Stricken Resolve (8 page)

Juices, his perfect juices begin to seep out
of me and I don’t care. Slowly I turn around and he grabs my hand,
helping me to sit down. Placing the white cotton blanket up around
my waist. Glancing up at the clock I realize my eight o-clock
deadline is but ten minutes away.

I should be ecstatic to have just had my
first orgasm in months with the only man I ever want to be with,
but that happiness is gone. Replaced by defeat filling the room
with its thick fog of sadness and loss. He’s leaving me. And for a
little while, we were connected again. Physically and emotionally.
He fed my soul with pleasure. Pleasure only he can provide. The
kind that consumes the soul and makes you sublimely happy. Like
he’s done for me the past nearly nine months that I’ve had him in
my life. Even before we fell in love.

Dressing back into his cargo pants and tee,
he sits down beside me, pulling me into his arms. I can’t speak. I
don’t want to. I’m afraid if I open the dam, it will break and I
won’t be able to stop the impending blubbering mess.

“Thank you for loving me.” He cracks the seal
of deafening silence.

“But you can’t wait for me. You can’t hold
onto the hope that I might return. I can’t do that to you. I can’t
ask that of you. You are all that matters. Your happiness and the
babies. That’s all that matters in this entire world to me.” He
caresses my back, my head tucked into the only place in the world
that centers me. That fills me with comfort and love. His chest.
Closest to the organ that for even a little while I have owned as
mine. His heart. That will forever beat in my brain.

How can this be happening to us?

Tears well in my eyes and I swallow deep and
hard, holding my cheek to his chest, my arms grabbing his shirt
around his back. I can’t let him go. I can’t let him go! Not my
Papa Bear. Not my love!

Minutes pass and all I can do is suck back
the need to break down. But I won’t. Not in front of him. He didn’t
ask for this. He didn’t do this to me. I can’t make him feel any
worse than I know he does.

Slowing my heaving breaths into low soft
inhales and exhales, I center myself. Focusing only on his cedar
warmth. His calming nature. His sexy perfection. My Bear. Engulfing
me in his thick arms. Enveloping me in his love. We breathe
together. Synchronized like we are in so many ways.

“I have to go.” He breaks the quiet and
erupts the pain. My heart begins to crack, right down the
center.

I hold him tighter as he kisses my head and I
tilt to look into his beautiful eyes once more. They’re red and
brimming with watery tears, as are mine.

Pressing my lips to his, we hold the
connection. Both of us closing our eyes and swallowing up one
another. For one last time. Another crack splinters my heart as he
pulls away. I put a death grip on his shirt. But he’s too strong
and stands. My fingers slipping from the cottony fabric.

Sucking in a deep audible breath, he walks to
the door, opens it. Turning around he looks at me. His reddened
eyes pouring in hot tears, swimming his gaze into mine. His lip
quivers.

Floating in the watery depths of his hazel
eyes my dam breaks, tears free flowing down my cheeks. The anguish
of loss crackling in the air.

“You will always be with me,” he mutters and
leaves. Shutting the door in his wake.

NO!!!!!!!

My heart suddenly explodes into a million
fragmented agony laden pieces and I jump out of bed. The sheet
wrapped around my naked body. I sprint to the door and heave it
open.

“JAMES!!!” I scream, through tear soaked
cries. “JAMES!”

I pound my way out of the doorway and into
the hall, frantically seeking him. I have to find him. He can’t
leave us! He’s our Papa Bear.

“Emily.” Nurse Shelly comes after me. And I
run away from her, the opposite direction. Down the white encased
sterile hallway in only my bed sheet. My bare feet slapping hard on
the ground.

This can’t be happening. Not to me! I just
found him!

“James!” I screech. Stopping at the end,
looking down the four ways. Where did he go? He just left!

“Emily!” Shelly and Diane come sprinting
after me, in their white hospital scrubs. Blue stethoscopes draped
around their necks.

“I need to find my James… Have you seen
him?!” I turn to them, snot running out of my nose, over my lips.
My hysterical sobs echoing in the halls. A never ending stream of
salty tears running rapid down my face and neck.

I need to find him. Where’s my James?

“Emily?” They slow, as they get close me.
Taking small steps.

