As she went through the house toward the kitchen, she rubbed her aching wrist. Too many hours at the piano had really put a strain on the weakened muscles. She opened the cupboard, but remembered belatedly that she'd run out of coffee. She thought about making a pot of tea, but really wanted coffee instead.
As she left the kitchen, she gripped her wrist with her left hand and decided she should probably put her brace on before she went to the store.
She went to her room and opened the top dresser drawer then retrieved her wrist brace. When she strapped it on it alleviated her pain. Despite the early September date on the calendar, the air outside her warm little cottage had a bit of a bite to it as the shivery wind blew in from the river. Aria grabbed a light jacket and turned to leave her room. As she turned, her eyes caught sight of the framed display on the wall.
She walked toward it slowly. It had been weeks since she looked at Nick's medals and his obituary. Most days she tried not to think about him, but failed miserably. Lately, whenever she thought of him, she prayed for him. She tried very hard not to pray selfish prayers where he was concerned, but she had to be honest with herself and admit that sometimes she failed in that regard, too.
Carol once projected that Nick put her on a very high pedestal; that he thought the Sergeant Major's baby girl was too good for the kid from the trailer park. Aria was beginning to believe, after being so thoroughly rejected by him twice in her lifetime, that maybe she just wasn't good enough for him. Maybe there was something wrong with her that kept him from being able to be with her in spite of his feelings.
Her feelings for him, she discovered, only grew. That frustrated Aria. The more she thought of one Nicholas Williams, the more she respected and desired him. Knowing the weight of the scars on both his body and his heart only made it worse. She wanted to soothe his heart and troubled mind. Having witnessed how those scars pained him, and plagued his dreams, only made her heart ache to love him even more.
Shaking her head at her romantic fantasies, she took her car keys down from the hook by the back door. On impulse, Aria decided to stop in on Brandon and Steph and see what dinner specials they had before she headed to the store to get some coffee. She chose her thin wallet, the one she could stick into the front pocket of her blue jeans, and walked through her house. Lastly, she grabbed her cell phone and slipped it into her jacket pocket before she walked out the front door. As she turned to lock it, the voice startled her.
"Hello, Aria."
With a gasp, she spun around. Nick Williams sat on her porch swing. He pointed at the window. "I knocked, but you were so wrapped up in what you were playing I don't think you heard me, so I waited."
Aria put a hand to her racing heart. "What are you doing here?" The words came out in a pant as she struggled to catch her breath.
He looked rested. For the first time in recent memory, he looked rested and refreshed. "I needed to see you."
Not willing to feel the pain of his rejection again, she started to build a wall up around her heart. "Yeah. Well, here I am. Now you've seen me. You can leave without a good-bye again." She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and rushed down the steps.
"Aria, wait!" Nick said, running after her. He grabbed her arm and she pulled her hand out of her pocket and whirled around.
"What?" she bit out.
He stared at her braced hand. "What happened?"
"With what?"
He let go of her hand as if it had burned him. "What happened to your hand?"
Aria looked at her wrist brace then back at him. The look of anger on his face made her take a step back. "Nothing. I just overused it. It's the reason I don't play piano for a living."
She watched as the anger drained from his face. "I thought maybe someone hurt you again."
Putting her chin up, she said, "Just you." She pivoted on her heel to leave but halfway down her walkway, he stopped her.
"Please don't go." His voice was barely a whisper. Though he spoke quietly, the sound resonated around her yard.
"Why shouldn't I? Isn't that what you did to me?" she asked, her back still to him.
Even though with her back to him she couldn't see the gesture, Nick nodded in a quiet agreement. He put his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "I quit NISA. They promoted Jen Thorne to Director."
"I know. John told me," she said, finally turning to face him. "They've been seeing each other."
"Really?" He frowned. "I didn't know that."
His eyes squinted for a few minutes as if reviewing some memories, then he nodded as he processed the new information. "I had actually turned it down before they offered it to Jen, and I resigned before she accepted the post. She tried to talk me out of it but I wasn't going to bite. Just finished up the last of the paperwork I had to do for final debriefing yesterday."
Aria merely raised an eyebrow and waited. He didn't say anything else. She stepped closer to him. "And?"
Nick ran a hand through his hair then stuck his hand back in his pocket. "I've been talking a lot with Adam lately." He waited a beat to see if she was aware of this. When she remained silent, he said, "He's agreed to be a silent partner in a security business I've been wanting to set up. I just have to choose the location."
"You're asking my permission to get a loan from my brother?"
"No." She'd forgotten how quickly he could move. Suddenly, he was standing right in front of her and his hands encircled her upper arms. "Aria, I tried," he said, gently squeezing her arms. "I tried to walk away — again. I tried to pretend I could let you go, but the truth is, I can't. I can't ignore my feelings for you. I don't want to anymore."
A little spark of something started to bloom inside Aria, knocking down that wall she so desperately sought to build. She began a war within herself. "What feelings, Nick? You've successfully ignored me for four months when I really needed you. You left me alone for all of the briefings and trials and — honestly at many points — accusations."
