Her Soldier's Baby

The shutdown was his mind’s way of coping. And, according to the shrinks he’d seen in the army and again in the police department, it was a good thing. His mind’s way of blocking allowed him to be tough under pressure. Made him the go-to guy. The one who got the job done where others might crack.

As long as he understood that he had to deal with whatever his mind was blocking. He always had to remember to debrief in some fashion. Or have nightmares—his mind’s way of debriefing on its own.

Possibly both.

“Are you with me?” They’d walked several yards up the beach—far enough from the ocean that he could barely feel the chill coming off it. Sweating, he longed for a naked dive into the highest wave. Longed to conquer it, swim past it and let the ocean wash him clean.

“Yes.”

She knew him well. He trusted her to know that he’d listen to whatever she had to say. And do his best to support her in any way he could.

She even knew about the shutdowns. She just didn’t know what had triggered them in the first place. Or that there’d been one specific event that had done so.

Only a handful of people knew that. And none of them were talking. Ever. The pact was as rock-solid all those years later as it had been when it was made.

Not to save his butt. In some ways he’d just been the pawn. The one who drew the short straw.

But in the end, he’d been the perpetrator, too.

Because he’d made a choice. One he’d probably make again if faced with the situation again. And one he’d regret for the rest of his life.

And that was the crux of his predicament. You couldn’t be forgiven for something you knew you’d do again.

“When we were young, you talked about wanting to be a father.”

He didn’t miss a physical step, had only a bit of a mental blip.

“You were going to be everything your own parents were not...”

He heard the words. Didn’t relate to them. But held her hand. Because doing so was best for both of them.

“I know this is difficult ground, Pierce, considering your injury, but we need to talk about it.”

The thing was, the injury he’d sustained that had rendered him incapable of fathering children—it had been just. A man who’d taken the life of a child did not deserve to have children of his own.

He walked beside her. Would remain by her side for as long as she’d have him there. He’d made her that promise.

Of course, he’d promised, when he’d left his sweet young lover all those years ago, that he’d be back for her. He’d been too much of a kid back then to understand that life changed you—sometimes beyond anything that would fit into the life you’d left.

Still...he’d come back to her. Eventually.

“What do you think about adopting?”

Her words stung his skin. Hurt his ears with their volume. Tightened around his chest.

Pierce let go of Eliza’s hand.

CHAPTER SIX

SHIVERING AS SHE walked beside Pierce up the sidewalk that led to their home, Eliza refused to give in to the self-pity that was pushing its way up her throat.

He wasn’t cutting her off. Or out. He was experiencing something beyond his control. The result of having been sent, as barely a man, to fight a war that so much of the time made no sense to him. Pierce’s time in the Middle East had involved full combat against insurgents. The physical injuries he’d sustained, while horrendous, weren’t as horrible as the mental battles he still fought.

Her job as his spouse, his partner, was to understand his silences for what they were. He’d been up-front with her from the very beginning this time around. He’d let her know that he wasn’t the man he’d been.

He still didn’t get that, to her, he was. The essence of him, the heart and soul, was battered but intact. Pierce was every bit the boy he’d been. And so much more.

“I’m not asking you to bring a baby into our home, Pierce,” she said softly half a block from the inn. “Or even telling you, yet, that I want to. I just wanted to talk about kids. About us not having any. About how it’s hard sometimes. I wanted us to think about the fact that if we both wanted a child badly enough, we could check into adoption...”

She’d been thinking about it a lot. Anytime her brain hadn’t been filled with her son and Family Secrets and...Pierce. Her visit to the agency...remembering how it had felt, for those few brief moments, to be a mother. Thinking about the family who got to have a baby of their own through her. Picturing her and Pierce on the receiving side, instead of the losing side—no, not losing, giving. They’d been on the giving side.

For so long, ever since Pierce had come back and she’d known about his injury, she’d resigned herself to being half of a childless couple. Had thought it was her fate for having given away her baby. Pierce’s obvious struggle with his infertility had just been the final seal on the decision...

“I don’t want a child.”

They were the first words he’d spoken in almost half an hour.

“It’s just...well...when you married Bonita...it was because of her son. You said you married her because her son needed a father and you wanted to be there for him. Whether you think you were a good father or not, you still wanted to be one...” She was rambling. And he knew her well enough to figure out that she was upset. If enough of him was there with her to notice.

A few yards from home, he stopped, turned her to look at him. “I understand if you feel different, Eliza, but please hear me. I do not want a child.”

His words were a death knell to her future.

The deep emotion shining in his eyes, overflowing with all of the things he couldn’t say, held her heart tightly, passionately bound with his.

* * *

“NO.” INSTANTLY AWAKE, Eliza lay frozen. She hadn’t dreamed the fierce growl.

Was Pierce in the bed with her?

