Chapter Nineteen
~ Jojo ~
The first thing I noticed was the silence, but not the bad kind.
Not the pre-dawn, gunmetal silence I used to brace for, but the low, humming quiet of a house at peace.
Autumn sunlight spilled across the hardwood, doing its best to bleach out three months’ worth of mud and trauma, but the house always wins those battles.
I lay in bed for a while, hands cradling the rising swell of my stomach, and watched the dust motes float like lazy satellites.
I’d started sleeping on my back, which meant my dreams were vivid and my mornings a negotiation between bladder, gravity, and the relentless pressure of whatever football-sized fruit I was now growing.
The kitchen had always been the center of the house, but now it was more of a forward operating base.
Every surface was scrubbed, the scars of our last stand concealed under a layer of fresh whitewash.
Even the bullet holes in the paneling were gone, patched by Macon with a fastidiousness that bordered on OCD.
The only evidence of what happened was a new ceramic rooster on the sill—Burke’s idea of a joke, and the only chicken on the ranch immune to predators or crossfire.
Speaking of Burke: he was already at the table, elbows braced wide as he loaded scrambled eggs into his face. He wore a faded tee shirt that said “COUNTRY BOY UP,” which I suspected he’d bought as a dare.
He caught me in the doorway, grinned, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Look at you, up and at ’em. Must be a big day.”
I padded barefoot to the stove, scanning the counter for anything that would pass as “safe for expectant mothers.” The new refrigerator had a checklist taped to it—a relic from the siege, when Jackson had taken to logging every egg, every bottle of Tylenol, every unaccounted-for chocolate bar.
There were seven names on the sheet now: myself, Rawley, Macon, Burke, Decker, Hooper, and Jackson.
Nine, if you counted the baby and the rooster.
Burke stood, reaching for a mug, and filled it with the decaf I’d begrudgingly switched to under threat of violence. He set it on the table, then pivoted, eyes searching my face. “You sleep okay?”
I sipped, savoring the illusion of real caffeine. “Only got up twice. Think I’m adapting.”
He nodded, then lowered his voice. “Saw Rawley hit the gym at 0400. He’s pacing like a caged bear. You want me to—?”
“No,” I said, too fast. “Let him.”
We both knew what Rawley was doing. He wasn’t just burning off energy, he was patrolling the perimeter—again, and again, and again. Three months hadn’t been enough to shake the vigilance. He trusted his team, but not the world outside. Not yet.
Burke just shrugged and went back to his breakfast. I admired his capacity for adaptation: two years ago, he was in Yemen shooting out the tires of armored convoys. Now he was arguing over the correct way to boil eggs and learning to needlepoint in his spare time.
The man was a chameleon.
I could hear the others waking up—Macon’s low drawl, the clatter of Jackson in the laundry, the distant whine of Hooper tuning up the tractor.
If you’d told me last year that I’d be living with a bunch of former SEALs in a ranch house held together by bailing wire and trauma bonding, I’d have laughed you out of the bakery.
And yet, here we were.
I finished my coffee and went looking for the bread. The new batch was on the counter, covered with a towel. I lifted it, inhaled, and felt my whole chest bloom with happiness. I didn’t need a lot. Just a working oven, a handful of flour, and the certainty that nobody would die before lunch.
The moment I reached for a knife, I felt the shift behind me.
Not footsteps—Rawley never made a sound when he moved—but the draft in the room, the pressure of his body in my orbit.
He hovered so close I could smell the soap on his collarbone and the faint, singed edge of whatever protein shake Macon had bullied him into for breakfast.
“Hey,” I said, not looking back.
“Hey, yourself,” he replied, his voice lower than necessary. He didn’t touch me, not at first, just stood with his arms crossed, gaze fixed on the side of my head.
“You’re up early,” I offered, slicing the loaf. The blade caught, stuck on a walnut, and for a second I thought it might snap.
Rawley reached around me, one huge hand bracketing the loaf, the other guiding the knife with surgical care. I relaxed against him, letting the heat of his chest soak into my back.
“You could let me do it,” he said. “That’s why I’m here.”
I elbowed him lightly. “If you take over every chore, I’ll lose what little muscle tone I have left.”
“You’re growing a person,” he said, matter-of-fact. “That’s enough work for anyone.”
I spun in his grip, facing him. For a second, I forgot we weren’t alone in the kitchen. “If you coddle me any harder, I’m going to have to find new ways to rebel.”
