Paxton

Ft. Hood, Texas

“Bro!  For fuck’s sake!  Are you gonna actually do something about that nasty ass smell in here?  I’ve got a couple of chicks comin’ over in less than an hour!  We can’t have our crib smellin’ like a dog just got done taking a big ole dump in the middle of our living room while I’m tryin’ to get my groove on with these honey pots, man!  The smell of shit tends to kill the mood in a real decisive kind of way.  You hear what I’m sayin’ here?”

Barely sparing my irritated roommate, Cagney, a passing glance, I instead focused all my concentration on the messy task at hand and did my best to ignore the annoying background noise of my roommate being a whiny little bitch.  Swear to God, if he wasn’t deadly in an Afghani insurgent firefight and reliable about paying his half of the rent and bills that came with this place, I’d have moved his ass out a long time ago.

“C’mon, man. We’ve talked about this situation more than once, Paxton,” Cagney continued to complain without remorse.  “I can’t have your little problem messin’ with my social life!  I don’t care how cute her little tushy is,” he remarked, lifting his chin toward the squirming bundle under my hands.  “This bullshit is not cool with me.  At all.”

“Do not call her a problem again, Cag.  I promise you won’t like the consequences if you do,” I warned in a low growl as my jaw tightened.  I hated listening to my buddy’s incessant griping on a good day…and today?  Today was not a good day.  Normally, I would have said this was the opposite of a good day, but identifying the past twenty-four hours as simply being bad wasn’t anywhere close to a crappy enough description.  Not even close.

So if the word ‘bad’ wouldn’t cover it, what would?  Terrible?  Too trite.  Awful?  Nah, that wasn’t strong enough to define how shitty the last several hours had been.  Maybe hellish?  Yeah, hellish might have covered it.

Not that I blamed the tiny infant with the brightest, bluest eyes I’d ever seen currently staring up at me with more trust than I probably deserved.  Certainly more than I had earned from her thus far.

Nah, the sweet baby crying unhappily was the most innocent person in this freaking room.  Her name was Liberty Belle Evans, and she hadn’t had enough time in the universe to commit any sins.  She bore zero responsibility for any of the bitter feelings that were presently churning deep in my gut.  No, my little Liberty was blameless of any wrongdoing, but her biological parents were solely responsible for the nightmare my life had become.

Still, though, the baby wasn’t exactly trying to make shit easier on me – no pun intended.

Who the hell knew that diapering a three-week-old baby’s bare ass could be such a nightmare?  So far I’d gotten her foul smelling shit smeared on the baby’s behind, my hands, both my arms, her soft pink baby blanket and my sofa.   Thank God the couch was leather because otherwise I’d be seriously fucked.  As it was, the mess had cleaned up easily with a couple of baby wipes.  I was quickly learning that those handy wipes could be used for a multitude of chores, and they weren’t just reserved for a baby’s cute little tuckus.  “How about you take a beat and relax?” I growled over my shoulder, ignoring the slight curl of Cag’s nose as he eyed the baby paraphernalia I had strewn across our couch with a mixture of disgust and horror.  “If the smell in here bothers you so much maybe you should take out the trash.” Using my foot, I pushed the smelly wastepaper basket toward my irritating, less-than-helpful friend as I plucked a clean receiving blanket from the stack I’d purchased from Walmart.

“Fuck you, man.  You and I both know that I don’t wipe kids’ asses and I sure as hell don’t haul their shitty smelly diapers out to the dumpster,” Cagney refused, holding up his hands as he took a huge step backwards while I did my best to swaddle the baby.  It was like playing a game of Tetris with an octopus!  This shit looked easy on television, but here in real life, it pretty well sucked.  According to the nurse at the hospital, I was supposed to make Liberty into some kind of baby burrito, but my effort looked more like an exploding taco.  Oh, well.

“There’s a reason I always wrap my shit up tight before I go deep pussy diving,” Cag continued to rant behind me.  “It’s so accidents like this one don’t happen to me,” he remarked, pointing at the softly cooing baby I now had tightly wrapped in a soft yellow blanket with lions and giraffes on it.

