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“Huh? Yeah. I just wanted to come in and…” Aidan paused and ducked his head slightly, dark hair falling into his eyes. “Can I hug you?”
Tracy leapt out of his arms and rushed to her son, her arms open wide, and the boy fell into them. “Oh, my baby boy. You can always, always, always hug me. Cutter isn’t here to get between us, sweetie.”
Cutter approached the pair as Aidan disentangled himself from Tracy’s grip, but he didn’t let go of her hand. “Kid, I’m here to stand next to your mom, never between you and her. She’s done a damn good job raising you all these years on her own and with your grandpa. Consider me support and logistics.”
Aidan studied him and Cutter realized that the boy had a keen eye for people, well trained by his mother and grandfather. He withstood the judgment for a long moment before the kid asked, “What’s logistics?”
“It’s getting people and things where they need to be, when they need to be there. A unit doesn’t run well without it.” Bob stood behind Aidan at the entrance to the kitchen, his steely dark gaze studying Cutter mercilessly.
“Mom’s always done that stuff, though. Why does she need him?”
Everyone waited for Cutter to answer. “Think of it this way. Do you have one teacher for all your subjects in school?”
“No,” Aidan answered immediately.
“Because each teacher has different strengths, but they’re all supporting the mission, which is helping you learn. Make sense?”
“So what’s the mission with my mom?” asked the boy.
This kid was going to keep everyone on their toes. Cutter looked to Tracy and Bob and they nodded at him to continue. Tracy came to his side and tilted her face up to his while she wrapped an arm around his waist.
“Yeah, Cutter. What’s the mission?”
Bombs were never as simple as the movies. It never came down to a choice between the red wire or the blue one. But this part… this was easy. He knew the choice he’d already made. All he had to do was say what was in his heart to the woman who held it in her beautiful, strong hands.
“Home, sweetheart. The mission is making a home.”
Epilogue
Four years later
Cutter twisted in the uncomfortable folding chair near the end of a long row that had been set up in the Hedby High School gymnasium.
Tracy leaned over and hissed, “What is wrong with you? Did you sit on an ant hill or something?”
“Where is he?” he muttered.
“Who? Aidan? He’s in the third row from the front between Jenn Myers and Chase Nowaltnik, just like he has been since Kindergarten. Well, Chase got bumped over for Pam Newsome for a couple of years in sixth and seventh grade, but her family moved to Portland the next summer, thank goodness. I never liked her.”
Cutter stared at her. “You like everyone. It’s written into your DNA. You’re the nicest person I’ve ever met, even to assholes.”
“I guess I can still surprise you, then, because I’m not nice to assholes. I’m polite to them. There’s a difference. And Pam was rude and entitled and broke Aidan’s video game controller when she lost. I can’t blame her entirely, though. Her mother tried to make me feel bad when I asked her to replace it. She made that fake, ‘Oh, I’m sorry you’re not rich’ face and I wanted to punch her. Then the whole town found out her husband was fucking the nanny, which is such a tacky cliche anyway, and…” Her voice broke and she stopped abruptly.
Cutter wrapped his arm around her shoulders while she buried her face in his chest and sobbed quietly. “He’s going to the Air Force Academy, not the moon, sweetheart. He doesn’t even leave for another three weeks.” He tucked a finger under her chin and lifted. “And you’re kind of cute when you’re bitchy.”
“He grew up, Cutter. I don’t remember giving him permission to do that.” She looked up at him and the wet glimmer in her beautiful dark eyes nearly fucking killed him. “He’s my baby boy.”
He pressed a kiss to the silver streak in his wife’s hair and tried not to smile. “He’s eighteen, little mama. A man, or nearly there.”
Bob had stopped in the lobby to talk to some of his buddies and was one of the last to arrive, leaning lightly on the cane he now used. Cutter knew the old man carried it more as an affectation than out of necessity, but the retired officer was cutting a romantic swath through Hedby’s population of widows, so the smoothly polished hickory was worth the trouble Cutter had taken to craft it.
“What’s… why is she crying? Tracy, honey, are you all right?” Bob looked around for someone to swing his stick at, but Cutter stopped him.
“Aidan grew up while she wasn’t looking.”
“Ah,” said Bob, sitting down. “Kids do that. You were seven years old just yesterday, Trace.”
She sniffled against Cutter’s chest, then laughed. “I know, Dad. Not sure how all this gray hair sprouted overnight.”
