Baby in the Military

By Vivian Ward

Nobody except us knows that I'm pregnant but I won't be able to keep it a secret forever.

Ryan
When I found out that Aaliyah was pregnant with my baby, I knew that there was only one thing I wanted: the baby -- MY baby that she's carrying. I'll be damned if she thinks I'll have anything but that. She might not realize it now, but we're going to be one big happy family.

Aaliyah
I know that he wants me to keep this baby, but there's no way I'll be the laughing stock of the town. I have no intention of being a single mom while he's hundreds of miles away. He can't control me. I'm stronger than that...until he comes back home. When he's in town, I'm willing to do almost anything he wants. How does a girl say no to the hometown hero? The man who every woman idolizes, the one who's mine.

Baby in the Military is a full-length BWWM romance novel. It contains no cheating and no cliffhangers. Happily ever after? You'll have to read to find out!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vivian Ward
• Release date: Jan 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386215202

Book preview

Chapter 1: Aaliyah

It’s my body , not his. I’m not sure why he thinks he has any right to say what I do with the baby that’s growing inside my belly. When I took the pregnancy test four months ago, I hoped and prayed that it would come out negative.

I remember standing at the bathroom counter as I stared at the stick; the tiny pink plus sign was undeniable. At first, I thought it was a false positive until I went out and bought another test that yielded the same result. I must have cried for over an hour before I could calm myself down.

Once I finally got a grip on my emotions, I sent Ryan a text message that asked him to call me when he got off work. He’s our hometown hero, and everyone in Lanford knows him. He’s the guy that everyone likes, looks up to and fears when they’ve done wrong.

The local cops love him, and the criminals hate him. It sucks that he works and lives on a military base in Kentucky, almost seven hours away from me. When we first started dating, my friends and family said that our long distance relationship wouldn’t work but up until now, things have been great.

With him being stationed in Fort Gannon, he only makes the drive home when he has a long weekend off or if there’s a special occasion.

Things have been pretty intense the last few months ever since that tiny plus sign sealed my fate. I never intended to get pregnant, especially with him living so far away.

My parents always raised me to believe in marriage before children, but God had different plans for me I guess. I’m nowhere close to being ready for marriage. I always pictured myself young, wild and free with nothing to tie me down or hold me back—not any man and not a baby.

Not that I’m a wild party animal, but I like having my ‘me’ time. I like being able to go to concerts, paint, draw and play the piano. There’s no way I’d be able to freely enjoy those things if I were to become a single mother, and then there’s the financial aspect of it as well.

When Ryan and I decided to commit to one another and became sexually active, I went to my physician for birth control. Before him, I hadn’t been sexually active in ages, so birth control wasn’t an issue. Initially, I went with an IUD, but it was so uncomfortable to me that I had it taken out a few months after it was inserted.

I was completely against anything being inside of me after that so having the Implanon was out of the question, too. She offered me the pill, which I gladly accepted since I wouldn’t have to worry about anything feeling uncomfortable or moving around after it was in my body.

The first pill she put me on caused me to have sporadic bleeding all month long because the hormones in it didn’t agree with my body. When I complained a couple of months after starting them, my doctor insisted that I give them a little more time to allow my body to adjust to them.

I waited until my next annual visit and told him they just weren’t working for me, so he switched my pills to a different dose and brand. After making the change, my menstrual cycle became lighter and less frequent until I had no period.

I thought it was great until a few months ago when I became tired all the time, my breasts began to swell, and nausea ensued. Those symptoms are what brought me to purchasing my first pregnancy test ever. I’d always been so careful. Never a single scare until now.

Ryan knew that I was upset about the pregnancy, so he came home for the weekend when he got off work that Friday. That first weekend—when I found out that I was pregnant—I was an emotional wreck.

All I could think about was how if I were to have this baby, how I could say goodbye to hanging out with friends, coming and going as I please and having an even heavier financial burden than I’m already facing.

Even though I cried the whole weekend that he was here, he managed to make it better. He held me in his thick, strong arms and stroked my face as he told me that we’d manage, and we’d somehow get through this.

I wanted to believe him—I did—but I was so worried about what my parents would say when they found out and scared to death how this would impact my finances. I already have so much on my plate that the thought of having more makes me want to vomit.

My folks were happy that I was dating a military man, but they didn’t like the fact that he was so far away, and we never got to spend any time together. I knew it would break their heart that I was pregnant and unmarried. My mother has no problem voicing her thoughts and opinions, but my dad’s a reserved man, quiet, actually.

I guess that’s where I get my shyness from. In high school, I was always the quiet girl who observed everyone and everything instead of being involved in what was going on around me.

I probably didn’t break out of my shell until I started working at the factory and started hanging out with a girl I became good friends with Shanika and her boyfriend.

I had a thing for Ryan Hamilton back then—in high school, I mean. I’d say my crush on him started around the middle of our tenth grade year. He was a jock who played every sport there was, and of course, all the girls were lined up to date him like he was some kind of god.

