A Baby for the Soldier (Boys of Rockford Series Book 2)

by Henley Maverick

  “I caught a big frog today,” Emma said suddenly, looking at her dad.

  His eyebrows went up. “Oh yeah?”

  She nodded, lifting her hands, spreading them apart. “He was this big,” she said, still in awe looking at the space between her hands.

  “Holy cow! I’m surprised he didn’t catch you,” Clay said grinning.

  Emma giggled, but then frowned, looking at Lyla. “Mom said I had to let it go. I wanted to show you.”

  Lyla blanched. “She’s not exaggerating. That thing could have swallowed a guinea pig.”

  “Sounds like Mommy might be a little scared,” Clay teased. Emma giggled again while Lyla faked outrage.

  The whole thing was so picture perfect and sweet that it almost makes me sick. And then I just felt guilty for feeling that way when they were obviously so happy.

  Clay gave it a little while longer before he tried to engage Bear again.

  “How’s everything down there? Better than the slop they serve in the Army?” he asked.

  Bear looked up from his plate, where he’d hardly eaten much of anything. Of course, his glass was all but empty now. Guess he was having a liquid dinner. He shrugged, then nodded.

  “It’s good, yeah,” he said, his mind clearly somewhere else.

  I took a deep breath, steeling myself. He wasn’t making it any easier, but maybe if I said something… Maybe I could bring it back together.

  “Wyatt used to complain so much about the crap they served in the mess,” I said, trying to joke, but I heard the tightness in my own voice the moment I said his name.

  Bear looked up at me and there was something in his eyes that I couldn’t name. Something dark and broken, something haunted. He looked at me like I just stabbed him through the heart, but I have no idea what could be so upsetting about what I had said.

  I looked down the table, and Clay and Lyla’s faces had gone a little pale too, and they didn’t seem to know how to respond. I guess it was too soon to be talking about him?

  I didn’t know, because people say talking’s supposed to help. They tell you not to bottle it up, to remember the person and not try to act like they’re some saint or secret or anything like that. But the way everyone clammed up at the mention of Wyatt made me instantly regret trying to ease the tension. Guess that’s what I get.

  There wasn’t much more talking until it was time for dessert.

  “I hope you guys like pie!” Lyla said brightly, pulling a carton of ice cream out of the freezer while she was at it.

  “What kind of pie?” Emma asked brightly.

  “Blackberry.”

  Emma’s eyes went big as saucers and she licked her lips, looking over at me. “I’m just glad it’s not pumpkin,” she said, wrinkling her nose. It got a little snicker out of me, and she l looked very pleased with herself.

  Clay and Lyla worked together to cut the pie and scoop out ice cream, bringing one plate at a time to the table. When Clay started towards Bear, Bear stood up instead, wobbling a little on his feet, shaking his head.

  “None for me,” he said, a little slur in his voice.

  Clay’s brow furrowed and he frowned. “You heading out?”

  Bear nodded, his face grimmer than ever.

  “You’ve had a lot to drink, why don’t you crash in the guest room?”

  Bear scoffed, turned and started to walk away.

  “Hey,” Clay says, reaching out to grab him by the sleeve. His voice dropped, almost too low for me to hear, but I could make out enough. “The hell man? …not even going to say thank you?” He’s laid into Bear, and it was obvious he was mostly pissed off for Lyla’s sake. She put all that hard work into a dinner to welcome Bear home and he’d been nothing but a surly grump the whole time. And ungrateful to boot.

  I didn’t blame him one bit for giving Bear shit about how he acted.

  Bear growled something, shoved Clay away, and I gasped, hoping it wasn’t going to escalate any further. Clay seemed to know to back off though. He just stepped back and held his hands up, shaking his head.

  “Thanks for dinner,” Bear growled out as he left, the door slamming behind him, rattling the little house.

  Lyla’s gaze shot over to me and she looked uncertain, upset, maybe even offended, but definitely worried.

