Returning to Eden (Acts of Valor, Book 1): Christian Military Romantic Suspense

by Rebecca Hartt

  They were approaching Sandbridge when Jonah shifted in his seat so he could stare at her without turning his head.

  Eden’s pulse accelerated. The directness of his gaze made her skin feel tight.

  “Who was Miriam’s father?” he asked.

  Startled by the question, she glanced his way, reading concern and curiosity in his expression. Deciding his question was a fair one, she focused back on the road. At least he was interested.

  “His name was Zach Palmer. I dated him in college.”

  “Why didn’t you stay with him?”

  She gave a bitter laugh. “He didn’t stay with me,” she corrected. “When he found out I was pregnant, he vanished. My parents were horrified,” she added, recalling their reaction with mixed chagrin and hurt. “They hunted Zach down, thinking they would force him to marry me. By then, I’d turned my whole life around. I wasn’t the same person, but Zach still was. When my parents realized it, they insisted he sign paperwork abdicating his rights as a father.”

  Jonah frowned. “Why would your parents do that? At the very least, Zach had financial obligations.”

  Eden snorted at the thought of Zach sending her money. “Zach couldn’t be responsible for himself, let alone a kid. Don’t get me wrong,” she qualified. “He was brilliant and funny, but he dropped out of college because he found his professors ignorant. He couldn’t hold a steady job because his managers didn’t know anything. He was the dead last person my parents wanted in my life or in Miriam’s.”

  “What about what you wanted?” Jonah asked.

  The question startled a glance out of her. She tried imagining the old Jonah asking it, and she couldn’t.

  “I understood my parents’ concern,” she assured him. “I knew Zach couldn’t handle having a baby, and I wanted Miriam to have a better father, even if that meant having only God for a father.”

  Jonah lapsed into thoughtful quiet. “Did you love him?” he finally asked.

  Eden’s heart skipped a beat. Compared to how she’d felt about Jonah, her feelings for Zach had been more like friendship. “I thought I did, but I was young. I didn’t really know what love was.”

  “Do you now?” he asked.

  She glanced at him sharply, then looked away, uncertain how to answer.

  “Eden,” he said, in the same reflective voice. “I want you to know whatever happens between us…”

  She held her breath waiting for him to finish his statement.

  “I’ll take care of you and Miriam, financially and otherwise.”

  Relief and gratitude intermingled at the unexpected offer. Then the realist in her pointed out his comment probably wasn’t purely altruistic. He was at an all-time low in his life, stripped of his memory, with no job to give him self-esteem. What if he was only being thoughtful because he was afraid of losing his family on top of everything else?

  “Thanks,” she said with less warmth than he doubtless hoped for. “That’s…decent of you.”

  Jonah faced front again, then stared out of his window, lapsing again into brooding silence. When Eden rounded the car to help him to the front door, he avoided her, tackling the stairs on his own.

  Feeling rebuffed, she watched him move painstakingly up the steps. Granted, he moved faster than he had the day before, but he was a long way from being considered fit.

  Torn between pity and respect, she suspected he was finally getting the picture. All was not well on the home front. He’d seen to that long before leaving on the mission from which he hadn’t returned.

  Good, she told herself. Now he knows where he stands and he won’t have false expectations. As she climbed the stairs behind him, she tried shaking off her guilt. It wasn’t her fault Jonah had been so aloof after marrying her. She didn’t owe him any more than the year she had promised to devote to his well-being. When that year was up, she would ask for her freedom without a twinge to her conscience—or so she hoped.

  Eden had talked Miriam into looking at a photo album with him.

  Jonah sat on the sofa in the living room, not only disappointed that he wouldn’t be sitting next to his wife looking at photos on her camera, but flat-out depressed from two things that had happened earlier that day. The first was Dr. Branson had told him he might have PTSD—the full-blown disorder that some veterans grappled with for life. His second insight was that Eden wished she’d never married him.

  “I’m pretty sure Dr. Branson wanted your mom to do this,” he said, loud enough for Eden to overhear as Miriam pulled an album from one of the built-in bookcases.

