IN THE TINY room they converted to Dylan’s play space, Lacey shoved his big toy box to the side with her hip and shimmied it into a corner.
“There,” she murmured aloud. Quickly rearranging the low shelf overflowing with toddler books, it took only a minute to make everything right again.
Good enough.
Not sure how big the riding toy Meghan was bringing would be, she wanted to leave plenty of room in case her son’s aunt and uncle lost their minds and bought something life-size.
It was good to be home even if it was just for a little while. She missed her house and her comfortable routines.
Pressing a hand to her flat belly, she willed the tension to float on by. Staying with Drae and Tori was the Justice way. Her pregnancy assured everyone would close ranks and do whatever it took to take care of Lacey and her son until Cameron returned.
The sound of a vehicle pulling up in the driveway alerted her to Meghan’s arrival. She hurriedly rearranged a few more toys so the shelves and cubbies didn’t look so cluttered.
“Hola, Mrs. Cameron,” she heard Alex’s big voice boom. “Got a delivery for you, Ponytail. Where are you, woman?”
“I’ll be right there,” she called out. “I’m in the playroom.”
Leaving the room’s sliding barn doors open, she wandered down the hallway, picking things up and gathering a pile of the baby’s clothes she’d forgotten to toss in a hamper.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. Juggling an armful of stuff made it difficult to avoid crashing into a trashcan just inside the kitchen’s back door. “Left in a daze,” she admitted to a broadly smiling Alex. “I hate messes.”
“So where do you want this?” Alex asked with a nonchalant jerk of his thumb over his shoulder. “Got it out on the porch.”
“I cleared a spot in the playroom. Do you think that’s okay? I mean, I suppose,” she offered as plan B occurred in her mind, “we could put it right in the living room.”
“Cool,” Alex happily bellowed. “Excellent. The living room then.” He turned and dashed out the door. She stood there looking around while trying to decide what to do with the armful of stuff she still held.
The back door opened and closed. She glanced at Alex, who was leading a big, rough looking man with long hair and a scraggly beard. One of his arms hung limp at his side, and it appeared that without Alex’s help, he might have struggled.
When he looked into her eyes, everything in her arms went crashing to the floor. Covering her mouth with both hands, she just lost it. Shaking all over and barely able to see from the river of tears instantly flooding her eyes, Lacey didn’t know how she didn’t faint dead away.
Cameron.
All the strength he counted on her to have when his other life took him away got blown to bits by an avalanche of emotions she couldn’t contain.
“Ponytail,” he grunted in a voice choked with emotion.
Her legs gave out. Feeling her body start to fall, she gasped with relief when her husband caught her with one arm and drew her against him. They were both shaking uncontrollably. Unable to help it, Lacey threw her arms around his shoulders and began to sob into his neck.
A deep voice, speaking soft and low said, “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
He held her while she cried it out. With her face pressed into his neck, Lacey breathed him in and then cried some more.
“Shh, Ponytail. Everything’s okay. It’s over, princess. I came home. Just like I promised.”
Tears and snot all over her face, she pulled back and sniffed. Reaching for his head, she ran her fingers through his thick dark hair and pushed it back from his handsome face. Exploring the beard ended when she grabbed his face and softly kissed his lips.
Lacey’s questing hands continued to gauge her husband’s physical condition. His neck and shoulders side to side. When she touched the bicep of the arm hanging limp at his side, he grimaced. Groaning her dismay, she stopped the examination and looked deeply into his gorgeous eyes.
“Shrapnel,” he told her. “And some minor burns. All from the explosion. Yes. Hurts like a motherfucker,” he assured her when her bottom lip trembled. “And no. Pain meds are off the table. Fuck that shit.”
“I don’t want to hear anymore,” she whispered. “Tell me what you need. What can I do?”
“Baby,” he ground out as their foreheads tilted and touched. “I just need you. You’re all I’ll ever need, Lacey.”
Whispering words of love, they hugged it out in the kitchen. Noticing the back door was shut and locked, she realized Alex must have taken care of it when he left.
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?” she asked.
Cameron touched her face gently. She kissed his fingers. “I love how you take care of me and our son.”
The words he spoke were emotional and choked up. Taking care of her two boys was at the core of everything she did.
“Can we just go to bed?” he asked. “I’m so fucking tired. Haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since I left here.”
Gently guiding him by his good arm, she led him slowly to the second floor and helped him shed the clothes he’d traveled in. The sight of his mangled arm and painful looking scorched skin hit her like a house of bricks falling. She’d come closer to losing him than she imagined.
After helping him wash up, it was short work getting him settled in their big bed. He was exhausted from the effort, and she worried what all this meant but didn’t dwell on it.