  And when Clay came in looking just as worried, sharing a concerned look with his wife, I got an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I kept thinking that Bear was just lashing out and being a dick about everything, but there was always the possibility that it was worse than it seemed. That this wasn’t normal grieving. That we were going to lose him too.

  As annoyed as I was with him then, that thought was more than I could bear.

  “He’ll be all right,” Clay said, sitting down to his pie and ice cream. I didn’t know who he was trying to convince, us or himself, but he wasn’t doing a great job either way.

  “He just needs time,” Lyla agreed, though her mouth was still drawn into that tight worried line.

  I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t know what was going on with him, and I wasn’t sure he was going to let any of us in. I wasn’t sure there was anything any of us could do for him. And that was the exact same helpless feeling I had after hearing about Wyatt.

  The pie wasn’t the least bit appetizing anymore, but I wasn’t an asshole and I was going to sit there and politely eat it because I knew how much work Lyla put into it.

  I kept looking at the empty chair across from me, where he’d sat all night, and I was getting angrier at him for how he left. I knew he was dealing with a lot too, but come on. I was half tempted to call him up and give him a piece of my mind about it. But where would that get us? With a bigger wedge driven between us? Leaving us even more isolated when we so desperately needed the support of one another?

  No, Bear was doing a good enough job of pushing everyone away on his own. I didn’t need to contribute by pushing back.

  Halfway through my pie and ice cream, I figured I’d made enough of an effort to eat the dessert that I could stop then. I sat back with a sigh, dabbing a napkin against my lips.

  “That was delicious, Lyla. Every bit of it from start to finish.”

  She smiled, but there was a hint of sadness behind it that there was no mistaking. “Thank you. It’s my pleasure.”

  “I should probably go and relieve my babysitter,” I said casually. I didn’t want to just cut and run the way Bear had. I could be civilized. I could get through a night of socializing without having a complete breakdown.

  Score one for Lexi.

  I was actually surprised I made it through the whole night without crying, which was all the more reason to get out of there while I was ahead.

  “Aww,” Lyla pouted. “I understand. We should do this again though!”

  I nodded. It would be nice to have some friends. And while Clay and Lyla have always been around, it’d never really been like that. When Wyatt was around, we both got invited to things, but other than that, I had always been Wyatt’s other half, not someone that got an invite of her own. But maybe that was changing. Maybe there was a silver lining to be found in all that chaos and misery.

  “We definitely should. And I can bring Dallas next time. I’m sure he and Emma would get along great.” Especially after hearing her giant frog story. I shuddered a little at the memory. I could just see Dallas running up to the back door with some giant pond creature, grinning from ear to ear.

  Ew. Poor Lyla.

  “Perfect,” she said, walking with me to the door. “And you let me know if you need anything at all, okay? I mean it,” she added with a hug.

  Shit. So much for getting out of there without crying.

  “Thanks,” I whispered, her arms wrapped tight around me seeming to squeeze the emotion right out of me.

  When she pulled back, her eyes went wide and she frowned. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

  I shook my head, swiping at the tears. “It’s fine. Really. Thank you for everything.�
�� I gave her a watery smile before heading down the front steps and out of the gate to my car.

  I wasn’t going to say that it was a successful evening, but it wasn’t the disaster it could have been, so that was something, I guess.

  7

  Bear

  When I woke up, there was a jackhammer in my head, nasty cotton in my mouth, and I felt like I’d been run over by a truck.

  That’s what you get, asshole, I told myself, the night before came crashing back into my memories.

  I never should have gone to Clay’s. I knew it was a bad idea even before I stepped foot inside his house. Even before I knew that Lexi was there, too.

  Fuck. Seeing her there, alone, without Wyatt was like a punch to the gut. For as long as I’d known them, Lexi and Wyatt were inseparable. Now she’s just… Lexi. And it’s my fault. It’s always going to be my fault.