"I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I was out of the country most of the time. Hecate and I had to find Roj Singh. That was truly more of a priority than anything else. We had to find the device and the prototype of the shielding he had constructed. We finally ran him to ground in … you know what? I can't tell you about that. Forget I said anything."
"You could have sent me a postcard or an instant message or a text from some obscure or secure phone. But you ignored me and left me alone. You abandoned me. Again." She pulled away. "Jen will take you back on, Nick. Probably promote you. Go back to your life. I just have to figure out some way to live mine without you."
Before she could turn to leave again, he stopped her by simply saying, "I don't need NISA or Jen, Aria. I need something else."
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, he was right back in front of her, his blue eyes pinning hers. "I've spent the last two weeks at my father's house," he said. "I had so much healing to do, so much forgiving to do. I realized something. I realized that I was an empty shell until now."
His eyes swirled with remembered pain and with emotion, and not a small amount of regret. "I wish I could go back and change everything. In a way I wish I'd have told NISA no in the first place. Just finished my tour of duty and come home to you. You're the only woman I've ever even wanted, Aria. You're the only woman I ever felt like … I don't know how to say this."
A tear slid down her cheek.
Nick kept staring deep into her eyes, not moving an inch as he stood there and spoke with his voice low and urgent. "What we did, what you did, saved thousands of lives. The truth is, it probably saved our very nation. With so much of our elected leadership taken out, we would have been ripe for a major external attack; so you very likely saved millions of lives. The plans they had put in place were solid. If not for you, their plans would have worked. God used you — and He used me — and we stopped them. "
Before she could stop him, he reached out and framed her face with his hands. "But in the end
, it cost us ten years of our lives together. I am so very sorry I hurt you, but if you let me, I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. I love you, Aria. I've loved you since high school, since the very first time I ever saw you. I need you. I need you more than anything else in this world. I don't want to live without you even one more second."
There were probably a dozen things he could have said that would have done nothing for her, but his sincere words removed all doubt. "Then don't," she pleaded, and suddenly his mouth covered hers and he kissed her with all the pent up passion and love that she mirrored for him in her own heart.
She threw her arms around his neck and gave that passion back to him. Her knees vanished and she felt certain that she was floating above the earth, sailing up into his kiss.
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PORTLAND, OREGON
EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER
THROUGH all that Nick had experienced in his life — all the dangers he'd faced and injuries he'd sustained — he never imagined that he could find happiness, much less contentment and love. Yet, as he sat and watched his wife cradle their incredibly tiny new daughter in her arms, he couldn't help feeling a complete sense of peace finally settle over him.
He looked down at the worn Bible in his lap and ran his fingers over the stained and bruised linen handkerchief. For the thousandth time he whispered a prayer of thanksgiving for the blessings God had delivered into his unworthy life.
The entire family had gathered for the birth of this new addition. Retired Army Sergeant Major Jose Suarez had diplomatically suggested naming the baby, "First of many grandchildren to come," though Nick and Aria had politely refused.
As all three of his brothers-in-law entered the crowded hospital room and joined their parents and Nick's dad, one of Aria's brothers slapped Nick on the back. Nick wasn't sure which one it was, but the contact spoke volumes to him.
It said that he belonged, that he was accepted. In the eighteen months he had been married to Aria, Doris had been more of a mother to him than his own had in all the five years he'd lived under the same roof with her, and Jose was as much a father to him as he was a wise friend. The slap on the back from one of Aria's older brothers told him that this was his family, now. His familia.
The brothers took some getting used to, always protective of their baby sister. They had opened up a place in their pack and let him in almost without question, knowing that his love for Aria was genuine and — in reality — the only important thing; the only thing that mattered. They said, without saying it, that where he came from, how he lived, or how he was raised meant nothing.
Pain and hurt of the past would heal with time and effort. Somehow, even his own father blended in with this amazing and close family, and in what nonbelievers would only ever perceive as the strangest way, he completed it.
Despite how utterly unworthy Nick felt of accepting love or forgiveness, for whatever reason God had decided to bless him. First, He had blessed Nick with Aria. From the second he first ever saw Aria all those years ago, he knew that he had found his reason for living. Every time she spoke to him, every time he fell under her gaze, every time they touched, he knew that God had made her especially for him.
Then God blessed him with a family that accepted him as one of their own. Finally, God had blessed him with a child of his very own.
Slowly, day by day, God was healing him. Nick knew that his amazing wife was the greatest part of that healing. A simple look or touch from her soothed his troubled brow and erased years of pain and remorse. Her prayers lifted him up and kept him safe from the nightmares that only rarely visited anymore. He no longer had to be strong and in control all on his own. He and Aria, his beautiful bride, could be strong together by leaning on the endless strength of their Creator.
