Chapter 30

Dinner with Sarah and the kids went well. Rossalyn got to go into detail about the places they had went. They had spent a week in Hawaii exploring Maui and Honolulu. Next they traveled to Austraila and spent a week exploring. Rossalyn was like a kid in a candy store when Josiah agreed to take her to the zoo. She could have went there everyday for a month and never gotten bored with the animals and the shows they put on. After that, they went to Europe and spent the rest of their trip, minus the sail time back to their origin, exploring England, France, and Scotland. Rossalyn had never had such a wonderful time in all her life. She got to see the actual places that were described in some of her favorite books and television series.

Sarah was fascinated as she told tales of their adventures and descibed the ship to her and the kids. Josiah promised that some time in the near future, they'd take her and the kids for a vacation so they got to spend time on the ship and get to go somewhere to relax and have fun too. Rossalyn smiled her thanks to him. She knew that Sarah and the kids would never get to do anything like that without his generosity. It surprised her a little that he would offer that, but he insisted they were his family too and he'd love to take them.

Once Sarah and the kids left for the night, Rossalyn and Josiah went up to their bedroom. They were both feeling the jet lag from their travel and decided to call it an early night. Rossalyn felt almost as if lead had been injected into her feet on their way up the stairs from how tired she felt.

"Is it normal to be this exhausted?" Rossalyn asked with a long yawn as they finally made it into their bedroom.

"We've been in a completely different time zone for the last few weeks. So right now your body thinks it has been up all night. Though in actuality it hasn't. It's normal for you to be really tired when you get home when we've been gone as long as we have. You might actually feel that way for a few days. That is why I've scheduled the welcome home party for the weekend. It'll give us time to adjust to being home and get our bodies back on track." Josiah told her after giving an impressive yawn of his own.

"Would you be mad if I said I don't feel like doing anything tonight?" Rossalyn asked looking over at him with a worried frown.

"Honestly, I don't feel like doing anything either. We're both tired we can just go to sleep, sweetie." Josiah reassured her, breaking habit and just stripping his clothes off to the floor and crawling into bed.

They had been intimate pretty much every night since their wedding night, save the days of her cycle. She knew how bad Josiah wanted them to immediately start a family, but because she'd been on birth control for so long, she knew it would take time before she was able to conceive. Though she felt sure he understood that, she felt his disappointment every time she had let him know she'd started. She took her clothes off and got into the bed with him with a long sigh of relief. Her body instantly relaxed and her eyes were drifting closed even before Josiah switched the lamp off.

Next morning, Josiah woke up when it was still dark outside. He glanced over at the clock and seen that it was four in the morning but he was wide awake. He reached over to feel for Rossalyn but met an empty bed. He looked around the room and could make out the balcony door open. He got out of bed and wandered out to find Rossalyn sitting in one of the chairs with a coffee mug in her hands looking out over the night sky. She looked up at him and offered a sheepish smile when he took the seat next to her.

"How long have you been up?" Josiah asked curiously.

"For about a hour. I woke up and for the life of me couldn't get back to sleep." Rossalyn sighed then took a sip of her coffee. "So I decided to get coffee and start my day." She gestured to the pot on the table between them. "Theres plenty left if you want some."

"I'd love some." Josiah said then poured himself coffee grinning over at her. "Jet lag for the win. Would you like to take your cup down to the kitchen with me and get some breakfast?"

"Yes, I'm starving!" Rossalyn said grinning back then accepted the hand he held out for her and stood. "You may want to put pants on though." She pointed out as she gave a meaningful glance to his boxers.

"Good point. I'll be a second." Josiah handed her his coffee cup then disappeared in the closet for a short minute before returning in sweat pants and slippers, much like what she was wearing.

They headed down the stairs and into the kitchen to fix them breakfast. Rossalyn was suprised to find that Josiah was very competent with a pan and eggs. She made pancake batter while he fried some sausage. They carried their plates to the dining room with their fresh orange juice and sat at the table to eat.

"I didn't know you could cook." Rossalyn commented after a minute or so of them eating in comfortable silence.

"My mom told me just because I don't have to cook for myself, doesn't mean I should be incapable of doing so. She taught me herself. It was our weekend tradition to give the staff time off and us just do our own thing." Josiah said with a shrug.

"Is that something you'd be interested in doing again? I really enjoyed us cooking together." She said with a smile.

"If that is something you want to do, then I'm fine with that." Josiah agreed, though looked surprised that she wanted to go back to doing the menial house chores now that she was in a position to be provided for.

"I might not always want to give them weekends off, but I'd like to start unless I specify otherwise." Rossalyn said looking at him then confessed, "I don't really have anything else to do all day. I don't like just sitting around with nothing to do and being waited on like some lazy princess."

"Honey, trust me. Now that we're back from our honeymoon, you'll stay busy. You've not even scratched the tip of the iceburg as far as people wanting to meet you and build relationships with you from the family. Our wives act as sounding boards for the husbands. So you'll be approached constantly by women wanting to get their husband's ideas approved or a meeting set once you've met them." Josiah assured her then smiled at her wide eyed expression. "Don't freak out. That'll take time to happen. It won't be all at once, I promise."

They spent the rest of their meal discussing plans for the rest of the week and for the party on the weekend. They'd agreed to have a welcome home party when they returned but had spent little time preparing for it. Once they were finished with their meal they took the dishes back to the kitchen and put them in the sink. The chef would come into the kitchen and find them and know they already had breakfast so he wouldn't have to worry about making anything else for them. Once they had cleaned up the dining room, they went back to their room and took showers and got ready for the day.

"I could really use a nap now." Rossalyn commented as they headed back down to the main floor around six in the morning.

"Well, when we get back home we might just have one. But our meeting with the rehab director is at eight, so we're actually about to leave for that." Josiah said with a laugh, though he was feeling ready for a nap himself.

"That sounds like a good plan. We're picking Sarah and the kids up on the way?" Rossalyn asked as they went out the front door to wait for their SUV to be pulled around for them.

"No, she's actually going to meet us there." Josiah said.

"Oh, okay. I hope he's doing good. I really don't like the way all of this played out." Rossalyn said worriedly.

"I hope so too. We will find out soon enough, though." Josiah said, though he didn't share that he had his doubts