Hallowed Ground (32 page)

I blinked the sleep from my eyes and willed my brain to focus. “He’s here?”

Jagger nodded. “He is. Seven pounds, nine ounces, and utterly perfect.”

“Congratulations,” Josh said, his voice husky from sleep.

We untangled from each other and stood, Jagger hugging both of us. “I’m so glad you guys made it. Seriously.” He turned to Josh. “And look at you! Not dead, or blown up, or anything!”

“Nice,” Josh said with a sarcastic smile. “Take us to this son of yours, who no doubt inherited his perfection from his mother.”

Jagger’s grin didn’t diminish. “Damn straight.”

I glanced down at my phone and noted that I’d slept a little over an hour. Josh was still stretching his neck as we walked.

We opened the door gently to see Paisley, her hair in a messy bun, holding a tiny bundle, and my heart flew. “Oh. My. Perfect!” I squealed softly as I tiptoed to the bed where she sat.

“He took his sweet time,” she drawled, her smile radiant. She looked up at me, her eyes bright despite the ungodly hour. “It’s so good to see you.”

“I’m glad I made it. How are you feeling?”

She winced. “Like I just had a baby.” She laughed. “Do you want to hold him?”

“Oh, no. You enjoy him,” I said, trying to be sensitive. Hell yes, I wanted to hold him. And snuggle him, and bask in everything that was new and glorious about the world.

She lifted the tiny baby to me, his face peeking out of the blankets. “Oh, we’ve had about an hour. And now might be the only time you get. My mother arrives tomorrow.”

“Well, in that case!” I ran to wash my hands and then held them out. His weight was slight as he slid into my arms, his tiny head cushioned at my elbow. I moved over to the rocking chair and sat carefully. I heard them talking in the background, but they faded into a blur of noise as I studied the tiny life I held.

He was just as Jagger had said, utterly perfect. Paisley’s button nose and Jagger’s eyes looked back at me. I lifted his exposed hand, marveling at the tiny fingers, his exquisite little nails. “What’s his name?” I asked without looking up.

“Peyton,” she answered, her voice catching.

I looked over to where she sat, her eyes sparkling. “That’s beautiful.”

“Peyton Carter Bateman,” Jagger finished for her, sitting on the edge of her bed.

Tears pricked at my eyes as I looked at Peyton. “It’s a big name to live up to, little man, but I think you’ll be up to the task. You’re a good one, I can tell.” I brushed my thumb gently over his soft little cheek. He was the culmination of everything Jagger and Paisley had fought for—a family.

“Can I?” Josh asked, wiping his hands dry.

“Of course,” I said, and transferred Peyton over.

He cradled the baby tenderly, tucking the blanket to cover any rough parts of his uniform. His face was rapt with wonder as he took in everything about Peyton. A low ache settled in my stomach. This was what I wanted.

I wanted to see Josh holding our baby, marveling over what our love had created, what our family would become. I wanted our children to have his protection, his love, his sense of duty and honor, and just enough of his recklessness to be fierce. My hands covered my mouth as I tried to contain the tears of absolute joy that threatened to spill.

“Yeah, I was right. He’s gorgeous like his mom,” Josh said with a grin toward Paisley.

“No arguments here,” Jagger answered, wrapping his arms around his very exhausted wife.

Josh looked up at me, and time stood still. I saw it there in his eyes—our future, our possibilities, our family. I saw little boys at hockey practice and little girls with their noses in books. Then I pictured pink skates and brainy boys. Every which way I imagined our life, it was perfect, because we had a love that was rare, precious, and worth fighting for. Worth sacrificing for.

There was no way I was going back to Turkey, not when we were so close to having everything we wanted together. I needed to be here, at least until we had our issues worked out. There would be other opportunities, other digs. There was only one Josh.

He echoed my smile, but as he glanced down where my fingers traced Peyton’s arm under the blanket, his expression fell, first hurt, then hardened the longer he looked at my hand. When he looked back up at me, there was a distance I couldn’t explain and instantly feared. What the hell had just happened?

Paisley cleared her throat. “So have you decided if you’re going to take the job running the dig?” she asked.

Josh’s eyes widened. “They offered you a job?”

“Yeah. It’s only two months, and I’d be home in time to start the semester.”

