His Best Friend's Baby

“They’ve been really nice to me and nothing but sweet to Ben.”

“But don’t you go forgiving that woman too soon. You are a strong mother, you don’t need their help.”

Julia clapped a hand over her mouth to stop the incredulous laughter. Beth, as usual, had no clue what Julia needed.

Julia was a twenty-four-year-old widow. She had a two-year-old son who only knew his father from photographs. Her own father was dead and her mother, though loving and involved in Julia’s life, was still an active engineer in the army. And when the United States wasn’t at war, Mom was home in Washington, D.C., for only about half the year. For the past three years, Beth had spent eleven months out of twelve in Iraq.

No one had ever truly been there for Julia and Ben. And she needed that to change. Ben needed family, people in his life on a daily basis. Not twice a year for a few weeks.

“Do you have enough money?”

An excellent question, Mother. “I’m fine,” she hedged.

“Okay, I’ll let you get some rest.” Beth’s deep breath echoed down the line. “Remember, sweetheart, you can always come here. I leave to go back on Saturday to help the Brits with their water problems so my house will be empty.”

Another empty army house. Exactly what Iam trying to avoid.

“I know, Mom, thanks. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

They hung up and Julia’s spirits bobbed upward. She smiled at her son, who was nearly asleep where he lay against her legs.

“Everything is going to be okay,” she told him and hoped with every last thing in her body that it was true.

THE DREAM CAME as it had for the past five months. She stood at the front door of the small apartment in Germany she and Mitch shared briefly before he went to Iraq. She was dressed in her favorite white skirt and a sweater that Mitch said made her eyes look like the sky. She knew she was opening the door to something special. Excitement danced over her skin and she was happy, the way she’d been for the first few months of her marriage. But when she opened the door there was only fire and smoke and the sound of someone screaming.

She ran into the smoke, sure that someone needed her. Just her, no one else could help. The smoke shifted and on the floor of the hallway sprawled Mitch, bloody and hurt.

“Hey, baby,” he said with a smile she recognized from the days when he was trying to get her in bed.

She dropped to her knees beside him, looking for the source of all that blood, but she couldn’t find it.

“Is this a trick?” she asked, angry.

“No trick,” a voice said behind her and she turned and Jesse, Mitch’s best friend, stood there with a hole in his chest that she could see through. His dark eyes seemed to burn and smolder, the way they had the day she met him. “I can’t stay here,” Jesse said and turned away into the fog. Julia wanted to tell him to wait, to take care of that wound, to stay. But she didn’t.

She remained silent in the middle of a war with her husband.

CHAPTER THREE

JULIA WOKE to the smell of pancakes and coffee and—she took another sniff of the air. Oh, boy. Bacon. It wasn’t so much the food that had her eyes flying open, it was that she didn’t have to make it. All that food waited for her.

She stared at the ceiling and luxuriated in the faded blue sheets. She had slept like a rock on this soft mattress with all the extra pillows. It was heaven.

This was definitely the right place for Ben. She could feel their roots growing already.

Growing up as an army brat, Julia had worked hard for years to never form material attachments. But one night in this room and she coveted everything—the mahogany bed frame that matched the old washstand in the corner and the five-drawer dresser on the far wall. She wanted the mirror hanging over the dresser that reflected the small window and the perfect California day outside.

Everything was so beautiful. So permanent and substantial.

She’d even take the Michael Jordan posters.

This is a brand new day. Opportunity was here, glimmering like dust motes in the sunlight. She could shed the past and try something new. Try to be someone new.

Try to figure out who I am.

She rolled over to see how her son had slept, but he was nowhere to be found. She sat up and searched the floor around the bed. Where did he go? How could he have woken up and left the room without her noticing? She didn’t trust him entirely on his own with stairs, and they had followed Agnes up a steep wooden flight last night to this bedroom.

Julia rolled out of bed and ran downstairs, her bare feet slipping across the polished hardwood floors on her way to the kitchen. She burst into a scene right out of Norman Rock¬ well.

Ben sat in an ancient high chair, cheerfully shoving blueberries in his mouth.

“Airplane!” he cried. “Big airplane.”

“And what else?” Agnes asked.

“On a bus.”

“You were on an airplane and a bus in the same day?” Agnes asked, her eyes wide as though no one had ever done such a thing.

Ben nodded.

“Such a big boy!” Agnes cooed and Ben smiled, his teeth blue. He lifted his hands above his head to show her how big he truly was. Julia loved this game, loved wondering if he was broadcasting how big he felt, the size of his cheerful spirit.

Ron laughed. “All done?” he asked.

Ben nodded, his blond curls waving, and Ron leaned in to wipe Ben’s face and hands. “Let me atcha.”

Agnes picked up a camera and took a couple of pictures of Ron attempting to clean Ben up.

“Smile, Benny,” she cooed and Julia tried not to cringe at that nickname.

Julia had only sent them one picture of their grandson. A family shot of her, Mitch and Ben taken six months ago—the night Mitch was on leave from Iraq.

Jesse had taken the picture.

Shame and regret trickled through her.

She should have been the bigger person, tried harder to breach the gaps between her and the Adamses. But she was too much like her mother, maybe. Too proud.

New beginnings, she reminded herself.

“Momma,” Ben cried, dodging Ron’s washcloth. Agnes and Ron turned toward her, their smiles radiant.

“We heard him wake up and knew you needed your rest so we brought him downstairs, hope you don’t mind,” Agnes said with a bright smile before focusing on her grandson again.

“Of course not,” Julia croaked, her voice rusty from nearly twelve hours of sleep. Despite her assurance, something in her chafed at the idea that they had come into her room while she slept.