by M. S. Parker
Nodding, I looked back as Glenn kissed her on the forehead, then went to lower her into the crib Florence and Astor had bought for the nursery. I’d told them they didn’t have to go all out, but Florence loved going all out, especially for her god-daughter.
As I started sniffling again, she hooked her arm through mine.
“I love her name. I’m thinking Kathleen was for Mrs. B.?” She guided me out of the room.
“Yes.” Nodding, I let her distract me. I wanted to go on my honeymoon. It was just a few days, up to Glenn’s cabin in the mountains. It would be good for all for us. I didn’t want to be a mom who hovered and clung. “And Ava…that’s…it was my mother’s name.”
“It’s a lovely name.” Florence squeezed my arm. “Now, not that I’m anxious to play the doting godmother or anything, but I’m going to kick you out now. That way, you can get on with your honeymoon.”
She grinned at me as Glenn came up and wrapped his arm around me.
It wasn’t that hard to smile back. “Thank you.”
A few minutes later, I stood with him outside by the car.
He cupped my face in his hands. “Are you ready, Mrs. Jackson?”
“Absolutely.”
He kissed me then, deep, soft, slow.
“Come on…I’ve been dying to be alone with you.”
I laughed and threw my arms around his neck. “We’ve got the rest of our lives for that.”
“I know.” He cradled the back of my head as he tugged me in closer. “But it’s still not enough. I love you.”
“I know. I love you, too.”
Turn the page to read my other Time Travel romance: The Lightwood Affair.
Bonus: Fire And Honor
The Lightwood Affair
One
The bullet grazed my shoulder seconds before I realized what was happening, burning a path across my skin.
The noise around me was deafening. Automatic gunfire mixing with shouts in English and whatever dialect of Arabic our assailants were using. A hand pushed my head down, and my entire body slipped into the front floorboard as bullets slammed against the SUV’s shell.
Shit!
“Get us out of here!” I snapped the order even as my brain was still registering the fact that what should've been a simple mission had turned into a shit-storm.
I looked up at Wilkins as he slammed on the gas, throwing all of us backwards. I tried to push myself up, already reaching for my weapon, but he shoved me down again. I glared at him but didn't try to move. He needed both his hands to drive, and I'd only be a distraction.
“Chew my ass out all you want when we get back to base, but for now, stay the hell down,” he yelled, maneuvering the vehicle expertly as shots ricocheted off the SUV.
I didn't get up, but I did turn so I could see the rest of my team. Rogers was in the backseat, his hand on his side as I watched the blood stain his shirt. Instincts to serve and protect over-rode natural self-preservation, and I started to push myself up.
“Dammit, Honor, get your sexy ass down!” Wilkins shouted. “You can’t help him if you’re dead. I need ten minutes.”
“He doesn’t have ten minutes!” I shot back, shoving gauze against my own flesh wound. It wasn’t the first time Wilkins felt the need to protect me just because I was a woman. I can take on this war just as good as any man.
Wilkins quickly glanced behind him, cursed under his breath, and pushed down harder on the gas. Rogers groaned in pain as we hit a speed bump, but he shook his head at me when I leaned forward. Damn him and his ability to read what I was thinking. I gritted my teeth, my impatience making my fear secondary even though gunshots were still ringing around us.
As we moved out of range, Wilkins didn't slow, but he did gesture for me to move. I quickly jumped into the back seat, grabbing for my medic kit as I went. I picked up a pair of scissors and cut the hole in Rogers' shirt so I could get a better look at his wound. Working quickly, I caught Wilkins’ eyes in the rearview mirror and glared at him before turning back to Rogers.
“Will he be okay?” Wilkins asked as he took another hairpin turn.
I ignored the question, keeping my mind on the task at hand as the SUV bumped from side to side on what passed for a road here.
“That was a little unexpected,” Wilkins ventured.
I shot him another look, and this time, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “This was the stupidest thing I've ever seen you do, Wilkins!”
