Page 122 of Owen

“I’ve not had any morning sickness.” I suffered terribly with that when I was pregnant with Poppy.

“Maybe it’s a boy.” Owen soothes my concerns with a soft voice and caring touch. “Girls cause chaos and mayhem,” he jokes.

Emotional, hormonal, and physically drained, I burst into tears at the realization of what we both could have lost had everything gone differently.

As soon as I am out of this hospital, I’m going to celebrate the life I still have and the new life growing within me.

“I need to see my Pop-a-doodle,” I say to Owen as I wipe the tears off my face.

“She’ll be here in half an hour.”

“Then everything will be perfect.”

“And we’ll be complete.” Owen lays his hand over my stomach. “My family.” He lifts his hand to reveal my poppy stone sitting perfectly on top of the bedsheet.

“Our lucky family,” I correct him.

36

OWEN – FIVE WEEKS LATER

It didn’t take the aviation criminal investigators long to piece together the sequence of events that led to Jade’s plane crash. The CCTV footage from the perimeter of the station and from inside the hangar revealed the man who seemed to be hell-bent on destroying Jade.

Cobra.

Using an old key to let himself through the abandoned crash gate at the far end of the base, he used his old pass to get inside the hangar and then tampered with the fuel gauges.

He knew exactly what he was doing to show there was more fuel in the tanks than there actually was. He then sabotaged Jade’s locator beacon.

On a mission to seek revenge against Jade, he blamed her for his demise and losing his job. The cruelty of his hatred toward Jade knew no bounds.

The police informed Jade that he is likely to serve a minimum of eighteen years for his attempt to murder.

The hate I feel for that man will die on the day he does, butit soothes my nerves a little knowing he will be behind bars for a really long time.

Jade still cannot recall what happened on the days leading up to the crash, the crash itself, or the days following, although she’s been listening to the Mayday recording every day on a mission to spark something hidden deep within her brain.

She’s praying something will trigger her memory as she’s desperate to remember.

It hasn’t so far, and some days she still struggles with processing even the smallest of tasks.

Jade’s understandably frustrated, and the doctors have warned her it could take weeks, even months, before her memory problems and fatigue resolve themselves.

I, on the other hand, am relieved she doesn’t remember and that she’s getting the time off to rest and cook our little bean to perfection.

She survived a horrific trauma. Her memory loss is a protection of sorts, and to survive in such a miraculous way, as well as protecting our baby too, is nothing short of an astonishing feat. Jade is still signed off work for another couple of months and as the news broke of our romantic involvement, I was no longer allowed to live-in on camp, so we rented a place a mile away from base, and only a couple of houses down from Gregor’s.

We know our rental is a short-term solution. In the meantime, because it’s been a crazy few months, all we are praying and hoping for is some peace. At least until the baby comes.

Which is wild.

I’m going to be a dad.

Not that I am not one already, but I cannot wait for our baby to arrive and complete our little family.

Right now, it’s early in the morning and I’m going throughthis morning’s mail, and my hand lands on a handwritten envelope addressed to me.

Curiously, I rip it open and frown as I stare at a two-page letter.

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