Sea of Dreams (The American Heroes Series Book 2) (43 page)

“Oh, my God,” he breathed. “I just felt a kick.”

She nodded, her face pressed into his shoulder. “He’s been doing that for a couple of days now.”

As he lay there, waiting, he was rewarded with a few more punches and what felt like a roll.  He could feel the baby moving around and he grinned broadly.

“That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt,” he declared softly, looking at Blakesley when she pulled her face from his shoulder. “Did you feel that? There he goes again.”

There was such naked joy on his face that she couldn’t help but smile. “He’s been really busy today,” she wiped at her cheeks, rolling on to back so he could put both hands on her belly. “Did you feel that?”

Beck was entranced.  He pulled her shirt up so he could put his hands against her bare skin, feeling for the kicks with great anticipation. He wasn’t disappointed; the baby kicked and fluttered.  He laughed out loud.

“That’s incredible,” he said. “Does it hurt?”

She shook her head. “Of course not. Don’t you remember feeling Lizzie kick?”

He shook his head. “No,” he replied. “I was deployed when Sharon was about two months pregnant. I was gone for a year, so I missed Lizzie’s birth.  This is all new to me.”

Blakesley put her hands over his.  “I’m so glad you’re here to share this,” she said softly. “When I was pregnant with my girls, I was happy, of course, but I didn’t feel the emotional thrill that I feel with this baby.  To have a baby with someone I love so much… I can’t think of anything more precious.  I don’t want you to miss a second of this.”

His smile faded as he gazed down into her sweet face. “I don’t want to, either, but I’m going to have to,” he whispered. “We’re departing at midnight.”

She stared up at him, her hands still on his as the baby kicked enthusiastically.  “Where?”

“You know I won’t tell you.”

 “How long?”

He drew in a long, deep breath, full of regret. “I don’t know.”

She began to get pouty again. “What do you mean you don’t know?” she said. “Will you please tell me where you’re going? For my own sake. Please, Beck. I just want to know.”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

“Please?” she begged. “It helps me to know where you are.  The not knowing just kills me, Beck. How would you feel if I went away and you didn’t know where I was? You wouldn’t like it, either.”

He hesitated and she could see that she had him.  When he finally spoke, she barely heard him. “All right,” he murmured. “We’re deploying to Afghanistan.”

Blakesley exploded off the bed. “What?” she shrieked. “You’re going to Afghanistan? They can’t do that! They can’t deploy you that fast!”

He was trying to keep her on the bed, keep her calm. “Yes, they can,” he said softly, firmly. “That’s the way we work sometimes. We go worldwide with a twelve hour notice sometimes. That’s just the way it works.”

Her hands were at her throat, her breathing coming in sharp pants as she looked at him with utter horror. “But…,” she gasped.  “You can’t go. Beck, you promised you weren’t going to go away anymore. You promised!”

He remained calm, hoping it would soothe her.  “Baby, do you really think I want to?” he said gently. “My transfer to the Warfare Center is in the works but it hasn’t come through yet.  Until it does, I’m still part of the Teams. I have to go.”

“No, you don’t!” her hysteria exploded. “You tell them that you can’t go! You have to stay here, with us. You promised you wouldn’t go away anymore!”

She was sobbing and he jumped off the bed, wrapping her up in his big arms.  “Shush,” he had her tightly, his face against the side of her head. “The girls are going to hear you. Keep your voice down.”

“Please,” she sobbed, holding on to him with a death grip. “Please don’t go.”

Her knees had collapsed and she was sinking to the floor. Beck tried to pick her up but it was like trying to hold spaghetti.

“Baby, please get a hold of yourself,” he begged. “I have to go and no amount of crying is going to prevent it.”

She collapsed on the floor, weeping painfully.  He got down on the floor with her and just held her.

“Baby, listen to me,” he was trying desperately to plead with her. “I don’t want to go; believe me, I don’t. I almost came to blows with Davis over it, but I literally don’t have a choice. If I refuse to go, they’ll throw me in the brig.  I’ll be dishonorably discharged, lose my pension, and God knows what else. Is that what you want? If you do, then tell me and I’ll do it. But know the consequences.”

She suddenly stopped crying and looked at him.  Her face was wet with tears. “You… you’d do it?”