Scooping a now calm Liberty into my arms and settling her against my shirtless chest, I turned my head to glare at Cag as I tried to adjust the little sock cap on her head.  Glancing from the baby to the annoyed dumbass in front of me, I knew there wasn’t a better fucker alive to have with you in a firefight on the streets of Afghanistan, but Cagney’s people skills seriously sucked – even with his closest friends.  How he managed to pull down the incredible amount of ass he did was beyond me.  It certainly wasn’t his stunning personality.  But we’d saved each other’s bacon a lot over the years, and I definitely qualified as one of his longtime pals since we’d served together in some of the most dangerous locations in the Middle East over the last four years.  We were the same rank – both sergeants first class – in the same platoon, and we’d been through some scary shit together. 

None of that, however, was gonna save his ass if he didn’t soon get a handle on his flappin’ lips.  “You’re lucky I like you, Cag, because if you were anybody else I’d already have put you on your ass for the crap you’ve been spewin’ out your pie hole.   I suggest you get a handle on that shit because as God as my witness, if you call this innocent little angel an accident again, I’m gonna rearrange that pretty face the ladies love so much,” I threatened quietly, menace dripping from my voice as I protectively held Liberty against my shoulder with one hand curled behind her precious head while the other supported her diaper-covered bottom.  Cagney was getting way to close to stepping across a line he shouldn’t with me.  “She’s my kid now, asshole.  My kid.  So watch your fuckin’ mouth before I permanently close it for you.

“Jesus, brother!  What the hell would you call her?  She is an accident, man,” Cag yelped indignantly, clueless to the fact that I was about three seconds away from pummeling his ass within an inch of his life.  The fucker never had known when the hell to wave the white flag in surrender and shut the fuck up. 

“Cag, my man, you’re pushin’ it right now,” I cautioned him tightly, my muscles already tensing for battle despite the fact I held a baby in my arms, and she must have sensed my tension because I felt her stir against my chest a moment later.  Patting my hand against her back to soothe her, I narrowed my eyes at Cagney.  “Just shut it, Cag.  For your own good.”

“What?” Cagney retorted curtly.  “I can’t imagine Evans intentionally planted his kid in a woman that wasn’t his wife, can you?”

Closing my eyes at the brutal truth behind my irksome pal’s words, I sighed heavily and prayed for the patience it would take for me not to knock my roomie the fuck out and put him out of my misery.  “Look, I don’t know what the fuck Evans was thinking when he cheated on his wife and created this kid, but it’s not like either of us can ask our fallen brother now, is it?” I clipped sharply.  “Just do us all a favor and call Liberty a surprise instead of an accident, okay?  It’s just nicer,” I requested softly, leveling a somber gaze on my roommate before he finally seemed to understand that I was at my limit.

“Yeah, sure.  Because she’s clearly hanging on my every word,” Cag returned sarcastically as he eyed the dozing infant in my arms.

Ignoring Cagney’s derisive words, I paced in front of the sofa with Liberty held against me and pondered my current situation while Cag reluctantly went into the kitchen to take out the trash.  There was no doubt that I wished we could ask our late friend, SFC Yancy Evans, some important questions.  Like why in the hell he’d cheat on a wife as beautiful as the woman Yancy had taken as a bride -- even one time, dammit, let alone the hundreds he’d actually stepped out on her.  I’d only met Truly Evans a handful of times before Yancy actually died, but even I – a self-confirmed serial bachelor - knew that there was something incredibly special about her.  Yancy’s wife was a young woman who was soft-spoken and always willing to pitch in and lend a hand to help the other military wives in our unit when needed.  It also didn’t hurt that Truly possessed a hot-as-fuck body that could made a man fantasize about all the ways he wanted to make her moan, but strangely enough didn’t seem to realize how sexy she was… which, for most men, only made the curvy, ash-blonde beauty even more attractive. 

