When you immersed yourself in a depraved underworld where violent men committed ruthless atrocities before their morning coffee, there was bound to come a day when the lines blurred. When you took a good look in the mirror and realized the hardened, bearded man staring back at you was as savage as the adversary you were trying to eradicate.
And that was the day you either started planning an exit strategy or you started sliding into stark raving madness.
If you were lucky, the urge to beat feet back to civilian life hit you before the crazy did.
If you were lucky and good, you actually stayed alive long enough to see your plan through—no easy feat when the average life expectancy while in combat was roughly seven and a half minutes.
Ash was lucky. He’d seen the crazy coming. His contract expired in ten months, and when it did, he was flashing The Unit a big, fat Peace Out sign. There was still a long, IED-filled road to go, but waiting at the end would be his girls. His world.
Liv and his baby daughter.
Currently copping a squat at Rocket City, a base infamous for taking a ton of incoming, his team was prepping for their next mission to Nigeria and enjoying all the Afghani Tourism Association had to offer before their transport flight. The Taliban’s spring offensive had kicked off earlier in the week and rocket attacks were up all over the country. Tin Man likened getting hit by a rocket to winning the lottery—except the exact opposite. Ash agreed. The sirens, an old-school alarm reminiscent of the mushroom cloud days, had been silent for the last half hour, but indirect fire sounded in the distance. More often than not, the rockets proved ineffective, but one golden BB could change your opinion real quick.
Liv didn’t know about his decision to retire. A bullet, a bomb, or a fluke helicopter malfunction could earn him an early retirement party with a body bag as a parting gift. A cartwheeling piece of shrapnel could slice his carotid, shooting blood and his future all to hell. It was better to surprise her once his odds of survival ticked upward a bit.
The grim reaper was lurking, and now more than ever, he felt it breathing down his neck.
“Let’s name our baby, Liv.” Static crackled across the line when she answered on the first ring, Ash speaking without preamble.
It was his first call home in three hellish weeks.
“Ash?” Her voice echoed, the sweet southern accent a balm to his blackened soul. “Are you okay? I can barely hear you.”
“I’m here, Livvy. I’m here.” In this godforsaken wasteland, worlds apart from the woman he loved.
“Where is here? Jupiter? It sounds like you’re on another planet.”
“I’m far away, darlin’. Too far. Let’s name our girl.”
“Are you really okay?” She hesitated, sensing his mood. “What’s going on? Are you in danger? Tell me the truth, Ash.”
Yeah. He was surrounded by danger. Even a shitty phone connection couldn’t mask that. But the bone-deep weariness in his voice is what gave him away.
In theory, she wanted the truth. In reality, she was better off not knowing. Anytime a compromising noise made it through the phone, he was quick to explain it away and even quicker to end the call. No, that’s not machine gun fire, just a jackhammer. No, those aren’t grenades, just engineers detonating old munitions.
Liv was smart, though. Catching on to his game, he’d resorted to a simpler lie. Training exercises.
“I—I need to know her name. I need to know she’s real.” In case I never meet her.
“Oh, she’s real all right. I have a forty-two-inch waist to prove it. Marshall told me I was wider than one of his Bordeaux barrels, then gave me a raise when I sobbed uncontrollably. You’ve been getting my texts and photos, right?”
“Yeah. Flip through them a hundred times a day, too.” He’d been home only once during her pregnancy, at the twelve-week mark. She’d been sending him full-body selfies every Wednesday since. The caption always the same.
Happy Bump Day, Daddy! We Miss You. Come Home Soon.
Ash scrolled through the slideshow constantly, monitoring the progression of her pregnancy the only way possible. Digitally. His discontent with The Unit was growing at the same rate as her belly.
“You look beautiful. All soft and lush and womanly.” He wasn’t spouting fluff to make her feel better. She was straight-up fucking lovely, and he ached with the need to touch her. “And yeah, you could be mistaken for a thief shoplifting a basketball, but so what. You look damn hot, and if anybody says otherwise, I’ll kill them.”
There was no humor in his voice. He wasn’t joking.
“Only two more weeks to go,” she said in a wondrous voice, ignoring his threat. “Soon I’ll see my feet again. And my husband, too. You’re gonna be home in time, right?”
He hesitated, knowing the truth would do more harm than the lie. “Right.”
He’d promised her he’d be there. And he’d tried like hell to make it happen, too. But radical insurgents didn’t table their reign of terror for the birth of a baby, nor was The Unit too keen on their operators taking paternity leave in the middle of a war. Country before family.
His request had been denied. His wife didn’t know it yet.
This lie, like all the other white lies, was for her protection. Preserving her state of mind.
“We need to assign a name to our little tax deduction,” he said, circling back to the reason for his impromptu call when he should be running mission drills.
“Well, I have been making a list.”