He wiped at her cheeks with his thumbs. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” he whispered. “I just want you to be happy.  Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”

Upset and muddled, she could nonetheless see what he was saying.  She understood. “I don’t want you to get in trouble,” she murmured. “But you promised, Beck. You promised you’d never go away again.”

He just looked sad. “I know,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I have to break that promise. It’s not by choice. I wouldn’t go unless I absolutely had to. I don’t want to miss one minute of this baby, and I certainly don’t want to be away from you, but I will make you this promise: come hell or high water, I will be at the birth.  There is nothing on earth short of death that will keep me from it.  Okay?”

She didn’t have the heart to argue with him. “Okay.”

“Do you believe me?”

“I always believe you.”

She didn’t sound convincing and he wrapped her up in his big arms again, hugging her fiercely.

“I love you,” he whispered. “I love you so much. I swear this separation is really going to kill me.”

Blakesley clung to him, feeling his warmth and power, drawing strength from it.  She was much calmer now but still feeling weak and frail and vulnerable.

“Will you just hold me until you have to go?” she murmured.

He picked her up and put her on the bed. “Stay there a minute. Okay?”

She lay there, sniffling, and nodded.  Beck winked at her as he went out of the bedroom and soon, Lizzie and Charlotte appeared.  They climbed on the bed with Blakesley, who put her arms around them both. It was an instinctive, motherly thing and she didn’t hesitate. She even put Lizzie’s hand on her belly when the baby kicked, drawing a great big grin from her step daughter. Lizzie was thrilled.  Eventually, Beck appeared again, but this time, he had his arms full. Crosby was in one arm and Cadee was in the other.

“I thought we could all lie on the bed together for awhile,” he said softly.

“Dad, why are we all here?” Lizzie wanted to know.

Beck had a hard time ever bringing forth the words.  “Because I deploy tonight, hopefully for the last time, and I want to spend time with all of my girls.”

Lizzie understood, more than most.  Her entire life had involved her father shipping out. Blakesley thought his gesture to be genuinely sweet; she didn’t even have the heart to tell him to keep the sick girls away from the others. He just wanted to lay with all if his girls and she wouldn’t spoil that.  Beck laid Cadee and Crosby down, moving to the other side of the bed so he could slide in behind Blakesley.  He turned on cartoons and lay there with five girls, his eyes closed and his face planted in the back of Blakesley’s head as Crosby and Charlotte tried to play patty-cake with his big hands. Lizzie ended up lying next to Cadee and braiding her hair. 

They spent of the evening cuddled up on the bed, until the girls, one by one, fell asleep. Beck eventually turned off the television and the light so that it was dark and still in the room.  He lay there listening to Crosby’s baby snoring and to Charlotte’s little grunts when she rolled over and over in her sleep.   Blakesley had fallen into a deep sleep and he was thankful; she was exhausted and he didn’t like seeing her so strung out.   He just lay there, his hand on her now-still belly, absorbing the moment and tucking it away deep in his memory for the times that he would need it.  It was such a precious moment that he couldn’t even put it into words.

About an hour before midnight, he carefully climbed out of bed and pulled the covers up around everyone.  They were all sleeping so peacefully and he stood there a moment, just gazing at the group.  Once, he had described his career as his life. For twenty years, the Navy had been the most important thing to him. But looking at the huddle of girls on the bed, he knew that his career took a distant second to his family. 

Cadee, Crosby and Charlotte weren’t his biological children, but he loved them like they were.  His life was richer for having known them.  Lizzie was his flesh and blood, and he was deeply proud of the young lady she was becoming. And Blakesley… he couldn’t put into words what he felt for her.  Whatever it was ran deeper and stronger than anything he had ever experienced.  He had that mad, passionate, deep and emotional love for her that most people never experience.  He considered himself the luckiest man in the world.

Before he left, he took a notepad by the phone and wrote a note to Blakesley and put it in the bathroom where she would find it.  Then he went back out to the bedroom and kissed her gently, one last time.  It was enough to bring tears to his eyes.  Lizzie was the only other person he could reach on the opposite side of the bed so he kissed her, too, before he quit the bedroom and quietly shut the door.

Pulling his truck out of the backyard in the darkness, he headed for the Coronado Bay Bridge.

