8 Years Ago

SHE BOUNCED FROM EXCITEMENT, sitting next to Cole on the bench seat of his rust bucket pickup truck as they bumped along down the driveway to her parents' ranch. He had served his country and successfully completed two tours overseas as a Seal, and now he was home. His contract with Uncle Sam had drawn to a close, and now it was all about their future. The best part was that one of his final acts as a man in uniform was to get down on one knee and propose to her with a beautiful solitaire engagement ring when she had flown to meet him. She could barely contain herself and was beyond excited to spend the rest of her life by his side. After being together for years, their future was finally beginning.

Dinner at her parents that night was not only to celebrate their upcoming nuptials but also a good-bye dinner of sorts, as Cole had accepted a short-term job as a civilian contractor with the military, working with his brother, Clint, and her big brother, Devon. He planned to work this job until they were married, and then he was officially hanging up his M16 and returning to civvy life to run his ranch and build a family with his bride. 

Her feet were propped on the dash, and she sang along to the rock song blasting through the speakers, dancing in her seat and celebrating that after almost a decade of living separate lives and flying to each other when they could—while he was in Coronado, when she was anywhere in the country, from Cheyenne to Houston, following the rodeo circuit—and accumulated calls that totaled days and voicemails that totaled hours in their time apart, they were finally only months away from what they had always wanted.

Cole shook her hand loose and threw his arm behind her on the seat while he sang along with her. She trailed off and tilted her head to watch him as the setting sun reflected across the windshield and he sang to her, caught up in the frivolity of the moment. She wished she had brought a camera to snapshot this moment and keep it with her forever.

There had been a shift in their relationship since her last trip to meet him, the one where he had proposed to her in front of his brothers-in-arms, and her own happiness and excitement echoed from him as well. They had been playing house in the old ranch house on the property he and his brother had inherited when their mom had passed a few years back. Every night, she had gone to sleep curled into his side, and every morning, she made their breakfast while sipping coffee and wearing one of his Navy tees. She was forcing herself not to dwell on the fact that that night would be their last together for the foreseeable future.

The brothers had decided to rebuild the La Barron Ranch, and doing that was going to take capital. Clint and Devon had left the service at the same time and were recruited by a PMC, a private military company, as civilian contractors, so it made sense for Cole to follow them into it as a sure way to make a quick profit he could save and invest in the ranch with the goal of turning it into a profitable venture.

Courtney didn't like it, but she knew that she was marrying a man who had to have a plan. A man who would never put their future to chance or put her in what he would deem a precarious situation. That meant sealing their future so that when the time was done, they could get on with their lives. As her daddy had said repeatedly throughout the last several years when she had complained and whined and cried about not being able to see Cole or speak to him, she was the one who wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, so she was going to have to accept him for the man he was. That meant accepting him doing things in his own time and in his own way. Besides, this stint was bound to be easier because no one but Cole was deciding how long he would have to be away. And she finally had a ring on her finger, which meant the wait was almost over.

As Cole slowed to swing into the parking area in front of her parents' house, Courtney was the happiest she had ever been in her life.

***

AFTER DINNER WITH HER parents and snuggling on the couch in front of the late show, they were lying naked in Cole's bed, her head in the crook of his arm, facing each other. Cole was playing with her hair, twirling the pieces round and round his finger while they were talking and planning. "Cole, you are not the one who will be pushing these seven babies out. I am willing to settle for two!" She said with a giggle, "One boy and one girl."

He gave her hair a gentle tug. "Baby Girl, the more babies we have, the less we’ll spend on hired help. It's a win-win. Plus, you're gonna give me some real pretty babies. I want lots of them."

Those were the moments she lived for. A person couldn't do the job that Cole had done—in the thick of combat and seeing the worst of the worst—without coming away scarred. Without a doubt, there were times when Cole disappeared to that place where she couldn't reach him, but he could still find it in himself to hold her so close and joke about how many kids they were going to have. He had told her once when he was home that she was his light and had been his reason to stay alive at times. She took that responsibility seriously and did everything she could to make sure she remained his light. Every time the thoughts of him possibly being returned to the desert that haunted him rose up during what she knew was her last night with him for a while, she pushed them back and vowed to worry about it later, to only live in the moment and make sure he did the same. She was going to stay strong for him so that he could do what he believed in, and then they could celebrate surviving it every day for the rest of their lives. With that on her mind, her response was, "Well, how about we have one and go from there? Then we can have as many as we want."

She watched as his face softened, and her heart swelled as he leaned into her, brushed his lips against hers, and said, "Yeah, baby," on a soft exhale.

There you go, Court, anything is possible as long as we talk it out.

They had spent years together, and damn if he couldn't still make her stomach flutter as it did when he slid his hand down her side and adjusted his body so that he was over her with intent burning in his eyes once more.