“That’s amazing,” he said, his voice full of pride but laced with that same hurt in his eyes. “And it explains a lot,” he murmured.

Before I could ask him what he meant, he leaned away from me, stood slowly, and walked over to Jagger, going around the bassinet to avoid me, and handed over the baby like he was deathly afraid of dropping him. “Congratulations, he’s beautiful. I think we’re going to head back and get some sleep. Are you staying here?”

“Yeah,” Jagger answered, pointing toward the little couch. “That’s where I await diaper-changing time.”

“Sweet. Then do you mind if I crash in your guest room?”

Every sweet feeling I’d had crumbled, burned, and then left acidic ashes, scorching me from the inside out. He didn’t even want to sleep in our house, let alone in the bed next to me. Fuck, the pain was unbearable.

Paisley’s eyes flickered to me, but Jagger didn’t miss a beat, God bless him. “Sure, if that’s what you want,” he said slowly.

“It is.” Josh’s tone was final, the same timbre as when he’d told me he was going back to Afghanistan. He’d made his decision, and there was no way to sway him.

Jagger handed Peyton to Paisley and then retrieved his keys from his pocket.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Focus on that.
Sucking oxygen through my lungs became my only thought. Everything else was too horrible to manage.

Josh thanked Jagger, took the house key, and we headed for the parking lot in silence. There was none of the confusion or anticipation of the drive here. Now there was simply a lingering sadness between us. But hadn’t he just said there would never be a time he didn’t want me? What was this bullshit? What set him off? The job offer? At least I hadn’t snuck off in the middle of the night to take it without telling him.

Anger blossomed, and I welcomed the way it masked the hurt.

Maybe I needed to change my flight, get back to Turkey tomorrow, and take the damn job. Maybe he’d screw his head on straight while I was gone…or maybe it would kill off whatever was left of us. Why was there never a right answer lately?

Twenty minutes of pregnant silence later, we pulled into the driveway. I opened the hatch before he could and brought my bag to the ground.

“Do you want me to carry it in for you?” he offered.

“No,” I snapped. “I want you to pull your head out of your ass.”

“December.”

I tossed my backpack over my shoulder and tugged on my suitcase, pulling it behind me up the stairs. I shoved the key in our door and let out a relieved sigh when it turned without sticking. The door opened soundlessly, and I walked through.

“December!” he nearly shouted as he followed me in.

“Oh, is this what it takes to get you in our house?” I asked, dropping my purse on the couch.

“It’s for the best.”

We squared off a coffee table apart. “Please, do explain how you know what’s best for us.”

“You have a job in Turkey waiting for you.”

I shrugged. “So? I never said I was taking it. I said it had been offered. I don’t make those kinds of decisions—the kind that alter our life—without talking to you. I wish I could say the same for you.”

“Are we still having this argument?” He rubbed his hands over his hair.

“You leaving in the middle of the night didn’t void the fight, Josh. It just pressed pause. You made that decision, and now you get to reap the consequences.”

“I had to go back!”

“I know that!” The shout took some of the fight out of me, and my shoulders sagged. “Don’t you think I figured it out? I get it. You came home a different person, and you told me you felt like you’d left bits of yourself there. I listened. So yes, I get it. You went to put yourself back together, to finish your mission, but you didn’t discuss it with me, you just chose and left.”

“I’m sorry that I hurt you. It was never my intention.” His eyes were soft with regret, but everything else about his posture, from his crossed arms to how far he was away from me, screamed his resolution.

“I wish apologizing was enough. Do you feel like you succeeded? Are you all whole now?”

“Yes. It was exactly what I needed. I could have never looked at myself in the mirror knowing I stayed home when I should have been there. I couldn’t be the man you deserve unless I did it.”

“What I deserve? What I deserve is you, and I’ll take you in any way you come to me. Whole, damaged, ripped the fuck apart—you’re still mine.”

“Oh, is that so?” he spat back, his tone utterly ironic.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I’m not the only one making choices by myself, am I?” He gestured at me with a tight jerk of his hand before momentarily covering his eyes with it. “Maybe this is what I deserve. I left you when you asked me not to. I put you through hell constantly, and I hate myself for it. But I can honestly tell you that every single minute I was gone, you were in my head, in my heart. I may have doubted myself, maybe even our future, but I never once doubted
you
.”