“Where is he?!” I growl at them, like a…like
a Mama Bear. My eyes fierce with determination.

“They took him. He’s gone.” They both speak
simultaneously in soft but firm tones.

“They who? The government?”

“Let’s just get you back to bed Mama, you
shouldn’t be up and moving around this quickly after having
surgery.”

Shelly moves marginally closer. Her chocolate
eyes matted with notable affliction.

“Please Emily, you need to get some clothes
on.” Diane adds, side stepping around me. Taking place behind me
like a wild animal stalks its next meal.

What is she doing?

“I don’t want to go to bed! And you can’t
make me!” I announce firmly standing my ground. The ground that
feels as if it’s disintegrating right from under me. As my new
life’s realizations take root and sprout truths into my mind’s
eye.

He. Is. Gone.

I was his and he mine. But now he’s no more.
There is no more James and Emily. Or Papa and Mama Bear. No more
midnight kisses, or wee hours of the morning pillow talks. No more
spoon-fed peanut butter nights in bed. No more I love you’s and
soul seeping chest warmth.

As the awareness blooms blackened petals, my
tear blurred vision hazes into blood smeared existence.

Sucking in a deep breath I cry out in a full
body throbbing misery immersed release of my soul. With it, the
pieces of my shattered heart and broken dreams drift away into the
oblivion of my once picturesque life.

A dark and dank inky blackness takes its
place. The only shining light and glimmer of hope life is the love
for my blessed new born children.

“Why is this happening to me?” I blubber out
in a shallow whisper, and collapse onto a heap on the white
linoleum.

Nurse’s hands find me. Pulling at me.
Speaking to me. But I can’t hear them.

I stare at nothing as the tears keep
coming.

“James…James…,” I babble incoherently.

I don’t know what’s happening to me. Why does
it hurt so bad?

They lift me into a wheelchair and wheel me
back to my room.

“James… James.” I mumble and lick my dry
lips. My mouth feels like cotton. A drink would be nice. But I
don’t really care. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.

Elevating me from my chair, two nurses
attempt to maneuver me to the bed. I know I’m standing as I look
down. Although the feeling in my legs is gone.

***

“Emily.” Some lady I’ve never seen before
with short tawny pixie hair snaps her pink adorned fingers in front
of my face.

“Emily!” she yells.

I move my mouth to respond but nothing comes
out. Only sounds with no meaning or context gurgle up out of my dry
raspy throat.

“She’s in shock,” I hear the pixie haired
woman state, as I glance down.

When did I get dressed? Or covered? Reaching
up I touch my hair to find it pulled back into a…

Is that a bun?

Blinking my eyes rapidly, apparently the
tears have dried up. For now. Leaving me with puffy tender
sockets.

Four nurses and the pixie woman in normal
street clothes are in my room talking.

About what? You got me.

I peer around. My room looks the same. White
walls, flowers in a plethora of colorful arrangements, my hospital
table, a TV on the wall. Just no Papa Bear.

My heart clenches and tightens into pain at
the slightest thought and I force myself to swallow down my
suffering.

The pain is unbearable.

Focusing on the wall clock my eyes blend in
and out with blurriness. Closing my eyes tightly and popping them
open, I dart my vision at the clock to see how long it’s been since
I’ve last experienced his warm supple kiss upon my lips, or his
hands softly caressing my body.

That time can’t be right. I blink again.

How did I lose eight hours of my damn
day?

It’s four fifteen. Was I really out of it
that long?

Chapter Seven

~James ~

“Master Sergeant James— this way please.”

An officer in full dress blues escorts me
down to the bottom floor of the hospital by way of the service
elevator, to avoid dealing with the substantial amount of paparazzi
staking out the main exits for Stricken’s divine twins to
emerge.

“You are sure Davis is already stationed with
her?”

Pressing a little ear piece, the man radios
in. “Davis stationed at point?”

The man’s face furrows at his brow, leaving
thick wrinkles in his forehead and nose. Either deep in thought or
something isn’t going as instructed. He better pray with all of his
might that it’s the former. Because if she’s not under properly
trained protection, I will by all means necessary do something to
ensure her safety and that of the babies. Even if I can’t be the
one to administer the retribution if someone messes with her, I
sure as hell will have somebody with equal skillset to rain all the
forces of hell upon them. And Davis will do that.

