A Special Ops Christmas Read Free Page B

for sending that last email.
    “Babe… I know you’re hurting, and I know I’m not there, but
can you give me a little while longer?” His voice was rushed and raspy, as if
he’d been under stress. Sometimes he sounded like that when he returned from a
mission. She could see him plain as day, as if he were right in front of her.
Closing her eyes, she savored his image for a second.
    Then she cleared her throat and wondered out loud. “A while
longer before what?”
    Panic spiked in her chest. Did he somehow know about the
baby? Maybe he knew and was worried she planned to abort it. She felt sick
again and even headed toward the bathroom, but walking and taking several deep
breaths helped. Of course he couldn’t know. No one did except her boss, who
wouldn’t say a word to anyone yet, and mom… her mom! Her mother wouldn’t call
him, would she?
    After the long pause, he said, “So…so things are okay?
You’re not…doing anything?”
    His voice held so many questions and layers that she felt he
was talking over her head. It had to be about how she had mentioned a divorce.
“Doing anything like what? What do you need more time for?” He could have meant
filing divorce papers. She wanted to make him say it, though.
    He was the one who had strayed. And wasn’t he the one who
had brought up calling it quits? She wasn’t sure how to deal with this kind of
pain much longer. It was love and hate mixed together, battling and tearing her
apart in the process.
    “I just want more time. I don’t want you to make any
decisions about us until after the holidays, when I get back. Please give us
one more Christmas, baby. It’s our season, remember? Give us a little time to
remember how good we can be. I love you.”
    Everything closed in on her so hard she couldn’t talk. She
squeezed her eyes shut, holding it all in, even as an ocean of want, hurt, and
longing swelled up inside her.
    “Vivianne? I love you.”
    She tried to breathe and tried to answer, but it came out
like a sob. This man didn’t sound like the same one she’d been emailing with
the last three months. That man had walls around him and wrote curt emails and
didn’t like to call her because they argued. In short, he had tried to make
their problems go away by avoiding them. So how could she trust him again?
    “Remember our first Christmas together, when we were dating?
We walked down to the park after midnight, and it started snowing. Just like
the night we met. Like God’s own blessing on us, you said. We danced under the
streetlight.”
    She did remember. Even now she could see the flakes catching
the light, sparkling like white diamonds out of the darkness around them. Their
breath had billowed out as they laughed and talked.
    “Yeah,” Vivianne said on a tearful laugh, “and the snow was
all gone by morning.” The enchantment had been just for them.
    They’d danced in the falling snow during their first weekend
together at Big Bear too. Their happy memories were like those snowflakes:
there were thousands of shared magical moments. But now they were all melting,
vanishing, just like snow always did.
    Or were they?
    Picturing Aiden’s loving eyes as he had watched her dance in
the snow made Vivianne think of all the little things she loved about him. She
knew the SEALS had dirty mouths when they were together, but Aiden always spoke
to her like a gentleman. He left the cussing for time with his buddies.
    Aiden was extremely neat and helped her clean when he was
home, but he was also perfectly happy to lounge around the house in his pajamas
all Saturday. They’d sleep in, watch a movie, and spend the evening sitting in
front of the fire, drinking tea and talking about their future.
    Silence lingered as unspoken memories flowed between them.
    “Remember when I proposed?”
    He was pouring it on thick, but she didn’t want to fight the
memories. The bright, happy memories. She grabbed a tissue from the box on her
end table and swiped at her