Epilogue

“How’s the view back there?” Tess asked via the headset from the cockpit as she flew them back to base.

“Great!” came the enthusiastic response from the back. “I can see the airfield out the side door window,” Autumn said excitedly, then sobered. “It’s so flat here.”

“Welcome to Dallas Fort Worth, honey.” Tess shared a smile with her copilot and eased the cyclic to the right to turn them, her feet adjusting the pedals to keep them steady.

Autumn had adjusted well into her normal routine after her ordeal. Autumn kept regular appointments with a counselor, but no longer had to see a psychiatrist, and Sarah had kept her word about loosening the reins with the schedule she and Reid shared. Even so, Tess had been stunned—and ecstatic—when Reid and Autumn had surprised her at the office this morning.

It had been eight weeks since the accident and her collarbone was fully healed. She still saw a physiotherapist twice a week but she had almost ninety-percent range of motion back in her shoulder already, and no more swelling in her hand.

The moment they’d cleared her to fly, she’d climbed back into the cockpit for various training missions out of her home base here in Fort Worth. The first few times had been hard, haunted by the memory of what had happened, but she’d refused to let it beat her. Imagining Ruiz despising life inside his max security prison cell was fabulous mental motivation.

“What can you see out the other side now?” Tess asked her.

A few seconds passed before Autumn answered. “My dad! I see him!”

Tess grinned as she lined them up on the runway and followed it in to the landing pad near the hangar. Reid stood there waiting for them, a pair of shades hiding his eyes as he watched them land.

Tess lowered them into a hover and gently touched the wheels down. “Touch down. Your first flight on a Blackhawk is in the books.”

“It was so awesome! I can’t wait to go up again.”

“Think you might have created a monster there, Tess,” her crew chief said, popping his head in from the back. “That’s one excited little girl.”

It warmed Tess inside and out to know that Autumn had enjoyed it so much. While she and the copilot went through shutdown procedures, she watched out her cockpit window as the crew chief led Autumn away from the helo, holding her hand. The moment they were clear of the rotors he released her, and Autumn went running to her father.

Tess’s heart squeezed so hard it hurt when Reid grinned and bent to catch her as she jumped into his waiting arms.

“That’s one adorable kid,” the copilot said.

“Don’t I know it,” Tess murmured. “And I’m even more partial to her dad.”

The copilot chuckled and clapped a hand on her shoulder before undoing his harness and climbing out of the cockpit. Tess followed, hopping onto the hot tarmac beneath a clear blue July Texas sky. Reid stood there with Autumn, watching her.

Tess couldn’t help but grin. “If I run and jump at you too, will you catch me?”

“Sweetheart, you know I will.” Reid opened up his arms and raised his eyebrows, waiting expectantly.

She laughed and ran at him, jumping just as she reached him and sure enough, those big, strong arms not only caught her, but crushed her to his hard body and held her off the ground. Autumn was giggling like mad at the show. Grinning, Tess wound her arms around his sturdy neck and leaned her head back to look down at him. “Nice catch.”

“Yeah, you’re a helluva catch,” he murmured, using one hand to pull her head down for a long, deep kiss that made every nerve ending in her body go haywire.

“Iiiick,” Autumn said next to her. “Mush.”

Tess laughed against Reid’s mouth and kept her arms around him as he lowered her to the ground, not missing the solid length of his erection pressing against her lower belly.

She shared a naughty grin with him, a silent promise to take care of that later on tonight, when her parents, sister and the girls took Autumn for a sleepover so she and Reid could have a night by themselves at the hotel. She loved Autumn, but she couldn’t wait to be alone with Reid. It had been over a month since they’d last seen each other and they were both impatient as hell to get naked again.

“So you loved it?” Reid asked Autumn, one arm locked around Tess’s waist. She loved how openly affectionate he was, even around his daughter.

Her little face brightened. “Yes! I’m gonna fly a Blackhawk someday, too. Tess’ll teach me. Right Tess?”

“Oh, wow, I really did create a monster,” Tess whispered to him.

“Could be worse,” he said. “You could’ve been a prima ballerina or something, and then I’d have to sit through recitals and whatever. At least flying a helo is badass.”

Tess pressed a quick, hard kiss to his mouth. “Okay, who’s starving for a chocolate milkshake?”

“Me! Me!” Autumn grabbed Tess’s hand and started towing her to where Reid had parked his rental vehicle.

“And after that, it’s sleepover time,” Reid added, waggling his eyebrows at Tess.

“Yep. Right after you run the gauntlet of meeting my parents, sister, and nieces.” They’d all flown in to stay the week at Tess’s place, and she’d had no idea Reid was planning to surprise her by showing up. But this way, they had awesome babysitters for the next two days.