I watched in jealousy as he walked various girls down the hall, dangling them off his arm like candy but most of those girls were loose. My daddy would’ve skinned my backside if I had acted like some of those fast girls. After graduation, I lost contact with most of my classmates and started working at the local factory.

Beckman Plastics closed their doors two years ago when the owner’s gambling addiction took every penny that the company owned and they couldn’t pay the bills anymore.

If it weren’t for Mr. Beckman and his gambling problem, I’d still have a decent paying job at the factory with excellent benefits. But if I were still there, I would’ve never run into Ryan at the bar, where I work, when he came in for a drink one night.

On Taps had hired me about a month before Ryan and I were reunited, years after we had graduated high school. I believe the exact date was April 17th, but I’m not a hundred percent sure about that.

Anyway, when he came in, it was slow, and I was waiting on one of my regulars. He plopped down at the bar and ordered three shots. I thought I recognized him but couldn’t put my finger on who he was.

His face looked oddly familiar, but his body is what had thrown me off. He was, at least, double the size he used to be in high school. His ridiculously huge muscles had broadened, his stature was much more solid, and he stood taller than I remembered him.

He wore his hair in a sleek hair style and his sculpted face highlighted his dark, piercing green eyes. After he’d had a few drinks, a woman came in, walked right up to the bar and ordered two beers before walking away from the counter with them.

I thought it was strange that she’d order a couple of beers since it appeared that she was alone, but I figured someone was probably coming in to join her. She walked over to the back corner booth where she took her seat and stared at the bar as I continued waiting on my regular and the hunk I was still trying to place my finger on.

At first, I didn’t know what to think about the mystery woman, but I soon figured out what she was staring at. Actually, seething would better accurately describe the look on her face as she stared a hole into the hot guy sitting in front of me. I asked him if he knew her.

Yeah, I know her. A wicked grin spread across his face as he glanced back at her from the corner of his eye. Do you want to help me fuck with her?

What? How do you mean? I had no clue what he was talking about, nor what he was up to but I could tell whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

He leaned over the counter, looked the woman right in her eyes and grabbed my face as he plunged his tongue into my mouth and started kissing me. I tried to pull away from him, but he had a tight grip on me.

Finally, I used my hands and pushed him back. He smiled, grabbed his shot glass, raised it up in a toast and slammed it down, all while maintaining his devilish smile.

I couldn’t believe the audacity that he had. Who in the hell grabs a random woman and kisses her like that? Especially when it’s only to make another woman angry, and glimpsing over at the woman, she was pissed.

I guess the only answer is that a gorgeous man like him does a thing like that because I’ve never seen anyone do it before or since that night. The woman’s mouth grimaced into a hard line as she snatched her purse off the sticky, brown table and marched over to him, spat in his face and stormed out of the building.

Part of me was satisfied that she’d spat on him because he deserved it. What he did was something only an asshole would do, and hopefully, it put him in his place.

He used the sleeve of his shirt to clean off his face. Give me a beer, he said as he laid a five on the counter.

That kiss—the one little angry kiss—was enough to seal my fate. That’s how it all started. Baffled by his actions, I stared him down as I fetched his beer from the cooler. He started laughing and shaking his head.

What? I asked him.

You don’t have a single clue as to who I am, do you?

I took a closer look at him. No. Am I supposed to know you? Or are you so self-important that you think everyone knows your name?

Aaliyah Parker, right?

My mouth popped open.

How does he know my name?

Yeah? Who are you? I kept staring at him, trying to figure out who he was but I couldn’t figure it out.

Ryan? Ryan Hamilton? he said.

Oh my God! No, it’s not!

He was cute in high school, but now that we were all grown up, he’d changed a lot. His small muscles from playing sports in high school had developed quite nicely as they bulged out of the sleeves of his shirt and his chest had solidified into a delicious hunk of sculpted muscle.

Yeah, Staff Sergeant Ryan Hamilton, actually, he proudly announced.

Oh? A military man, huh?

My anger had turned to embarrassment as my cheeks suddenly felt hot and my palms began to sweat. It was like we were in high school all over again and my crush had said my name. Skittish, embarrassed and nervous, I stared at him like a gawking idiot.

Yep. I enlisted a year after we graduated. How have you been?

And the rest is history. We’ve been dating for over a year and a half now. Well, seriously dating, that is. The night that I’d ran into him at the bar, he was finalizing his divorce.

Apparently, he’d married Brenda Louis—the biggest slut in school who had an expensive clothing addiction. I never did like her. She was always so fake and tried too hard to make everyone like her. Ryan and I didn’t start dating seriously until roughly six months after his divorce.

Before that, we emailed, texted and talked on the phone. This is how we usually communicate since he works so far away on his base. We didn’t make things official between us until he came home for his mom’s birthday party and invited me over to his parent’s house.

His parents absolutely loved me, and his mom doted over me. Not long after that, we became a couple, and we’ve made each other so happy—until now. Ryan and I don’t see eye to eye on this whole pregnancy situation.

Here’s where we’re split on it. He wants me to keep the baby and raise it, whereas I want to give the baby up