After years of overseas deployments, leadership assignments, and highly classified operations, I had risen to the rank of Colonel.
Because my work involved sensitive military programs, very few people outside the Department of Defense knew my true position.
Preston assumed I worked an ordinary federal desk job.
His parents believed I handled administrative paperwork for the government.
I never corrected them.
When my contractions began late one evening, Preston wasn’t with me.
Instead, my phone buzzed with a brief text.
Busy. Sabrina invited us for dinner. Mom needs help at the house.
Another contraction ripped through me as I stared at the screen.
I read it twice, waiting for a second text that said he was on his way.
It never came.
I gripped the rail of the hospital bed and breathed through the pain, counting the way I’d been trained to count under fire.
I had stood in rooms on the other side of the world where men twice my size looked to me to tell them whether they would live.