His body wasn’t touching hers, and she was afraid to move to find out if he was there. She hardly breathed but couldn’t hear his breath.

Pierce wasn’t a heavy sleeper. Waking to find herself alone wasn’t uncommon. When his demons were doing their worst, he’d get up and roam. Sometimes just in their suite. Sometimes outside on the grounds. Depended on how much air he needed to clear his mind.

Some nights he turned on the television and lay awake watching sitcom reruns. At first, she’d thought maybe the sound of the television had woken her. But she could tell by the lack of light and shadows on the wall that the TV wasn’t on.

“Nooooo.” The sound came again. Fiercer this time. And then it was a howl. A wail. No longer in doubt as to its origin, Eliza still didn’t move. Her husband was in a hell she couldn’t share. But if she startled him, he might mistakenly take her there.

Pierce had never hit her—or even swung her way—during one of his nighttime episodes, but he’d insisted that she go to counseling with him before she’d ever spent a night in his bed. She knew that it wasn’t impossible that she could inadvertently be hurt.

She also knew it wasn’t likely to happen. Not after all these years. Pierce was diligent with his mental and emotional awareness.

So much so that they’d gone so long without an episode that she’d thought perhaps he was over them.

Had hoped that her love, their life together on the island, gave him enough peace to keep the demons at bay.

It would help if he worked in a field other than the dangerous one he’d chosen. Dealing with thugs and break-ins all day was too reminiscent of battling insurgents. But it had been decided, with professional input, that in Pierce’s case, being out on the streets actually helped him work out some of the panic bottled up inside him. He was more at peace when he was doing something to help make the world a safer place.

The bed started to shake and so, then, did Eliza. Alarmed, she held her breath. He’d never convulsed before. Was he having a seizure?

Willing to risk a fist in the face if it meant saving her husband’s life, Eliza shot up and turned toward Pierce, ready to cram her fingers in his mouth and hold on to his tongue if need be—something she’d read you had to do to prevent someone having a seizure from swallowing their tongue. Nothing she had any real knowledge about at all.

Before she’d even touched his shoulder, she stopped. His back was to her. And now that she could see him, she knew he wasn’t convulsing.

He was sobbing. Leaning over him, careful not to disturb him, she saw his eyes were closed, but his face was soaked with tears. He was sobbing in his sleep. Something he had never done before.

She’d been told not to wake him when he was in the middle of a nightmare. But how could she sit there and watch her husband’s anguish?

She didn’t care if he lashed out, if he hit her. But if he did, he’d never forgive himself.

So Eliza lay back down. She closed her eyes and willed her breathing to an even cadence.

And she sent every ounce of love she possessed across the mattress to her husband.

She’d caused this.

It had been either the show, or the talk of children, or both. But there was no doubt in her mind that she’d done this.

Nothing else had changed in their lives. The show. And the kid.

And she didn’t think the show had sent him back to hell. He didn’t like her to be away on her own, but he’d known about the show for weeks. And had slept great the first night she’d been back. For that matter, he’d said he hadn’t had even a bad dream while she’d been gone.

But tonight, when she’d tried to open up the idea of adoptive children to him, he’d started to blip on her. Give her that blank stare that she’d grown to hate. The one that said he was off someplace in his mind where she couldn’t go.

Why had even the mention of him as a father set him off like this?

She’d promised herself that she’d tell Pierce they’d had a son before her flight back to Palm Desert on Friday. Telling him had been her primary goal for the week. She wasn’t going back if she didn’t tell him.

As she lay there, listening to her husband grieve, she made another decision. She wasn’t going to tell Pierce about their son until she knew why talk of kids had elicited such a strongly negative response.

Which meant that she also couldn’t call Mrs. Carpenter with the okay to release her information to her son in the event that he came looking for her again.

And that opened the door to another possibility...that after a second try, if there even was one, the boy would lose interest in her. There was a good chance he wouldn’t come back a third time.

And, based on the papers she’d signed, there was no chance at all that she could ever find him if he didn’t.

Pierce quieted. Sometimes his nightmares woke him. Sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they haunted him for days or even weeks. Sometimes he didn’t even remember having them.

She’d tell him about the episode. Knowing what was going on inside him was all a part of his accountability to his own health. She wouldn’t rob him of that right.

But she needed time to herself first. To figure out what she was going to do with the mess she’d made of her life.

Pierce had paid too high a price already for doing nothing more than serving his country. He’d already lost so much. He wasn’t going to lose her, too.

It was a promise she’d made to him. And one she’d made to herself. She’d failed her baby. She wasn’t going to fail his father.

By the time Pierce’s sobs quieted, Eliza’s cheeks were wet with tears.

Family Secrets, being a chef, glitz, glamour, awards and the bright lights of television were so far distant, she wasn’t sure the whole thing hadn’t just been a dream.