Nick turned back to look at Aria Williams, his wife, and their beautiful baby. Aria looked up, perhaps sensing her husband's gaze. As her brown eyes met his ice blue stare, love flowed between them in a cord of three. He knew he'd finally found the normal that he'd been searching for all his life.
Normal wasn't a swing set in the backyard of a suburb, or a wife in the kitchen making dinner. It was a peace in his heart that told him he was loved, that he belonged, and that he was free to love this woman who had given him their child and given him her heart. He would bask in their love all of his days on this earth. He would put his very life on the line to protect them and provide for them as long as he drew breath. He finally had a family.
"Want to know something?" he asked.
"What's that?" Her voice sounded husky, tired, but incredibly joyful.
"You look really good holding onto little Jennifer Carol, there."
Aria snorted as if he were teasing, then took a second look at their child, a closer look. She looked back at her husband and nodded. "I think you're right. We can call her 'Jaycee' for short."
He nodded. "Want to know something else?"
"Sure," she smiled.
He leaned over and softly kissed Aria. "I love you," he said simply.
She smiled and pulled him back for another kiss. "I love you more," she said, then made to soothe Jaycee who loudly protested being squeezed between her parents.
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THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I LOVE these United States of America, my country. Even today I believe that our nation is truly one of the greatest countries on earth, with so much promise and potential. We live in a land whose shores people actually die trying to reach. Oftentimes I get annoyed at gluttony, greed, laziness, political corruptness, entitlement and the like; and I sometimes forget and let those feelings overshadow the fact that there is so much good about my homeland, so much hard work that built this nation.
Anyone who has ever read my blog on Veterans' Day has witnessed my post honoring my family's service to our country.
http://www.halleethehomemaker.com/my-veterans-day
With a great-grandfather who was a World War I veteran, two grandfathers who were World War II veterans, a father who is a retired Army Sergeant Major, a father-in-law who is a Vietnam and Gulf War veteran, a sister-in-law who is a Gulf War and War on Terror veteran currently on active duty as an Army Colonel, and a husband who is an NCO in the National Guard and who served in the Gulf War and the War on Terror, patriotism and love for this country is deeply ingrained in me and my family. I am proud of the military tradition of my family. I pray that my sons continue it, and continue to fight for and stand up for the idea that is America.
Nicholas "Nick" Williams was molded in my mind out of the very best of the military legacy of my family. Aria Suarez, her brothers, and Carol Mabry, are all Army "brats" — children of career Army soldiers. Their decisions, reactions, and actions throughout this book are seen through the veil of a firsthand knowledge and understanding of the sacrifices made for these United States.
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JARGON, ACRONYMS, & TRANSLATION KEY
Military Terms & Jargon
9-line — Medical Evacuation Request
brown shirts — The original "jackbooted thugs" the Sturmabteilung (SA) functioned as the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. They played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s and are famously known for the "night of the long knives" when, in June 1934, loyal but lower ranking "brown shirts" quietly murdered the entire SA's leadership and at least 84 others who had angered Hitler in the recent past all on a single night. "Brown shirts" is used today as a euphemism for any government sanctioned agent or agency they perceive capable of "thuggery" and most often used by members of the US Military to describe agents of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who purchase things like armored vehicles and heavy weaponry despite not having any kind of combat mission.
CASH — Combat Army Surgical Hospital
CH-47 — The Boeing CH-47 Chinook is an American twin-engine, tandem rotor heavy-lift helicopter. Its primary roles are troop movement, artillery placement and battlefield resu
pply. It has a wide loading ramp at the rear of the fuselage and three external-cargo hooks
check your six — watch your back or check your six o'clock; The "clock orientation" originally became necessary to conduct effective organized aerial combat. When oriented like a clock face with 12 o'clock being ahead of you, six o'clock is directly behind you. In air combat, an enemy below you on the right would be at 3 o'clock low while an enemy to your left and above you would be at 9 o'clock high.
device — euphemism for "bomb" or "explosive" often used by EOD personnel (US Military jargon)
EOD — Explosive Ordinance Disposal
klick — one kilometer or 0.621 of a standard mile. 1 mile = 1.609 kilometer (US Military jargon)
LoJack — (NASDAQ: LOJN) Brand name and trademark of the LoJack Corporation is also common military and law enforcement jargon used as either a noun or a verb for any theft prevention system or methodology involving remote geolocation and object tracking (US Military jargon)
M-249 — The M249 light machine gun (LMG), previously designated the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW), and formally written as "Light Machine Gun, 5.56 mm, M249," is as gas operated, air-cooled machine-gun with a quick-change barrel. It is agonistically belt or magazine fed and provides infantry squads with the heavy volume of fire of a machine gun combined with accuracy and portability approaching that of a rifle.
M-4 — The M4 carbine is a family of firearms that was derived from earlier carbine versions of the M16 rifle. With replaceable 30 round magazines, the weapon can fire a standard full-metal jacket 5.56 NATO round at distances of up to 800 meters in semiautomatic or full-automatic modes of fire.
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