“That's saying something,” Rogers gasped out. His face was pale, and I had a feeling he was distracting himself.
“It was recon,” Wilkins argued.
“It was miles away from where we should have been,” I shot back. “I'm okay with dying for my country, but I don't want it to be because my driver was off doing his own thing.”
Rogers put a hand on mine and managed a grin. “No one's dying here, corporal.”
I could see how much pain he was in, but the fact that he could smile and was taking the time to reassure me helped me relax. Or, at least as much as I could relax over here.
I hardly ever slept.
It wasn’t insomnia, per say, just the combination of adrenaline and my thoughts, which I had come to learn was never a good thing. Still, there was some consolation in being the only one up at an hour when everyone around was fast asleep. Things usually seemed clearer then, thoughts more discernible, and sometimes, I eventually got a couple hours of sleep.
Iraq was taking its toll on me. Hell, it took its toll on everyone, but I thought being a military brat had helped me be prepared. It hadn't. But I'd done my duty. Six years in the army, having enlisted right out of high school, and I started to think I was ready to go home. Ready to be a civilian. The thought of opening my own pediatric practice was the only thing that seemed to make me smile these days. Still, I knew that I'd done the right thing by enlisting.
I kept pressure on Rogers' side until we pulled into the base camp, then yelled for some help. I was tall and strong enough to pass the physical part of being an army medic with flying colors. Rogers, however, was a giant and I doubted most men would be able to carry him without assistance. Less than two minutes later, we were in the infirmary and Rogers was getting the attention he needed.
I made my way down the dim hall, automatically blocking out the chaotic noise coming at me from all sides. I'd gotten used to the military atmosphere early on, my dad bringing home a small part of the army with him even after he retired. He ran the house like his own little unit, and to me, it had always been like I was part of something bigger than just my immediate family.
I recalled late nights on the couch with my brother while our father sat in his favorite chair, telling us stories about the army, our eyes wide with awe. Ennis had enlisted too, of course. It was how our family had put themselves through college for years. I'd never doubted that I'd do the same.
I stopped at Captain Riley Nolan’s office, knocking lightly, and walking in when the call came for me to enter. I saluted and stood at attention.
“At ease, corporal,” Nolan said, his pen dancing across the sheet of paper in front of him as he worked.
I watched the man work for another few minutes, admiring how easy it was for him to simply forget everyone around him and focus on one task after the other. I'd never come across Nolan and found him sitting around gazing at the sky, lost in his thoughts, pondering the meaning of the universe. If there was one man on earth who could pound a soldier into the ground with assignments, it was Nolan, and his ruthlessness matched his work ethics.
He reminded me of my dad.
“I hear you had a small run-in this afternoon,” Nolan said as he sat back in his seat, his blue eyes boring into mine.
“We ran across some militia,” I explained. “Nothing serious.”
“I heard Rogers got shot,” Nolan said. “You too. That seems pretty serious to me.”
I hesitated, wondering just how much the captain had already heard, and how much he expected me to tell him. Wilkins had
gone off route, and that wouldn’t be easy to explain. I was stuck between not wanting to sell out Wilkins, and needing to tell my captain the truth.
Loyalty seemed like a simple enough concept until things went sideways.
“Mine was only a graze, and Rogers is patched up, ready to go, sir,” I said, choosing to go with Nolan's most recent comment rather than what I knew he wanted to hear.
I let out a slow breath and eased when the captain nodded and sat up straight in his chair, his hands fluttering through pages on his desk as he looked for something. I waited, wondering if that would be all when he held up a paper and handed it to me.
“You’re going home, corporal,” he said as I reached out and took the order. “The entire unit, two weeks. Let them know.”
I nodded, trying my best to hide my smile and saluted again. I turned to leave when he spoke. “Tell Wilkins to get some good rest on leave, Daviot. We don’t want him stressed and incapable of following orders.”
