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The pl
an would work better with a set period. A date. But he didn’t want to put it out further than she’d need. She was the one who had to figure out that they weren’t going to work. He was already there.
“Fine,” he said. Mentally giving her three months, tops. Until they at least revisited the conversation. He needed time on the other end to get a lawyer and get divorced before his six-month leave was up.
Chapter Eleven
I’ve been advised to tell you I need a divorce. Emily closed her eyes, then opened them again, focusing on the computer in front of her, willing herself to block Winston’s words from her brain. She’d been told to take a few days off, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t work from home. Concentrating on campaign strategies, convincing news and television sources that her clients’ information was of interest to them, working out print advertising deals that were the most financially beneficial, gave her mind something productive to focus on. Well...mostly productive. Coming up with ways to reach consumers in a world overloaded with media and fake news. With one of her current products, she’d been in meetings with retailers to convince them to at least give a chance to her new and inventive way to make in-store advertising more effective.
Winston had gone out to the garage after their dinner conversation. She’d heard him at his workbench. Opening drawers. Reacquainting himself with his tools? Or cataloging their value for a fair split of marital property?
No. She couldn’t afford to get maudlin. The week before she’d been a widow. Today she was a wife. Bleak could turn into miraculous in an instant.
Winston needed time. She couldn’t take anything he said right then as absolute gospel. It wouldn’t be fair to him to do so.
And their baby... If she’d known he was alive, there was no way she’d have had herself inseminated. He was struggling enough, working through two years of his life lived in a way he never would have chosen without being forced, trying to find himself in the life he’d left behind. Adding a baby into that...
No matter how wonderful that news...even in a normal, blessed life, there were moments of doubt. And some anxiety over the irrevocable changes that were coming.
Not only would he be responsible for himself, but she’d landed the responsibilities of fatherhood on his shoulders.
And yet...she was pregnant! And Winston was home! For a woman who’d been bereft and completely alone just weeks before, the universe had clearly gifted her.
So, what was it worth to her? Was she going to buckle at the first sign of challenge? The first obstacle?
Hell no, she was not. She was going to be a dedicated partner to her husband who was struggling. And a good parent to the baby growing inside her. She was going to be the woman in this family. Loving them. Holding them all together.
Including herself.
She’d heard the door into the kitchen open and close. Winston had stopped by the entry to the office. If he’d asked, there was no way she could have told him what she was staring at on her screen.
“You can come in,” she said. “I’ve kept your computer updated.”
“I don’t want to bother your work.”
“You used to be at your desk a lot when I was in here working and it never bothered me. That hasn’t changed.” How did she know that until they’d tried?
She slowed herself down. Giving him platitudes, or throwing out anything that could be construed as barbs, whether they’d been meant that way or not, was not the way to help her marriage.
“At least, I can’t imagine it would,” she clarified. “Truthfully, it would probably help. I spent a lot of hours sitting here unable to focus because of the emptiness over there.” She nodded toward his desk.
When he still hesitated, she knew not to push. Instead, she x-ed out of her work network. “I’m done for the night anyway,” she said as he remained in the doorway.
Something on his mind?
Why else would he still be standing there?
Preparing herself not to take whatever he said personally, to remember he was in a transition frame of mind, she remembered something.
“I didn’t tell you, I’m off work for the next couple of days. Boss’s orders.” She’d meant to tell him at dinner. Got sidetracked by the divorce advice. That had turned out not to be that at all, she reminded herself. The advice had been to talk to her.
He’d taken that to the extreme.
Standing there in his khakis, top button still fastened, hands in his pockets, he looked...so damned good to her. Exactly as he’d looked so many times in the past, stopping by the door on his way into work on the days she’d been working from home. If he weighed less, had scars...anything...maybe it would be easier to remember that he wasn’t whole. Yet.
Not that she wished in any way, for any second, that he’d been physically harmed. She was grateful as all hell that he’d devised a plan that had actually allowed him to save the rest of the troops in his unit and keep his own body intact.
Unchanged.