His smile was half threat, half promise. “Try me.”
We’d reached an understanding, post-siege. The ranch was his fortress, but the kitchen was mine. Even the SEALs respected that line, though every now and then Macon would stage a mutiny over how much butter I used in the mashed potatoes.
Rawley took the bread, sliced it into perfect pieces, and set them on a plate. He made a production of it, as if he’d invented the concept of breakfast.
Burke watched us with a smirk, eyes twinkling. “You two want a room, or you want to help me wrangle the livestock?”
Rawley didn’t bother to answer. He just placed the bread in front of me, then bent to kiss my neck, his hands bracing my hips. I could feel the mark he’d left there—light, fading, but still real.
“You got it covered,” he said, to Burke, and I was so dizzy with affection it almost hurt.
I settled at the table, bread and jam in hand, while the baby did slow, lazy laps inside me.
The rest of the SEALs trickled in—Jackson first, then Macon with a pile of mail and a grimace that said he’d already checked the perimeter twice.
Decker came in and went straight for the coffee pot.
Hooper appeared last, hands black with grease and wearing a smile like he’d just robbed a bank.
“Tractor’s running,” he announced, sliding into a chair. “Also, there’s a possum living under the deck. Looks rabid, or maybe just ugly.”
Rawley shrugged. “If it doesn’t touch the garden, it lives.”
The morning passed in a series of micro-missions.
Jackson ran logistics for the farm, cataloguing every tool and piece of equipment.
Macon handled the fences, always returning with a report on which post had rotted, which wire needed tensioning.
Decker kept track of everyone and everything, cataloging it all in spreadsheets that made my eyes cross.
Hooper did mechanical, while Burke rotated through whatever task needed brute force or a sense of humor.
Me, I did the only thing I was really good at: I baked, I cooked, I made the house into a place where nobody expected to die.
At 1100 sharp, Macon returned from the mailbox with a package addressed to “The Mother of Black Butte Ranch.” It was a set of knit baby hats—every one in a different shade of SEAL-team blue.
Burke put one on, stretching it over his enormous head, and pronounced it “battle ready.” I laughed so hard I almost wet myself, which was par for the course these days.
By noon, the house smelled like cinnamon and hope. I’d made a pie, which was forbidden under doctor’s orders, but what the doctor didn’t know couldn’t raise my blood sugar.
Rawley found me in the pantry, kneeling to reach the canister of sugar, and made a sound halfway between a growl and a groan.
“Don’t,” I said, wagging a finger. “I’m pregnant, not helpless.”
He crouched beside me, hands gentle on my arms. “Let me spoil you a little.”
“You do,” I said, and meant it. “But if you really want to help, get the apples from the root cellar.”
He obliged, returning with a basket so full I wondered if he’d just upended the entire crop. We peeled and sliced together, the rhythm so domestic it bordered on parody.
“Think the baby will like apples?” he asked, arranging the slices with military precision.
“If they don’t, I’ll trade them for a better model,” I joked.
He raised a brow, then kissed my forehead. “Not a chance.”
By evening, the whole crew gathered around the table, the pie cooling at the center like a peace offering. The only light was the amber wash from the antique lamp, which Macon had rewired to avoid another “domestic terrorist blackout,” as Hooper called it.
Dinner was loud, messy, and perfect. The SEALs ribbed each other, told stories from places nobody wanted to go back to, and for once nobody checked the windows or reached for a weapon when a branch tapped the glass.
Afterward, I cleaned up, refusing all offers of help. I needed the solitude, needed to remember what life was before every action was shadowed by fear.
When I finished, I found Rawley in the nursery, a half-painted wall and the ancient crib waiting for their final coat. He was reading—out loud, to the bump under my shirt—a passage from a farming journal about soil acidity and optimal crop rotations.
“You know babies can’t hear that,” I said, leaning in the doorway.
He glanced up, eyes soft. “It’s never too early to start.”
I joined him, lowering myself onto the dropcloth, and let his voice carry me away. The words didn’t matter. Just the rumble, the certainty, the promise that tomorrow would come and it would be better than today.
I rested my head on his shoulder, the warmth of him flooding through me. The house creaked around us, but the sound was friendly, familiar.
For the first time in my life, I believed in forever.
The baby kicked, hard, and Rawley’s hand found mine, anchoring us both.
“I love you,” I whispered, afraid to say it too loud in case the world tried to steal it.
He squeezed my hand, and his answer was everything I’d ever wanted.