Steele Promises

I'll Take Care Of It

Chapter 6

 

Chey woke up lying on the couch in her living room. A cold rag lay across her forehead. She looked around the room, trying to figure out what happened. She remembered opening the door to go to the store and buy paint for the nursery, but there was a man. With that thought she sat up.

“Hey, not so fast,” a deep voice said coming into the room with a glass of water in his hand. “Drink this.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“My name is Jaxon Steele. I’m a friend of…I was a friend of Preston’s. I’m sorry to just show up here like this. I thought you would have already been notified.”

“We were waiting for the last of the paperwork. We’d gotten married so fast that everything was taking a while. We knew they would back date everything once it was all in place. Oh god where is his body? I need to plan a funeral, I don’t know who I need to call.” She started listing things that she knew she would have to do for the funeral, but the more she talked the more frantic her voice became. Tears started streaming down her face and she didn’t even seem to notice.

“I’ll take care of it,” Jaxon said cutting her rant off. “I’ll take care of everything. The house was in Preston’s name, but I think as his wife there should be something we can do to keep you here. If not we’ll find another place for you. Your benefits should kick in soon, I’ve never heard of it taking this long for marital benefits to come through 'I’ll talk to Sarge about it. I’m sorry I’ll have to get the whole team over here I’m sure they want to give their condolences and offer you whatever help they can.”

“He was going to tell you all and we were going to have a party so that I could get to know you guys. He didn’t want you guys to think I’d trapped him. When it was his idea to get married you know. It wasn’t something I thought we’d ever do…”

“I know, he explained that it wasn’t like that in his letter.”

“I loved him,” Chey said quietly. “I did love him.” Jaxon couldn’t help himself he moved to sit on the couch next to her and pulled her into his arms. His hand smoothed down her hair as sobs wracked her small body.

Finally the crying stopped and her body relaxed. He noticed her slow even breathing and realized that she’d cried herself to sleep. He had a lot of things to check into. The first was why she hadn’t been notified the very day they’d been flown back. Then he had to find out if they’d already had the funeral planned and he wanted to make sure that Chey got the flag, as his wife it was rightfully hers. He cringed as he realized that he couldn’t let a pregnant woman sleep on the couch, but he also knew that it was going to hurt like hell to try and carry her up to her bed. The he smiled he knew exactly how he was going to get her up to bed.