I realize I only ever saw Sean as handsome and perfect in his uniform. Now I see there’s a lot more that goes to it. A whole other side. The reason why he truly is a hero. The danger he faces and how he can just be called away on a moment’s notice. This part really hurts…a lot.
I want to tell him so bad about his baby but I realize now it can’t do any good. It will only worry him when he’s in the middle of who knows where. Not only that I don’t want it to come across like I’m using the baby as a tool…as a pawn.
I know he loves me and wants to be with me. Maybe the fact that I’m pregnant could somehow help him in the military to be able to be closer to me, but then again we’re not even married. And he joined the military before we got together. That’s his first true love, right? Not me.
Oh, I’m so emotional and irrational right now. I just need to get home and try and sort this mess out.
“But don’t you worry,” he says. “We’re going to be together really soon. Okay.”
“Okay,” I say.
A few seconds go by.
“Are you there?”
I look and hit the unmute button. “Okay,” I say.
“I just can’t do anything right right now.”
“I have to run,” I say. “Good luck.”
I hit the end call button and then all hell breaks loose. I’m balling my eyes out in a casino parking lot.
The sign says “loose slots” and “win big.”
Yeah, my slot sure was loose over the 4th of July and I sure didn’t win big, did I?
Any luck I had when he first arrived a month ago has completely run out.
I’m about to be a single mom waiting tables in the middle of the desert.
My “luck” has completely run out.
Chapter Seventeen
Victoria
One day later
I requested a personal day for today as soon as I stopped crying yesterday.
I love my boss. He granted it immediately.
So now I have all day to wallow in my pity or get busy figuring out how I’m going to make this work.
I’m still extremely sad, but on the other hand I am pregnant with Sean’s baby. As much as I want to feel sorry for myself that’s an incredible blessing.
I try and start every day with some upbeat thoughts and imagining Sean’s features in a little boy really lifts my spirits.
Figuring out how I’m going to tell Vince I’m pregnant, and how it all happened with his best friend just feet from him in Vegas, is not going to be easy.
But I’ve got a bit of time before I start to show where I can start to figure that out.
And luckily Vince is at work so I can get started on my plan right away without him looking over my shoulder.
I can just imagine. “Oh hey, sis. What are you working on?”
“Oh hey, Vince. I’m just figuring out how I’m going to tell you that your bff and I were making sweet love high in the sky in that hotel room right next to your. And I just wanted to let you know he was totally awesome in bed! So awesome in fact that I’m pregnant with his child now.” And then I could give him a light punch in the arm. “So you’re going to be the uncle to your best friend’s love child. How cool, right?”
I should be a freaking stand up comedian with a routine like that. It would surely get laughs because no one would believe it. There’s no way that story could be true, right?
Oh Jeez.
I grab a glass of water and sit down on the couch. I need to think positive thoughts and imagining everything about my baby arriving will definitely help.
I’m an emotional wreck still. Sad and devastated one minute and really excited the next.
And then the doorbell rings. I’m definitely not in the mood or presentable enough to answer that.
And who in the heck is going door-to-door trying to sell something in the middle of the desert? What’s wrong with people?
I start in on chapter one of What to Expect When You’re Expecting, but before I even get through the first paragraph that darn doorbell rings again.
“Go away,” I say loud enough to make me feel better but not so loud the guy at the door will hear which will lead him to be even more relentless knowing there’s someone inside who could answer the door. Could but won’t, buddy!
I need to stay off my feet anyway, right? I’m pregnant now.
I laugh a bit to myself, but that quickly disappears when I hear him banging on the glass window next to the door!
Now you’re making me really mad.
I get up from the couch and storm to the front door.
“Go away!” I yell as I’m opening the door.
The man has on a uniform, but it’s not for vacuum cleaners, Ginsu knives, or Omaha Steaks.
And he’s certainly not selling Avon or Tupperware.
Chapter Eighteen
Sean
“Wha…what are you doing here?” she says.
I step through the door and kiss her like it’s the first time.
The sweetness of her lips. The curve of her hips in my hands. Her sweet smell.
It all comes rushing back. Not that I ever forgot. Not that I could ever forget if I wanted to, nor would I want to.
“I’m here for you,” I say. “I came for you.”
“But you’re getting deployed. I saw it on CNN like you said.”
“No, my unit is getting deployed. I’m not getting deployed.”
“But…”
“It pays to know the right people.”
“What do you mean?”
I can see she’s practically in shock and I can’t lie…the surprise on her face is so worth it to me.
“The anniversary of my enlistment is three months away. I was sure I was going to re-enlist until I came here for the 4th. Then everything change.”
“Everything did change,” she says.
