Resilient Love (Navy Love Series Book 3) (16 page)

Sawyer chooses that moment to come running at full speed into my legs, wrapping her petite little arms around thick thighs to the best of her ability. I squat down and place a kiss to her forehead.

“Did you pix JoJo?” she whisper-yells by my ear.

“I think I did, baby girl. Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

Both of our heads tilt up to see Jo watching our private exchange from across the room.

“JoJo!” Sawyer squeals as she runs to Jo’s arms at the same time a stunning smile graces Jo’s face as she leans down waiting for the impact of the small child.

“Hey sweetie, I missed you!”

“I missed you, too.”

Trying to give Jo and Sawyer a little bit of privacy, I take in the room around me.

There are two saucer lookin’ chairs set up in the middle of the living room where Parker and Madison are both watching all of us adults. Once I spot the twins, my eyes find Jo, who seems like she’s been looking everywhere but at the two little smiley babies since Sawyer left her embrace.

Hunter walks over and expertly picks up Parker, who has started to whine, places him on one hip and somehow manages to pick up the smiling Madison, too. He brings them over and hands Madison to Tess so that he can go make them both a bottle of formula. I see Jo’s shoulders slightly tense up as she watches Madison’s every move. With a small nod, I silently tell her to come to me.

Jo comes to stand beside me and I immediately wrap my arm possessively around her waist. I swear all eyes go to my hand then up to our faces, awaiting some sort of explanation.

“You okay?” I whisper in her ear for only us to hear.

She nods and gently elbows me in the stomach, causing me to look up and see the audience our small show of affection has attracted.

“Oh so,” Jo says with a fake laugh, stalling until Hunter rejoins us with two bottles in his hand, “Yeah...Umm, we kind of got married.”

She holds her hand up, showing off her diamond ring and everyone, with the exception of Reed, instantly swarms us both, giving us their congrats and another round of hugging ensues.

“Oh my God!” Tessa yells. “So this happened after we facetimed when y’all were in Vegas?” Jo’s head bounces up and down. “And you didn’t tell me? What the hell, Jo!”

“I didn’t know! He sprung it on me shortly after we got off the phone with you!”

“Shit, I gotta go finish dinner,” Tegan says. “Come in the kitchen, I wanna hear all the details!”

I hold my hands out and take Madison from Tess so she can help with dinner and go sit on the couch. Hunter, Marshall, and Reed all join me on the couch to watch the Rangers kick the Tiger’s asses. Every few minutes, usually when Reed whines, Tegan pops in to brag about her team being better than his.

Although I’m not sure what the hell I’m doing, I do manage to feed Madison her entire bottle. Granted she held it herself, so all I did was act as a recliner for her, but I still fed a baby with no help.

After twenty minutes, both of the twins are catnapping on a pallet of blankets on the floor, and we’re all seated with plates when more questioning begins.

“So, I know this is probably a sore subject,” Marsh starts off, “but you wanna fill us in on why you’ve been so distant with all of us lately?”

Jo takes a deep breath and I place my hand over hers, silently offering support.

“I don’t want to go into too many details, but I do owe all of you an explanation,” she looks directly at Tess, “especially you, T.”

Everyone stops eating and waits with anticipation for her reasoning.

“I, uh, well, I got pregnant back in October. I lost the baby a few days before Thanksgiving. Please know that my backing away from everyone wasn’t intentional, it was just so hard to see you,” she looks at Tessa, “happy and pregnant knowing that I lost that for myself. And for everyone else, well, to be completely blunt, I figured J.C. would tell you what happened and no one would care to speak to me, so I was trying to save myself from having to retell the story of what happened and from the heartbreak of everyone abandoning me.”

Everyone sits stunned.

“Why would you think that we would abandon or hate you? It’s not like you purposely caused the miscarriage,” Marsh inquires.

“Actually,” I speak up, “that would be the result of how I handled the situation. When Jo told me what happened, I freaked out and did just what she said; I went off on her and then ran away from all of the problems when I volunteered for that deployment.”

Tegan makes a small gasp. “That’s why you volunteered to go?”

I shamefully nod my head.

“I fucked up, and thank the Lord, Jo is giving me another chance. So, I decided to start off on the right foot this time.” I look at my wife and smile, “No more hiding, no more pretending. I’m head over heels in love with this woman; marrying her was the first smart decision I’ve made in a long time.”

She smiles sweetly at me, and I can’t help it, I proudly lean over and fuse my lips with my wife’s, right in front of all of our friends.

Jo

We’re all sitting in the living room after dinner while Tess and Marshall clean up the mess in the kitchen. Hunter is setting up a movie for Sawyer in her room; she wanted some ‘space’ from the twins for a little bit.

Her word, not mine.

For a five-year-old, the girl knows what she wants. Gotta give her credit there.

J.C. is sitting next to me with Parker in his lap, both of them zoned into the baseball game. And Tegan and Reed are lying on the floor, his head propped up by a throw pillow, hers resting on his stomach with sweet Madison leaning back on Tegan’s bent knees as she enthusiastically watches her aunt and Reed coo and aww at her.

Even though I still feel slightly awkward around my friend’s babies, now that my confession about the miscarriage and my reasoning for my hesitancy towards being around them is out, I feel like a burden has been lifted and I no longer feel the urgency to run away from them.

Instead, my former instincts of wanting to cuddle and love them all come to the forefront of my mind. I nonchalantly begin gently running my hand along the back of Parker’s head; I smile at his little roll back there.

Of course, J.C. is so in tune with my feelings before I am, with no prompting or words exchanged, he slides Parker back and into my lap. My immediate reaction is of course to wrap my arm around him and get he and I both comfortable with his new seat.

