Free Homecoming: A Secret Baby Romance by Lauren Landish Page A

forced me to look at my life and what I was doing. You know I love the military, always have, my dad instilled that in me. But when I think about it, I was reenlisting for the wrong reasons.”
    “What reasons were those?” I asked.
    Max turned his gaze back on me and I shivered. “I thought about it long and hard and I now realize that I was just scared.”
    Max scared? He was like the most fearless guy I knew. “Scared of what?”
    “Us,” Max replied, surprising me. “I was scared of us, Nikki. I knew that our relationship was something that was forbidden and I feared that we would never be able to have a real future because of it. I was also afraid that I would fall hopelessly in love with you, something that I saw as a sign of weakness. I thought I would avoid it all.”
    I sat there for a long time, digesting this information.
    I can’t believe it, I thought. This whole time, Max has only wanted to leave again because he was scared at the possibility of us being together.
    “And have you?” I asked quietly.
    “Have I what?”
    “Fallen hopelessly in love with me?”
    Max grinned. “I have.”
    A feeling of warmth flowed through my chest and a smile came over my face. Max’s admission made me incredibly happy.
    Suddenly, Max jumped up, his hands on the waistband of his boxers, and struck a manly pose that had my nether regions pulsating again. “Now that that is out of the way, come give me a kiss before I send you off to bed. If you stay, we both know what’s going to happen. We don’t need to break your mother’s rule on the first night.”

Chapter 19
    “ I was able to get out of my commitment,” Max announced to me the next afternoon while I was out in the garden planting a few seeds. The day was bright and sunny, the sky a beautiful azure blue. A soft breeze continuously swept through the area, tickling my skin and carrying the smell of the earth.
    Since the revelation of my pregnancy, Mom seemed to be in a daze, unable to do the daily chores that she did every day with relish. So when she asked me to help her out in the garden, I jumped at the chance.
    After all, I wanted to stay on her good side before she turned into a fire-breathing demon, intent on making me pay for my sins and make my life a living hell.
    Crouched down in the dirt, I squinted and looked up at Max, who was dressed in gray sweats and a red shirt. He looked extra hot as usual and it was hard not to stare at his customary bulge that always seemed to scream to get my attention no matter what he was wearing.
    “That’s wonderful Max!” I rejoiced as I set aside my tools, genuinely relieved. The fact that Max was able to get out of potential trouble with the marines made me feel a little less shitty about the problems I’d caused. “How’d you manage that?”
    “I explained the situation. Told them I’d knocked up an old girlfriend up and she needed me to stay to help take care of her because she had no family.”
    I gaped. “Max!”
    Chuckling, Max grinned. “What? You wouldn’t have wanted me to say my stepsister, would you? I had to tell them something a little less scandalous. Anyway, my commander did ask if I could just send some of my monthly pay back home to support you, but I told him I didn’t want to be an absent father.”
    “And he accepted that?”
    Max nodded. “My MOS was overcrowded already apparently. He didn’t really like it, but he agreed since the paperwork wasn’t filed into the system yet.”
    “Well I’m glad.”
    “So am I.” Max nodded at me in the dirt. “Why the hell are you out here planting daisies?”
    “Mom wanted me to help her out. She’s been in a daze since last night. I figured I’d better do whatever she asks so she doesn’t go flip mode.”
    “True.” Max squinted up at the sky. “Now the last thing I need to take care of is how I’m going to support the both of us and the baby.”
    I rose up to my feet, careful to keep my eyes off his crotch area, and clapped my