“I can handle it. As long as it doesn’t cut into our night too much,” he added in a sexy tone that made her toes curl in her boots.

After milkshakes at a favorite diner, then a BBQ dinner at Tess’s place, they left an insanely excited Autumn to an evening of pedicures and movie sleepover with Tess’s family, and headed for the rental vehicle.

Rather than open her door for her and put her inside, Reid caged her in against the door in the shadows cast by the detached garage. Tess hummed in her throat and threaded her hands through his hair to kiss him, but he merely brushed his lips over hers and eased back. Staring at her.

“What?” she asked.

“Autumn and I brought you a present. I told her I’d give it to you now.”

She loved presents. “Where is it?”

“In my back pocket.”

When he made no move to get it, she laughed. “You want me to get it?”

His lips curved into the sexiest smile, his deep blue eyes almost black in the shadows. “Yup.”

With a light, teasing touch, Tess trailed her left hand down the hard ridge of his right pec, down his flat abs and dragged her palm over the bulge forming in the crotch of his jeans before sliding it over his hip to his ass. She squeezed for good measure, then stopped when the shape of something in his back pocket registered. Flat. Fairly small.

Holding his gaze, she slipped her fingers into the denim pocket and pulled out a small pink envelope. she turned the envelope over in her fingers. For Tess, with love from me and my dad, it read in Autumn’s printing.

“Open it,” he murmured, standing so close his breath brushed over her temple and his clean, spicy scent enveloped her.

A little dizzy, Tess did, and pulled out a key tied to a pink velvet ribbon with a tiny silver helicopter charm attached to the end. Awed, Tess looked up into Reid’s eyes, afraid to believe what it meant.

He cupped her face in his hands, looking into her eyes as he spoke. “I’m in love with you, Tess Dubrovski, and I can’t stand being away from you anymore. So Autumn and I went out and found a new two-bedroom apartment just being finished outside Alexandria. We want you to move in there with us when we get possession next month.”

Her chin wobbled and her throat thickened. She’d already looked into getting a transfer to D.C. and they had an opening for her there if she wanted it. “You’re in love with me?” She was still stuck on that part.

Reid nodded, a gentle smile tugging at his lips. “I love you so much it hurts.”

“I love you too,” she whispered, trying like hell to hold it together.

His teeth flashed as he grinned. “I’m damn glad to hear that, sweetheart. And what about—“

“Yes. Yes, of course I’ll move in with you.” She threw her arms around his neck and clung, laughing even as tears flooded her eyes. It seemed surreal, to have found a love like this after she’d become a widow and thought that part of her life was over forever. Reid had made her brave enough to love again.

He made a low, hungry sound in the back of his throat and then his mouth was on hers, his body pressing her into the side of the vehicle. Tess kissed him back with every ounce of love and passion in her, letting out a squeak when he hauled her off her feet and bodily put her into the SUV.

“Should we tell the others?” she asked breathlessly, shoving her hair out of her face as he climbed behind the wheel.

“Later.” He started the engine and reversed, swinging them around so fast on the driveway that gravel spewed from beneath the tires. She laughed as he shifted into drive and shot them down the long, straight driveway.

“Looks like someone’s in a hurry to get somewhere,” she teased, climbing to her knees to lean over and nibble on the side of his neck. Her heart felt like it might burst from happiness. She felt free, the rest of her life with him a warm, beckoning glow on the horizon, full of possibility.

He groaned, reaching one hand up to clench in the back of her hair. “Wish we were in a Blackhawk instead. Would be way faster.”

She laughed lightly, her hands busily undoing the button of his jeans. “Oh, but taking the long route is going to be so much more fun.”

His chuckle ended in a tortured groan as she freed his hot, hard length and curled her fist around him. “Whatever you do to me in this car, I’m gonna tease you twice as bad when we get inside that hotel room,” he warned, not doing a thing to stop her.

“Who said anything about teasing?” she murmured, bending down to brush her lips over the swollen head. She knew exactly what he liked now, knew precisely how to take him to the edge…and over it. Just like she knew he would return the favor and then some once they reached the hotel, making her fly higher than she’d ever flown before.

He hissed in a breath, his hand clenching tighter in her hair. “Dammit, Tess, I’m—”

Whatever else he was going to say ended in a strangled growl as she parted her lips and started the real torment. Tess smiled inwardly and set to work driving her big, badass alpha male out of his skull. Because this was the first night of the rest of their lives together, and she was going to make sure neither one of them ever forgot it.

—The End—