Of course, she had. Liv was the most organized person he knew. And he wasn’t talking clean and tidy, organized. He was talking forward facing labels on all the canned goods, tall in back, short in front, alphabetized for quick selection. She had a mental inventory of every item in the condo, including their coordinates. He’d once asked her where the peanut butter was. Her answer from two rooms away? Kitchen pantry, right side, second shelf down, two o’clock.
Bingo. She’d been spot-on.
Reading his mind, she laughed. “There’s a human being doing a kickboxing routine in my stomach, Ash. An actual person that stores sell clothes for. It’s hard to concentrate on anything else. Unless it’s food. I have a raging addiction to apple juice and chicken wings. At the same time.”
Her euphoria was palpable. Getting pregnant hadn’t been easy. They’d been actively trying since their honeymoon in Maui, but it was a full year into their marriage before she’d called him a month after a memorable trip home, screaming with excitement.
“I’m pregnant!” He’d just come off a two-day firefight in southeast Pakistan and the joyous words were so foreign after the nonstop, horrific violence, it took him a full minute to process them. “Ash? Are you happy about this?”
“I’m happy, Livvy. So happy.” Laughing with her, he’d filed the bloody images from the busted mission to the back of his brain. “And good news on top of great, we’ll have a nice little tax deduction now. I give the government a damn lot of myself. They can give me a little bit back every year.”
Some parents called their unborn baby sprout or bean, but not Ash and Liv. They were the epitome of a career-driven, fiscally-responsible power couple. The nickname stuck.
“I was thinking maybe Mercedes,” she said now, her words fading in and out with the bad connection. “Or Crystal. Then she’ll have her stripper name if she needs to earn some extra cash during those lean college years. Or if she becomes a porn star. Macy says even the ugly girls can make good money if they’re willing to do anal.”
“Over my cold, dead body, Olivia.” But her joke made him grin for the first time in weeks.
She laughed. “That’s better.”
“What’s better?”
“I can hear you smiling now. It’s better than what I heard before. Stress and worry,” she answered, before he could ask. “And something else. You say you’re okay, but I know you’re lying. Come home. Let me love you until you’re better. Or until your baby starts crying.”
“Yes, but what will that crying baby’s name be?”
“Geez, here you go again with the name thing. Okay, let’s get serious. How about Minnie?”
He paused, waiting for the punchline. “As in… mouse?”
“As in, my great-grandmother on my father’s side,” she emphasized. “She hid the family jewels from the Yankees under her saggy breasts.”
While he searched for a tactful way to tell her there was no way in hell they were naming their daughter after a cartoon character or a Rebel sympathizer, she took mercy on him.
“Oh, wait. I have another one you might like better.” He pictured her scanning the list. “Cricket. Isn’t it cute? I like it.”
“First a rodent, now an insect. Can we move out of the animal kingdom and into something more human? And normal?”
“If you say Ruth or Dorothy, I swear to God, I’m hanging up on you.”
“Grace.”
Consumed with covert raids under the cover of darkness, his nights were occupied with both real-life monsters and the kind his mind conjured up in fitful sleep. The traditional name had come to him in a rare, wonderful dream.
“Wow.” Static filled the line. “You’ve thought this through.”
And now he just felt silly. He knew jack shit about girl babies anyway. Fuck, he knew jack shit about boy babies. He should stick to counterterrorism and modern warfare, and let Liv make all the child-related decisions.
“If you like Cricket, I could get used to it.”
“You’re running a scam, you know. You act all macho, wanting everybody to think you’re this big, badass soldier. But deep down you’re a marshmallow. A softy with a heart of gold and a panty-dropping smile.”
“I haven’t seen you in months, darlin’. All I can think about is you, buck naked and soaking wet, riding me with wild abandon. Trust me when I say, there’s not a damn thing soft about me right now.”
Her sexy laugh didn’t help his condition. Nine months pregnant, and she still made him rock-hard and horny. He was an animal.
“Okay, then. Our baby’s name is decided.” Her voice brooked no argument. “I love it, and I love you.”
“Love you, too, Livvy. So goddamn much. And our baby.” Cricket. Good Lord.
“Great. So if you don’t mind, little Gracie Coleson wants her daddy to come home tomorrow, if not sooner. The doctor says I can go into labor anytime. Can you catch a flight out yet today?”
Gracie Coleson. Grinning like a schmuck and on the verge of tears, he looked around to make sure nobody noticed. Christ, he was exhausted. And homesick.
“Soon. Not today or tomorrow, but as soon as I can.” Raiding a Nigerian village housing several Islamic extremists was penciled into his calendar this week. He and his team were rolling out of Rocket City just before dawn.
“Please, Ash. I can’t do this alone. I can’t go through childbirth without you. I need you.”
