Chapter 24

Bitches love a man in uniform.

-Reed to Krisney, the day she finds out about his deployment

Reed

The thing about the Reserves is you never know when you’ll be called. You never know when your services will be needed.

Lord knows, if my moral code had allowed it, it wouldn’t have been three days after my sons were released from the NICU. And it wouldn’t have been ten minutes after I was married.

No, it wouldn’t have been then, because I was so fuckin’ happy I could burst. I wanted to be able to stay here, in my new life, and memorize every single moment.

What I didn’t want to do was take over for a doctor that was stationed in fuckin’ Germany. The one that I’d been temporarily filling in for when I was there when all of this had started with Krisney and me.

Yet, I couldn’t sit well with myself if I didn’t help.

I only said, ‘Yes, sir.’

My phone had rung ten minutes after saying ‘I do.’

Thinking that it was the call center telling me a woman was in labor, I answered it, intending to tell the attendant that Torres was on call for me today.

What I got instead was a man telling me that I was being summoned to take over for a doctor that had been hurt in the line of duty.

“When?” I asked, praying I’d at least get today.

“One week to get your affairs in order,” the man on the other end of the line said. “The doc is really hurt. There’s no way he’s finishing his stint. The next doctor has to close down his practice and was given three months to do so, so you’ll be covering for him until he can get over here.”

Fuck.

I nodded. “Okay. I’ll get ready to go. What time does transport leave?”

“0400 hours on the twenty-second.”

Fuck.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

He hung up, and I looked at the closed bedroom door that I’d been standing in front of to take the call.

Fuck.

I shoved the phone back into my pocket and returned to the party, a little less excitement in my step than there had been on my way into the room.

I found my wife in the bedroom with our children.

“Do you like it in here?” I questioned softly from the doorway.

Krisney turned tear-filled eyes toward me. “I love it. I can’t believe this was what you’d been doing for these last few months.”

She hastily swiped her eyes, and I walked further into the room, wrapping my arms around her.

“I wanted it to be perfect,” I whispered. “I wanted it to be everything we’d always wanted.”

“It is.” She sniffled, burying her face between my pectorals. “It’s everything I ever wanted.”

I squeezed her a little bit tighter.

It’d officially been ten weeks since the boys were born. Ten weeks since both of us had had our operations to save Krisney’s life. Ten weeks of praying, loving and relearning everything there was to know about each other.

I’d had my brothers show her the house an hour before the ceremony started.

And five minutes after the ceremony was supposed to begin, I’d had to go find her, knowing that she was overwhelmed.

I hadn’t been wrong.

She’d started crying harder the moment she saw me, and then accused me of trying to make her look splotchy in all of her wedding photos.

I hadn’t, but I’d shouldered that blame.

Then I’d picked her up and circled around the outside of the house, dropping her at the end of the stupid black rug that doubled as our faux ‘aisle.’

Once my brother, Dante, had her by the arm and settled her, I made my way to the altar and waited for her.

She didn’t wait for the music at all. She just hurried toward me, threw her arms around me, and told me she loved me before the opening notes of the wedding march even started.

We were laughing, and she was crying, as Dante just shook his head and made his way to the seat that was saved for him beside my other brother, Baylor, and his wife.

Ten minutes after that, we were husband and wife, and I was kissing the living hell out of her.

Minutes after that, I’d received my phone call and had excused myself.

Which led us to now.

“I can’t believe you were able to get all this done.” She shook her head. “Reed, this place was crazy bad.”

I grinned.

“It was,” I agreed. “But I had my brothers helping me, as well as some surprise help from the other men who work for Travis. Did you know that Rafe was once a home inspector for six months?”

She shook her head. “That man is a Jack of all trades.”

He was.

She ran her hand over the mobile over Baxter’s bed, and grinned as she reached forward and picked something up.

“What’s this?”

“A baby monitor called the ‘Owlet,’” I said. “When they get off their machines, they’ll graduate to that. We can never be too safe with them.”

It was a monitor that measured the heartbeat of the baby. If the heartbeat slowed too low, then the alarm would sound on my phone, alerting me to a potential problem. Likely I was being a little too paranoid, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.

