Sound of Silence(21)

"No," she says, fumbling to wash a bottle she'll never use because she's nursing. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

"Tell me what you need." The last word is a groan as I stand and stretch through the ache in my thigh. A flash of the shot ripping through my muscle and bone sucks my gasp into the quiet room. Fucking nightmare.

She waves me off as I approach. "Nothing. I've got this, really I do."

Leaning my hip on the counter, I watch her mumble "I can do this" at the same time she speeds through folding a load of laundry. I reach in the basket to assist expecting a pint size baby sleeper but a scrap of pink lace hangs from the tip of my finger.

"These are not mom underwear."

"What?" Piper's gaze shoots to mine and then the dangling panties. "Give those to me." I shift out of her reach while flashes of her wearing them explode in my mind. Killer curves. Smooth skin. Round ass.

I can't think of her like that. God help me, I can't.

She doesn't belong to me.

But my imagination likes to think she does. Her lips part as my fingers slip under the thin strips holding the tiny triangles together. The heat on my palm when I cup her core. Her sultry eyes filled with passion as I tease her piercing. I swallow hard and hold her gaze.

This is Piper.

Just thinking about her like that is fucked up on more levels than I can count. Let alone fondling her panties while my best friend's baby is strapped to her heaving chest.

The kid fusses. I drop her drawers. Fucking lace.

The need to run inches up my spine and spurs my move to change into track shorts. I retreat to the tiny ass bathroom and pretend the walls are not closing in on me. Scrubbing my face does little to clear my mind so I slip out to find Piper bouncing JT while crooning "Careless Whisper" in a soft voice. Piper's a fan of the 80s. A decade that was over before she was born captured her attention, and she's happy to sing every song written through it. Me? Not so much. Not now anyway. Silence is golden. I'd like to tell her the George Michael song may be adding to the baby's crisis, but her cell vibrates against the counter.

She looks at it and picks up on the third ring.

"Hey, Cara." She holds the phone ear-to-shoulder, and bounces that kid as if she were still singing. "Really? Oh, my God, that's fantastic. Congratulations." Her eyes catch mine and she smiles. She smiles. My chest hurts when her face lights up.

"I'm going," I say without making a sound and point to the door, then at Gus for him to stay. 

I'm gone. Dark clouds fit my mood and release a deluge as I fly through town in a sprint. Guilt crashes in on me with the same power waves pound the beach. The surf is angry today. So are my thoughts. Fast and hard, my feet hit the sand and through each breath the voice becomes louder. My son, Lawless. Did you hear that? A boy?

Yes, I heard, Justin. Over and over I hear the minute you connected with Piper post ultrasound. The night before you died. The day before my world stopped spinning.

Memories remain fresh wounds and gut me each time they surface. Piper's delivery and Bear's phone call wound them up in a violent torrent of emotion I don't know how to work through. Three days of sleepless nights brought me to the brink. Fresh air is the only answer to stop the rage seeping from me in a slow leak. It should have been Justin. He should have heard the first cry, cut the cord, held him to Piper's breast as he latched on and came to life before our eyes.

Fuck. Mile after mile I run through lashing rain and a bone-chilling ache in my thigh and my chest. I run from midmorning through noon and until the sky clears to let the sun shine down. Finally, I stop for squats and lunges, and then climb up the cliff that connects the beach to the forest surrounding Lilyfalls. My footing slips, and I slice my hand on a jagged rock as I pull myself up. Blood and pain is a filter for feeling; I cling to it. By the time I reach the top, I'm limping through the brush. Eleven years ago, I started something and I intend to finish it. For me, for Piper, the baby-I don't know who the driving force is, but it's time.

There is no path to follow, yet I know my way through cedars as tall as ten-story buildings. Since enlisting I've been a nomad, but I've always called Lilyfalls home. I knew one day my service would end and if I didn't come back in a casket, I wanted a place of my own.

A clearing breaks into view as does the structure I've framed out little by little on my yearly visits. It's not much. The beginnings of a house in the woods with a green tin roof, the body made from rocks and trees found on the lot. The Lawless family crest branded into the front door. There is no mistaking who lives here.

I sit on the steps leading to the wraparound porch. Closing my eyes to the sounds of the water reaching me through the woods, I slip into thoughts of the brothers I left behind. It's nearing 0300 hours in Afghanistan and if this day is like the others, they'll be gearing up for a mission. That I know. I lived the day-to-day for so long I both love and hate it. It gave me purpose, structure, boundaries, and in the early morning hours in Lilyfalls, I falter without them. If I'm not a SEAL, then who am I? I'm not a husband or a father, and in the moments before sunrise, when life hovers between reality and make-believe, it's hard to convince myself otherwise. When the baby cries and Piper, who was the prettiest pregnant woman on the planet and is now a gorgeous mother, rises with a song on her lips and a gentle hand to soothe him, I have a hard time acknowledging I am the outsider looking in. They're not mine. I don't know what part to play. Where is my responsibility?