  Eden turned a deaf ear to him as she loaded the dishwasher. Like a dutiful wife, she’d made supper and chatted politely throughout the meal. Even so, her emotional distance confirmed what Jonah had realized. Not only did she wish she’d never married him, but she wasn’t invested in their future any longer.

  Sure, she had offered him a home and her full support toward his recovery, but in her heart, she had decided to move on. Whatever she’d been doing in the tub with his photo—it had probably been something like an exorcism, in which she’d cleansed herself of him.

  Honestly, he couldn’t say he blamed her. He could tell from the comments both she and Miriam had made the old Jonah hadn’t been easy to live with. He’d been neglectful, self-absorbed, even border-line abusive—not surprising, given his horrendous childhood. That didn’t excuse him from not trying, though.

  Ironically, he was more than willing to try now—except now was clearly too late.

  Miriam threw herself down on the couch next to him and dumped an album on his lap. “These are the only real photos we have.”

  The gold lettering on the white cover suggested he was looking at a wedding album. He groaned inwardly and rubbed his stinging eyes.

  “You know, squirt,” he said, calling her by the nickname he’d heard her mother use, “I don’t think I’m up for this right now. I think I need to sleep.”

  “It’s like 6 p.m.,” Miriam protested.

  “I know.” Chagrin made his face hot. He’d never be a SEAL again if he couldn’t get a handle on his chronic fatigue. The Sertraline he took in the morning kept him calm and alert until, without warning, it stopped. Then exhaustion flat-out ambushed him.

  Miriam shot a look at her mother, who watched them from the corner of her eye as she scrubbed the kitchen sink. Turning her brandy-colored eyes on Jonah, the girl asked, “Just this one album?”

  Miriam’s puppy dog look was impossible to refuse. “Okay,” he agreed.

  “Great.” With a grin, she lifted the cover, showing him the first page of pictures. “Here’s Mom getting her hair done for your wedding.”

  Jonah lost himself in close-up shots of Eden’s face. According to the date on the front, their wedding had taken place in June, just over two years ago. Eden looked a teensy bit younger, a little curvier than she did now. Her golden hair had been swept up into an elegant chignon and shot with baby’s breath.

  “Who took these pictures?” he wanted to know.

  “Aunt Phoebe.”

  “Your mother’s sister?”

  “Yep.” Miriam turned the page. “And here’s Mom putting her dress on.”

  Jonah’s breath caught at the vision of Eden in a lace corset complete with garters and white stockings, preparing to slip into the wedding dress hanging next to her. Jonah felt his jaw drop.

  Miriam shot him a knowing smirk. “She’s hot, huh?” The whispered words weren’t meant for Eden’s ears.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. He couldn’t believe what a lucky man he’d been. How stupid he was for letting her down, as he clearly had.

  Miriam turned the page. “And here you are at the church waiting for Mom to come in.”

  The pictures of himself were like the one in her bathroom, except he was wearing his dress whites and not toting a submachine gun. The expression on his face was the same—supremely confident. No last-minute sweats for this guy.

  The living room walls seemed to shift closer. Jonah sa
t back, averting his gaze to halt the sudden anxiety that squeezed him. Perspiration breached the pores on his forehead and made his shirt stick to his back. Seeing what he used to look like made him think he’d never be an active-duty SEAL again. Without that confidence, he’d be a danger to himself and the others in his troop.

  Miriam scooted closer. “You want to see what I looked like then?”

  The kid was good. Jonah glanced at her piquant face then down at the photo she was pointing to. There was a younger Miriam dressed in a yellow gown with chestnut colored hair curling by her cheeks, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

  “Aw. You were cute.”

  “Are you kidding? I was hideous at twelve.” In spite of her scoffing, she flushed at his compliment.

  He studied the picture. “I like your natural hair color,” he said, though it was the look in her eyes that grabbed him. She’d looked so hopeful.

