Page 56 of Feeding Hope
Jesse’s team had been home for six weeks, so we pushed through the purchase of our new home to take advantage of their free labor. Beer and pizza notwithstanding.
The team was tight, although retirement recently claimed one of their guys, and an Achilles injury medically discharged another. He wasn’t even on a mission, just playing football attheir base camp. The new guy was supposedly arriving next week, a guy named Tiguan. He’s been a Marine for a while, but only recently bumped up to the Raiders.
Honcho, the only other married member of the team, was their team leader, and Oz, his best friend from back home, was the team chief. He’s a quiet one. Still waters run deep, and all that. Honcho was the gregarious one, which made them the perfect foils for each other.
Mr. X, another longstanding member of the team, and Jesse, who got the nickname Mayhem in Infantry School to pair with his brother, were the tactical leadership during assaults or reconnaissance. I tried not to think about what that entailed.
Titan and Edge were the intelligence guys. They did everything together. Jesse once let it slip that he thought they’re a couple, but if they were, I had seen no signs of it. Living in each other’s pockets the way they did, the team would be more likely to see the signs.
The core operators were Sapo, their close-quarters combat specialist; Keys, a drone expert; Tiguan, the new breacher; and Shakespeare, their linguistics and culture expert. He was super smart, and probably my favorite of the bunch. We spent a lot of time talking about the children and women they came into contact with. As much as he could tell me, anyway. He helped hook me up with a women’s shelter for Middle Eastern women here in San Diego, and I’d been volunteering for the last few weeks.
The team’s medic was Tripoli and a lot like Jamie. Apparently, when the two of them got together, no woman was safe from losing her panties. Technically, he was in the Navy, but since the Marines used the Navy for most of their support, he was an honorary Raider. According to Jesse, he had some super combat skills for being a “doc.”
Then there was Click, their EOD guy, always down for a practical joke, and last but not least, Banshee. She was their only female and their K-9 handler. Like Jesse, she came and went, as dictated by whatever mission the team got assigned. We got along okay, but I sense she suffered a lot of prejudice in the Marines. The team backed her one hundred percent, but prior to being assigned to Jesse’s crew, it wasn’t easy. He said she was warming up slowly, but she kept to herself a lot.
Arms snaked around my waist, and a pair of soft lips kissed my cheek. “Happy to be here, sweetness?”
My eyes closed as I squeezed his forearms. Safety. Security. Everything I loved was right here. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be than in your arms, Jesse.”
He chuckled. “I meant the house and being off base.”
“I know what you meant.” Turning in his arms, I slid my palms up his torso to land on his pecs. His heart beat steadily under my right hand, and he had that typical soft smile on his face reserved for me. “I hope this move keeps your family off our backs.”
Jesse grimaced. “If it doesn’t, we’ll just file for another civil harassment order. If I’m not here, you don’t waste time and you go to Ephraim, yes?”
Ephraim helped us out when Jesse’s dad tried to bribe me years ago to leave Jesse. We’ve had to file two restraining orders in the past ten years, and the second one is coming up for expiration. Unfortunately, we couldn’t renew it until he contacted us again, but we were lucky because Ephraim had our backs and knew a judge who was sympathetic. I really didn’t want to go through the process again, but I knew I’d probably have to.
“Yes, I promise.”
“Good.”
We stood in silence, watching our friends through the patio doors to our new backyard. I would especially enjoy the deck.Jesse bought me a gorgeous lounge chair where I would read my romance novels. He also purchased a fire pit for barbecues and hangout nights with our friends. There were flower beds to weed and keep me occupied as a new hobby. But there was one feature in the yard we hadn’t really discussed, although I knew we’d both noticed it on the walk-through.
A swing set. A nice one. Relatively new since the family that lived here before us had only owned the home for just under a year when the husband got transferred across the country for work.
“You know,” Jesse began, “we’re supposed to be home for a while. Things have been pretty quiet.”
“Shh!” I chastised him. “Every time you say that, you know what happens.”
He hugged me close as I nestled in under his chin, watching the boys drag out the cornhole boards. Someone was getting pummelled with those, eventually. It never failed. You’d think they’d had enough of getting shot at when deployed that they wouldn’t have to beat up on each other.
“Anyway,” Jesse continued. “Honcho mentioned the elephant in the backyard. Wondered if it was our way of telling the team something.”
“What did you tell him?” I held my breath.
“Told him it came with the house.”
“Oh.”
He spoke again, his speech laced with hesitation. “We’re doing pretty well. We started a little rough, but we’ve saved quite a bit of money, thanks to my thrifty wife.”
I blushed at the praise.
“And we’ve got a new house with three bedrooms,” he added. “Not sure I’m a minivan guy, but there are some decent SUVs out there with good safety ratings.”
I pulled back to look up at him. Trying to school my face and refusing to get my hopes up, I asked, “Are you hinting at having a baby?”
“What do you think?” he whispered. “Is that something you want?”
