SEAL's Baby (Navy SEAL Secret Baby Romance) (12 page)

  
We walked around the store together, buying sandwiches, pastries,
chips, and candy bars that we hadn’t eaten since we were children.

“How about a slushy?”
Dylan asked as we came up on the machine.

“All this and a slushy
too?” I asked playfully. “It’s too much.”

Dylan winked at me. “I
insist,” he said. “Actually, choose two flavors.”

“Wow,” I said. “Big
spender.”

  
We laughed together, made the purchase, and went back out to the
car. Half an hour later, we pulled up next to wide-open spaces dotted with
little farmhouses and herds of cattle. The air smelled so fresh and I couldn’t
believe I hadn’t been down there in eleven years. I knew I couldn’t have come
without Dylan though; it just wouldn’t have held the same magic.

“Wow,” Dylan breathed.
“It feels the same.”

“It does,” I nodded as
Dylan appeared from the rear of the Jeep with a blanket and a bottle of wine.

“You came prepared,” I
said.

  
He smiled and took my hand as we walked down the open expanse of
land searching for the perfect spot to sit down and have our meal. The sun was
close to setting and I knew we’d be treating ourselves to a magnificent sunset.
It was getting a little cooler too and I was glad that Dylan had thought to
bring blankets.

“How many did you bring?”
I asked gesturing at the blanket.

“Just the one,” Dylan
said with a tell-tale smile.

I shook my head at him.
“I could take it.”

“But then I’d be cold,”
Dylan said. “And you wouldn’t want that would you?”

I gave him a dirty look
and turned to face the sparse dotting of trees that lined the huge meadow. “How
about that one over there?” I suggested.

“Perfect,” Dylan agreed
and we walked over.

  
I sat down first with my back resting against the tree so that
Dylan had no choice but to sit down next to me. He was closer than I was
comfortable with but I didn’t gripe. He spread the blanket over our legs and
then he handed me a sandwich.

“It feels the same,” he
said. “Like no time has passed.”

I looked away from him. “It
doesn’t really feel that way to me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said
soberly. “I didn’t mean … I just …”

  
“I know,” I said quickly. “It’s ok; I just don’t want to pretend
like things are the same. You’re leaving in a few weeks and that won’t change
no matter how much time we spend together now.”

“I know.”

“Will you be deployed
again?”

Dylan nodded. “Once my
leave is over, I go back to prepare for the deployment.”

“What do you feel just
before you leave?” I asked.

“I don’t have time to
concentrate,” Dylan said slowly. “It’s when I’m on the plane that I start
getting nervous.”

“So you haven’t got used
to it?”

“You get used to it,”
Dylan explained. “But you never get rid of certain things … like the nerves and
the fear. That will never leave you.”

  
“When you first told me that you were planning to enlist, I
thought you were joking,” I admitted. “I thought you were playing some sick
joke on me. I think that I only really supported in that decision because I
believed you wouldn’t really go through with it.”

“I didn’t think I would
get through training,” Dylan said. “And after I did, I just had to see it
through.”

“I’ll admit I was upset
and hurt,” I said slowly. “But I also understood why you wanted to do it. You
wanted to make your father proud.”

Dylan smiled. “I never
told you that.”

I shrugged. “You didn’t
have to.”

Chapter Thirteen

Dylan

  
There was a quiet, calming stillness in the air. It clung to me
like dew on fresh leaves. I glanced at Lizzie, wondering whether she felt it
too. She was looking up at the sun. It was just a big ball of orange fire, half
hidden behind silver-crusted clouds that seemed to give off their own ethereal
glow.

  
I realized that it had been eleven years since I’d marveled at the
wonders that nature held. I hadn’t stopped to sit down and think in so long
that I’d missed so much. My eyes fell back onto Lizzie. She was illuminated in
warm, golden rays of sunshine that were getting duller as the minutes ticked
away. I hadn’t been this comfortable in so long that I’d forgotten the
sensation. It was like a caress, it made you feel safe and content, and
contentment in my books had always been a cut above happiness.

  
Happiness made you silly and excited and prone to making mistakes
and rash decisions. Contentment was stillness.

“Have you forgiven me?” I
asked before my courage abandoned me.

“Forgiven you?” Lizzie
asked as she turned her gaze back to me. “For what?”

“Leaving.”

  
She looked at me for a long moment and I could see the memory in
her eyes and the sadness it held for her. I wanted to reach out and touch her
but I didn’t want to intrude on her thoughts. She reached up and tucked a lock
of hair behind her ear.

“Can I be honest?” she
said at last and I felt my breath catch.

I swallowed down my fear
and nodded. “Of course.”

  
“I thought I had forgiven you,” Lizzie started slowly. “But then I
saw you for the first time in eleven years and I felt … something. Something I
couldn’t quite place. It was only later that I realized what it was. I was
resentful and I was still hurt. And when I realized that that was what I was
feeling, I knew that I couldn’t have forgiven you … at least not completely.
But I think a part of me has since then.”

“And the other part?” I
asked slowly.

“I’m still working on
that,” she said softly. “It was really hard after you left. And then …”

“Yes?”

“The letters stopped
coming,” Lizzie said.

  
I could hear the hurt in her voice. It was palpable and it hurt me
in the process. I hated knowing how much pain I had caused her. She had
deserved more than that. She had deserved something from me.