  She lifted a hand to finger her hair, and he caught another glimpse of the holes in her ear. “Well, I’m thinking of dying it back.”

  “Up to you,” he said, giving her room to make the right choice. “What’s with the ear piercings?”

  A wary expression crossed her face. Dropping her hand, she gave a quick shrug and didn’t answer.

  “Does Mom know you did that?” He gave himself a start by calling Eden Mom, but it had slipped out naturally.

  “Of course.” Miriam’s tone turned sullen. “Why do you think the holes are empty?”

  He glanced at Eden who was putting away pans. “She made you take the studs out?”

  “Yes.”

  Good for you, Eden. “Well, you must have guessed she wouldn’t like it.” He let the implied question hang between them: So, why’d you do it?

  Miriam’s slight frown informed him she wasn’t comfortable with their conversation. All at once, she thrust the album onto his lap and jumped to her feet.

  “I have to read.” With that muttered excuse, she fled the living room, disappearing down the hall to her bedroom.

  Eden straightened from putting a pan on the bottom shelf of a cabinet. “Where’s she going?” she called. “Miriam!”

  “Let her go,” Jonah advised.

  From behind the breakfast bar, Eden eyed him with disappointment, then dismay, probably thinking it would fall to her to go through the remainder of the pictures—a trip down memory lane she clearly didn’t want to take.

  Jonah stood up. “I’m really bushed,” he said, cradling the album. “I’ll look at the rest of these before I fall asleep.”

  The relief on her face made him want to cry. Was she that reluctant to spend time alone with him? In that case, he was fighting a losing battle, one he didn’t want to lose. He liked what he had here—a beautiful wife, a cute daughter. Would God really taunt him with this domestic picture and then deny him the opportunity to keep it?

  “Don’t forget your medication,” she called as he headed in defeat toward the study.

  Following a brief shower in which he nearly passed out from weariness, Jonah dressed in one of the few T-shirts and boxers in his dresser before crashing onto the daybed. Recalling his promise to look at more pictures before falling asleep, he cracked the album one more time, picking up where he left off.

  The wedding ceremony was apparently over. Here were photos of him and Eden coming down the aisle together, hand in hand, husband and wife. The overjoyed look on Eden’s face hit him like a bullet shot at close range.

  Wait one blessed minute! She had obviously loved him. Just look at that smile! Yet, during therapy today, she implied that they’d rushed into marriage because he was about to go wheels up for the next six months. She hadn’t said anything about loving him.

  But she so obviously had. A thrill of excitement chased through him, and he perused the wedding reception pictures looking for more proof. As she’d danced in Jonah’s embrace, as they’d cut the cake, the desire and admiration shining in her eyes was unmistakable. Not only had she loved him, she’d apparently thought the world of him!

  Dear Lord. The realization he had evidently killed that emotion hit him like a fist to the diaphragm. He closed his eyes and absorbed the blow. Of course he’d killed it. He’d known when he’d married her he lacked a role model for how to treat a wife or daughter.

  And yet it was perfectly clear to him now how he should have treated them both.

  Had the blow to his brain changed him that much? Surely not.

  Husbands love your wives. The passage from Ephesians leapt into his head, causing him to look at the Bible lying by his bed.

  Regarding it, he thought of dozens more verses and lessons instructing his behavior. It occurred to him suddenly that he did have a role model for how to treat those close to him. He had a loving Father who had dwelled in the darkness with him, even helping him to escape, and who would even now give him the grace to win his wife and daughter back.

  With equal parts gratitude and hope, Jonah clasped his hands together pressing them to his forehead. He couldn’t remember praying like this in his captivity, but the familiarity of the action told him he had.

  “Father, thank you for being with me,” he whispered fervently. “Help me not to lose what I have here. I know—” He shook his head in remorse. “I know I wasn’t good to Eden and Miriam. I know I don’t deserve them. But I promise to do right by them this time. Give me the grace and the time to prove myself. Shine through me, Lord. Help me show them I’m not the man I used to be.”

  He was not surprised to feel tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. He’d pleaded with God like this countless times in the past year. He must have.