“Will do, sir,” I answered before walking out.
“So, will Bruce be waiting at the airport for you?” Rogers asked. He wagged his eyebrows. “Gonna get him some lovin'...”
I smacked him, then immediately regretted it when he groaned in pain.
“Sorry,” I chuckled. “Are you alright?”
“You’re not sorry,” Rogers said, laughing as he pushed me away. He got up and stretched, feeling at his stitches as I went back to packing my bags.
Wilkins threw me a look. “You didn't answer his question.”
“I left Bruce a message,” I said, trying to hide the fact that my fiancé’s inability to answer his cell phone was starting to get on my nerves. It wasn't like we had that much free time out here that we could pick and choose when we wanted to chat.
“A message,” Wilkins repeated, glancing at Rogers. “Do you hear that, Rogers? She left lover boy a message.”
I shot Wilkins a dangerous look. He laughed and raised his hands in surrender.
“Hey, don’t get me wrong, but if it was my fiancée calling after months apart, I'd as sure as hell answer that call on the first ring,” he said, laughing.
“Mind your own business,” I shot back, a half-smile creeping onto my face. “At least he’s not trying to get me killed.”
Wilkins had the decency to look embarrassed.
Rogers sat down on my bed and stretched his legs in front of him. He seemed quite spry, despite the fact that he had just been shot and had a big ass bullet yanked out. It always impressed me how much of a beating he could take and still keep going.
“I’m looking forward to steak dinners,” he said, changing the subject as he looked up at the ceiling with a smile.
“A good old Mickey D’s burger, that’s what I want,” Wilkins chimed in. “I don’t care what poison they’ve got in that thing, I’m going to eat enough of them to last through my next deployment.”
I thought back to my mom’s roast, the dinner table set up so the entire family could enjoy the meal. Being away made the little things more precious, made me realize how much I'd taken for granted growing up.
“How about you, Daviot? What's the first thing you want to eat when you get home?”
I thought about it for a minute and couldn’t really narrow things down to one preference. I just wanted to get home. I had two months left before I had to decide whether or not I planned to re-enlist, and I'd been debating about it for the past couple weeks. I wanted to get married, finish my degree, open my own pediatric practice and leave the war behind me. I was done fighting, or at least I thought I was, the uncertainty in my mind like a dark cloud of what-ifs and maybes. No matter how many times I tried to make a decision, I was always overwhelmed with the responsibility of making the right choice.
My mother had started a tradition when I was in the seventh grade. After dinner, we’d all share our problems, dilemmas, basically anything that bothered us. We talked things over, weighed pros and cons, asked for advice. Granted, we didn't always share things we considered embarrassing, but we'd always done our best to try to help with whatever issue was presented.
Going home might actually make things easier, even if I had a feeling my father would want me to stay in the army.
“Not sure,” I finally said. “A good drink, maybe?”
Wilkins smiled. “Ah, girls' night out. Maybe I should come to Boston with you.”
“Well, it wouldn't be a girls' night without you, would it?” I shot at him.
“There will come a day, Daviot, when you’ll realize that I’m the only man in the world for you,” Wilkins teased.
I gave him the finger and then smiled as Rogers fell back and laughed, each one punctuated with winces of pain.
“I never really understood long distance relationships,” Wilkins went on. “Why not just have an open thing so you could hook up with whoever you wanted. Come to think of it, I should get one of those. Maybe even two or three.”
“You’re disgusting, you know that?” I shot at him, smiling despite myself.
“Come on, Daviot, you know I’m right.” Wilkins shrugged. “Long distance relationships never work out.”
I glared at him as I zipped my carry-on shut. We had an early flight out, so I wanted to get some shut eye. If I could.
Turns out, I could. I slept that night, and I dreamed.
I hadn’t dreamed in years, or at least none that I could remember. I was usually too tired that when I finally did sleep, my body shut completely down when it couldn’t take being awake any longer. Insomnia trumped all. There was rarely time for dreams.
