, I’m apologizing,” he replied, though he didn’t
really seem like he liked the idea.
“For what?" There was a lot of bad water between them, and a simple, vague apology wasn’t going to cover it.
“For not treating you like the family member you were. Chase married you, and I should have respected that. Instead, I thought I knew better and pushed him away. In turn, pushing you away.”
“Every phone call made him think less of himself. I didn’t care that you hated me, I cared about how you treated Chase. You where the reason he didn’t come home, not me. I hope you treat Holden better.”
“The baby’s awake,” Donna’s voice came from inside the house.
Pushing past Glenn, she hurried into the house and grabbed the baby from Donna. The baby was whimpering, and she immediately knew he was hungry.
Taking him back into the living room, she settled him down while unbuttoning her shirt. Oddly, she had been wearing the same outfit most of the six weeks with her son, so changing seemed odd.
When she finally got him settled into feeding, she looked up at Holden’s mother. She had moved away from her but was watching.
“Thank you for watching him. Mara had to get to work. I didn’t know you would bring Glenn with you.”
“He insisted, and he’s trying. Not succeeding yet, apparently, but trying. Old habits.”
With a knock on the door Glenn, said, “I brought in the box from your car. Some letters were on the floor, and I grabbed them also.”
“Put it on the table.” She shifted Tim as her father-in-law came in with her box.
He set the box on the table, then shoved the letters into the box, trying to keep them organized.
She watched as he looked into the box, knowing the picture of her and Chase was on the top—the one they took when he was on leave in Florida, two years before he died. They had bought matching shirts and went to the beach, something she really didn’t have time for during school but had gone anyway. Sadly, it was the only time she had been to the beach while she was in Florida.
