The Reckoning, A Wilde Brothers Christmas (The Wilde Brothers Book 4) (6 page)

Julia was propped up in bed, wearing her nightgown, leaning into the four pillows plumped behind her. Margaret had just finished taking her blood pressure again as Julia cradled the baby wrapped in a blanket. Logan touched his son’s head and traced his finger over his cheek and his tiny little fist, taking in his tiny little mouth and nose, which he was positive resembled Julia’s.

“Everything looks good, Julia. The baby, too. How do you feel?” Margaret asked as she packed up the equipment in the trauma kit. Olivia had just left with the soiled towels.

“I feel like I had a baby. But good, tired, sore.” She smiled her sweet, bright smile tinged with exhaustion. Her dark hair was sticking up here and there, and her face was blotchy. The skin under her eyes was a little puffy. She showed all the effort she’d been through from laboring even though the baby had been born in two hours. An unusually fast labor, according to Margaret. Julia would say otherwise, Logan was sure.

“I want to name him Scott, after my dad,” Julia said. She looked to him, and he couldn’t help but reach out and run his fingers over her loose hair, brushing it back.

“Scott is a nice name,” he said. Julia’s dad had been a soldier, who had fought PTSD and eaten his gun one day when the nightmares became too much. “He’s beautiful, Julia, just like you.”

“Oh, I think he’s going to be handsome just like his father.” She reached over and rubbed his arm, sliding her hand up to his face. “Logan, you need to go and talk to your dad.”

The last thing he wanted to do was talk to his dad. This entire Christmas had been a really good example of how screwed up families could be. He started to shake his head because the only place he wanted to be was right here with his baby and wife.

“Logan, I may have been in labor, but I heard enough, and Margaret filled me in on what happened. Your family likes to share.” She wouldn’t let Logan look away. She tilted her head, really looking at him, her green eyes spitting with fire. “You have a son now. Think about how you’d feel if your son lost faith in you?”

“First, Julia, I’d never walk out on my kids, on you. I’m not my dad. I wouldn’t do what he did.”

“No, you’re not your dad. You’re Logan, my husband, father to Scott and my girls. You’re a better man, so be one. I know you’d turn the world upside down to protect us and to do your best by us. I’ve seen you with your brothers. They depend on you, but, Logan, you’re human. So am I, so is your dad. We all hurt people. We don’t intend to at the time, but stuff happens. Don’t judge him so harshly. You have to let it go, because a lot of that stuff was between your mom and dad. They worked it out and forgave each other, but you unfortunately got dealt a hand you shouldn’t have as a kid. How many of us have had a perfect childhood, though? Look at what my dad did, shooting himself to end his pain, thinking it was the best answer for me and my mom.” She rubbed her thumb over his cheek, and he couldn’t help leaning in and kissing her palm. “Forgive him, go talk to him.”

He glanced away. He loved his wife and would do anything for her. “Julia, can’t you let it go?”

She was shaking her head. “No. Here.” She slid the baby into his arms. “Go introduce your son to your family.”

He knew what she was doing, and he didn’t want to go out there and make peace with his dad. There were just some things that stayed with him, things that had marked him as a kid and shaped his entire life. As he stood up with his son, holding his warm little body to his chest, love flooded him, a natural love he couldn’t have explained to anyone. His throat thickened as he hoped he’d never disappoint his child, at the same time wondering if his father had ever held him like this.

Logan walked down the hall, first stopping at the girls’ door, peeking into their bedroom, where someone had tucked them both into bed. He could hear whispers from the kitchen, and the living room was dim. He started into the kitchen, where Joe and Margaret and Carrie and Ben were. “Hey, would you like to meet your nephew?”

Ben put his hand on Logan’s shoulder, and Joe touched Scott’s head. Carrie peeked at the baby and smiled up at Logan and then Ben. “He’s beautiful,” she said.

“Congratulations, Logan,” Joe said. “My wife tells me Julia’s doing well. I guess it was a good thing there’s a doctor in the family.” Joe reached out, and Margaret slid into his arms. He kissed her forehead.

Logan would always be grateful to Margaret. She was a good woman, and he hoped his brother could get past his issues and somehow contain his ego. “Yes, we’re lucky.” He winked at her. “I better go see Mom and Dad. Where are those two numbskull brothers of ours?” he asked.

Joe gestured with his chin. “In the living room. Dad’s been having a talk with them.”

So his dad had stepped in to offer advice after all. Logan realized it bothered him. He’d been the one giving advice for so long, the one they had gone to over and over. For the first time, he found himself on the outside looking in—or was that where their father had always been?

