Show of Honor Read online

  But this is no sexy striptease, and I still can’t speak. Doesn’t matter, since Jessie’s not pausing for breath.

  “I wasn’t sure if my text went through, since I had to shut down for the flight. I took my chances getting an earlier one with everything closing down for the storm. You wouldn’t believe the traffic out of Seattle. Everyone scrambling to get out before the snow comes, and Joy—” Her voice softens, which has the opposite effect on me because she whips off her bra and tosses it on the bed. “Joy got a little airsick, poor baby, and spewed like a geyser. It was worse than Stacey Sills on that girls’ trip to Vegas when she drank all those cosmos after you got the lap dance from that stripper—what was his name?” She snaps her fingers, and I know this is my moment to say something, anything, to stop this train from flying off its tracks.

  But she’s talking again, bare breasts moving lush and lovely as she bends to dig through the dresser.

  “Anyway, you look amazing,” she continues.

  With her perfect posterior inches from my face, I can’t get enough air. Can’t figure out what twilight zone I’ve stumbled into that this Ghost of Christmas Past is hovering half-dressed in front of me.

  I didn’t think I’d ever see her again.

  “I wasn’t sure what to expect,” she’s saying as she whips a bright pink bra from the bureau and hooks it around her ribcage, breasts swaying as she wriggles the cups around in front. “Nutmeg Bear? What the hell is that? But no, you look awesome. Fabulous. Ugh, unlike my tits. I swear they look like deflated soccer balls, minus the weird black and white hexagons. Hey, what time does this thing start, anyway?”

  That’s my cue. My moment to pry off the bear head and clear up this misunderstanding. As I raise my arms to do that, I realize my hands are sweaty, and my gut’s clenched like someone kicked me.

  I fumble with the loops holding the head on and tug it off. I set it slowly on the bench and sit blinking and baffled as hell.

  But there’s one thing I’m sure of as Jessie gasps.

  “Jessie.” I lock eyes with bright blue ones I’ve seen in my mind for three hundred and forty-two days. “It’s nice to see you. Your breasts look perfect to me.”

  Chapter 2

  CONFESSIONAL 871.5

  Laslo, Jessica (Non-profit consultant & volunteer)

  I hated surprises as a kid. Don’t tell my mom, but I used to sneak under the Christmas tree two weeks early and open anything with my name on it. I got good at taping things back together, acting surprised when I opened them Christmas morning. I feel bad about it now, but it made things easier.

  I still don’t love surprises.

  As I stare at the man who rocked my world last Christmas, a few thoughts spring to mind.

  One involves wriggling into my bra, which I do as he sits frozen in my sister’s bear costume looking like he’s seen a ghost. Maybe because my boobs are pasty-pale, so I yank up the straps and scoop my flesh into the cups. “What are you—where did you—” I stop, licking my lips to start again. “How did you find me?”

  Not how I saw this conversation starting if we ever met again.

  “Jessie.” He makes a sound halfway between a gasp and a groan as he drags a bear paw over his head. “Holy shit.”

  I’m not sure how to respond to that. “Butch, right?”

  I might not know that if I hadn’t read it off his rucksack a year ago, tracing a finger over the stitched letters as I forced my out-of-practice seduction smile. His teammate confirmed my guess as he strode past, shouting “See ya, Butch.”

  I shake off the memory as he starts to stand, then thinks better of it. He must guess towering over a topless woman while wearing a bear costume isn’t the best move. Not even if said woman knows how those broad shoulders feel nudging her thighs apart.

  “Jessie.” He sounds surer of my name than I am of his. “I—you—that is—” He pauses and shakes his head. “It’s Joe, actually.”

  “What’s Joe?”

  “My name. Butch is my nickname. It’s—a SEAL thing.”

  “SEAL?” I blink a few times. He said he was military, but a Navy SEAL?

  “Yeah.” He looks a little flustered. “I don’t really share that with strangers in airports. It’s a security thing.”

  I guess he’s decided after banging me silly that I’m not a terrorist threat?

  “I see.” And I have seen all of him, every last inch. But why is he in my sister’s guest room?

