"I love you so much, Nash."
He kisses me until I'm breathless and pulls back, resting his forehead against mine. "I love you too, baby."
Epilogue
Nash
Five Years Later
“Hunter Nash Jr! You better get down from there before your mama comes out here and spanks us both.”
I watch as my five-year-old son climbs down from the big playset. He comes toward me with a big smile on his face, and I shake my head. “Hunter, you know you are supposed to hang from the monkey bars, not walk across the top of them.”
Right then Emery comes out of the house with our daughter Avery on her hip. She looks between Hunter and me, shaking her head. “Like father, like son.”
I don’t think she’s meaning it as a compliment, but I smile anyway. Six years ago, if anyone had told me that I’d be settled down, no more traveling on missions, with two kids AND happy, I wouldn’t have believed them. I’m not going to lie; when we got the call about Hunter, I was scared to death. I hadn’t known it, but Emery had applied at some adoption agencies. When she got the call that not only she was accepted but they had a baby that needed emergency placement, we immediately said yes.
In the span of two weeks, Emery and I got remarried, decorated a nursery, our friends threw us a baby shower, and we became parents. It was definitely a whirlwind.
Emery worried about me. She kept waiting for me to freak out, take off on a mission or something else crazy, but I never did. And when we went to the hospital and picked up Hunter Jr., my whole life changed. I no longer feared that I would let my son down. I knew from the first moment I looked into his eyes that I would do anything and everything to love and protect him until the day I die.
Emery stops next to me, and Avery holds her hands out. “Dada!”
I can’t resist her. I take her from Emery, and Emery rolls her eyes. “I don’t get it. I carried her for nine months and gained all the weight. I’m the one that went through twelve hours of labor. You would think her first word would be Momma!”
I kiss Avery’s head and then move her to my hip so I can put my arm around Emery. She nuzzles against me, and I stare down at her, still not believing that she’s mine. “Let’s not talk about the delivery.”
She shakes her head and looks up at me with sympathy. “Nash, you have to get over that. I’m fine, and Avery was fine.”
I kiss Avery’s head and set her down in the grass. “Hunter, watch your sis for a minute.”
He walks over and sits down next to Avery and rolls a ball to her. “You got it, Dad.”
I grab on to Emery’s hand and walk up on the porch where we can still keep an eye on the kids but also get some privacy. I put my arms around her waist and hold on to her, breathing her in.
She usually melts into my embrace, but this time she’s holding herself rigid. “What is it, Nash? What’s wrong?”
My voice is gruff when I answer her. “You’re okay now, Emery. But those twelve hours you were in labor were the longest of my life.”
She just smirks and laughs like I made some kind of joke, and I’m not having it. I rest my chin on the top of her head and try not to get lost in the memories. “I’m not joking. I have lain in a wet swamp for ten hours, anticipating the perfect time to move to safety. I’ve had to sit completely still for fourteen hours, no sleep and make sure that I don’t move a muscle as we set in enemy territory surrounded by fifty men and pray to God that we were not found before help arrived. I’ve trekked across the mountains of Afghanistan on high alert as we helped ten women that had been trafficked across the border. I’ve been tortured, shot, burned... and with all of that, watching you in pain, seeing what you were going through and I couldn’t do anything to help was the absolute worst thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
Emery reaches up and puts her hands on each side of my face, forcing me to look at her. “Nash... I didn’t know... I had no idea.”
I shake my head, visibly shaken from the memories. “I couldn’t stand seeing you like that.”
She shakes her head. “No, I mean, I knew what you did, but I had no idea everything you DID. Oh Nash... that’s horrible, I couldn’t imagine.”
I turn my head, holding her hand and kissing her palm. “That part of my life is over, Emery.”