Page 6 of Shielding Soledad

“I know that. Your temper’s as bad as his—but he’s a snake. He’ll hit you where it hurts.”

“Thanks for the warning.” I said goodbye to Travis and put my phone away. I’d suspected the issue with Bruce was far from over when I’d come home, but the call was a nasty reminder of the whole damn situation.

3

SOLEDAD

Ishut my laptop and looked out the front window of Alex’s house. Summer sunshine coated the lawn and the street. People ran, biked, and walked past, enjoying the day. Heck, even the cars looked happy to be glistening in the warmth. And I was stuck inside, as I had been far too much in the six weeks since Luke’s birth.

“Mama’s got the stir-crazies,” I murmured to Luke. After I fed him, he’d been content to be awake and look around, so I’d spread out the quilt on the living room floor and put him in the center.

Trying to combat my restlessness, I’d turned to a task that always made me happy: updating my blog about hot-air balloons. I’d been fascinated with them ever since I was a little girl and had gone with my mother to a festival. Even though I’d never been up in one and the thought of doing so made my knees shake and stomach roil, I tracked festivals and balloon races on my blog. One of my favorite parts of the blog was writing reviews of books that featured hot-air balloons. They showed up in books—both fiction and nonfiction—more often than people thought. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who found them fascinating.

Finding time to read the books, let alone blog about them, had been nearly impossible since Luke’s birth. I looked at my adorable boy. He was curling up his legs and working on getting his toes to his mouth. When I leaned over him, he stopped, blinking up at me with dark blue eyes just like his daddy’s.

“You’re going to be a heartbreaker, you know,” I said, making him smile. “Another thing you’ve got in common with your daddy.”

Luke was worth all the lost sleep and worry of the past weeks, but I still felt a bit like a caged animal. I needed to get outside, feel the breeze on my face and warmth on my shoulders. Maybe even stretch my legs. I’d done yoga nearly daily over the past month and felt my body was returning to its pre-baby shape, but I’d lost my endurance. Maybe a walk—a fast one—and if that went well, I could try running soon. Frankie could do with some exercise, too.

I found my sneakers and sunglasses, excited about the opportunity to go out on my own.

“Come on, baby,” I said to Luke as I leaned down to scoop him up. “Let’s go find your daddy.”

I had no qualms about leaving Luke with Alex. For a man wary of commitments, he’d shown himself to be dedicated to fatherhood, even in the tough moments. A few nights before, Luke hadn’t been able to settle. Alex had patiently walked the floor with him for hours, insisting that I get some rest. I’d found them the next morning, Luke in his crib and Alex asleep on the floor next to it. I’d tiptoed out of the nursery smiling, absolutely joyful at how father and son had bonded. Truth be told, I felt a connection to Alex, too—even stronger than the one we’d shared while dating, and I’d thought that had been pretty terrific. But before, we’d been so intent on keeping things “casual” and “fun” that we’d made a point not to spend all our time together. There was so much of our lives that we’d kept separate. Being parents together was a whole new experience. It felt like we were really in the trenches together, trusting and relying on each other in a way that was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. Was this what it was like for him when he was on a mission? It made it a little easier for me to understand why he was so committed to being a SEAL.

I shook off my thoughts. With Luke in my arms, I made my way to the back door. Alex and Frankie were in the fenced yard, where Alex was planting a garden. I’d known he had a knack for gardening, but in the past weeks he’d been putting his landscaping skills to work and beginning a transformation from just grass to something more interesting.

Alex looked up as I stepped through the door. Despite myself, my heart leaped a little in my chest. He was hot, of course, with his muscular build and square jaw, but he was more than that. He’d treated me with respect and kindness, making no suggestion that he was angry about me commandeering his house and taking over his leave with a baby he didn’t expect.

It didn’t surprise me that he wouldn’t put me and Luke out on the street, but even if we hadn’t been so desperate for housing, I got the impression that he’d want us together. At least for now, while Luke was so little.

I waved to him, staying in the shade of the back porch for Luke’s sake. Alex smiled and started toward me with Frankie on his heels.

“Hi, I wanted—” I said, cutting myself off when his phone rang.

“Shoot,” he said. “Let me see who it is.” He yanked it from his pocket to read the display. He grimaced and answered. “Vale here.”

He looked hard at me, as if I’d done something to him, before pivoting on his heel and stalking across the yard. What was that about? I’d never seen him quite like that. Not even on the day we’d broken up or the day he arrived home from a mission to find me—literally—having his baby. He’d been scarily calm, even matter-of-fact both those times, but this was a different sort of emotion, a tension I couldn’t fathom.

Whatever it was, he didn’t want me to hear his conversation. His voice was low, inaudible, but his body language conveyed stress. I could take Luke in the house, but I waited, wanting to speak with Alex as soon as the call was over. Maybe he’d confide in me what the problem was—if, in fact, there was one.

Alex

“Sorry about that,” I said, shoving my phone in my pocket and burying the desire to pitch it across the lawn as I made my way back to Soledad.

“Something wrong?” she asked, her eyes on my face.

“No,” I lied, earning a raised eyebrow. Everything was wrong. From the look on her face, I could tell that she didn’t believe my answer, but her glare wasn’t going to change my mind. I wasn’t burdening her with the information Travis had just shared with me. It wasn’t her problem. But it posed one for me. Fortunately, Luke reached up and grasped a lock of Soledad’s hair, drawing her attention away and giving me a moment to process the intel I’d just received.

Bruce Lewis’s family had used their connections to get his misconduct reduced in degree to something considered non-judicial, which lessened the severity of his sentence. It was still bad, but it wasn’t the dishonorable discharge and prison sentence it could have been. Should have been, I thought. Bruce forfeited pay, was placed under restriction, and lost one grade in rank. Those were the short-term punishments—he’d be able to work his way back from all of that, in theory. But the truth was a little more complicated. The formal letter of reprimand placed in his permanent personnel file was a career-killer, a guarantee that Bruce wouldn’t be following in the illustrious footsteps of his father and grandfather. No promotions would come his way.

And, according to Travis, Bruce wasn’t taking it well, despite the fact that he was free and still employed when he deserved to be in jail. He was looking for revenge and pointing his finger straight at me, the one who had supposedly “ruined his life.” The situation worried me. I wouldn’t have played it any other way—his actions weren’t something I could have ignored and still been able to look my family in the eye—but that didn’t help me in the immediate future.

“I was about to say,” Soledad started, and I swung my eyes back to her, “that I’d like to take Frankie for a walk. I need some sunshine and exercise. Can you take care of Luke for a while? I’ll be back before his next feeding.”

If Travis hadn’t called, I would have happily agreed to her request. Now, though, my inborn sense of caution stopped me. She probably needed some time to herself, but I couldn’t let her take it outside the house, out on her own like that. Soldiers win wars by hitting their enemies at weak points. To me, that meant Soledad and Luke. If Bruce had it in for me, he’d find out about my former girlfriend and my baby son. It’s not like they’d be hard to discover, since they were living in my house. Bruce would have no qualms targeting them to take his revenge on me. As Travis had said, he was a snake—and now he had little left to lose, which made him a very dangerous one.

“Why don’t we all go?” I suggested. “We can make it Luke’s first official walk and try out the stroller Zach and Carolyn got us.”

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