Killing Honor (8 page)

“Brody?” I tried to get his attention, but his eyes didn’t stop. I touched his arm gently, so I didn’t startle him. “Look at me.”

“I’m fine.” The answer was short, and not to be argued. He was flipping again,into the stranger right before my eyes, and I didn’t like it. I wanted my Brody, the joker, the one that smiled and laughed.

“Raffes!” Jackie demanded, pointing the way. It amazed me that a two year old could remember the way to the giraffes when she hadn’t been there in weeks.

Brody looked at the bundle of energy in his arms. She was practically bouncing. He looked confused, like he didn’t know what to do with her.

I squeezed his arm to reassure him. His eyes settled on my hand and followed my arm up where he met my eyes. “The giraffes… She wants to see the giraffes.”

“Oh,” he replied, frowning. “Which way are those?” Another kid behind him screamed, a wailing sound that signaled an oncoming tantrum. Brody’s body wound tight. He was going to lose it. I could see it in his movements, in the way his eyes darted around. Tremendous energy built behind the wall of his body.

“They’re that way.” I pointed to the right. I studied him a second, doubt creeping into me. “Brody… are you sure you’re all right? We can go do something a little more low key.”

“I’m okay,” he said. “I can handle a little crowd.”

“This isn’t a little crowd.”

“I’m fine.” The reply came through clenched teeth. He started toward the right. Apparently, the conversation was over.

Reluctantly, I followed after him. We walked along the path, through Bieler Plaza and into the Urban Jungle. Brody managed to keep his calm, pointing out the animals as we passed it. But once we left the front, the crowd wasn’t as bad, and slowly, he began to relax.

Riley jumped in my arms and pointed, yelling “Nino!” as we passed the rhinos. Jackie was overjoyed when we saw the giraffes, babbling on about who knew what in an excited mumble of words she hadn’t quite learned to say. Brody did his best and tried to follow along, but even I couldn’t figure out what she was saying. We settled on her saying “Giraffes are awesome!” and she seemed okay with that.

We walked around aimlessly after that, but we had to go see the pandas, of course. Only one was out, sleeping on the branches. The twins pointed, and made happy gurgling sounds and tried to reach for the panda. Brody was good about not letting them touch the fencing or letting them stick their hands through any of the animals’ confinements.

We stopped at the Hua Mei Cafe for lunch. The twins were starting to get tired after a couple hours of walking around the park, plus it was getting close to their nap time.

Jackie curled into Brody’s lap while he ate and laid her head down on his chest. She didn’t close her eyes, but it was obvious she decided it was time for a rest.

It was the strangest thing.

Neither girl was prone to voluntarily going down for a nap. Usually I had to fight with them, and especially after a day like this, often they would be on sensory overload and be cranky and fighting sleep.

I wondered if it had something to do with Brody. If she sensed that our family was back together. Jackie was always the more observant twin. Riley liked to jump around and play much more, as she was now. She showed no signs of slowing down like her sister. But this action, Jackie crawling into Brody’s lap and just sitting there, like she was going to take a nap right then… Two year olds just didn’t stop like that.

Brody soaked it up, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before resuming his watchful gaze around us. His eyes shifted and met mine. For a second, it was almost as if he’d never left. His eyes were bright, the amber warm and fiery, but they still had that haunted look to them. A ghost of a smile remained on his face, like he was afraid if he enjoyed the moment it might end up a dream. That wasn’t going to happen, but he seemed still unsure of that.

A soft, easy smile lifted my lips. Brody easily returned it. In that moment, I believed that he was where he needed to be. With me. With the girls. As a family. I almost let go of the fear that he was just here because he had no where else right now. But it was too soon. He’d been home less than twenty-four hours. I’d hold tight to the fear, keep it close to me. Maybe in a few months, I’d feel it was unwarranted. I hoped so. Because in that moment, the four of us there, were happy.

~*~*~

The best thing about days out was the way the kids passed out on the ride home. The girls slept most of the way home, and didn’t even stir when we carried them upstairs to their room. Brody took great care with Jackie, setting her down in the crib like he might break her if he did it too hard.

I waited in the doorway while he brushed a wayward curl from Jackie’s face, and then turned around to make sure Riley was settled in. He pulled her blankets up and came toward me.

There was a half-smile of almost contentment on his face. I moved to get out of his way as he approached the doorway, but his arm hooked around my waist and pulled me to him. His lips brushed against mine. I backed out of the room, pulling him along with me since he didn’t let go of me.

He shut the door softly behind him. “It’s only seven. What do you want to do?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe we could watch a movie or something. It was a pretty taxing day.” I wasn’t sure which one of us it was more taxing for, me or him.

“Sure,” he replied. He brushed past me and headed down the stairs. Brody used to talk to me about everything. It was how our friendship formed when we were teenagers. How many hours did we lay in the back of his pickup truck talking into the night sky together? How many times did I get grounded for being out too late with him because I lost track of time?

I missed him.

Whatever had been in his dreams the night before he wasn’t talking. I hadn’t had the courage to bring it up either. And then add to the stress of the crowd around him all day at the zoo, and I wasn’t sure what was going through his head. There had been a time in the past that I’d always known what he was thinking about.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, Brody swept me into his arms and carried me over to the couch. I giggled, because what else can you do when your husband sweeps you off your feet? He dropped to the couch with me in his lap. His hand slid along my neck until his fingers tangled in the hair at the base of my head.

They tightened, pulling at my roots just a little, and forcing my head to tilt back. His lips crashed on mine, hot and demanding. I gripped his arm to steady myself, though he had me all but immobile. When he parted the kiss, his eyes bore into mine with an intensity like I’d never seen from him.