***

Blakesley had carried Beck’s note around with her for almost five months.  Beck had been gone that long with no word whatsoever.  In the beginning, it had been extremely difficult.  Every time the phone rang, she was running to it.  These days, she didn’t run to the phone and she didn’t listen nightly for his truck pulling up the alley.  She had settled into a rather calm routine and a calm life, taking the girls to school, painting daily, and focusing on the newly laid plans for the Art Bar.  She had to put her focus on something other than Beck’s absence; otherwise, she would have gone crazy.

She realized, sometime during the beginning of the third month, that she was starting to view Beck as kind of a dream-like figure.  He had taken on ethereal qualities in her mind and a larger-than-life persona.  She thought of him daily and dreamt of him nightly.  There were a few dirty clothes in the hamper he had left and she hadn’t washed them.  In fact, she had taken to sleeping with them because she could still smell him.  She didn’t want to lose that scent, that link between his body and her.   She never told anyone that, not even Gina Aguirre, because she didn’t want people to think she was crazy.

Spring was in full swing, as mild as it was in San Diego, and Easter was approaching.  Lizzie had a huge social life at school and was at all of the parties and hung out with all of the cool kids.  Blakesley kept a close watch on her, probably tighter than she should have, because she didn’t want anything to happen to Lizzie while Beck was away.  The old Victorian became filled with teenagers almost every weekend, girls as well as boys, as Lizzie’s circle of friends grew. 

Blakesley knew that Beck would have been wary of the boys hanging around, but she trusted Lizzie. She grinned when she thought of Beck returning home to a living room of teenagers hogging up his new flat-screen television.  Both she and Lizzie were eager for the day.  Lizzie missed her dad almost as much as Blakesley did.

On a particularly warm and dry Friday evening, Lizzie and some of her friends came home from a basketball game to hang out and eat.  Gina had come over earlier in the evening, bringing Spike so the kids could play, and they were in the process of putting Spike and the little girls to bed but when they heard Lizzie and her friends, that became impossible.  Blakesley let the children go downstairs to see the older kids, who fawned and cooed over Charlotte and Crosby, and allowed Cadee and Spike to hang out with them on the couch like one of the gang. Blakesley and Gina stood in the kitchen doorway, watching their children with the older kids, smiling at the general happiness going on.

Gina had a glass of red wine in her hand, watching Spike high-five it with one of the boys. “It’s times like this when I miss Butch the most,” she said softly. “I wish he could see Spike as he grows up.”

Blakesley was leaning against the door jamb, watching the little boy with the dark hair as he laughed and teased the high school kid.  “He looks a lot like you,” she looked at Gina. “Who does he act like?”

Gina grinned. “He’s his dad all the way,” she said. “He even has his goofy laugh.”

Blakesley giggled, rubbing her belly.  These days, she looked like she had a watermelon under her shirt, as the baby was growing very fast. 

“I hope this baby looks like Beck,” she said softly, eyeing her friend. “Did I tell you about the ultrasound last Friday? The doctor asked me if I wanted to know the sex.”

Gina looked very interested. “And?”

Blakesley wrinkled up her nose. “I’m not sure I should tell you before Beck knows.”

Gina was exasperated. “Then why did you say anything? Now it’s going to drive me crazy.”

Blakesley giggled.  “Well, just don’t tell him you knew before he did,” she said, rubbing her belly affectionately. “It’s official. We have a baby brother to balance out all of these girls.”

Gina squealed with delight. “That’s so exciting,” she danced around. “Beck is going to be thrilled.”

Blakesley grinned as she watched her friend’s excitement. “I know,” she said, inevitably sobering as she thought of her absent husband. “I just wish he’d hurry back.  I don’t know how you did it all of those years with Butch.”

Gina’s jovial expression faded. “It wasn’t easy,” she said honestly. “But he always came home, just like he said he would. At least, he did until the last time.”

Blakesley reached out and touched Gina’s arm comfortingly. “I refrain from asking you how you are all of the time because I don’t want to keep bringing it up, but how are you doing? You seem okay these days.”

Gina shrugged. “Nights are still tough,” she said softly. “I still dream about him and then wake up expecting him to be there.  I haven’t had the guts to clean out his closet yet.”