“That’s right. And I realized that both sides knew my reenlistment was a foregone conclusion so I never actually signed the papers.”
“So you’re not reenlisting?”
“Well, when they told me they were sending me to train soldiers to speak Russian and learn the customs, a long ways away from you, I reminded them that the duty assignment was for a year…and I didn’t have a year on my contract.”
“So you played hardball?”
“Not really. I didn’t need to. But yes, I was ready and willing to do whatever it took to be closer to you.”
“But you could transfer to Fort Irwin then?”
“I already tried that one and I even got it approved…before the whole Russia thing came up.”
“Wait a minute. I’m totally confused. What’s going on?”
“If I were to teach Russian it takes a year to get to a decent level. But after only three months they’d barely have their feet wet and then I’d be separating? That makes no sense. I know it and the military knows it.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“I made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.”
“Which is?”
“An early out. I sold my leave days, which I’d maxed out as I never took time off, and took an early out.”
“So you’re out of the military?”
“Yes and no. Technically not until my anniversary date, but yes…I’m out.”
“But wait. What are you going to do now. I thought you loved the military.”
“I thought I loved it to, but I think the more accurate term is I really like it a lot.”
“But that’s over now.”
“No, it’s just getting started. Just like how most language learning is going online these days, I’m going to start teaching the same courses I taught in the military, but online.”
“But you’re out.”
“That’s why I can operate now as a consultant to the government. I can work from home and charge higher prices. I mean I’m not going to gouge the country that I love, but what I do does pay well and it’s only fair to charge market value. Not to
mention they offered me a very generous enlistment bonus if I stayed, which I spun and then negotiated into the private contractor contract we settled upon.”
“So where will you work from then?”
“Next to you of course.”
“Next to me. I live in the middle of nowhere. You’re from the middle of nowhere. Here. You know what it’s like here. You don’t want to do that do you?”
“Remember how you told me how I loved the military and then I told you that more accurately I really really liked the military?”
“Um, yes…?”
“The reason I don’t love the military is because my true love is you. You always have been and always will be.”
She gives me a look that says, “Everything is happening all at once and this is all too much.” But lucky for me I discover that when she’s overwhelmed there’s only one place that she needs to be.
She falls forward into my arms and I catch her and hold her tight. I know she’s still sorting this all out, but she needs to know that the bottom line is that we’re going to be together and everything is going to be okay. That’s what she needs to hear. But first I have to know how she feels about this big reveal.
“So how do you like them apples?” I say.
“I love them but I’ve got to tell you something.”
“Please. Be my guest.”
“I’ve got some apples of my own.”
“Come again?”
“I’m pregnant.”
Chapter Nineteen
Victoria
“You’re what?” he says.
“You’re what?” my brother says from the hallway.
“I thought you were at work,” I say.
“I thought I could trust you around my friend.”
So much for keeping our secret baby a secret.
“This is the best news yet!” Sean says.
“This is bullshit!” my brother says.
Sean hugs me tight but I hear the sound of heavy footsteps on the floor and feel Sean’s embrace leave me.
Not a second later I hear bodies hit the floor. Well over four hundred pounds of muscle are now wrestling on the floor this is not the kind of stress I need for my child.
“Stop it! Just stop it right now!”
I turn and see Gail standing in the hallway in her nightgown. She looks like she’s not feeling well and also that she’s not going to tolerate any nonsense this morning.
“Quit acting like two little spoiled brats and get up off the floor and be the men that we need right now you two!” she says.
I never knew Gail to be so fierce, but I have to say I like it. I always knew my brother picked a good one, but this is next level good.
The boys kind of look at each other and then release their death grips, quickly getting to their feet. I feel like I’m watching a Saturday morning cartoon right now.
“Victoria’s a grown woman and Sean’s your best friend. Leave them alone. They can do whatever the heck they want just like we do whatever the heck we want. So quit fooling around and get back in here with a cold washrag for my head. All this fighting is stressing me out and if I’m stressed out then you know your child is stressed out and I know you don’t want that now do you?”
Vince sulks as he walks toward the kitchen to get a cold rag.
I shake my head trying to process what happened and trying not to laugh.
“Is that how I’m going to be?” Sean asks.
“Believe me, it’s great actually,” Gail says. “You know how women have trouble expressing anger properly? The way men can just let it out? Well, you won’t have that problem when you’re with child. Trust me.”
“Thanks for the tip,” I say smiling.
Gail turns to go back into the room she shares with Vince. She suddenly pauses and turns in my direction. She points to my stomach with her eyes half closed with a pained expression on her face. Her bed is surely calling her. “Oh, and congratulations,” she says.