In short, Truly (or Tru, as most everyone called her for short) was the kind of woman every one of us guys wished we had waiting for us at home while we’d been far from home, fighting for Uncle Sam.  I should know.  I dreamed of finding my own Truly enough times while I hunkered down in some fox hole while I tried to dodge the Grim Reaper in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

There was no doubt in my mind that if I’d stumbled across a woman like her, I would have traded in the freedom my single status offered for the beauty of a committed relationship with a good woman.  I wouldn’t have given a second thought to forfeiting my bachelor status for that kind of happy.  Hell, no.   Unfortunately though, my deceased friend hadn’t been as bright as I’d hoped he was and, over time, his wandering dick syndrome had made him even stupider.  Yancy hadn’t been able to see that he’d had a good thing – hell, a great thing – waiting for him at home.  Sadly for everyone involved and despite his great marriage, my friend unfortunately believed that variety was the spice of life even for a married man, and he’d stuck his pecker in more than a few sorry holes while his wife had remained clueless, waiting for him to return home.  I didn’t understand it at all.  Why would a man who had everything gamble with his future the way Yancy had?  I’d confronted him more than once about his penchant toward infidelity, but sadly, my former best friend had reminded me on more than one occasion that who he chose to park his dick inside and how he chose to treat his wife were none of my business.    And while I personally thought Yancy was making shit decisions, at the time, I’d thought that maybe he had a point.  Truly wasn’t my wife, and his marriage had nothing to do with me.  Now, as I looked down at the baby I held, I realized that fucker had been full of shit.

I totally should have gone with my gut and beat some sense into him.

Especially after Truly had suffered a miscarriage last year.  After that, Yancy seemed to ramp up his extramarital activities.  I don’t know if it was his way of coping with his grief or what, but in those weeks after Tru lost the baby, it had seemed as if every time I’d seen my buddy outside of work, he’d been fucking around with yet another damn chick that wasn’t his wife.  Instead of being home with Truly working on their marriage, he’d been nailing half the bitches in the Fort Hood area.  Hell, looking back on it now, I should have done whatever it took to force him into going home and being with Truly instead of hanging out at the bar where we all liked to go to blow off steam while he picked up any available piece of ass he could find.  Everybody there had known Yancy was just there to wait for his next easy fuck to stroll through the doors.

Unfortunately I’d been too much of a pussy to do what I knew down to my bones was the right thing.  Like a fool, I’d been so fuckin’ determined to observe the laws of the bro code and keep my mouth firmly closed, choking on my buddy’s shameful secrets.  It had been a shitty thing to do.  Especially to a woman like Tru.  While I hadn’t known her all that well, I’d definitely known enough to hate seeing what Yancy was doing to her. No woman deserved to be dishonored like that.  The only thing I had going for me was that I had told Yancy how I felt about what he was doing.  Often and repeatedly.  Predictably, my outlook put a heavy strain on our friendship, and when Yancy died in a training accident several months back, we’d barely been on speaking terms. 

Which was why I found it to be the height of irony that one of Yancy’s last pieces of ass had named me in her final will and testament as one of the two guardians she’d chosen for her child before she’d died of stage four ovarian cancer a few days ago.    The lawyer she’d used had given me one of the two notes she’d left for Liberty’s guardians – one that he’d claimed would answer any questions I had.  But even after reading it what felt like a zillion times, I still hadn’t wrapped my mind around everything it said. 

The long and short of it was that Liberty had been conceived during a one night stand that her mother, Melissa Keats had with my late friend a couple of months before he died.  After learning she was pregnant, Melissa apparently had tried reaching out to Yancy to share the news with him, but in his typical douchenozzle style, Yancy ignored her phone calls and blocked her number, making it nearly impossible for her to contact him.

Over the next few weeks that had passed, it became even more crucial that Melissa contact Yancy because during her four-month prenatal check-up it was revealed during routine labs that something was off with the pregnancy.  After a series of labs and tests, Melissa’s obstetrician confirmed that she had stage four ovarian cancer, and since her pregnancy made the condition virtually untreatable, it was a terminal diagnosis.   At that point, Melissa became determined to find Yancy and was in the process of attempting to contact him through military channels when she saw his obituary in the local paper. 

According to the letter she’d written me, Melissa hadn’t even known that Yancy was married until she read his death notice.  Evidently, the lying prick had told her he was very, very single the night they got together.  At any rate, it was because of the information in that obituary that Melissa was able to learn about both Truly and myself since Tru had, of course, been listed as Yancy’s widow.  Since I had delivered Yancy’s eulogy, the article had also mentioned that I was his best friend and Delta Force brother. 

