Chapter Thirty-Four

The goodbyes took longer than the hellos, but when it came time to leave Zack and Mei’s, Jake was on top of the world. His lady said yes! He was walking on air. He couldn’t feel the cold snap in the evening air, and the accumulated snow on Lacy’s brand new Toyota, the one he’d bought with his bonus for joining The TEAM, didn’t bother him one bit.

He looked up at the leaden overcast sky, which blanketed most of the eastern seaboard, and his heart lifted to heaven with thanks for second chances. All the operatic voices in his hard head had gone silent. Even sweet Fantine hadn’t spoken a word since the day he’d nearly died on the edge of the Potomac. What more could a man ask for?

“Do you want me to drive?”

Jake looked down at the woman in his arms, for the first time seeing his reflection in her green eyes. Lacy was the same as him. They’d endured the same kinds of inner battles; she just hadn’t buried her heart so deep that it couldn’t breathe. He got it now, the whole two becoming one thing between a man and his wife. It made its two separate parts better and stronger. Braver.

“Tonight, yes, but tomorrow, I’m getting my license back. You don’t need to be driving me everywhere I’m supposed to go.”

“Like to work? I don’t mind.”

“Yes. Like to work.” He winked and opened the driver’s side door for her. “Alexandria isn’t exactly on the way to the Good Samaritan. Speaking of which, when will it re-open?”

Lacy took her place behind the steering wheel. “Possibly the end of January. One of the doctors over at Holy Cross is taking over until there’s a permanent replacement for Marlee, and quite a few nurses in the area volunteered to keep it running. We don’t always need a physician on staff, but sometimes...” She took a deep breath. “Did I tell you how much I love this new car smell?”

Jake grinned as he ran around the car and let himself in. “It was nice to be able to shop for you for a change. Where do you want to get married?”

She cast a look to the loving home at her left. “At Zack’s.”

That put a grin on Jake’s face. “Good idea. Do you want me to ask him or would you rather?”

“I think we should both ask him and Mei, but not tonight. They’ve got their hands full with… how many kids are sleeping over?”

“A hundred?”

A chuckle bubbled out of her throat. “It seemed like a hundred, didn’t it? So, umm, kids. We’ve never talked about that. How many do you see us having? None? Two? Six, like Libby and Mark are trying for?”

That deserved an eye roll. What was Mark thinking? “Not six,” Jake replied firmly, his fingertips tapping a beat on his knees. That was half a dozen and too close to a hundred.

Despite having had a good day at his buddy’s home, he was smart enough to know he still needed help. He hadn’t broached the idea of counseling with Lacy yet, but Harley knew a good group near Mount Vernon that he’d used back when he was struggling with PTSD. Jake wanted to check them out. Drugs and anti-depressants with all their side effects were a definite no-go, but the Malinois pup Harley had also offered up might be the perfect solution. The little guy was pure black, the offspring of proven service dogs, and sharp as a blade.

Hmmm. Blade. That’d be a good name. “Can I get a dog?” blurted out of his big mouth before he gave it license to speak.

“So you’d rather have a dog than kids?” There was something different about Lacy tonight.

“Oh no, I just...” His fingers stabbed through his hair as Lacy started the car, maneuvered out of their parking place, and began the drive back to Anacostia. “We could start with one kid and go from there,” he suggested.

That got him a funny giggle out of his sexy driver. “That’s the way it usually starts, Jake. One egg. One sperm. One infant that looks like either you or me. It was funny that every time I turned around today, you had a little one sitting on your lap. Song seemed to think you were her personal chair, and who was that little boy sitting on your shoulders when I was helping Mei in the kitchen?”

Oh, him. “That was Taylor and Gracie’s little guy, umm, Peter, I think his name is.”

“He looked mighty comfortable.” Lacy gave Jake a sideways glance. Those pretty green eyes were up to something, but he still hadn’t a clue. “You’re good with kids, I can tell. You seemed to attract them like magnets.”

And it was time to change the subject. “So what’s the secret you couldn’t tell me at Zack’s?”

Streetlights on the bridge across the Potomac cast a muted yellow glow through the windshield. “You’ll see.”

“You do know I’m going to molest you in all the best ways tonight, don’t you?” he teased, his fingers itching to unravel her.

“That’s the plan.”

“So this is the surprise?” Jake asked, his eyes wide at the latest painting in Lacy’s hands. He’d made himself comfortable on the couch, his boots off, and his long legs taking up most of the cushions, his stocking feet crossed at the ankles. Lacy stood at her open bedroom door, but he sounded disappointed.

She peered around the canvas, canting the painting from side to side, “What did you think I meant?” Her heart thumped a little faster than normal. “Don’t you like it?” Look closer, Jake. Come on. You can do it.

“It’s different than the others. It’s not... bloody.” Cocking his head to a sharp right angle, he looked totally flummoxed, his eyes narrowed, and those adorable—yes, adorable—brows pinched together.

