Page 4 of Shattered Wings

“I know this is hard on you, baby. Just remember that I love you and our girl. I’ll be back before you know it.” Even as he says this, he has that look in his eyes that I’ve never seen before. He’s scared.

“I love you too, Jax. I always have and I always will.” Jax leans over and presses a kiss on my forehead. His lips linger and he inhales as though he’s imprinting my smell to memory.

Jax slowly lets my hand go to open the car door. He heads over to Blakely’s door and takes her out while I get out and move to the trunk. I take Blake’s hand while Jax grabs his bags out of the trunk.

We walk over to a set of bleachers where tons of other family members are gathered. So many of them have tears streaming down their faces and children are inconsolable. This is nothing new for me, but it doesn’t hurt any less. It’s the life of a military wife. I’ll hold the tears in until I’m alone in bed tonight.

I see Lachlan off in the distance, surrounded by his bags. I didn’t know he was deploying with Jaxon. My heart stalls in my chest. Why didn’t anyone tell me? He looks up and sees us standing near the bleachers. Lachlan leaves his bags and walks over to us. I swear the man has swagger, and he doesn’t even have to try. As the years have gone by, he’s only gotten more beautiful. It seems like his whole body is covered with tattoos. Guess he accomplished that goal. As he get’s closer, I see that he’s got a clenched jaw, Lach looks fucking pissed, and I don’t know why. Animosity is coming off him in waves.

Trying to ease the tension, I approach him before he has a chance to speak. Wrapping my arms around him, I whisper, “I didn’t know you were deploying too. You should have told me.” I hate when he keeps things from me.

“I’m sorry, baby doll. There’s been a lot going on,” he whispers in my ear, pulling me in tighter. I do know that they have been out in the field training more than normal. But as always, I never ask Jax because I know he can’t tell me what’s going on.

“Please take care of yourself, Lach. Be safe and come back home. I need my best friend,” I say as I lean in and kiss his cheek.

“You know I’ll always come back to you, baby doll,” he says with a wink and a kiss on the cheek. His lips seem too linger a little longer than normal, too. Out of my peripheral, I can see Jax and he looks angry, his jaw tensing and fists clenched at his sides. Is he jealous? What the hell does he have to be jealous about? These two have been friends for the longest time.

Pulling away, he walks over to Blake, tossing her in the air. She squeals. I love seeing them together. And Lach loves Blake so much. “I’ll see you soon, pretty girl. Be good for your Mama while me and your daddy are gone,” pulling her in, he gives her a big hug.

“I aways a good girl unka rock.” This girl! She gives him a smile that always seems to melt hearts. And the way she says his name is the sweetest. She has that man wrapped around her finger.

“You ready to get this shit show over with, Jax?” Something is definitely going on with these two. Jax just gives him a slight nod as he scoops Blake up in his arms.

“I love you, Blakely Boo. Be sweet while Daddy is gone. I’ll be back soon.” You can tell that he’s choking back emotions by the sound of his voice. Damn, my heart is breaking even more.

Dragging this shit on and on makes things even harder. “Come give me some love, baby.” Jax pulls me into his chest, crushing his lips to mine. It’s an all consuming kind of kiss. The kind that takes your breath away, makes you see fucking stars. The kind that makes you feel like the sun rises and sets with you. When he pulls back, I’m breathless, and my chest is heaving. Why, Jax, why have you hurt me so badly and why are you acting like this after treating me like shit for years? Why couldn’t you have done this a hell of a lot sooner?

“I don’t want to be without you, Jax. I get it, though. You know I’ll always stand by your side and I’ll be right here waiting for you to come home to us. I love you, Jax.”

With one last kiss and an “I love you, baby,” they were off. Lach turns around and gives me a wink right before they step up onto the bus that will take them over to the planes. Not once does Jax turn back around after walking away. Meanwhile, my heart breaks into a million little pieces.

