Page 119 of Creed

When our visit was over, I hopped right back on a flight and made it home before dinner. I believed I had everything about wrapped up. Axton had access to enough money to sustain the community if something off the wall happened, the accounting department had the ability to charge a specific checking account if Morgan and Addie needed it, and I had everything legally wrapped up with my attorneys. Morgan didn’t know, but I did not respect her wishes. In the event of my death, she was to inherit the bulk of my vast estate. Some would go to Alexis, and some would go to Creed’s Lake and the Originals. I set up a trust fund for Addie and a spare unnamed one in case Morgan was pregnant. I kept Axton as my power of attorney and executor. The only reason I didn’t name Morgan was in case some hard decisions had to be made. If critically wounded, I didn’t want to waste away as a vegetable and I didn’t think Morgan would let go of me quick enough. Axton knew all of my wishes, and that also meant he knew what sacrifice I was willing to give when I made the decision to protect my country.

The day before I left, I turned off my phone, loaded the boat, then took my girls out for a quiet day together. Morgan was having a terrible time with her emotions. She tried to act like she was fine in front of Addie, but she broke down several times over the course of the day. She was emotional about me leaving and she began spotting. She felt cramping and knew she was starting her period. She said it felt like we were living in some fantasy all this time and all our happiness was being pulled away from her. I held Addie a little tighter, told her I loved her for the first time, and then it happened.

I was holding Addie as the boat sat still in the middle of the lake. It was a calm day, the sun was out, and there was barely a breeze. Morgan just had a breakdown for the tenth time and was looking in a different direction so Addie wouldn’t see her. Suddenly, Addie rested her head on my chest. “Why doesn’t Dillon’s daddy have to go?” She then lowered her little whisper. “I just got you.”

I took a sharp breath and tried to push down my own emotions. She never used the word daddy before, not since she referred to Shane when she first came home to us. “Dillon’s daddy is needed here, so he can make sure everyone gets to stay happy.”

“All my daddies go away, like Caweb.”

I kissed the top of her head. “I want to be your daddy, and I don’t want to go away. I never want to leave you or Auntie Morgan. But some daddies are needed far away so we can make the world safe for our baby girls and baby boys. Sometimes it’s the mommies that have to go and the daddies stay home. I can promise you one thing, when I come home I’ll make sure to never have to leave you this way again. I will do everything I can to make us a family forever.”

I looked up at Morgan as she stepped toward us and wiped a tear away. I pulled her into us and for a few moments I held both my girls safely in my arms.

Soldier

Morgan

I didn’t sleep a wink. After having sex for the last time in the shower, because I was starting my damn period, we laid down in bed together. He asked that I never doubt how much I am loved, despite the little time we had together. That if something did happen to him, I should know that he died with all the love a man can have for a woman in his heart. He knew I loved him, and he never knew the love of a woman was the only thing he ever really needed, and I gave that to him.

I made him promise to fight hard and do everything in his power to come home to me. I knew I would always wait for him. I promised I’d raise Addie to know he was her real father. He might not have been her biological father, but he only ever wanted to be her dad. I promised Addie would always know him as her dad instead of Shane Doyle. She would grow up knowing her dad was a good man.

Creed eventually fell asleep, and I stayed up all night staring at him and crying. I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget one thing about his beautiful face. At one point, I even used the flashlight on my phone to look at every scar on his chest and abdomen. He had been through so much during his life, and hisbody was like a book that told a story about a man that believed so deeply in our country, that he would die for it.

I understood my disappointment when I felt the first cramps of my cycle start. I wanted so desperately to keep him with me, even if it was just a part of him. I had myself fooled into thinking I was pregnant because I was late.

It was around three in the morning when he slowly opened his eyes. Not a word was said as I looked into his and our short but intense history played like a movie in them. From the first time I saw him on that plane, to when I almost bumped into him when I opened the bathroom door at the tavern, and the night he pulled me out of that motel room. I never saw a man so intensely distraught when he thought Shane was going into that ambulance. Through his eyes I could hear Addie screaming for him in that hospital as they took her away. Then there was the kindness I finally saw the next morning when he came back to the hospital and told me I was going home with him. On the morning of my best friend’s funeral, I walked downstairs to find a beautiful man with a new light in his eyes. He stayed by my side every moment, even though it exposed him to his selfish mother. Something he avoided for years. Visions of the first time he kissed me, to looking into my eyes as we made love, the way he held Addie and assured her she was safe. In eyes that once looked empty, the same ones that saw death and rape, were now filled with love and warmth.