The fragile plea pierced his heart, and for the first time in the entirety of their marriage, he realized she actually did need him.
Not to pay the monthly bills, or fix the leaky faucet in the bathroom, or change the oil in her car. When his teammates asked him how an operator at the top of his game managed to stay happily married, his answer was simple. Because his wife was a seductive blend of Miss July and Miss Independent. Like him, she had a thriving career. She was creating a name for herself in the wine industry while he was half a globe away, fighting a war on terror. Meshing their lives together, they’d managed to build a strong marriage.
Sure, they had their battles. It wasn’t a perfect union. Liv made no bones about her jealousy of The Unit and the hold they had over him. Ash made clear his animosity regarding the cozy working relationship she and Marshall shared. On several occasions, he’d alternately asked, then demanded she resign her position from Coleson Creek, cutting ties with his father for good. She’d refuse. They’d argue. He’d concede.
It was their only hot button issue, reluctantly agreeing to disagree.
“You can do this, Liv. You’re the strongest, bravest woman I know. You swam with sharks in South Africa,” he reminded her, recalling their rare, adventurous getaways. “You jumped off a sixty-foot cliff into a lagoon in Malta. I’ve seen you go toe to toe with a soccer mom over the last Easter ham in the meat case, and you know what? We ate the hell out of that motherfucking ham and reveled in your victory. You’re a lean, mean, chicken-wing-eating machine. Having a baby is a cake walk for you.”
“Oh, great, now I want cake,” she fired back, her voice watery. Crying wasn’t her style, and he knew the tears made her mad. “And I’m so brave, Macy had to spend the night with me after we watched The Exorcist. I made her sleep in our bed with me—with the lights on. I spooned with my cousin because I’m so brave.”
“Last week the guys punked me.” This confession would knock him down a notch on the manly meter. “They put a huge camel spider in my pack. I screamed, Liv.”
“You did?” Her enthusiasm was emasculating.
“Like a little bitch.” True story. And true love was admitting weakness to make your heavily pregnant wife feel better. “And then I knifed that fucker into pieces so he and his furry friends would know who was boss.”
She made an appreciative sound, and he grinned. His knife skills impressed both men and women alike.
“Promise me, Ash. Promise you’ll come home to see our baby born. You need to assemble her crib, too. It’s still in a box on the nursery floor.”
“I’ll come home.” The evasive answer was the best he could do.
He’d call Benny later, ask him to stop by the condo and assemble his daughter’s bed before her arrival. Liv had narrowed down the selections and emailed him her choices, asking him to look over the specifications and pick the one he preferred. He hadn’t looked at them. He’d sent her a quick text, telling her the first option was fine, that it looked like the Cadillac of cribs, and returned his focus to the mission at hand.
And now another man would put that crib together.
His daughter wasn’t even born yet and he was already failing as a father. Visions of Gracie Coleson’s fatherless, porn-star-destined life flashed before his eyes, and he fought the urge to puke.
“Promise me you’ll hold our baby in your arms,” Liv said, reeling him back in. “Preferably before she starts kindergarten.”
Ten months to retirement. To being a full-time husband and a hands-on father, instead of a half-assed, part-timer from the other end of a shitty cell phone connection.
This was one promise he would fulfill. “I promise, Liv. I’ll be one of those annoying airplane dads.”
Her laughter was musical, a song for his troubled soul. “Helicopter.”
“Right. I’ll be a goddamn Apache attack helicopter when it comes to my kid. I’m gonna hold her in my arms until she’s eighteen and joins a convent or marries a gay guy.”
The booming sound of mortar rounds echoed in the distance, followed by the rapid pop-pop-popping of gunfire.
“What was that?” Panic laced her voice. “Are those guns? Something just exploded, didn’t it? Ash?”
The work phone he palmed in his free hand vibrated, an emergency call he couldn’t dismiss.
“Training exercises, darlin’. Nothing to worry about. I gotta go, okay? But I promise you, Liv. I’ll hold her. You trust me, right? Trust me on this. I will hold our baby. I will.”
Seconds later, he answered his work phone while sprinting to meet his team, his wife and unborn child already shuffled to the back of his mind.
Asher Coleson had made the vow with supreme confidence.
He was a professional soldier. A resilient warrior. Well-seasoned, well-conditioned, and well-disciplined. He’d once been dropped into the middle of a parched desert and left to find his own way out or die trying. No food, no water, no map or weapons. Nothing. Just the clothes on his back, his brawn, and his brain. He’d done that, and he’d do this. He’d get home to hold his brand-new baby girl as promised.
Only he didn’t. He broke that promise.
And as a result, another vow was realized far sooner than either of them ever anticipated. One they swore under oath to a minister, to God, and to each other. For better or worse. In sickness and health. As long as they both lived.
Or until death did them part.