Cindy Gerard - The Way Home

“Hello.” He smiled into her eyes.

She found his hand, brought it to her lips, and kissed it. Then she lowered it to her abdomen, pressed it against her. “Someone else would like to say hello.”

Her expressive eyes relayed both excitement and uncertainty. And as she held his hand there, spreading her fingers wide over his, her meaning finally dawned.

“A baby?”

She nodded, still uncertain.

He felt a smile spread from his heart to his eyes. “We made a baby?”

Seeing his happiness, she smiled, too. “On the roof. Under the stars.”

It humiliated him that he cried so easily these days. He’d done enough of it in the past month to last a lifetime. But these tears didn’t bother him. These tears were born in wonder and steeped in joy.

These tears celebrated the hopeless improbability that in the midst of such suffering and terror and ugliness, something as beautiful and miraculous as life had been created.

Key West, Florida, December 20th

“YOU KNOW,” TY SAID, SURPRISED when his brother, who he hadn’t seen in several weeks, walked into his office as if he did it on a daily basis, “last time you showed up, you brought bad news.”

“Hey, little bro. Nice to see you, too. How’ve I been, you ask? Why, I’m just dandy. Eva? Yep. She’s fit and fine.”

“Sorry,” Ty said, feeling like an ass. “Been a long day.” It had been a long freaking month. He missed Jess. He missed the life they had planned to have. He felt sorry for himself. But that wasn’t anything his brother was going to find out.

He rocked back in his desk chair as outside his office window, a small cargo plane taxied down the apron toward the runway, heat shimmering off the concrete under the hot Florida sun. “Folks OK?”

“Talked to ’em last night. They’re doing great. Worried about you, though. What’s this about not coming home for Christmas?”

He regarded Mike thoughtfully. “Until the past two years, you hadn’t been home for Christmas or birthdays or—wait—you hadn’t been home at all. For eight long years. I’m not allowed to miss one Christmas?”

“I’m the black sheep. I’m supposed to be a jerk. You’re the good son.”

Ty knew perfectly well why Mike had disappeared for eight years, and it wasn’t because he was a jerk. His brother was the best man he knew. But Mike had been in a bad place back then—which, most likely, was the reason he recognized exactly where Ty was right now.

“So how’s business?” Mike sprawled in a chair across from Ty’s desk and made a big show of checking out the whiteboards and the full schedule inked in with erasable marker.

“Banner year.” Ty still wondered why his brother had shown up but figured it had little to do with Christmas, which was less than a week away. “What do you want, Mike?”

Mike propped a boot heel on the corner of Ty’s desk, linked his hands over his belt, and regarded him with a wise-ass smile. “I think I might let you worm it out of me.”

For the first time, Ty laughed. “Sorry. Not playing.”

“Oh, you’re going to want to play this game.”

The Cheshire Cat smile was getting irritating. “I’m not coming to work for you, if that’s what this is about.”

“Nah. I knew that was a pipe dream.”

More of that ridiculous toothpaste-ad smile.

“You look really stupid, you know that?”

This time, Mike laughed. “And you’re going to feel really stupid if you don’t get your head out of your ass and ask me why I’m smiling.”

“OK, fine. Why are you smiling?”

“The reason rhymes with guess—which is kind of ironic, since you’re going to have to guess to find out.”

Ty tilted his head and glared at his brother through narrowed eyes. “You are so close to getting punched.”

“OK. So you need another clue. It also rhymes with mess—which is the condition of your head since you left Minnesota.”

Ty clenched his jaw. “I don’t want to talk about her.”

Mike dropped his foot and leaned forward. “OK, fine. Then I’ll talk. You listen until I’m your favorite brother again.”

DECEMBER 21, THE first day of winter, had blown in with a vengeance in Minnesota. Dressed in old jeans, a turtleneck, and a heavy flannel shirt, Jess hugged her arms around herself and looked out the apartment window as snow drifted down in huge, heavy flakes. The wind was supposed to come up later tonight, and the storm threatened to dump eight to twelve inches across the borderland by morning to add to the five or six already on the ground.

Even though it was barely five P.M., in less than fifteen minutes, dusk would give way to dark. This storm was on track to match another winter storm almost two years ago, when Ty had blown in with his friends, saved two lives, and changed her life forever.

“What do you think, Bear? Should we go out for a quick walk before it gets any deeper?”

On cue, the dog started dancing in excitement at the word walk. She laughed and headed for the closet to get her coat and boots. Her phone rang, stopping her and, quite honestly, saving her from thinking morosely about how different this Christmas season would have been if she and Ty had gotten married at Thanksgiving as they’d planned.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jess.”

“J.R. Hey.” Warmth flooded her chest, banishing her melancholy mood. “How are you?”

“I’m well.”

She and J.R. had talked often since he’d reunited with Rabia last week. Jess couldn’t be happier for them, although she couldn’t help but worry about his health. He still had some healing to do, both physically and emotionally. But she had to believe he was in a good place now. A place where he would continue to seek the help he needed.

“And Rabia?” She was so excited about the baby.

“She’s fine, too.”

While she would love to meet Rabia, she understood that now wasn’t the time. She didn’t want to make Rabia uncomfortable.

“So what’s happening?” she asked cheerfully, as Bear bounced by the door like a puppy—all eighty pounds of him.

“A lot. Too much to talk about. So I’m taking a breather. And I started thinking about you. About how lucky I am to have you in my life. I wanted to call and let you know that.”

Tears pooled in her eyes. “I feel the same way. And I’m so glad you’re happy.”

“Have you called Ty yet?”

He asked each time they talked. “No,” she confessed.

“Ah, Jess.”

“I’m not ready.”

“You’re scared.”

“That, too,” she admitted. “I need to get myself together a little better before I call him.”

“Because you think he’s going to reject you.”

“I would, if I were him. He’s suffered losses, too, J.R. He lost his Navy career. He’s lost people he loved. What if I was the last straw? What if he’s reached a point where he’s afraid to risk losing again?”

“The man loves you so much that he risked his life to save mine, because he needed to be sure you were happy. I don’t think a man like that is afraid of much of anything.”