Tonight was different though. I was in a field, a large one, somewhere I didn't recognize, dressed in clothes I'd never worn, running between men with muskets as mounds of earth blew up into the air. I could feel the adrenaline coursing through me, the urgency in my step.
I glanced back at the men running behind me, each muddy and clearly tired, though pushing on with dogged ferocity. My entire body shivered with excitement, and I pressed on with them.
In my dream, something exploded beside me, throwing me to the ground even as it woke me.
I looked around, sweating, shivering, and squinting as I tried to calm the pounding in my chest, the breaths that were coming in gasps. I barely registered the sleeping bodies of my unit, squinting in the darkness as I tried to wrap my head around what I'd just experienced. It had been so vivid, so real.
I laid back down and covered my eyes with my arm. I needed sleep, but I wasn't sure if I'd get anymore tonight.
Two
I touched down at Logan Airport with a genuine smile on my face. The idea of finally being home had truly hit me when we'd crossed into Massachusetts. I was home. As the captain announced our descent, he added that it was a beautiful June afternoon, and then thanked the service men and women who were on board. The heat was still in my cheeks as I exited the plane. I liked knowing that my service was appreciated, but I'd never really liked being put on the spot.
I was looking forward to seeing my parents and brother, but at the moment, just being on home soil was enough. It'd been almost a year since the last time I was stateside, and if I decided not to re-enlist, I'd most likely never experience this again.
One of the best things about being part of a military family was that I knew they understood how I felt. I called my brother to tell him the good news, and it was nice not to have to try to explain things like I would have if Bruce had picked up his phone.
Ennis also never edged around the tough questions, but rather asked flat-out if I'd made a decision about joining civilian life. He also understood how difficult the decision was. Two years older than me, he'd taken the plunge first, deciding to pursue his doctorate in education with a focus in American history. Our dad had taken it better than Ennis and I thought he would. Now, it was my turn, and I was glad to know that my brother had my back.
I just wished my fiancé was as understanding.
I called Bruce two more times, both times leaving a v
oice message about my leave because he hadn’t picked up. It was hurtful, I had to admit, that he didn’t go out of his way to answer my calls. We’d known each other for so long, had dated on and off since junior high. We’d been friends even before that. It was hard enough that he never supported my tours without him completely ignoring my calls.
Wilkins had told me more than once that Bruce was a lost cause, and lately, I'd begun to believe it. We'd been exclusive to each other since we were sixteen, engaged by nineteen. He’d been the only one for me, but since I'd enlisted, I had a feeling that things were one-sided on that account. I'd never confronted him about it, but recently, I had to admit that part of the reason I'd stayed quiet was because I didn’t want to hear the answer. I just couldn’t deal with that kind of a discussion and still function optimally in battle.
I could almost hear the excuses he'd make if I did ask. He made them about other things often enough.
You’re never around. You’re off playing hero. I have my needs.
It always made my blood boil to hear him talk like that, but I couldn't deny that strengthening my relationship with Bruce was one of the reasons I was thinking of not re-enlisting. I kept telling myself that things would be better when I was home full time.
My seatmate kept up a steady stream of chatter as we stepped out into the main concourse where she was smothered by a man double my size. I smiled at them, watching various other passengers share welcomes with those waiting for them. I looked around for Bruce but couldn’t find him in the crowd.
I frowned as I looked at my phone again, wondering if I’d missed his call. Nope. Nothing there. I double-checked to make sure I'd turned off airplane mode, then scowled as I wondered if he’d forgotten about the flight, even though I'd sent him a text message to remind him of the time and gate number. What was the point of having a cell phone if he didn’t answer?
When it came to being there for me, Bruce needed to step up his game. I didn’t really feel like spending the rest of my life with someone who could so easily forget that I even existed. Not showing up at the airport was just one more time he'd let me down.
