“I just spoke to your dad. They’ll be here in the morning.”
My parents love Cannon, especially my dad. He didn’t like Victor, and I was worried he wouldn’t like Cannon either, but they hit it off instantly. I think my dad saw how happy Cannon makes me, and that made him happy. Twice a month we drive down to Sarasota to take them to lunch. Sometimes we go down to Boca to visit his mom. I was so nervous meeting her for the first time. In all the months I was with Victor, he never introduced me to his family. That should’ve been a red flag that things were off.
“And your mom?” I ask.
“Same.” He trails his lips down to my swollen belly. “How’s my princess doing today?”
At the sound of his voice, she kicks. “She’s ready to meet her daddy.”
Our daughter is due any minute now. I’ve been on bedrest for the past two weeks. I’m miserable, swollen, and ready to bring our little girl into the world.
Cannon curls up beside me, his dark brown eyes staring into my blue ones. “What are you thinking?”
My smile is warm and full of affection. “I’m thinking no fantasy could ever compare to this beautiful reality.”
The End
About M.A. Foster
About M.A.:
M.A Foster was born and raised in Tampa, Florida. She’s married to her high school sweetheart and mother to two grown boys. She loves fur babies, chocolate, lattes and all things sparkly. When she’s not reading or writing, she’s either catching up with friends and family or chatting with her readers and fellow author friends on Facebook.
Books by M.A.:
Jaybird (Zach and Jayla)
Mackenzie (Cole and Harper)
Cougar (Cam and Emerson)
Daisy Chains
Petra J. Knox
Prologue
March 1973, Vietnam
Even though the temperature was mild, I was sweating bullets. The POW camp was swarming with rescue Marines, who were organizing the prisoners and carrying our men out in stretchers. Flies the size of hornets buzzed all around us, attracted to the blood, sweat, and shit that permeated the area.
I looked at the shirtless man on the ground beside me, his torn side oozing with putrid green pus and rust-colored abrasions that spread out purple under the skin. His face was that of death waiting. He didn’t have long.
“Hang in there, Davenport. We’re going home, man. Hang on,” I told him. I poured a bit more water from my canteen into his mouth, just a little. Just enough to distract him, mostly.
His now glassy eyes held mine and his hand went to my wrist, signaling he wanted no more water. “Rose,” he got out hoarsely, “You gotta look after her when I’m gone, Sonny.” He swallowed, his voice way beyond stripped of its normal deep tenor. “Promise me. Promise me.”
I tried for a smile, but it just wasn’t coming. “You old bastard, stop talking like that. You’ll see your Rose as soon as we get back to the States.”
Davonport shook his head slowly, his lips hinting at a grin. “Ain’t much older than you, kid.” He panted then, the pain getting the best of his words. “Death is right here, Sonny. I’m ready. Promise me.”
I held his blue eyes and clenched my jaw. I wouldn’t let despair tear me down now. Not after everything we soldiers had been through. This was par for the course. The way it was. Perhaps the way it would end.
Relenting, I nodded. “I promise, Captain.”
A kind of peace came over his face, and I knew then that he wouldn’t make it.
I clenched my jaw harder and looked past him, past the rescue team, past the medics, past the bamboo cages, past the wet leaves and foliage, and into the blue-gray sky.
I swore to myself right then that I’d never look back on this war. This atrocity and sham of a campaign that had nothing to do with humanity. The sacrifice of everyday people, innocents, women, children. Soldiers barely old enough to grow a beard, let alone face the ugly truth of what humans were capable of. We were never meant to see that. But we did. And I never wanted to see it again.
So I shut the door on it all as I laid my hand on my friend and mentor, my Captain, touching his brow before I closed his eyes, shutting the blue gaze that had remained on me as he died. “So long, brother.”
After a few moments, a pair of black boots stopped in front of me, and I looked up into the fresh face of a saluting Lieutenant, his clean uniform pressed and without stain. I knew immediately by the lack of deadness in his eyes, the one all of us combat soldiers shared, that he’d never stepped foot on this land prior to this rescue mission.
“Sir, the chopper’s ready. The sick and wounded are boarding the plane for takeoff in twenty. The rest of the regime is ready to depart now.”
I nodded and looked behind him, noticing the tell-tale signs of a chopper’s blades fanning the tall bamboo in waves. “Make sure Captain Davonport here gets seen to.”
The young man barely glanced at the Captain lying on the wet ground. But I saw him swallow. “Yes, Sir.”
Later, as the chopper lifted and the cool air swept my face, I didn’t look down at where I’d spent the past four years in hell. Instead, I held a photograph of a pretty young woman. My Captain’s daughter, Rose. Though the picture I held was crinkled, stained, and thin from handling and traveling, the image shone through. Golden hair, bright blue eyes shaped like a cat’s, and straight white teeth from a genuine smile. The young woman was squatting down on a suburban sidewalk, petting a ragged looking pooch. She wore a blouse and a pencil skirt, her legs primly posed to the side, her low-heeled pumps revealing the possibility of long, lean legs. She was beautiful. But what always caught my eye first whenever I looked at the photograph was the daisy in her hair.
Davonport’s prized