  Before I can ask, he’s clearing his throat. “How have you been?”

  I laugh because it’s such a sweet question. It’d be sweeter if I weren’t standing in my bra thinking filthy thoughts about our one-night stand.

  “Sorry, can I put my shirt on?” I don’t wait for a response. Just yank on the long-sleeved Peace Corps tee I keep stashed in my sister’s spare dresser. Safely clothed, I stare at the man whose bionic sperm changed my life.

  “Let’s start again,” I say. “My name is Jessica Ann Laslo. I guess we only gave each other first names.” I force myself to take a breath. “Jessie. Most people call me Jessie.”

  He gets to his feet finally, though he looks a bit shaky. Maybe it’s the costume. “Lieutenant Joseph Josiah Carver. Joe. I—um. Patti Carver and Colleen Mumford Carver—my moms.”

  The man was more articulate when he talked me out of my panties. Not that I made it tough, and I get why he’s shaken. My own knees are trembling as my brain sloshes with memories of our crazy Christmas fling. Our wild, hot, passionate—

  “You’re Patti and Colleen’s son?” I take a deep breath as my brain wraps itself around this knowledge. “Joey,” I sputter, shaking my head. “I knew they had a boy named Joey, but I was picturing a kid on the cusp of puberty.”

  That gets a smile from him. “All grown up. You know my parents?”

  I nod and wonder how long we’ll make small talk before we get to the bombshell. The sweet, snuggly, fourteen-pound bombshell dozing in her travel crib down the hall. “I was here for a few weeks in the fall opening the new animal shelter. I consult for non-profits with—”

  “Wait, you build animal shelters?” He frowns. “Weren’t you flying off to sub-Saharan Africa when we met?”

  I’m surprised he’d remember. “Peace Corps.”

  “No kidding?” He nods, digesting the information. “I guess I assumed you were a missionary or something.”

  I stare at him, wondering if that’s a joke. “I took your T-shirt off with my teeth ten minutes after we met, and you thought I was a missionary?”

  “Figured you were sowing some wild oats.” He shrugs. “Not my place to judge.”

  The thought of his judgment sends prickles up my arms as my ex-fiancé’s words clang in my head.

  “You’re a great girl, Jessie,” Cody began as he tore out my heart. “But you’re so self-reliant that I can’t see you settling down with a family. You’re too independent, you know? Besides, if you can’t actually have kids, I think we should just—”

  “Malawi,” I blurt at Joe, bringing myself back to the moment. “I was traveling to Central Malawi a year ago. A tiny village at the edge of a game reserve. I—” Shit, I’m not sure how to say it. How do you break it to a man when you’re about to change his life forever?

  Maybe I should ask questions, be sure he’s not psycho before inviting him into my life. Ironic, since I invited him into my pants not knowing his name.

  “You left.” I bite my lip. “I woke up in the morning, and you were—”

  “On a flight.” His dark brows furrow. “I got a call from my CO—Commanding Officer. We were going wheels up, and I thought we’d agreed not to exchange info?”

  “No, you’re right.” It was my idea, one I regretted within weeks. I ball up my sweater flecked with dried baby barf and toss it in Gretchen’s hamper. “You’re really military?”

  He frowns. “You thought I was lying?”

  “You had long hair and a beard. No military buzz cut.”

  “It’s a SEAL th
ing.” He looks like he’s choosing his words carefully. “We have to blend in on covert ops. I’m only clean shaven when I’m diving a lot, since the mask fits better that way. You thought I was shitting you about the military?”

  I can’t fault his incredulous look. Joe Carver oozes a military sex appeal, but that’s not what drew me in. Besides. “Guys play the military card all the time to get laid.”

  “Do they?” He sounds more bemused than judgey. I bite back the urge to clarify he’s my first and only one-night stand.

  “They think it’s what women want to hear,” I continue. “Along with ‘my Porsche is in the shop’ and ‘I’m hung like a horse.’”

  This gets a double brow lift from Joe, who—for the record—is near the equine end of the spectrum. Not that I study barn animals that way.