“Thank you,” I say. “It means a lot.”
Before I get out the last word Gail’s already though the doorway and about two seconds later I hear the springs of the mattress and know she’s horizontal again.
I don’t know how the military works, but I know she’d make a great commanding officer. She’s authoritative and solves problems…fast!
Sean dusts himself off and takes my hands. He steps back looking at me, or should I say my stomach.
Vince passes by the two of us shooting Sean a dirty look.
“You could at least make an honest woman out of her if you really love her,” he says.
“That’s exactly what I came here to do,” he says.
With my hands still in his he drops to a knee.
Chapter Twenty
Victoria
There’s always a certain stability I feel when my hands are in his, but this time you wouldn’t know it by the way they’re shaking.
He removes one so he can reach into his pocket and remove a tiny black box which he turns between the fingers of his one hand, expertly opening it.
The diamond inside catches a ray of morning sun and sparkles bright, just like the light in his eyes sparkles every time he sees me making me feel so powerful and womanly every time I see it. To know that I can make this man happy. The only man who can make me truly happy in this crazy little thing called life.
“Beautiful, I’ve been in love with you for a long, long time. At first I was clueless. I didn’t know what it was or what it was called. I was too young to know. What we had looked like something very different then, but when I took one look at you last month I knew what we had and it had matured just as we’d matured. It was full-grown, my love for you. The kind of love that survives and thrives and grows…just like our child which is growing inside you.”
I completely give up on my attempt not to cry and just let ‘em flow.
“You’ve already made me the happiest man in the world. And the happiest soon to be father in the world. Now I just ask you to make me one more kind of happiest…the happiest fiancé in the world to hold me over until you make me what I really want to be…the happiest husband in the world. Will you marry me my love of a lifetime?”
I’m crying so much I can’t even speak. I just nod my head. “Yes,” somehow escapes my lips.
He takes the ring from the box without taking his eyes from mine and slides it on my finger. It’s the same finger he checked when he first saw me again a month ago. He was looking to see if there was a ring there.
Well guess what?
There is now. Thanks to him. And it’s his ring. And it’s never, never, ever coming off.
Did I say never?
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you,” I say so quietly you almost can’t hear it. But he doesn’t need to hear it. He can read my mind like I can read his.
And our minds are on the same wavelength yet again.
We’re already thinking about our child. The first of what will surely be many more to come as we being our life of laughter, happiness and family.
Together.
Forever.
Epilogue
Victoria
Seven years later
“I promise I’ll do my homework, dad! I promise!”
“You swear?”
“I swear,” Scott, our oldest says.
“Okay, captain. I guess he can come aboard.”
Sean’s old military buddy Mike lowers the thin drawbridge and Scott runs onto Mike’s boat as quickly as possible.
Sean turns to me and winks. “Problem solved,” he says.
I can’t help but smile a little bit, but I can certainly feel for my son as well.
Sean’s a throwback and a military veteran. He has a different way of parenting sometimes. We always work together and we always stand united no matter how unorthodox Sean’s plans sometimes are.
When Scott was finding ways to cleverly avoid completing his homework, Sean didn’t get mad. He just chalked
it up to Scott being the young boy that he was and Sean said he just had to get cleverer…which he certainly did.
Putting together a family boating trip to Alcatraz is one thing. Setting up a scenario where Scott thinks we’re going to leave him there is another. I made Sean promise me he wouldn’t make the ruse go on for long. He agreed and true to his word, as he always is, he didn’t.
“Fear is the greatest motivator,” he’d told me when he came up with the idea.
“That sounds cruel and unusual though,” I said as I winced at the idea.
“Military tactics aren’t always pretty, but they’re used for a reason. They’re effective.”
And I’d have to agree with him there. It wasn’t often that we needed to motivate our kids, but when we did the crazy plans that Sean came up with had a one hundred percent success rate. And not just success, but overwhelming success. I bet I could convince Scott to start doing math problems right now…on the boat ride back.
And what a beautiful day it was to be on a boat.
Thanks to Sean’s connections Mike had obtained clearance to take our family to Alcatraz on a private boat. Pretty snazzy.
I was no longer surprised at how deep and how far reaching military connections ran. It was incredible what one veteran would do for another, even if they had never met before.
And I was also blown away by what Sean had done for me.
After a short stint back in Baker to get our affairs together and for him to list his home for sale, Sean was able to get his foreign language business up and running in San Francisco and his first hire was me. As much as I enjoyed the camaraderie and the wonderful owners at The Mad Greek, I didn’t see myself serving milkshakes in the desert for the rest of my life. And Sean made sure I didn’t.
A Man Who Knows What He Wants Box Set 5 Page 15
