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“You say that you’ll either wait for me or you won’t. It’s pretty simple. And there are no expectations, Jessica. If it doesn’t work for you, just say so. I’ll be fine.”
“Will you be hurt?”
He shook his head. “Disappointed.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“What do you get a girl who has everything?” Myles asked in the darkness of the night.
Jess smiled and pressed her face against his naked chest. “I have everything I want right here, right now, in this moment.”
“But Christmas is kind of a big deal, or so, I hear. My mom always worked on Christmas and we didn’t have much so… I’m sort of flying blind here.”
She squeezed him. “Oh, you have no idea. I’m going to make this the best Christmas ever. Big tree, lots of lights—all of it. It’s how I’ve always done it, but this year will be even bigger! You haven’t lived until you’ve spent Christmas at our house.”
He laughed. “I guess not.”
Myles felt her mood shift. “You won’t be back yet this time next year, will you?”
“No. It’s an eighteen-month deployment. That’s all I’m committed to…”
“And after that?”
He inhaled. “And after that we’ll see. I care about you, Jessica. You know that. But as for much more than that, I’m not sure what else I can offer.”
She walked her fingers down the length of his chest and back up again. “It’s enough, Myles. I’ll miss you, sure, but I miss the pills, too. And if I can live without them, then I can live without you… for a while at least.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to.”
“Okay,” she said sitting up. “We don’t need to beat a dead horse. I get it. I know you need reassurance that I’ll wait. Even if you’re not willing to admit it. That’s fine. But I said I’ll wait for you and I will. I just need to hear you say that you want me to.”
He took her hand in his, grabbed her chin, looking directly into her eyes. “I’m not sure that anyone has ever really known me the way you do. You understand things about me that half of the time I don’t even understand about myself. I want you to wait. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want you to be mine and mine alone. I can’t imagine anyone else holding you this way. Is that what you want to hear? Because it’s the truth. The selfish fucking truth. But the truth nonetheless.”
“Love is selfish, Myles. It just is.”
“I don’t want to be selfish. I don’t want to ask you to wait because I know it’s not fair to you. You deserve someone who’s going to be around. You deserve better.”
“And you deserve someone who will wait. Is that what you want to hear?”
He saw the recognition in her eyes. “Maybe it is.”
“Good then, it’s settled. We have eighteen months to figure out how to be the best at what the other deserves.”
He lifted her hand and gave it a firm shake. “You have yourself a deal.”
She smiled and then he pushed her backward on the bed and made love to her in a way neither of them would soon forget. He realized that night that there are a million ways to say I love you. And at least half of them don’t require words at all.
That Christmas was the best of his life, just as she’d promised. The four of them, he Jess and the kids, went out to an old tree farm in the country and cut down their own tree. Jess tried to show him the opulence of her lifestyle while he showed her the simplicity of his. They made a game of it, seeing who could shock the other. She insisted he attend fancy parties with the Hartmans and he insisted on building a fire and watching old holiday movies around it with hot cocoa. Surprisingly, he found himself happy either way, as long as he was with her. Being here with her this way, felt like home. The only home he’d really ever known.
His Christmas gift to her was almost complete even though finding time for it required additional stealth on his part. He’d gotten Jonathan a camera because God knew the boy needed to get out into the world and out from behind his computer. Metaphorically, he wanted him to try seeing things from a different point of view and starting behind the lens wouldn’t hurt. For Kit Cat, he’d gotten her ballet slippers and a year’s worth of lessons because she incessantly talked about being a ballerina and he knew she’d be a natural. There was something special about the way she lit up a room—much like her mother did, without either knowing it or trying. There was a presence they both possessed and Myles wanted to bottle it up and take it with him.
Christmas came and went with a level of chaos like he’d never seen. He’d secretly arranged to have Jess’s father brought to the house for Christmas dinner and Myles found himself with an unfamiliar feeling—a severe case of nerves. He wanted everything to go just perfectly and thankfully, it did. Jess had been so surprised that tears welled up in her eyes.
He gave the kids their gifts, which they seemed to enjoy, but true to their nature, they were out the door, off to the next thing. Once everyone had gone, he decided it was time for Jess’s actual gift. He blindfolded her, put her into the mule, and drove her to the barn.
“Where are you taking me?” she’d asked.
He smiled even though she couldn’t see it. “To the place where it all started.”
