Another Man's Baby (26 page)

             
ANOTHER
MAN
’S BABY
             
229

Chapter
Twenty-One

“Gabi,” Eric said as they both headed for the courtroom with their lawyers. “Can we talk?”

She stopped for a moment and he could feel her struggling with the answer. Her voice came out in breathy little wisps. She was trying hard not to cry, that he could tell because he was having the same problem.

“Can we talk, Gabrielle?”

“When this is over, Eric, we can talk, not now. It’s not going to do any good. You’re not going to change, and there is nothing for us to talk about. But after the divorce maybe we can try to be friends. I’d like that.”

She walked away leaving a hole in the center of his chest. Eric didn’t want to be just her friend. He wanted to be her husband.

“Come on,” his attorney urged. “We have to go in now.” Eric walked woodenly through the heavy doors, glanced at Gabi and her attorney, then took a seat alongside his own attorney. This was killing him. He couldn’t let this happen but Gabi was ignoring him, not giving him a chance to talk.

“Gabi,” he called out to her. She glanced at him, then turned away.

Maybe he would have to let this happen; he didn’t seem to have a choice. He listened as the attorneys got up and spoke their piece. All the time Eric felt a tightening in his chest. Then magically the pressure of a hand on his spine pushed him forward. “
Have faith
,” the now familiar voice whispered.

“I killed a man, Gabi.” All eyes snapped on him but Eric was focusing only on Gabrielle. “In
Iraq
, there was a truck heading for us. We ordered the driver to stop, he didn’t.” Eric stood. “I stopped him. I killed him.” Gabi’s gaze was fastened on his.

“He didn’t have explosives, the brakes had failed on his truck. I killed an unarmed civilian because he had a  bad truck and I got a medal for it.”  A tremor ripped through Eric.

“Four months later another truck came, identical situation, only this truck was going faster. Again the driver wouldn’t stop. This time I hesitated.” He snapped his fingers. “Only a tenth of a second but hesitation is hesitation.” He noticed that the courtroom had become quiet. Not even the judge was trying to stop him.

“I heard your voice in my head telling me to be careful. I heard another voice telling me to have faith. Right before the truck came barreling toward us I had been thinking of you, how much I loved you, how much I wanted to come home to you. When I spotted the truck and heard your voice, your warning, I knew this truck was the real deal. A split second hesitation, then I fired. I killed the driver. This truck had explosives.” Eric took in several deep breaths before continuing. “It exploded, killing several of my men. Something saved me, and I’ve felt guilty about it ever since, Gabi. I’ve wondered if my hesitation cost my men their lives, if my thinking of you did it.

“I love you so much. I did then and I do now. I’m sorry that I didn’t talk to you. I couldn’t tell you all of this.” He shook his head. “You asked if I were trying to die. Maybe so. I’m not afraid of dying; I’m afraid of living without you in my life.”

He was walking toward his wife when he saw the tears streaming down her cheeks. The look in her eyes nearly stopped his heart. She hadn’t stopped loving him. “Can we talk, Gabrielle? We’re going to have a baby.”

“You sure picked a fine time to want to talk,” Gabi answered.

Her knees were weak. She’d heard every word Eric had said and understood the meaning behind them. This was the first time he’d said, ‘We’re having a baby.’ She didn’t know if it meant he believed her, but she knew it meant he was willing to try.

Her poor husband was saddled with so much guilt. She wondered if he’d told his therapist. Gabi wanted to thank the person, whoever it was, who’d gotten Eric to open up. She tilted her head a bit, wondering if the voice would tell her also to have faith. It wasn’t necessary. This time she’d use love.

“Well, Gabi, can we talk? Is it too late?”

“It’s never too late,” Gabi said, rounding the end of the table. He lifted her into the air so quickly that it took her breath away. Then he sat her down and his hands circled her face and held it between his strong brown hands. “Baby, I love you,” he said softly. His lips landed lightly on hers and her eyes closed. She heard clapping and looked behind her at her attorney. She was clapping, tears in her eyes. “Thanks,” Gabrielle whispered, walking with Eric out of the courtroom.

“You sure know how to make a stand on a grand scale, don’t you?” Gabi smiled through her tears.

“I’m a marine, Gabi. When we do something, we do it big and we do it right.” He pulled her tighter. “Can I come home?”

“Yes, but we’re going to talk.”

“And then make love.” Eric nuzzled her neck with his lips, his nose, dismissing the people staring at them with disapproving looks in the hall of the courtroom and in the elevator.

Gabi’s head leaned back into his kisses of its own accord. “Did you mean what you said, that we’re having a baby?”

“Yes,” Eric whispered into her ear, feathering the hair at the nape of her neck, sending sweet shivers through her.

“We’re going to talk a long time, Eric, and I’m going to ask a lot of questions, mainly why you wouldn’t talk to me. I want to know why you’ve been pushing me away. Even with what you’ve said it’s not enough of a reason for us to be here at this point.” She felt his arms slipping away. “When we get home,” she said, bringing his arms back around her.

***

Once home Gabi threw all of the pillows from the sofa onto the floor. Positioning herself for comfort she looked up at Eric grinning down at her. “Come on,” she said, “this is going to take a long time.”

“I’ve told you everything,” Eric said, dropping down beside her.

“No, baby, I know better than that. What you told me was the tip of it. Why did you treat me the way you did for the past year?” He looked away. “This isn’t going to work if you don’t say it, Eric.”

“I don’t want you to know.”

“That much is obvious.” Gabi reached her hand over to touch his cheeks. “Tell me, baby. What else do we have to lose?”