Illiana

(PAST - FIVE MONTHS INTO DEPLOYMENT)

It’s always a clusterfuck when Jax deploys. The week before last, the washing machine quit working. While heading into town early today, I ended up with a flat tire. When it rains, it fucking pours. I swear, my luck can’t get any worse. Blake and I got to talk to Jax before we left, and that’ll probably be the highlight of my day. At least it won’t be much longer until he gets back home. During our talks, he seems like a totally different man. It’s thrown me off a bit. He hasn’t been all distracted and disconnected, which I’m grateful for. I hope that when he returns, we’ll get to work on our relationship, like he said before he left. As long as we’re both honest with each other, I know that we can make it work. I want to make it work for myself as well as for our daughter.

So here I am, sitting at the tire shop. Blake is preoccupied with her tablet while I’m scrolling social media. TikTok didn’t do the trick, so now I’m on MyBook, seeing what my family and friends are doing. I love checking in on them. It always brings a smile to my face, knowing that they are all happy and healthy.

People you may know pops up and I see Jaxon’s profile. That’s weird. We are already friends, so it should not be showing up as people you may know. Clicking on the profile, I see that we are, in fact, not friends. What the hell is this? Taking a closer look, I see that this isn’t his regular profile at all. None of our friends and family are friends with this profile. Why would Jax have a second profile? It makes no sense at all and I’m trying not to internally freak the fuck out. Maybe someone made a fake profile with all of his information. I’ve seen it happen one too many times. So that’s a definite possibility.

The mechanic brings me out of my thoughts. “Ma’am, your car is ready. Come on up to the register and I’ll cash you out. I need to talk to you as well.” From the tone in his voice, you can tell he means business.

Taking my time to gather my thoughts, I follow the guy up to pay.

“Be careful out there. It looks like someone purposely slit your tire. The hole wasn’t huge, but if you had been going down the I10 interstate, it could have been really dangerous for you and your little lady.” Slit tire? Who the hell would have slit my tire?

“Thank you, sir. I’ll make sure to keep an eye on things. It makes no sense that someone would slit my tire.” My thoughts are going fifty miles a minute right now. Someone slit my fucking tire and my baby girl was in the car with me. Let’s not forget that Jax has another MyBook profile, too. It seems like my world is spiraling out of control today and there’s no end in sight.

Grabbing the keys off the counter, I pick up Blake and all of our belongings. Then I’m out the door. It feels like ants are crawling all over my body, the hair at my nape stands on end. Now I can’t shake the feeling that someone is watching me. I’ve never intentionally hurt anyone. Who would want to hurt me, let alone an innocent child? I’ve got to be missing something here. Nothing is making sense. Deciding to forgo grocery shopping, I head in the direction of my house. Fuck being outside. I’ll get groceries delivered. Now I don’t feel safe. I feel like Blake's safety is in jeopardy and that’s something that I cannot accept.

As I pull into the driveway, some of the tension eases from my shoulders. Usually I’d just park in the driveway, but that’s not happening now. Pressing the button for the garage, after it lifts, I pull in, parking next to Jaxon’s truck. I wish that he was home. I’d take Lach too. One of them would know what to do. I’m just at a loss right now.

Once we’re out of the car, we head into the house. The alarm is set, and we’re settled in, I pull up the app to order groceries. Blake is already sitting on the floor playing with her tablet so she’ll be occupied for a bit. Don’t forget the milk, Lia. It takes me less than five minutes to order everything that we will need for the week. Then I place my phone on the coffee table. There’s no reason to make huge meals because it’s just the two of us. MyBook, Lia. Check out MyBook. In my frazzled state, I almost forgot.

Picking my phone back up, I open the MyBook app. Clicking on the profile I found earlier, I go through everything that I already went through at the tire shop. What I’m seeing really makes no sense. Honestly, It’s confusing as fuck.

“Blake, mommy will be right back, so keep playing on your tablet for a bit. Mommy has to go into the other room for a few minutes.” She’s a good girl, so I know she’ll listen to me.

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