My mouth dropped. “Me? Our future? All I’ve done is fight for us, Josh. Since the moment you deployed, I’ve been holding on to you by my fingernails. But I don’t let go. I don’t run away. I have faith!”

“Is that why you took your ring off? Because you still have all this faith in us?”

What?
My gaze flicked to my bare left hand. “Is that why you got pissed at the hospital? Why you’re sleeping at Jagger’s?” I yanked the chain around my neck until my ring popped free of my neckline. “I never took it off. I wear it on a chain when I’m on the dig so I don’t hurt it or the artwork, but I never changed my mind. I never changed the vision of our future. Unlike you, apparently.”

He doubted us. That admission shook my foundation and suddenly, that crack dividing us felt like the Grand Canyon, with him standing on one side in that uniform while I wore myself thin trying to stretch across it to him.

His whole frame sagged, and his gaze dropped to the floor before coming back to meet mine. I saw the relief I needed, but also a lingering sadness in those brown eyes that cut through my anger. “You didn’t take it off.”

I shook my head.

“I’m an asshole.”

“It appears that way,” I answered. “You…you doubt us?”

“Not us,” he said, “but maybe where we’re headed. Do you want to take it? Do you want to run that dig?” He searched my eyes as if his very future hung on my next words.

“Yes. Of course I do. It would be absolutely amazing. But nothing is more important to me than you. I don’t want to leave you.”

His eyes slid shut momentarily. “You need to take it. It would be huge for you.”

“Yeah, it would, but our relationship is more important. I’m putting us first, because that’s what you do in a relationship. You compromise for the sake of the person you love. You put aside your selfish goals so you can build one future.”

“You’re staying because of me.” His head hung as if there was some kind of blame to be placed here…like being together was a bad thing.

“Not because of you, for you. For us.”

“It’s the same difference!”

Why was he so angry? “So what? You’d wanted to be stationed in Texas, right? Closer to your mom?”

“What does that have to do with it?”

He still wouldn’t meet my eyes, so I stepped around the table. “You chose Fort Campbell instead, so I could finish college. So we’d be together.”

“This isn’t the same.”

“You’re right. You moved your entire life. I’m only giving up two months. There will be other digs. I’m choosing you this one time.”

“That’s just where it starts,” he muttered. “God, he’d kill me.” His whisper was so soft that I barely heard it.

“What? Who are you—”

He didn’t let me finish. “This is just the beginning.”

“It’s one time. We need it.”

“And nothing I say is going to change your mind?” he asked, his mouth tightening.

“Nothing will ever change my mind about you. About us,” I said softly, hoping to soothe him. “This dig would be great, but we are extraordinary. It’s a tiny sacrifice—”

“I’m fucking sick of you sacrificing!” he shouted. Before I could respond, his head snapped up, the panic in his eyes quickly masked by aloof, untouchable ice. “I’m assessing for SOAR next week.”

A bomb detonated somewhere in the vicinity of my heart, and the fallout decimated everything in me. “Special Ops? But…” I didn’t have words. He’d never even hinted at wanting to fly for SOAR, and now he was assessing? For the first time, I felt like our relationship wasn’t even on the radar of his concerns.

Fuck, that hurt. This wasn’t the snap decision he’d had to make about deploying. No, this was a well thought out choice. Here I was, putting our relationship, our love, first, while he treated it like a side piece of baggage. The Josh I fell in love with, my rock, my whatever, never would have done that. Had he changed so much in the nine months since he’d deployed that we were no longer his priority? Red-hot rage tensed every muscle in my body. “Who
are
you, lately?”

He winced but didn’t pause. “This is the right thing to do. Just like you taking the job in Turkey is right for you.”

I scoffed. “Yeah, a temp job that I delayed while I came home so I could see you. Because that’s what I do, right? I put my career second while you make the decisions—while you apply for SOAR behind my back and volunteer for Afghanistan like it doesn’t affect me.” I ran over any attempt he made to speak, my fury overtaking my usual level-headedness when it came to Josh. “You are the one with the changes. Three years ago it was, ‘I’ll just do my required four years, and then I’ll get out.’ Then you went aviation, and I get it. You didn’t know that I’d be a part of your life, so I sucked up the fact that it would be another six years after you finished flight school. But this? SOAR? That’s not temporary, and it’s changing what our future looks like without so much as asking me, and that’s not fair.”