Raised in the foster care system with no relatives, Melissa knew that her daughter would be an orphan unless she made other arrangements for her offspring.  Desperate to protect her unborn daughter, Melissa’s letter to me had gone on to state that it was at that point that she’d gotten a little desperate and hired a private detective to begin thoroughly researching both Truly and me.  After receiving a glowing report that deemed both Tru and I as remarkably good people, she’d gone ahead with her plan to make arrangements to formally entrust two people she’d never actually met with her single greatest achievement:  Liberty Belle Keats Evans.

I still wasn’t sure whether I was honored beyond comprehension or pissed as hell that a woman I’d never so much as smiled at had made me a father.

Truthfully, it was probably a blend of both.

Honestly, I think I was more angered by the fact that it was going to have to be me that hurt Truly Evans yet again when I informed her that her name, too, had been listed as Liberty’s other guardian.   I was still looking for the courage to perform that chore.  Especially since I’d spent the last several months trying to build a strong foundation of trust and friendship with the other woman.  Since Yancy died, I’d made sure to see Truly no less than once a week.  Whether I dragged her out for a quick meal at the local Chinese buffet or popped by her place to fix a leaky sink, I’d done my best to keep an eye on the gorgeous woman, privately hoping that one day, she might be ready for something more to develop between us. 

Did it break the bro code to lust after your late brother-in-arms’ wife?  Maybe.  Hell, not maybe.  The answer was probably.

Of course, Yancy had broken much more solemn vows first, so I wasn’t real concerned about how society perceived my actions any longer.

I wanted Truly.

And one day, I’d made up my mind that I’d have her as my own.

I just never imagined it would happen this way.

Because seriously, how the fuck was I supposed to waltz up to Yancy’s widow and inform her that her late husband’s former one-night-fuck  had not only gotten pregnant with his baby and carried it to term, but then gone and died afterward, leaving us to look after their kid?  Who the fuck even did that shit?  I felt like any second I was going to get dragged onto the set of the Jerry Springer Show.

Unfortunately, I was never gonna get the chance to question either Yancy or Melissa about what had motivated their choices.  There were both now dead and buried. 

All that remained of either of them was the little girl I held in my arms.

Precious little Liberty Belle.

But now Liberty had me in her corner, and by God, I’d move heaven or hell to make sure that she was safe and happy.  I’d already took the first steps toward creating a home for her.  This afternoon, I’d contacted one of my friends in the other Delta Force platoon, Cormac “Fletch” Fletcher and asked him if the house across the street from his was still for sale.  I’d heard Truly mention in passing how much she’d loved the place, and after driving by it myself, I’d decided it was the perfect place to build my family.  After Fletch shared that the place was, in fact, still on the market, I’d called the realtor and put in an offer I knew wouldn’t be refused.  Lucky for me, I’d squirreled away a good deal of money the last several years while I’d shared this apartment with Cag.  If the sale went through, my mortgage would be next to nothing with the down payment I’d offered to drop.  It would be worth every penny for the baby to have a real home to call her own and Truly to have the house she loved.

Yeah, I knew I was moving fast, but when that social services lady had put Liberty in my arms yesterday, I’d known right down to the marrow in my bones that I was meant to be her father.  But as gung ho as I was to be a dad to this kid, I still realized that Liberty needed a momma just as badly as a daddy.  And for some reason, Liberty’s birth mom had believed that mother should be Truly Evans… a choice I couldn’t have agreed more with even though I knew it would very likely initially hurt Tru.  Now, my most important job was to convince Truly that she needed to be a part of the family I was building, too.  I needed her to agree to be Liberty’s mother, but I also wouldn’t deny that I wanted my own personal connection with her, too.  Maybe wishing for a wife was crazy, but this whole situation was already nuts.

Based on Truly’s recent painful history, however, I knew I was gonna have my work cut out for me.  There was no telling how many hoops the wounded beauty would force me to jump through in order to prove that she was meant to be with us.

Glancing down at the now sleeping infant in my arms, I smiled.

“What your future momma doesn’t know is that I’ve got a secret weapon of my own to use, baby girl.  You.”