  “This is very enlightening.” His head tilts in bemusement. “Should I be taking notes?”

  I roll my eyes. “Like you’ve never played to the cliché of women loving a man in uniform?”

  He holds up his arms in the bear costume, paw pads flashing pink felt hearts fringed in rusty fur. “How’s this uniform working for you?”

  I laugh, remembering it’s what got me last year. Not his sexy self-confidence or big biceps. Those didn’t hurt, but his sense of humor melted me. We were standing in an airport corridor watching monitors light up with cancelled flight announcements when he gave me a wry look. “This TV show is the worst.”

  I laughed because it was easier than crying. “At least there aren’t commercials.”

  He hoisted his rucksack over one shoulder, and I caught my first glimpse of his name stitched on a pocket. “I don’t suppose you know any fat men with flying reindeer who could get us out of here?”

  “‘Fraid not,” I said, forcing myself to put on a brave face. “Santa and me, we’re not tight.”

  The spark in his eyes got me. That, and the fact that I was already having a pity party over spending Christmas Eve in an airport instead of with family.

  He stepped closer, amber eyes flashing. “You don’t strike me as someone with a spot on the naughty list.”

  I took it for flirtation, though now I know he mistook me for a missionary. But I didn’t know then, and heat flared in my belly, blazing higher as he pointed at my breasts. No, not my breasts.

  “National Humane Society Volunteer?” He read the words off my shirt and nodded. “Surely that gets you in the front seat of the sleigh.”

  Blame it on loneliness. Or maybe plain old lust made me bold. I licked my lips and looked him right in the eye. “Looks like neither of us is flying tonight. Want to get out of here?”

  Shaking myself back to the present, I see Joe watching me. His alertness, attentiveness, those reeled me in before. They’re having that same effect now, which I hope is a sign he’s not a serial killer.

  Good thing, since there’s something I should tell him. I take a deep breath and feel my throat closing up.

  “Jessie?” His brow furrows. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You got kind of a funny look.”

  My mouth feels dry, and my breasts are full and achy. Has he noticed my nursing bra? That my belly has stretch marks that weren’t there a year ago?

  Is something in his Navy SEAL instincts screaming there’s a stranger down the hall with his DNA?

  “I tried to find you,” I choke out. “I emailed some military in-boxes, but without knowing your name or rank or branch of the military or even if you really were in the military—”

  “You tried to find me?” His smile goes cocky, and I know what he’s thinking. That the sex was so good, so phenomenal, that I craved another booty call.

  He’s not wrong, but that isn’t it.

  “Joe, look—”

  “Okay, Nutmeg Bear!” A door slams down the hall as Lauren Judson’s voice calls from the front of the house. “Shit. I didn’t know you were here. Hey, baby Joy. Sorry for swearing. Where’s your mama?”

  “Here,” I call, watching Joe’s eyes go wide.

  Eyes the perfect shade of amber, ringed in dark brown with a tiny pool of green around each iris. My daughter’s eyes, Joe’s eyes, they’re exactly the same. I don’t know how to say what I need to tell him.

  I don’t have to because Lauren’s walking into the bedroom cooing and cradling my girl in her arms. Lauren looks from me to Joe and back again, frowning like she knows something’s off.

  “She was lying there wide-awake batting at her mobile.” She gives me an odd look. “I hope it’s okay I picked her up. Last time you were here—”

  “It’s okay.” Three months ago, Lauren held Joy daily while we worked together on the animal shelter. My girl was just a few weeks old, snuggled in her sling while I tried to make this small corner of the world better for homeless animals. For families who adopted them.

  My ex’s words tickle my brain again. “It’s not like you can run around saving the world if you have a baby. Kids need a stable life, and I need someone who can—”

  “This is Joy.” I clear my throat and hold out my arms so Lauren lays my daughter in them.

  Joe stares, eyes scanning the baby like he’s never seen one before. Like he can’t wrap his mind around what’s happening. Joy’s sweet face smiles up at me, blissfully unaware the world just rolled on its axis.

  I lift my gaze to Joe’s and take a deep breath. “Joseph Josiah Carver,” I say slowly. “Meet your daughter.”