“Yes sir, she is and so are the other
men.”

Damn straight, they’d better be. I hired more
security for her. Each of them discrete with vast amounts of
federal training. After placing hours upon hours of calls to DC and
attempting to call in a favor, I spoke with two generals, six
sergeants and five others at the Pentagon and turn up with
diddly-squat. No way to deter the enviable. Me leaving.

By some act of god, after I’d slept maybe
twenty minutes, Emily’s water broke and the twins were hastily
delivered. I was there. I’ll never forget watching my children
being birthed into this world. I thought meeting and falling in
love with Mama Bear was my life’s happiness. Never in a million
years did I ever think my heart could expand anymore. However, now
Jenna and Eric have taken up their rightful spaces right next to
Emily’s piece of my heart. Which is nearly its entirety.

“Sir, we’re over here,” the man says,
breaking me from my thoughts and gesturing toward a shiny black
armored unmarked car. Two men in all black gear are stationed right
outside of it. Obvious security detail. Interesting….

Since when do they send the entire cavalry to
bring in a safe link?

My something’s-fishy radar starts flashing
its big red florescent lights and, cautiously, I approach the
vehicle. Scanning my peripheral at all angles, my hand resting
comfortably against the butt of my gun, holstered to my chest.

Both men nod to us, unaffected by my hand
resting on my gun, as Officer Brodden opens the back passenger
door.

“Master Sergeant James, it’s about damn time
I see you again,” I hear a very familiar heavily southern accented
voice drawl, from the depths of the dark interior.

Leaning down, resting my bend arms on the
door frame I peek in.

“We’ll isn’t it Sergeant Brewer, you crazy
S.O.B,” I tease with a half-smile.

“It’s Sergeant Major Brewer, now.” He smirks
like the same lunatic who used to hang women by their ankles from
our racks in the barracks and eat them out for the entire squadron
to see. He was always one horny, sadistic madman. “Now get in,
we’ve got a private flight out of Camp Pendleton in.” He peers down
at his no doubt expensive watch.

“Two hours and thirty-eight minutes,” he
states, looking back up to me with a friendly smile.

I slide in aside him and close us into the
darkened backseat. Glancing across from us, there sits a rather
attractive female with silky straight jet black hair. A thinner but
curvy frame, from what I can see. And that’s enough. Her skins a
caramel tanned brown like mine. But the angles of her face suggests
she’s Spanish in origin. I’m Native American, with traces of
Spanish and Pilipino ancestry locked into my DNA. Her lips are
full, nose average with a blunt end and her eyes are large and
watching me. The irises are a deep indigo. I don’t think I’ve ever
seen eyes quite like hers before. They’re captivatingly beautiful.
But the rest of her I could care less about. Nobody could ever hold
a candle to my Mama Bear. Not even stirrings of sexual charge spark
when I view this female. Attractive or not, it’s a mere
understanding of appearance. Nothing more.

“Master Sergeant James, please say hello to
Specialist, Sergeant Penelope Gonzales, your fake wife for the next
six to nine months,” Brewer introduces and my stomach drops.

Damn me and my duty to this country. This
better be some extremely important data I’m withholding.

“Hello sir,” her soft feminine voice floods
the air and I suddenly find it hard to breathe in such an enclosed
space.

I suck in a deep lungful of oxygen.

“What do you mean
my wife
?” I seethe
as the words bound from my lips. My stomach churning into a pit
full of raw sewage.

“Here.” Brewer hands over a thick manila
envelope. Is he seriously not going to tell me? He comes here and
meets me with this strange woman, wearing nothing but his civilian
clothes and I’m supposed to just accept my fate? Ha—guess they
think my quiet demeanor suggests passivity. Guess again.

Yanking the envelope from his hands, I press
my back into the thick leather. Sliding a finger into the top, I
tear it open. Even though I can feel the woman’s eyes nearly eating
me alive. I ignore her and focus my attention on the packet, my
blood boiling like hot molten lava. Who in the hell do these people
think they are? They come in and disrupt my life with my fiancé.
They pull me away from my children and now they think I’m going to
succumb to months of being a domesticated husband, fake or not, to
someone other than my Emily. Not likely.