“I like it,” she murmured, her eyes turning up to meet mine. “I love you, Reed Husband.”

I chuckled. “I love you, too, Krisney Wife.”

***

It was over six hours later when the last guest finally left, leaving us alone in our newly-refurbished house, on our wedding day.

I was glad for them to be gone, but I was scared to death to tell Krisney after everything that had happened, when we were finally all together, I was given orders to leave.

God, there was nothing in the world that I wanted to do more than be there with my family, but I’d made a commitment, and if there was anyone in this world who would understand that, it was Krisney.

After stripping off my clothes, I took a few moments to collect myself.

Once done, I got up and made my way to the bathroom, brushing my teeth and somewhat trying to contain my hair, before I gave up.

Walking into the kitchen, I looked around and smiled when I saw the mess of bottles, food from last night’s rushed dinner, and my scrubs folded neatly on the countertop inches away from a pot containing leftover spaghetti sauce.

Shaking my head, I bypassed the mess and walked into the living room, smiling when I saw my three favorite people on the couch.

Krisney was on the middle couch cushion, her body scrunched forward so the majority of it was lying on the ottoman that was shoved up next to the couch. Both babies were on either side of her in a football hold, feeding each baby from a bottle.

Krisney originally wanted to try to breastfeed, but with the anti-rejection medications she was on for the donor liver and kidney, she hadn’t been able to do so.

Now, the boys were completely on donor milk from a multitude of sources, a vast majority of those being from my brothers’ wives.

“Babe?”

I looked up from my boys to my wife.

“I need to talk to you.” I sighed.

She frowned. “Is it about that phone call you didn’t want me to overhear?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah.”

“We should probably put some sort of soundproofing in the walls for later on.” She grinned, but it quickly fell. “When do you leave?”

“The twenty-second.”

She sighed. “Dammit.”

I walked around and sat on the ottoman. “My thoughts exactly.”

***

One week later

I shouldered my bag and looked down at my little family.

The rest of my family was standing off in the distance, watching me say goodbye to Krisney and our kids without interrupting.

“Baby?”

I grinned down at Kris.

“Yeah, honey?”

“Are you okay?”

I nodded, suddenly nervous.

“I have something to tell you before I go.”

Her eyes suddenly took on a shade of nervousness.

“Do you…”

I shook my head and pulled her in closer to me. I knew what she was thinking. She thought that I was saying a ‘just in case’ kind of thing. In case I died over there like the last doctor almost had.

I wouldn’t be doing that. I would be coming home.

“No, baby. That’s not what I was going to say.”

Relief flooded her tightly-strung body.

“Shit.”

I wrapped both arms around her, being mindful of the babies that I was somewhat squishing to get the hug, and pressed my lips to her forehead.

“I love you, Kris,” I told her. “I want you to think about something while I’m gone.”

Her head tilted up to allow our gazes to meet.

“What is that?”

I pulled back, then dropped my mouth to place on the baby’s forehead that was riding on the front left side of Kris’s body. Moments later, I moved to the one on the right.

Once I’d gotten a good inhale of their scents, and gave them one more kiss each, I pulled away, and reached for the box in my left front pocket.

“How much I love you.”

Her eyes went soft.

“I know that I’ve been an ass,” I said. “I know that I’ve done things, said things, that weren’t always right. But there was always one constant thing in all these years that’s separated us. When I get back, I want to have that honeymoon we always talked about. Until then, I want you to read the letters I write. I want you to remember that I love you with my whole heart, and there’s not one single thing that I regret about anything since we got back together. I’ve loved every single second of having you in my life, and I’m glad that I got to experience it with you.”

I reached for her hand and brought it to my mouth.

After placing a single chaste kiss on her hand, I turned and walked away.

I got all the way to the door that would lead me to the airplane that would be taking me half a world away from my little family when Kris called out, “I love you, too, Soldier Boy!”

The necklace I’d bought her dangled from her fingers. On it were three words in my messy doctor’s script: I love you.