  Chapter 3

  CONFESSIONAL 878

  Carver, Joseph (Lieutenant, US Navy SEALS)

  Once in a training exercise, I got kicked in the nuts. Not the first time, and definitely not the last, but the steel-toed boots made it memorable. I sat there choking and heaving, pretty sure I’d pass out. It was the shock that did it, not the pain. Nothing like shock to leave you gasping for air and wondering if that’s your tonsils or your testicles in your throat.

  “Uh, I’ll give you two a minute.”

  Lauren Judson backs out of the room as I sink down on the bench when my knees become butter.

  I bolt up again because I’m a US Navy SEAL and I’ll be damned if I meet my child sitting on my ass in a headless bear costume. “Y—you’re sure?” I croak the question before realizing it’s the wrong one. “I mean, fuck—I’m sure you’re sure. Shit, I’m not implying you’re out there banging a different stranger every night.” Also not the right thing to say. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. No slut shaming here, swear to God.”

  I’ve spoken three dozen words as I meet my kid, and half of them would get my mouth washed out with soap. I’m not off to a good start with this fatherhood thing.

  I half expect Jessie to hit me. She’d have every right, but instead she turns to give a better look at the baby. “She has your eyes,” she says. “We can do a paternity test if you want, but—”

  “No.” I shake my head, never surer of anything than I am that this child is mine. “Only if you want to.” I swallow hard, struggling to find my footing. Pawing?

  If you’d told me this morning I’d meet my child while dressed as wildlife, I’d assume you’d hit the hot buttered rum. “May I hold her?”

  Jessie hesitates. I don’t blame her, and part of me’s glad she’s protective of her daughter. My daughter. Our daughter.

  Holy shit.

  “You have to support her head.” She transfers the tiny bundle to my arms, cradling her like she’s the most precious thing on earth. She might be.

  “Hi, baby.” I shift my hand to stroke her tiny cheek before remembering I’ve got paws. I settle for studying her, cataloguing plump cheeks, tiny fingers, a perfect rosebud mouth. My heart swells with something I swear is love at first sight. The baby stirs but doesn’t open her eyes.

  After a thousand breathless moments staring at my daughter, I meet Jessie’s eyes again. “Her name is Joy?”

  Jessie nods and I see something glittering in her eyes. Is she crying?

  “Since she was conceive
d Christmas Eve, I thought—” Her cheeks go pink, and she bites her lip. “Joy Nasya. It’s Hebrew for—”

  “Miracle of God.” I draw in a great big breath. “Mom’s Jewish.”

  She nods like she knew this, though I’m not sure she did. “My first Peace Corps mission was in Albania. There’s a large Jewish population. I learned a little Hebrew.”

  It’s the sweetest, most tender moment of my life. I’m cradling my new daughter, marveling at the miracle of her existence. She smells like powder and milk and something unbearably sweet. Everything about her is perfect, from her dimpled chin to her ten tiny toes.

  My child.

  “Do you have some kind of magical military sperm?” Jessie’s question jerks me from the baby daze.

  “What?”

  “Bionic sperm or something?” She’s shaking her head and looking at me like this is a real question. “We used condoms,” she reminds me. “I had an IUD as a safety precaution because some of the villages where I work—” She stops and I’m glad not to hear the rest of that. It’s the reality for female service members who go in recognizing rape as an enemy weapon.

  “Anyway,” she continues as my gut gets tighter. “I was told in my teens I’d probably never get pregnant. Endometriosis. Really bad. So, I guess I’m just a little blown away by—by—”

  “Our Christmas miracle?”

  She nods and her face goes sheepish. “I found out later the IUD got dislodged. Still, condoms should have saved us.”

  I look at her a long, long time. I’m not sure what I’m about to say will be welcome. It might even get me slapped.

  But it’s the truth, and my parents taught me to always speak my truth. “I’m glad,” I say softly.

  Jessie stares back for roughly eight thousand years, then nods. “Me, too.”

  “I mean—not that you had to go through it alone.” God, I’m an asshole. “I wish I could have been there for you.”