“Brody…” His name was almost a question on my lips. I pulled back from him a little so I could see his face. “Are you okay? I mean, really?”

He hesitated. “I’m not really sure how to answer that.”

“How about honestly? You had a nightmare last night, and you’ve not been the same since.”

He didn’t answer right away. HIs throat worked up and down and his eyes were down. I wasn’t sure what he was looking at. Maybe our hands? The silence stretched between us, creating the distance I so desperately wanted to tear down.

“I feel human with you.” His voice was barely audible, but after the silence, it was deafening. “I’ve had to be an unfeeling machine for two years, but you make me human again. I have this need to touch you, to be with you. I crave you. I need you.”

I cupped his jaw with one hand and pushed up so he had to meet my eyes again. “I just want to know you again. You’re like two people, Brody.”

“Am I?” Did he not realize?

“Yes. One minute, you’re joking around, or playing with the girls, and you have this big smile. You’re the guy I fell in love with… Then the next, you’re intense, and closed down, and a little bit scary.” I paused. “Kinda like now.”

“I don’t mean to scare you.” He released my hair, his hand instead splaying out on my back. He leaned back against the couch, dropping the arm that was around my waist. I suddenly felt cold, but none of this was going to get resolved if I didn’t talk to him about it.

“If something is wrong… I want you to tell me, Brody.”

I saw the mask come down, even if he didn’t mean for it to. It slammed down between us, cutting me off from my husband. 

“Are you mad at me?” The question was entirely too quiet.

“No, I’m not. I’m… frustrated. I’ve heard that homecomings can be rough for servicemen. I didn’t really believe it. I thought… I thought we could weather anything anyone threw at us. That we were close, and nothing could break us apart.”

I wanted to cry. I wanted to cling. But neither would do any good at this point. 

“We are close. We always have been.”

Instead of clinging, I gave myself distance. I got off his lap, and sat down on the couch next to him, though I still angled my body toward him.

“Are we?” I cleared my throat, because if I didn’t the lump in my throat would turn to tears. “It’s been two years, Brody. In that time, you knew where I was, but I had no idea where you were.” 

I shook my head, fighting away tears. “I was here, waiting for you. Every day was a fight for me to get up, to take care of our children, to do the grocery shopping, and pay the bills… I know it’s nothing compared to your experience. My life was never in danger. I wasn’t ever fighting for the freedom of our world. But that doesn’t make it easier for me. Because I was here, fighting for us. For our family.”

I regretted the outburst as soon as it left my lips, because Brody’s face completely shut down, all emotion siphoning away. I was losing him.

Brody

I was a bastard for not seeing how me being gone had affected Devyn. She was near tears, fighting them as hard as she spoke. And I still couldn’t tell her that I might have compromised our family’s safety.

“What are you saying?”

Devyn sighed and leaned back against the couch. Frustration bled from her in waves. She pinched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes for a moment. “I just… You’re hiding from me. I see it, when you think that you’ve got it covered so well. There’s a lot of stuff going on inside you that you’re not telling me. And that’s not how we worked before you left, and that’s not how I want it to work between us now.”

Fuck. She always had seen right through me. In that moment, I loved her more than I had before, and simultaneously cursed her for knowing me too well. “I can’t talk to you about the mission, Devyn.” I wished I could.

“I know that.” The words came out clipped. She understood, but that didn’t make it any easier for her.

“That alone… there will be other missions that I’m not going to be able to talk about.”

“I know. That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what is it, Dev?”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then tell me.”

“I mean, being a SEAL means I can’t talk about some things. The mission I just came back from… It’s part of an ongoing operation. And if I tell you, I’ll put you in danger.” 

Fear coursed through me in a way that left me cold.

“Is that… I mean… is it going to cause problems between us? Knowing that I have secrets like this from you?”
Please say no
. For her to reject me now would kill me.

Devyn’s jade eyes watered, but her jaw set in that determined way I loved so very much. “I promised to support you when we got married.” She leaned over and kissed the corner of my mouth. I turned toward her, to kiss her back, but she pulled away. “It doesn’t mean I have to like it. I don’t want you to forget that your family’s lives depend on you too. Me. Riley. Jackie. We need you.”

My chest ached, overwhelming me with the urge to kiss her. I wrapped my arms around her, pressing her against me. Our lips touched like an electrical storm, lightning shooting out between us, connecting us. Her hands slid up to my shoulders. She moved to her knees, twisting her body to face me without breaking the kiss.

Her fingers dug into my shoulders as she straddled me, pressing her body against me like she was taking ownership of me. Hell, she had to know she already owned me. Lock, stock, and barrel. I was hers. And I’d do anything I could to make sure she would remain safe.

I broke the kiss, trying to regain the breath she’d stolen from me. But I needed another taste. I gripped her hips, digging my fingertips into her pelvis. I closed my mouth over her breast’s tip, nipping slightly through the thin tank top. Beneath it, she wore a lacy bra whose stolen peeks when she’d bent over or the girls had pulled at her shirt teased me most of the day.

She arched toward my mouth. I moved my hands to the small of her back, supporting her. I pulled back, and slid my hands upward with the tank top, baring her skin inch by inch. She flushed crimson, and made a move to cover herself. I grabbed her wrist and shook my head. “No.”

“But… I…”

Of course, if she wanted to, I’d have let her go. She knew that. She was self-conscious, something she’d never really struggled with growing up. She’d always been confident, knowing exactly what she wanted. I’d never had to treat her like a delicate flower. Two years had apparently changed that.

“I’ve changed… I’ve been working on it… sometimes.”