  “Thank you for hearing me,” he added. Clearly, God had heard—and answered—his cries before. “Amen.”

  Letting his arms fall to his sides, he went limp on the bed. His marriage to Eden wasn’t over yet. It wasn’t too late to be everything Eden could dream of in a husband. To be the father Miriam clearly wanted and needed.

  Momentary doubts sprang leaks in his newfound optimism. But what if his PTS turned out to be PTSD, making him such a wreck he never became an active duty SEAL again?

  Peace, child.

  The calm quiet words etched themselves on Jonah’s heart, assuring him it would be okay. God would look after them one way or another. He’d gotten Jonah this far. He would not abandon him now.

  With a profound sigh, Jonah cleared his mind for the time being and fell soundly asleep.

  Chapter 6

  Eden emerged from her bedroom the next morning to find Jonah in the kitchen whisking batter in a bowl. Sabrina’s tail, which was all that Eden could see of her from where she stood, beat out a rhythm on the linoleum floor. The sight of him cooking stopped her in her tracks. Jonah had often suggested Eden work to improve her culinary skills, but he had never himself stepped foot in the kitchen.

  “What are you making?” she asked, resuming her approach.

  He shot her a boyish grin. “Waffles!”

  His enthusiasm paired with a waggle of his eyebrows made her laugh despite her misgivings. He’d clearly retained his ability to charm her.

  “Is Miriam up yet?” She glanced toward the front hall.

  “Not yet. Hey, do we have any vanilla extract?”

  “Yes, we do.” She crossed to the spice cabinet and found it for him.

  “Thanks.”

  His cheerful attitude bemused her.

  “You must have slept well,” she observed.

  He cocked his head as if considering her statement. “I did, actually.”

  “Good, then the medication works.”

  His noncommittal grunt implied neither agreement nor disagreement. His gaze had snagged on the outfit she was wearing, linen capris and a brightly printed blouse.

  “You look nice. I don’t have an appointment today, do I?”

  “No, I’m going out shopping, but I did get a text from Dr. Branson saying he can fit us in tomorrow at 10 instead of 2. This is for you,” she added, pulling his wallet out
of her rear pocket and laying it on the counter. “It’s yours. Master Chief returned it to me shortly after you…disappeared.”

  He put down the whisk to flip the wallet open.

  “My ID,” he said, looking startled. “And my driver’s license.”

  “Don’t get any ideas.” She raised her eyebrows at him. Then she drew his cell phone from another pocket. “This is yours. I’m going to reactivate your account. Hopefully you can keep the same phone number.”

  He looked at the black Android she held out to him as if he’d never seen it before.

  “Is that okay with you?” she asked.

  “Yeah, sure.” He looked back at the stove. “You’re not in a hurry, though, are you? I thought we could have waffles together as soon as Miriam wakes up.”

  “Oh.” A feeling of confinement squeezed her heart. “Actually, I’m meeting my friend Nina for coffee in like—” she glanced at the clock on the stove “—fifteen minutes, so I have to run.”

  His disappointment was so apparent she had to touch his arm. “But Miriam will love having waffles. Save me one, will you? I’ll eat it when I get back.”

  “Okay.”

  She dropped her hand and went to collect her purse by the door. The dog followed her.

  “Not now, Sabby. Jonah, could you ask Miriam to walk the dog, please?”

  “I can walk her,” Jonah offered.

  Eden pictured Sabrina dragging him down the road. But telling Jonah he wasn’t up to walking an eighty-pound retriever was tantamount to daring him to do it, so she just said, “Thanks.”

  “How long do you think you’ll be gone?” he asked as she pulled the door open.

  “Couple of hours maybe,” she answered, deliberately vague.

  Once out of the house, she descended the steps quickly, savoring the illusion of freedom. It was hers no longer—at least not until her twelve-month promise was over.

  Twenty minutes later, she found herself explaining as much to an incredulous Nina as they sat by the window in a very crowded coffee shop, having miraculously snagged the last table for two.