  I just couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. She tried to talk to me and I couldn’t even look at her. It hurt too damn much remembering how I failed her.

  Then there was Clay, and how pissed off he was about how I acted. Not that I could blame him. I was an ass. I know I was. There was just no stopping it. I was just angry all the time, angry and bitter and wanting to lash out at others even though none of it was their fault.

  Obviously.

  I was the only one to blame.

  The light peeking through my hotel room curtains was bright enough to make me wince, but still low enough that I knew it was early morning. Being in the Army all those years programmed my body to get up at the same time every day. Didn’t matter if I was sick or hungover or halfway around the world. When it was time to get up, I was up.

  I groaned, trying to cover my eyes with a pillow, but that didn’t do any good, and the pounding in my head wasn’t going to stop until I got some headache meds and water in me. It was a struggle to pull myself out of bed, but I managed it, staggering to the sink, splashing water on my face, cupping my hands, drinking and drinking until the water’ ran down my chin and I almost, nearly felt human again. I glanced over to the shower, think about washing the drunk funk off of me, but I had other plans.

  No better cure for a hangover than sweat and lots of it.

  As shitty as I was feeling, I knew a run would make it better. I could punish my body until I couldn’t stand anymore, and then maybe I wouldn’t be able to think, either.

  I slipped the hotel keycard into my running shorts pocket, and stepped out into the fresh, damp, morning air. It was early enough that there was still dew clinging to the grass, there was still wispy cloud cover flirting with the sun. I took a deep breath, stretched, and took off.

  Running was another thing the Army taught me to enjoy. In school, I’d always been athletic and managed to stay in shape just by virtue of doing dumb teenage boy stuff, but the service is where I really learned to enjoy working out.

  I learned that my body is capable of more than I’d ever thought, if I was just willing to push myself.

  And I learned that running was a great way to clear your mind. Nothing but the sound of my own breath, feet slapping against pavement, the wind rustling through the trees. No one to bother me, or ask me how I’m doing. No one to give me sad eyes or a sympathetic frown.

  I didn’t have to be fake when I ran. I didn’t have to force smiles or pretend to be polite. When I ran, I was free. Free from worry, free from stress, from responsibility. But most of all, I was free from that little voice in my head. The voice that never shut up. The one that’d always telling me I wasn’t good enough, that I failed, that everything that was wrong was my fault. That little voice was an asshole, but he wasn’t good at keeping up with me while I ran.

  So I kept running.

  There was a path that ran from town through the woods. There were a few different entry points on the path, and I was about a mile in when I saw someone at the next entry point, stretching. She was bent over at the waist, reaching for her toes, and my eyes were practically glued to her ass in those tight yoga pants, my dick woke up for the first time in months, but then she straightened up and I saw the flash of a red ponytail and I froze.

  Shit. It was Lexi. Shit, shit, shit.

  I skidded to a stop and started to turn around, but I was too late. She had spotted me and I heard her call out.

  “Bear?” Her voice reached me, and I couldn’t ignore it. I had already been enough of an ass. I needed to do better. I needed to be better.

  Clenching my jaw, I slowly turned around and begrudgingly approached.

  “Hey,” she said, with her arms over her head in another stretch. It pulled her tank top up high enough that I could just see the smooth skin of her belly, her navel just peeking out above the waist of her yoga pants.

  Stop looking, asshole.

  “Hey,” I answered.

  “You out for a run too?” she asked, looking me up and down. There was sweat on my forehead, and I was breathing a little more heavily than usual, so it wasn’t like it was hard to figure out.

  “Yeah. Didn’t know you did…”

  She shrugged. “It’s a good coping mechanism, you know? I feel like if I run far enough, fast enough, I can shake out all the anger and resentment and sadness…”

  Her gray eyes snapped to mine and I could tell she thought she’d said too much. Revealed too much. Even as she said it, there were tears gathering in her eyes, splashing down on her cheeks.

