Dear Soldier: BBW Contemporary Romance by Karina Ashe

Chapter 1
    July 3rd
     
    Ian
     
    Four years and not a thing has changed. It’s still the grandiose colonial on the hill with evergreen trim and a bright red door, surrounded by twenty acres of orchards, three ponds, and an ivy-covered stone wall that would seem more at home in the English countryside than the middle of Tennessee.
    I don’t know why a part of me expected it to be different. The manor was the one thing in my childhood that was constant. Manicured lawns and groomed trees. Gardens overflowing with roses in summer and choked by barren, prickly stalks in winter. Rooms filled with family heirlooms and modern art, but no photographs.
    Back then, I didn’t understand the true meaning of work. Still, I’d known pain, and the deep, all-consuming loneliness that this untouchable landscape seemed built to mock. I’d hoped that my father might change something when I left—that he’d be able to bury some of his guilt in his son’s absence, or at least would allow himself to grieve—but I knew even before I entered his office that he hadn’t.
    My father’s eyes are glassy as he rises from the leather chair behind his ornate desk. It is strange seeing him again after so much time. He seems frailer. The lines in his face are deeper. And yet, despite the obvious difference in our ages, I see more of myself in him than I ever have before.
    He hesitates when he reaches me. There is an awkward silence. Even when I was a child, we never hugged and rarely touched. “Ian,” he whispers, hand shaking as he pats my back. He wets his lips and opens his mouth, but says nothing. A moment later, he looks down.
    It’s alright. I know what he wanted to tell me. I hadn’t expected to ever see him again, either.
    He gestures to a familiar red-cushioned chair. “Sit.”
    Briefly, I wonder if anyone else has sat in this chair in the past six years. I guess a few must’ve. He sometimes meets with business partners in this room, and I doubt he’d banished it only to bring it out of storage once I’d finally accepted his summons.
    He paces in the narrow space between his chair and the marble fireplace as I take my seat. I regret holding onto my hatred for so long. Now, he’ll never believe it was my choice to come back because I wanted to see him.
    Maybe I should try to make light of the situation. “I’m not in trouble, am I?”
    I regret asking immediately. It’s too close to things I said in the past. Like after I crashed the Benz, or took a piss in the pool while he was meeting with a client, or when he caught me fucking his mistress on that very desk that once symbolized everything I hated about him so much.
    My father winces. “No.”
    A familiar silence settles between us. I don’t know how to break it, or how to mend all the wounds that were allowed to fester because of it. I’m sorry feels so trite after all this time, especially when it will be accompanied with goodbye .
    Well, I suppose I should get on with it. “I met someone.”
    My father stops mid-stride. “What do you mean?”
    “A woman. While I was in the military.”
    My father grits his jaw. “Alright. My original question still stands, what do you mean?”
    Here we go . “I mean that I love her. I’m going to marry her if she says yes.”
    He frowns. It looks like the converging deep lines between his eyebrows will swallow his face. “How did you meet her?”
    “She wrote me letters. I wrote back.”
    “ You wrote letters?”
    “Yeah.” And I decide to tell him the whole story because a few minutes after I leave the room he’ll start running the background check. “It was part of some disciplinary thing. She tore down a few ROTC posters, and her punishment was me. Or maybe my punishment was her. Either way, it turned out for the best.”
    “The best?” my father whispers. “I don’t understand—”
    “Look, I know you’ve had me followed since I landed in New York, and I wanted you to hear this from me, not someone else. And also,