Well, she was sure. It wasn’t just a dream. She could feel the win pushing at her. Needing her as badly as she needed it. But maybe a dream was all it would be. All it could ever be. As her eyes closed and she finally drifted back to sleep, it was with the thought that she’d call Natasha Stevens in the morning and withdraw herself from the competition. From the show.

She cried about that, too. With sobs that shook her body.

But she didn’t change her mind.

The family secrets she’d already kept were more than she could handle.

* * *

PIERCE KNEW, AS soon as his gaze met Eliza’s in their bathroom mirror as they brushed their teeth Tuesday morning, that the fog in which he’d awoken hadn’t been because of a deep sleep.

He swore. She nodded.

He’d had another nightmare. After going almost a year without them.

Her look of compassion practically brought him to his knees. He didn’t deserve her. And had to find a way to tell her so. To talk of things he’d sworn never to mention. And hadn’t. Not to the multitude of professionals who’d helped him over the years. Not to his superior officers. Not even to those who’d made the pact with him.

He’d tell her. But not that day. Probably not any day soon. Someday, though.

After her television stint was through.

She deserved this chance. Deserved whatever came of it. And if it took her from him...she needed to never know the truth about the man she’d loved so purely.

His need to get to work, and hers to serve their guests’ breakfast, precluded any conversation that morning. But Pierce came home Tuesday night prepared to do a better job of communicating with his wife before he laid his head down to sleep again. He had to be responsible about the nightmares, stay diligent. To protect her.

And he knew exactly from whence this one had come.

They’d had a third check-in to the inn that day. A woman who was writing a piece of fiction that would feature the B and B. In exchange, Eliza had given her free room and board. She’d been so excited about the opportunity when the author had first contacted her.

Seemed like ages ago now. More than a month before she’d auditioned for, and won, her spot on Family Secrets.

If nothing else, the television show was giving her more publicity than she could ever have hoped. The inn was already booked through the summer but was starting to fill up through the fall and into Christmas.

“I just got my first booking for next summer,” Eliza told him as she met him at the back kitchen door when he came in from work on Tuesday. She was grinning.

He could feel her joy.

And see the sadness lurking in her eyes, too.

“Can we talk?” he asked, setting in stone the decision he’d made that morning. Several times throughout the day. And again that evening on his way home. “Tonight? After we’re through out there?” He nodded toward the door that led into the portion of their home that was open to the public.

He didn’t like the way she studied him, eye to eye, but he withstood it.

“Of course,” she said. And then she kissed him. Obliterating the world for just a moment in the way only she could. Giving him a different kind of mental blip. One that he could gladly succumb to for the rest of his life.

Life with Eliza required much from him. He’d give everything and more to be with her.

So he socialized with their guests, thankful to be able to look across the room and see her beautiful smile. He carried a box of the author’s files up to her room for her. Cleared empty dishes and ran the vacuum in the parlor after the crowd had dissipated. He even stopped by the library to chat with one of the businessmen who liked to spend an hour or two in the evenings sitting in one of the antique leather wing chairs, reading from the collection Eliza’s grandmother had amassed.

And when the house had settled, he joined his wife in the kitchen. Eliza was putting finishing touches on breakfast and preparing hors d’oeuvres for the two nights she’d be gone over the upcoming weekend. She’d given Margie a couple of days off to make up for working all weekend, and had spent her day cleaning and refreshing.

“Can I help?”

He couldn’t blame her for the surprised look on her face. Pierce’s kitchen skills were nil. Boiling water was debatable.

“I can chop,” he told her, meeting her gaze head-on. She’d barely slept the night before. He could tell by the shadows under her eyes.

And so, with her careful instruction, he took up knife and onion and set to work, slicing it into precise cubes. And then celery.

He’d come in to have their talk.

They worked in total silence.

But it was a peaceful silence, he told himself. Companionable.

Silence was right up his alley. But it wasn’t like Eliza not to fill in his gaps.

Words ran through his mind. Slowly at first. And then more rapidly. What to say? How much to say? When to say it?

He owed her. So much. For the previous night. For the past. And for the happily-ever-after he probably wouldn’t be able to give her.

“I did marry Bonita because I thought I could be the father her son clearly needed.” Celery stalks, cut into thin strips, took turns beneath his blade. Quick. Precise. Sharp cuts that left no strings.

He’d had some asinine plan back then that it would be his way of atoning for his sins. That he could give back some of what he’d taken. As Eliza had stated the night before, he had, at one time, thought that he’d make a great dad. Had wanted kids of his own almost as badly as he’d wanted Eliza.

Standing at the stove across the counter from him, she’d been stirring. Her hand still on the big metal spoon, she seemed to freeze, her spoon standing upright in the pan.

Pierce had more to say. He just wasn’t sure what. He chopped. And eventually she started to stir again, too.

They finished their preparation, classical music playing softly in the background. Did the dishes side by side. And went into their room.