I feel eyes on me and see that my husband is watching with mirth in his eyes.

“What?”

He leans closer and places a kiss to the top of my shoulder and allows his mouth to stay there.

I don’t think he has any intention of answering my question but he finally does.

“You’re so good with him,” he says causing me to smile.

“It’s not like I’ve had a hard time just yet; I’m holding him while he chews on a toy. It isn’t rocket science.”

I look over when he doesn’t say anything back and see him studying me. My eyes widen in an unspoken question.

“I’m proud of you, darlin’.” I shrug, waiting for him to elaborate. “I figured if we announced the marriage tonight, that would be it. You handled that and the miscarriage very well.”

The sweet chunky guy on my lap continues to chew on his teething toy and drool, completely oblivious to the thoughts and emotions holding him is bringing out in me.

Again I shrug, unsure how to respond to his praise.

It was time to stop hiding; Chaplain Ashby has mentioned during multiple visits that I should come clean about the miscarriage to everyone, that it would lift a huge burden off my shoulders and allow me to move on better than any other type of therapy or healing would.

“Hey, once everything settles down around here, with all of this,” I wag my third finger indicating our unplanned marriage, “would you be willing to go see the Chaplain with me? I think it would help us put some final closure on a lot of our past issues.”

J.C. doesn’t hesitate at all in his response, “Absolutely.”

His attention focuses on Parker who’s started jabbering at us from around the toy still wedged in his mouth.

“Huh, buddy, you like Aunt Joey?” He gurgles and smiles at J.C. “Yeah, I think she’s pretty great too.” He looks back me and our eyes lock, allowing him to see all of the insecurities and deep hopes and desires in mine. “You're going to make a great mom for our kids one day, Joey.”

My eyes go to Parker as I think over him referring to me as Joey. My mom and brothers are the only people who have ever called me by the childhood nickname. Joseph actually is the one who gave it to me shortly after I was born.

Everyone was determined I would be a third boy to complete the Fuentes family. Miguel and Joseph fought like crazy over whether I would be a girl or boy. Joseph was adamant that I was a boy, so when I came out as a Joanna instead of Jonas, he dubbed me with the nickname of Joey.

“What is that look for?” J.C. asks.

“It's weird to hear you call me Joey, that's all.”

“You don't like it?”

“I don't know. I love Darlin’, but Joey is nice to hear from you, too.”

He wraps an arm around my shoulder and plants a small peck to my forehead.

“You'll always be my Darlin’, but occasionally you can be my Joey, too.” He shoots me a wink.

“So,” Tessa speaks up, breaking up our private moment, “How’s work going to take this?” she nods to our intimate gesture and dread immediately settles in the center of my stomach.

Work could very well be in issue. We work in the same shop at the command, and while both of us are up for transfers soon, our marriage could get us into some hot water if our Chain of Command wants to claim we broke the fraternization policy.

Our only saving grace is that neither of us are Lead Petty Officers over the shop or in any kind of supervisor position over the other. However, we can still both get into trouble over this.

“There’s nothing to worry about with that,” J.C. confidently states.

I give him a bewildered look. “How do you figure that?” My question comes out defensively and much harsher than I anticipated.

Again, he winks and flashes that smirk of his. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”

Glancing over at Tessa, I see that she shares my baffled expression. With a shrug of my shoulders, I convince my mind to trust J.C. and allow him to handle the situation.

A little while later, when we climb into J.C.’s truck, I’m not the least bit surprised when he turns the ignition then sits and waits for me to acknowledge him.

Our eyes lock and I see yearning in his. The temperature in the truck immediately increases a few degrees and sexual tension flows freely through the small cab.

“Tell me you want me to go to your apartment.”

“If you want to, yes.”

“That’s not what I said, Darlin’. Do you want me there?”

My head bounces up and down in response. “Of course I want you there.”

Honestly, the thought of not having J.C. with me now could easily be the start of my undoing. He’s like a drug for me, one I’ve relapsed on over the past couple weeks and now know I need every day in order to function.

With one curt nod, he unexpectedly lunges across the center console, pulls me by the back of my neck to meet his eager lips in a heated, steamy kiss. His tongue doesn’t wait for permission to enter my mouth, it simply pushes its way in. One of his hands threads through my hair and holds my head in place as the other clasps onto my chin, tilting my mouth the way he wants. Stupefied by this reaction, I do my best to hold on and embrace this frantic side of my husband. My hands cling to his forearms slightly above the bend of his elbows, grasping his large biceps, as I take, and fully enjoy, his oral assault.

We pull apart, both breathless and turned on more than we already were.

“What the hell was that about?” I ask through a pant.

“I fuckin’ love you. And hearing you say you want me in your apartment tonight just does uncontrollable things to me.” He puts the gear shift in reverse, backs out of the parking spot and hauls ass towards my apartment.

“Well, we’re married now. We’re supposed to live together, aren’t we?”

He gives a smirk but doesn’t respond.

Within what seems like minutes, he’s steered the truck into a parking spot in my complex, tosses it in park and shifts his body to look at me.

“I hope you realize that once I get in there, I’m not leaving.”

I nod.

“I’m serious, Jo. We’re married and I want this to work, all of it. I want everything you’ve got. I want your good days and your bad ones. I want the burnt dinners and long night talks; the cuddling up for movies on the couch and the passionate nights together; the walks with Chachi and gym trips together.” He brushes a strand of hair out of my face. “I want it all, darlin’. I wanna be the shoulder you cry on, your confidante, your best friend and your lover. I. Want. Everything.”

A slight smile appears on my lips. I love when J.C. is passionate about something; his Southern comes out so much stronger in those times and it makes me fall a little bit harder that this confession of his was stated with that accent I love so much.