Something Worth Saving Read Free

boy was frantically trying to remove himself to get to his hero.
    There was nothing that excited our little boy more than his daddy. Nothing. Sure, I fed him, bathed, changed, and cuddled him, but I had nothing on the man who was the epitome of perfection in his eyes. The first time Jayden saw Jace in his bunker gear ready to go to a fire, you would have thought he’d seen a superhero.
    With our just over two-years-old son securely in his arms, Jace moved closer to me. “I picked up an extra shift today.” He smiled gently, as if I should know by his sweatshirt he had been called in.
    “But you just came off a twenty-four-hour shift.” Jace was a firefighter and usually worked twenty-four-hour shifts with forty-eight hours off, then another twenty-four-hour shift and ninety-six hours off. Lately, though, he’d been volunteering for overtime and Special Teams on the fireboat down at the pier.
    Jace shrugged, holding Jayden over his shoulders with one arm and pouring black coffee with the other into his stainless steel coffee mug. “I know.” He moved to sit at the table, both kids crawling on him now.
    I didn’t mind the extra money the overtime brought with it, even though we had separate accounts, but it was the simple fact that he was never here. And when he wasn’t working, he was out with the boys, playing hockey or softball. At times I just wanted him to be home for more than a day.
    I didn’t push the issue of overtime. To me it was an argument we didn’t need to have, because if you knew Jace, you understood if you pushed him into an argument, he’d shut down.
    Nodding, I poured my own cup of coffee. We sat there listening to Gracie talk about Bubble Guppies and how she wanted her very own Bubble Puppy – whatever that was.
    With a smile of utter amusement at our daughter, Jace took one hand and wrapped it around my waist, pulling all four of us together.
    It always worried me when he came off a shift and went right back on duty. Never mind the fact that he was already tired. If he was feeling the effects of the job, he wouldn’t lead on.
    Keeping his eyes low on the kids, he whispered, “Call my mom and see if the kids can spend the night tomorrow.”
    He didn’t have to ask me twice. Ask any parent out there, and they’ll tell you when the kids make a trip to the grandparents, two things happen: sleep and sex. I planned on doing both.
    “Okay,” I agreed with a nod, inwardly smiling.
    Jace leaned forward to kiss my forehead. “I’ll drop the kids off with Lauren on my way to the station.”
    Lauren was my younger sister. She graciously watched our crazy brood while I was at work. She had a five-year-old son of her own, and I had absolutely no idea how exactly she managed this without drugging them during the day.
    I loved my kids dearly, but dropping them off at daycare sucked ass.
    Having never been very clingy to me, they always were when it came to dropping them off. That activity was full of screaming and crying and snot . . . and then there were their reactions, which were very similar. Most of the time you couldn’t drop them off without bribery.
    Kissing the kids and their chubby little cheeks with maple syrup all over them, I wrapped my arms around Jace’s shoulders, leaning my chest into his back.
    I whispered into his neck, “Be safe.”
    The hardest part for me was not knowing if he was going to return home to us. I found myself memorizing his smile, his eyes, and the last words he said, wondering if it would be our last.
    I didn’t like to think that way, but it happened, and was a reality of this life.
    “Always,” he whispered, turning his head toward mine.
    I maneuvered my way to the front door of our apartment and took one last look at my little family.
    Jace sat down with both kids now in his lap. His tousled black hair, which matched Gracie’s, fell against his forehead and shadowed his eyes nicely. As if he could never really tame it, the front kicked out at an odd