“I know, right?” It was hard not to laugh out loud. This guy didn’t get hints very well. “But this right here is Marlee. She loved the sunlight streaming through our windows every morning, so we agreed. I painted sunflowers and shadows, also known as cadmium yellow and black.”

“You really do talk to them, don’t you?”

Her head bobbed. “I knew her longer than everyone else I’ve painted, so yes. This one was easy and now...” Lacy released a sigh and the worry she’d been holding onto along with it. There wasn’t anything she could do at this point. Either Jake would fall in love with it or not. That would be up to him. Now… if he’d only notice the real surprise hidden between her fingertips and the canvas frame. She tilted the picture one more time and asked, “Can you see what I’ve hidden right in front of you?”

That brought him up on his knees and like a lithe jungle cat, he crawled to her end of the couch, his shoulder blades jutting under his shirt, and she nearly set the canvas aside and jumped his bones right then. That all male body was headed her way and he’d tripped every early warning indicator in hers.

His brows furrowed. His lips pinched. Oh, this guy! How could he not see what she wanted him to see? “Look closer,” she suggested, shifting to the left so the right side of the canvas frame was directly in his line of sight.

But—argh! His nose followed her painting, his laser sharp eyes center stage and not on her fingertips at the edge. “See what?” he asked, his nose wrinkled now as he scrutinized the starburst design closer. “Did you paint a puzzle I’m not seeing, an image hidden in the shadows? Or am I just that—”

“You’re not stupid, Jake.” She cut him off before he could voice that false conclusion. Hyper-vigilance did not equate to compromised intellect, and he needed to stop cutting himself down. But you are a little dense sometimes…

Finally! Jake plucked the real surprise out from under her fingertips. “What’s this?”

Please be happy. Please don’t be mad.

The sharp eyes of a sniper landed on her, and Lacy froze. “A pee stick? Are we pregnant?”

A tsunami of relief coursed through her at the word he’d chosen. We. Not you. She set the canvas aside, and jumped into his arms. “We are,” she announced, her body thrumming at the momentous news she’d just revealed. “Isn’t that great?”

“No.” Jake’s hands were saying all the right things. He held her close, but his mouth was another story. “I would like to have exercised a little more forethought. That’s a big decision and…” His fingers combed over his head, his signature tell when he was nervous or stressed. “We’re pregnant?”

Her mouth fell open and her lips went dry. “You don’t want it?”

“No,” he said again, his eyes wide and his chest heaving. He shook his head and her world fell out from under her.

Lacy twisted away from him and shoved to her feet. How could he be the man of her dreams one moment and such an ass the next?

“I should have taken better care…” he murmured, his voice as distant as his gaze, “of you. I should’ve thought to use protection instead of going down on you like some animal. You deserved... God, Lacy, you deserve better.”

“Better than what? This baby?” she snapped, her Irish up. “Better than the man I love in my bed every night with me? Better than the father of my child in my—in our lives?” The temperature in her dinky apartment soared, and suddenly she was sweating and fed up with the entire male gender.

“Lacy, stop!” he barked.

She stopped all right, but her heart was broken, and now, she was drenched in sweat, and tears, damn him. This was Jake’s fault. He’d done this to her. No one respected a female Marine who bawled her eyes out when the going got tough. She crossed her arms over her tender breasts and told Jake in no uncertain terms, “I’m keeping it.”

He launched to his feet and she found herself pressed against a solid male chest that still smelled like the home she craved, damn him. “Of course we’re keeping it,” he growled. “I just wished I’d put your needs before mine instead of thinking only of myself when we made it, ah, him. Or her. Guess it could be a girl.”

That sounded different than what she’d thought she’d heard a moment ago. Lacy eased back to peer up at Jake, her fingertips fluttering at his collarbones. “Zack knew when he ran into me at Starbucks. He said I glowed like his wife did when she was pregnant.”

The bug-eyed comical look wrinkling Jake’s face made her smile. “That soon? But we’d only made love—”

“Once. I know. I guess you’re really good at doing what you did to me,” she offered slyly. “So you’re not mad about the baby?”

His entire face wrinkled then. His head shook. “Oh, hell no. It’s our baby, Lacy. Yours and mine. Why would I be mad about that?” He scooped her off her feet and into her—ahem, their bedroom they went. Jake set her down gently, her back at her headboard and knelt at her side. “Our baby,” he murmured, his tone filled with wonder this time. “I like the sound of that.”

And I’m falling in love with you all over again. Warmth blossomed in Lacy’s chest as his skillful fingers slid under her shirt to her bare tummy. Palming the flatness of it with his big rough hand, the biggest smile broke over his face like the sunrise on Christmas morning. “I’m a father,” he told her in a reverent hush. “What do you want? A boy or a girl?”

Lacy answered him true. “You, Jake. I want you.”