He cleared his throat. “I’m going to, uh…” He couldn’t finish.

As he slid his arms around Carrie, pulling her closer, Ben said, “Go talk to Dad, Logan. Show him his grandson.”

When Logan walked into the living room, Jake and Samuel saw him first and got up.

“This is your nephew, Scott,” Logan told them. “We named him after Julia’s dad.”

Raymond was still sitting on the sofa. He didn’t get up, but Logan could see him edging forward. He seemed to be waging a war within himself, wondering whether he should come any closer.

Maybe Samuel and Jake knew that he needed to talk to his dad, because they both left, making an excuse about finding Mom and giving her a hand with the laundry, which was a load of crap. Those two were the last brothers who would help with laundry.

“It’s a late night. You must be tired,” Logan said, unable to think of anything else. He walked closer to his dad, who finally stood and looked down at the baby.

“I remember when you were born, Logan. I was eighteen, scared out of my mind, because it was then that the reality of everything hit me. I was married, a father, and absolutely terrified about how I was going to put a roof over your head and feed you. Your mother and I…well, it was tough times. Some days good, some not so much. But you were loved, and your brothers, too.”

His dad was looking down at the baby, his eyes a little misty. Logan didn’t know what to say to his dad, so he said nothing. He wasn’t the type of person who could come in and say something to make someone feel better. Reality was a bitch sometimes, and Logan had always been the one who had to face it.

“I made a mistake that I’ll have to pay for for the rest of my life,” Raymond said. “Even though it was between your mother and me, and my foolish behavior, you got caught in the middle of it. I’m sorry, Logan. It’s bothered your mother, too, for a long time. When you almost died, off fighting a war, I knew it was me that drove you to it. You signed up for the military to get away from me. I drove you to it with my ultimatum. I know that.”

“Dad, stop. You didn’t…” He’d made his own choice at the time. His father had said the house wasn’t big enough for the two of them and there couldn’t be two heads of household, but Logan had made the choice to leave.

“Yes, I did, Logan. You know it, I know it, but nothing changed when you left. Even from that distance and the months you were gone, you were still the father I tried to be to the boys. Even though I was Dad and they’d come to me, they ran to you. They looked up to you, still do. I can never change that. So please be a better father, a better man, to your son than I was to you.”

Logan felt like absolute crap. His father was right about a lot of things, but Logan had also needed for so long to be the one checking in on his brothers. It was partly from the worry of looking out for them when they were young, but also from fighting in a war. It had done things to him, messed him up. Old habits died hard. “Dad, would you like to hold your grandson?”

His father held out his arms, and Logan slid Scott into them. Raymond smiled in a way Logan had never seen him smile, and when he looked over at Logan, his blue eyes a little misty, he said, “There’s one thing about grandkids that’s so special.”

“Oh, what’s that?” Logan asked. He watched as his dad let his grandson wrap his tiny finger around his larger one.

“You get a second chance to do it right.”

March 2015, the Wilde brothers will be back in a brand new full-length book when Jake Wilde, football star with a broken heart, tells his story. For news on upcoming books and special promotions,
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Afterword

Thank you so much for reading
The Reckoning
, bringing the Wildes together for a very special Christmas story. There will be more to come from this family, first with Jake’s story in March 2015, followed by Samuel’s in June.

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The Reckoning
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The Saved Series

“I’m an advocate for women in sexual assault, abuse, and domestic violence, and I have to give this author two thumbs up for how she writes her stories.”—Reviewer, Jamie

“The
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Growing up, I had dreams that one day I’d fall in love, get married, and start a family. Then one night I was taken. But I survived, I escaped, and I was saved. Eric didn’t see me as damaged. He didn’t see my baby as a monster. He protected me, he kept me safe…he saved me.

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She thought her nightmare was over…

Abby has married the man of her dreams. He rescued her, and he’s the father of her child. Everything should be perfect, but she begins to relive her nightmare from when she was taken…and then she disappears, leaving her children alone in the dead of night, her husband on a military ship halfway around the world.

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Captured

Captain Eric Hamilton is now settled on base after giving up his first love, the sea, for his wife, Abby, and their children. He watches day in and day out as his friends are deployed, burning with an empty feeling as if life is passing him by—that is, until his friend Lieutenant Commander Joe Reed is captured while deployed in Iraq.

While his family is at home, helpless, Joe’s life hangs in the balance, and Eric is forced to make a decision he swore he would never make again: Should he leave Abby and their children to go halfway around the world in search of a friend who may be dead?

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