He brushed his teeth while she washed her face. But when she was about to undress and get ready for bed, Pierce took her hand, led her over to the chintz-covered stool at her antique dressing table. He lit candles. Put on Beethoven. Turned off the lights.

And drew her a lavender-scented bath.

Tonight wasn’t about him. It was about making it up to her—all of the things she’d lost because of him, the things she continued to sacrifice.

It was about showing her the things he couldn’t say.

As his lovely wife sat on the edge of the tub, still in her robe, waiting for the bubble bath he’d started for her to fill, he slipped out to pour two glasses of iced lemon water. Placing them on one of her silver serving trays, he added a small dish of milk chocolate shavings—Eliza’s favorite indulgence—and, for himself, a couple of her chocolate cream cookies.

She looked up when he returned, tray in hand, fully dressed in his dark blue pants, shirt and slip-on boat shoes.

“You’ll stay with me?” she asked. Even now, she welcomed him.

Pierce swallowed. Shook his head. Set down the tray and handed her a water and the plate of chocolate.

“I wish you’d at least get comfortable,” she said, testing the water in the tub with a frown.

He was scaring her. The last thing he’d meant to do.

So he went to change into the blue chenille robe she’d bought him for Christmas, and sank to the floor of the bathroom, his back against the wall.

That was Pierce. Always with his back to the wall. Or against a wall.

Still in her robe, she’d turned off the water, but he knew she wouldn’t get in until he’d said what he had to say.

“Two things,” he said, keeping his voice low as he invaded the peace with which he’d purposely surrounded her. “First, it took less than a year of marriage for me to know that the man I am today, the man I became in the Middle East, could not ever be a father.”

Her chocolate sat untouched on the side of the double-wide cast iron tub—a luxury he suspected had been built in more modern times to emulate a tub of old. It had been holding court in the largely decorated with roses room the first time he’d visited Eliza.

“The responsibility, the constant need to be one step ahead, knowing that someone was relying on me for safety and security on a constant basis, being in charge of someone who could not always fend for himself...it triggered nightmare after nightmare. No matter what I did, how hard I tried, how much counseling I sought...the boy triggered nightmares.”

He knew why. His counselor hadn’t, not specifically. Because he hadn’t told him. But the PTSD professional had known enough.

“Last night was because of me,” Eliza said. “Because I wanted to talk about kids.”

“It’s not your fault, Eliza. And you need to talk about what you want and need. You have a right to. And our marriage needs you to do so. Our relationship needs it.” The words flowed freely when he was dealing with her. Loving Eliza was the one thing that had always come easy to him.

Too easy for her own good.

“And we need to deal with the fact that I am not a man who can have kids with you. Not in any way. Biological or not.”

Surrounded by roses, cast iron heart shapes adorned with roses, wallpaper depicting rose trellises, he felt like he was spewing ash on her beauty.

She wasn’t saying anything. But watching her expression, he knew she was thinking. Knew, too, that he had to nip any hope in the bud.

“It’s not just the nightmares,” he told her. He’d known that morning that he was going to have to give her more. Because they were dealing with so much more.

He wasn’t going to break the pact. Not yet, anyway. He couldn’t predict the outcome and was not going to get in the way of her reaching for her dreams. But she deserved the truth he could give her.

“I was a terrible father,” he told her. “Jeremiah thought I hated him. He was a good boy. Got good grades. Was respectful. I truly cared about the kid, but my silences scared him. So I’d try to talk and end up saying the wrong thing.” Because he’d had nothing to say. “I don’t have the ability to nurture a child. One night when I got home, Jeremiah ran up to me and threw his arms around my waist. I immediately dislodged them and backed up. And when I saw what I’d done, saw the hurt on his face, I still couldn’t hug him.”

He shuddered inside just thinking about that night.

“I was already sleeping in my own room by then, behind a locked door, because of the nightmares. I had to struggle, every day, for patience with Jeremiah. Listening to his boyish chatter, I’d go on a mind freeze and hope that he finished soon.” The boy would talk and Pierce would see all of the ways in which he was setting the kid up for hurt. For disappointment. Setting himself up for failure. And know that he couldn’t do anything to prevent any of them.

Jeremiah’s innocence had not belonged in his world, and he’d known it. Or rather, he hadn’t belonged in Jeremiah’s innocent world.

He belonged on the streets. Busting criminals. It was what he was good at. The way he could contribute good to the world.

“It got to the point that he refused to be alone with me,” Pierce told her the worst of it. “That’s when Bonita and I decided to divorce.”

He should have left months before then. He’d just hated to walk out on another woman.

And he hadn’t wanted to leave that boy.

“Pierce?”

Eliza’s soft tone drew his gaze. Her eyes should have been showing him...disappointment...at the very least. Instead, they were glistening with...him.

She’d sat in his darkness.

She loved him anyway. Still.

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