He reached over and ran his thumb down my cheek. “This, right here, is how I want to remember you. Your natural state, you’re so beautiful, Morgan.”

I knew it was coming, but I jumped when his alarm went off. It was one of the worst sounds I had ever heard in my life. Ididn’t know how I was going to let him walk away from me that day. My heart and soul were already being torn from my chest.

“I will never let go of you.” I whispered. I felt the burn behind my eyes and pleaded with my emotions to please have mercy and not let me break down again in front of him. It wasn’t what he needed, he needed me to be strong.

His thumb rested in front of my ear and his fingers rested behind it. “I love you more than anything.” He whispered as he leaned in and kissed me.

He let go and it felt like he ripped a little more of the life inside me away. He had to turn off the alarm and we had a two hour drive to Ft. Knox ahead of us.

I quickly got ready while Creed said he wanted one last hot shower. Melissa came upstairs to stay with Addie, and eventually Axton arrived, and Magnus came downstairs. It was a somber morning. Not even the coffee Creed taught me to make picked up any spirits.

It was when I heard his boot step on the first step that I walked over and held my breath. I saw one black boot then another. A leg in scorpion camouflage, then another, until eventually a soldier stood in front of me. A young handsome soldier whose eyes teared up as he looked down at me. The vision of him in that uniform made it all too real and my emotions escaped just as my legs went numb. My strong and courageous soldier caught me and wrapped his arms around me. I couldn’t take a breath in as I released every bit of fear and grief I held in, the pain of love, and the reality.

“Breathe Morgan.” He instructed and my lungs finally sucked in enough air that it came in one large gasp. The man holding me wasn’t the rough around the edges biker, or thebusinessman in Armani, not the President of Creed’s Lake, or the man that feared love more than his own death. No, the man holding me was a hero, a patriot, and the man that was supposed to be my husband, the father of my children and my future. My soldier. My protector. My entire world.

“Please Morgan, I need you to be strong right now.” His voice broke because he was crying. His shoulders shook as he buried his face in my neck. Then suddenly they stopped, and his body stiffened, just before my feet left the ground and he picked me up like I weighed nothing. As he carried me bridal style to the Suburban, he didn’t look at me but straight ahead with tears still falling down his cheeks. He sat me in the back then climbed in before pulling me back onto his lap. Creed held me for two hours, all the way to Ft. Knox.

I hated myself for not holding it together. It was the last thing he needed, but I was weak. He needed to see a strong woman that would take care of Addie and wait for him no matter how long it took for him to return. Instead, he got a woman with a wet face and lips when he gave me one last kiss. He turned once and saw that Magnus had to hold me so I wouldn’t chase after him as he got on that bus. I already failed him, and he hadn’t even left American soil yet.

Josh

It was a familiar feeling. I felt it when we buried Barker, Downs, and Pierce. I felt it when I watched our enemy chain Bolton up in front of us in Afghanistan. It was a feeling of doom, and I couldn’t shake it as he stepped on that bus.

I had to rip Morgan away from Creed so he could walk toward that bus with tears in his eyes. I knew Creed for a verylong time. I was held captive with him. I watched as he held a baby as she took her last breaths. I knew him when his dad died, and we had been to hell and back together more times than I could count. But I never saw him cry, until that day.

As I held Morgan, her body shook in an unnatural way. I believed in that moment that she felt the most unimaginable pain a person could suffer and be forced to survive.

Creeds mindset didn’t help things. He said his goodbyes, and he meant them as his last goodbye. I knew the moment I heard he was called up again it was because of something huge, but then to learn they were putting that mission together for years, it something bigger than any of us could have imagined. My assumption for what little I knew, was they had him commanding small exercise missions to prepare for a vital mission that was vital to the entire world. Missions were not planned for years then suddenly deployed. Something happened and I suspected it was what happened in Jordan.

Creed didn’t have to tell us what was happening. We knew that day would come, but nobody expected one of us would ever have to face it.

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