  
“We never really broke up,” Lizzie went on. “We just drifted and
then we stopped communicating and then … we lost contact completely. Even when
I knew what was happening, I still couldn’t quite bring myself to believe it.”

  
“It was my fault,” I said. “I should have tried to explain better,
I should have done more than I did. It was just that the training was so much
more intense that I would ever have imagined. I threw myself into the fray and
I didn’t have time to look back.”

  
She flinched at my last words and I reached for her hand. “I’m
sorry,” I said. “I don’t mean to hurt you, I’m just trying to be honest with
you.”

“I know,” Lizzie replied.
“I want you to be honest with me.”

  
It was the first real conversation we had had in over a decade and
we both knew it. This was not small talk or casual flirting; it wasn’t even the
beginnings of a courtship. It was two people who had a massive history between
them, it was two people trying to put their past behind them and find some
closure in the present.

“Once I passed my
training, I was sent off on my first deployment,” I said.

  
“I remember,” Lizzie nodded. “You sent me a letter telling me
about it; June seventeenth was when you told me you would be leaving. It was
one of the last letters you sent me.”

“Afghanistan,” I said.
“That was the first mission.”

“It changed you,” Lizzie
said before I could finish.

  
“Yes,” I nodded. “It changed me, more than I could have thought.
All the training in the world can’t prepare you for certain things. Everything
was going according to plan and then suddenly … it wasn’t. We found ourselves
in the middle of enemy fire and we had no choice but to defend ourselves. I
killed three men that day.”

  
I fell into silence as the memory of that day overtook me. I could
still remember the first man. His eyes were wide with anger; his skin was
burnished brown and covered in scars. He looked at me like I was the devil. I
had panicked and the moment he took a step towards me I fired. I didn’t think
and I didn’t aim: I just shot blindly.

“The first man I shot,” I
said after a moment. “He was unarmed. I looked, but I couldn’t find a weapon on
him.”

“Dylan,” Lizzie’s voice
was soft as a whisper. She clutched my hand in both of hers and squeezed. “You
didn’t know that.”

“I was trained better,” I
said. “I was scared and my fear took over.”

“It was your first
mission and your first real fight,” Lizzie said. “If you hadn’t killed him, he
would have found a way to kill you.”

  
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “That’s what I realized once the dust
had settled and I was alone in my tent. It doesn’t matter what the
justifications are, it doesn’t matter if he’s the enemy, and it doesn’t matter
if I was acting in self-defense. I killed a man; I took his life like I had a
right to. I couldn’t wrap my head around that. I couldn’t
understand
that.”

  
Lizzie looked at me with those sad, blue eyes of hers and I knew
instinctively that she understood what I was saying. She had always been a
pacifist. She had always been the girl to stop a fight, to make peace, to swallow
her own pride simply to avoid an unpleasant situation.

“I know,” she said and I
felt better instantly. “And it’s ok to feel like that.”

  
“You’re the only one who’s ever said that to me,” I said with a
small smile. “I’ve tried explaining that to a few people and it doesn’t matter
who they are. They’ve always tried to explain away my feelings. I just wanted
them to understand those feelings.”

“I do.”

  
“I wish I had spoken to you then like I’m speaking to you now,” I
said with a sigh that went ten years deep. “But at the time, I couldn’t talk to
anyone. I retreated into myself and I didn’t resurface for a long time.”

“You send me a letter a
few months into your deployment,” Lizzie recalled. “Do you remember it?”

I searched my head but it
came up blank. “No I’m sorry,” I said.

  
“I still have that letter,” she admitted. “I cried the first time
I read it … not because there was anything definitive about us in it. You
didn’t mention that you needed time or you wanted to take a break from us. You
just spoke about your first combat mission and I could tell from the way you
wrote that … that you had lost yourself.”

“What did I say in the
letter?”

  
“It was this one line in particular,” Lizzie said. “You wrote ‘I’m
tired, Lizzie, my body aches but it’s bearable compared with the ache in my
conscience, my soul. I don’t know why I’m here ... not just in this war-torn
place but also in this world.’ I memorized that line because I knew there was a
secret hidden in it somewhere. You were confused and you were alone and I knew
I couldn’t help you. So when the letters stopped coming, I guess I wasn’t
surprised.”

  
“I didn’t know what to say anymore,” I admitted. “Bastrop seemed
like another life. I felt as though I wasn’t a part of it anymore. I felt that
if I came back, I would taint it somehow, I would ruin everything beautiful
about it: including you. I’m not trying to justify anything, I’m not trying to
pretend like I stopped writing for some noble reason. The truth is I was
confused and alone and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I just …”

  
“It’s ok Dylan,” Lizzie said squeezing my hand. “You were so
young, we both were. We weren’t supposed to know the best way to deal with
things.”

  
“I know,” I replied. “I just wish it had been different. I wish I
had never stopped writing to you, I wish I had never given you cause to
question my love for you. I wish I had chosen differently.”

  
“Don’t do that, Dylan,” Lizzie said immediately. “Don’t look back.
It’ll only drive you crazy; trust me I know. I did it during the worst moments
of my marriage and it only made things worse. Things happened and there’s no
way to change it, so why go through the torture of thinking up all the
alternate possibilities? There’s no alternate. These are our lives.”

  
She had always been wise beyond her years; it just reinforced how
much I had missed her and how quickly she was able to talk me off the ledge. I
remembered that she had been through things too. She had lived a life while I
had been away and that had taught her things that had nothing to do with me.