  She shook her head, wiping them away. “Obviously, it’s working so well.”

  “That’s cause you haven’t started running yet,” I said, surprising myself. I didn’t know what it was, but seeing her broken like this was different. Every time I saw her since I came back to town, she’d been annoyed with me, glaring daggers at me. And I can’t say I blame her. I was the reason her husband was dead. I’d be pissed at me too.

  But she wasn’t looking at me like that then. She didn’t look quite so angry. Instead, she just looked… tired. Beaten down and broken.

  I had been so fucking selfish.

  “Come on, I’ll run with you,” I said, surprising myself even more. Running was supposed to be a solitary thing for me. It always had been. I didn’t like to chit chat or listen to music or anything else. But, I wanted to run with Lexi. I wanted to keep her company and, in some very small way, make-up for how I acted the night before.

  Her eyes went wide, like she wasn’t quite sure she heard me right, but then she nodded. “Yeah, let’s do it.”

  I started off slower than my normal pace, but Lexi kept out-pacing me, so I picked it up to keep up with her. My legs were a lot longer, so it wasn’t hard to just lengthen my stride. We jogged in silence for a while, and it was strange, the companionship I felt with her right now, but it was nice too. It wasn’t anything we had ever done before, and even though neither one of us said anything, it seemed like the most meaningful conversation we had ever had.

  “Where are you staying?” she finally asked.

  “The hotel right off the highway.”

  She looked over, arching a brow. “Not planning on staying long?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Not really planning on anything to be honest.”

  “I know what you mean. One day at a time is hard enough without thinking about the future. Still, wouldn’t you rather a house?”

  “Maybe one day. The hotel room’s not bad. It’s got a bed and a shower. Don’t need much else.”

  “I guess,” she said with uncertainty. “It would be nice to be able to call someone else when something breaks, though.”

  I just looked at her, the question in my eyes.

  “There’s about a million projects around the house I’ve been putting off for Wyatt to do. No point anymore… I’ve gotta find a handyman or something, I guess.”

  The hits just never stopped coming. I didn’t know if Wyatt had any idea what he was leaving behind when he killed himself. Did he know how much everyone relied on him?

  Maybe that was the problem. Wyatt
liked being there for people, but obligations made him squirmy. I had always been the same way. Clay was the one that craved commitment out of us. He was the one that longed for the wife and kids and picket fenced life. With Wyatt, it was more just kind of the natural progression of things. He and Lexi were together forever, of course they’d gotten married. And when you were married, you had kids, so he did that too.

  But now, for the first time, I wondered if all of that was ever what he actually wanted.

  I guess it didn’t really matter. It was too late to do anything about it now. But there was one thing I could do, I realized as we made the circuit and Lexi slowed to a stop. I could pick up the slack he had left. I could take care of his family the way he didn’t.

  It only seemed right.

  And before I even knew what I was saying, I took a breath and blurted out the offer. “Why don’t you let me come check it out? I’m pretty handy. You don’t need to pay anyone.”

  She looked as surprised as I felt Did I really just say that?

  “Really?” she asked, clearly unsure. I didn’t blame her. If I were her, I’d probably wonder if I’d been taken by body-snatchers or something.

  “Yeah, why not? Not like I’ve got anything better to do with my time. When do you get off work?”

  “Four.”

  “Is that a good time for you?”

  “Today?” she asked, her eyes went wide.

  “Yeah?”

  “Sure!” She actually grinned at me, and it was enough to make me almost smile back. She looked so lost since I’d gotten back that her smile was like the light at the end of a long dark tunnel.

  “Thanks, Bear,” she said, perching up on her tiptoes to kiss me on the cheek before she headed off back down the path towards her car.

  For a minute, I just stood there dumbfounded, my cheek tingling where she kissed it. I didn’t know what that was about. Probably just a weird reaction to human contact since I wasn’t getting much of that.