Eric worried his lips with his tongue, then slid his teeth over them, trying to find a way to tell her what he had to say without hurting her more. He sighed, then stared at her, trying to pull enough air into his lungs to tell the horrible truth. “I blamed you.”

Gabi scooted back, trying to get away from him, her eyes wide in surprise. “You blamed me!” She barely stopped the words ‘that’s crazy’ from coming from her lips.

“I know it’s crazy,” Eric said softly, trying his best not to make eye contact with her.

“Did you feel that way when you first came home?” Gabi couldn’t help asking.

“No, when I first came home I didn’t want to soil you.” He stopped and grinned. “Well, at least after that first month.” He shook his head. “I know, baby, I know. You don’t have to say it or look at me like that. I knew it didn’t make a damn bit of sense but it was the way I was feeling. Actually it was more of my blaming the hold you have on me, the way you own my very soul that had me pissed off. I felt like such a punk—a punk who’d put his men at risk.”

Eric reached for her hand and rubbed her hands between his, daring now to look at her. “I couldn’t wait to get home. I couldn’t wait to see you, to touch you, to make love to you.” He kissed her gently on the forehead. “I loved you so damn much that it was a physical ache in my gut not to be home with you.  The last tour was the hardest for me to get through.  I don’t know why, just that it was.”

“Eric, you’re trying to avoid the hardest part of this. I heard what you said in the courtroom. You said something saved you.”

He fidgeted, wondering if she’d want to have him locked up. It was crazy, just like the voice he’d been hearing. When he didn’t answer Gabi immediately, he saw her wall going back up. There was no room for compromise. He had to tell his wife all of it if he wanted to keep her. He took in a breath and blew it out.

“A hand, Gabi, there was a hand on my spine. I felt it. It shoved me out of the way of the blast. I thought I was dying. I heard your voice. I felt your lips underneath mine. I could smell you, baby, I swear I could. That’s when I knew for sure I had to be dying, but I wasn’t.”

“Maybe one of your men pushed you out of the way.”

“No one pushed me. I asked, and they said no one was behind me, but there was a hand, Gabi. I didn’t imagine it.”

“I believe you.” Gabi took a deep breath and smiled, shaking her head. “I wish you had told me this sooner, like when it first happened. I believe you.”

Eric stopped stroking his wife and stared at her, trying to determine if she were merely placating him. He shivered. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“Why? How could you believe this?”

“I knew when it happened about four or five months before you came home.”

Gabi watched Eric’s eyes lift. “I saw it happen. I thought at first I was just dreaming, but I saw it all. I woke up and still I saw it.”

Tears formed in Gabi’s eyes and she clutched Eric’s hands in hers. “I begged God to save you, to put out His hand and spare you. I thought you were going to die. I wrapped my arms around you in my mind. I kissed you and I whispered to you and begged my guardian angel to take care of you. At first I felt in my heart that you were dead.”

A shudder began in Gabrielle and she lost her voice.  “Baby, I thought you were dead and all I wanted was to die myself. Then this calm, this peace flooded my body and I knew you were alive. Eric, I could feel your lips on mine also. You were kissing me back. Then this tremendous feeling of stillness came over me and I heard a voice whispering to me to have faith. I knew for sure you were not going to die. Two days later you called me and we both started to cry.”

“I didn’t cry.”

“We both started to cry, I remember that. You told me you wanted to hear my voice.” Gabi’s voice broke and she moved even closer to Eric as her arms opened and her husband kissed each hand before taking her in his arms. “I didn’t know you’d heard me, or that you’d felt me.”

“I did and I told you to stop, or you were going to get me and my men killed.” Eric laughed. “I can close my eyes and still feel you there in
Iraq
with me.”

“Eric?”

“I couldn’t figure out why I’d been spared.” He looked at her in wonder. “You were praying for me, you saw it?”

“Yes.”

“Why not the others? Why didn’t you pray for all of us?”

She just looked at him. It sounded as if he were now blaming her for praying. “Eric, I’ve been praying every day for the troops. I’m still praying.  I didn’t stop, not even then. When I saw the truck I asked my guardian angel to protect you. It was a reflex. Are you going to blame me for not having time to phrase it better?” She pulled away, some of his residual guilt filling her. “I’m so sorry about what happened. If I could go back and redo it, I would pray a different prayer.”

For a moment they looked at each other, neither speaking. Eric had not meant to make Gabi feel bad about praying for his safety. That was selfish of him. It was also one of the reasons he’d not wanted to unburden himself in the first place. He smiled finally. “I always knew our love was powerful. I never knew just how much.” At first Gabi didn’t respond, but then she smiled.

“I always knew, Eric,” Gabi whispered.

“I should have known too, baby.”

“Is that why you blamed me? But you never knew of my prayer until now.” She blinked. “What’s the real reason?”

He groaned. “It was my loving you that was the problem. All I could think about was you, coming home to you. I wanted to be able to fall asleep every night with you in my arms. After what happened, I doubted myself, doubted if I’d done the best for my men. A tenth of a second, Gabi, I swear that’s all it was.”

“Do you think it was your thinking about me or the…the…you know, the other incident.” She stopped as Eric flinched.

He closed his eyes and pulled her close. A tremor began in his body and he couldn’t stop it. “I know that it was considered justified, but I keep seeing it over and over. I keep wondering about the guy’s family, his kids, his parents, his wife. Maybe the guy had a wife he loved as much as I love you. Maybe he wanted to return home to her as badly as I did to you. What right did I have to come home alive when he didn’t? What right did I have to come home alive and just continue life the same as before when some of my men didn’t make it back, when some of my friends didn’t?”