Her husband was home. He said he needed her. Lacey could focus on that.
Quickly undressing, she slid on a long, soft nightie and crawled onto the bed. Propped against the headboard, with her phone and a decanter of fresh water on the nightstand, she pulled her banged up warrior close. He laid his head on her shoulder and relaxed against her. Being extra careful of his injuries, she held him tight, smoothed her hands over his hair, and tried to share whatever healing energy she could.
He slept for two hours. Lacey was more than content to stay right where she was and hold him for days if that was what he needed.
When he stirred, she kept a watchful eye to make sure he didn’t move in a way that would aggravate the trauma his body suffered. The sight of his torn and bloodied flesh almost made her ill. Horrible swathes of red, angry skin—the result of the explosion—marred his arm and one side of his chest.
He’d have some scarring, and she didn’t care. Cameron Justice would always be beautiful in her eyes. No matter what.
An agony in her soul broke loose when he struggled off the bed so he could use the bathroom. She knew he was against the use of narcotics, but maybe he should reconsider.
Slipping on the long, light cashmere robe that matched her nightie, she was at the end of the bed when her handsome, brooding alpha warrior came back from the bathroom. He looked strange. Shocked maybe. Or perhaps alarmed was a better word.
He held up his hand, and her heart skipped a beat.
“Is this what I think it is?”
Lacey examined what he held. Of the half dozen pregnancy tests she’d taken—all positive—she’d kept the first one.
Nodding, she held her breath as it sank in.
Without warning, he started to cry. Rushing to her, he folded her in a fierce one-arm embrace. It was her turn to hold him while the emotions swept him away.
She thought about their future and felt nothing but joy. Grabbing his head, she shook him and giggled. “No more tears! No more worrying about what might have happened.” Smiling so big her eyes bugged out, she laughed. “Cameron!” she cried with undimmed glee. “We’re having a baby!”
He looked at her with an astonished expression. Then he laughed too.
“That, uh, encounter”—he smirked—“in my office before those fuckers sucked me in?”
“Well, I don’t know if that’s the exact moment lightning struck, but I’ll tell you what, sweetie. I like the idea of having the backstory for a daughter or son number two beginning on your desk.” She shivered with delicious excitement. “It was raunchy and wicked and definitely hot.”
Cameron chuckled. She still loved it every damn time he smiled. “Ponytail, when did you become such a wanton? Hmm?” He threaded some hair behind one of her ears and ran a finger down her face.
“When?” she teased playfully. “I can tell you exactly when.”
He arched an eyebrow and waited.
“It all started one night in a motel room when this incredibly handsome guy was passed out sick as a dog, and I had to take care of him. Tried not to look”—she snickered as a blush crept up her neck—“but he had a temperature, and all I had was a washcloth and a dish of cool water. Wanton by necessity.”
“I love you, Lacey Cameron.”
“Yeah, well you had better,” she joked with a gentle poke in his ribs. “Knocked me up again. Sheesh. People are gonna think we’re doing it.”
He howled with laughter. Smiling, he told her, “You are more precious to me than you can possibly imagine.”
She beamed.
“Come on then, wife. Let’s get dressed. I have a sudden need to see our son.”
Does it get better than this, she wondered. Their unusual love story started when a brooding dark knight rescued a ponytailed virgin, and the rest, as they said, was history.
They were charting their future based on a legacy of love at first sight. Knowing how close they came to losing everything made this new chapter in their story even more exciting.
A page turned in their personal happy ever after, and they got dressed and went to get their son.
“To Justice,” Parker said with a shot glass held high. “I’m proud to be part of something so … unique.”
“Hear, hear,” the assembled group of men all drawled.
Clustered in a half-drunk group of grown men who should know better, Cam, Alex, Drae, Parker, Brody, and Calder clinked glasses and downed the oversized shots of single malt.
“Mmm. What is this again? Fucking fantastic finish. Sweet and peppery at the same time.
“Lagavulin,” Alex replied. Snorting a drunken laugh, he looked around at each of them. “Me and the wife are trying to find a drink we can agree on.”
“Glenfiddich will always be for pussies,” Parker chimed in.
“Eat my dick, Counselor.”
Calder started to chuckle. “Seems all kinds of wrong to be drinking with you twatsicles when my lady can’t likewise imbibe.”
Cam still had a hard time wrapping his mind around Stephanie being pregnant.
“That’s what you get for shtupping my mother-in-law.”
Deep, hearty bellows of laughter rang out at Drae’s dry comment.
“How’s the arm?” Brody slurred.
“Can’t feel shit at the moment.” Cam smirked with a chuckle. “Couple more of these,” he said holding the empty shot glass up, “and you could pull my wisdom teeth with no anesthetic.”
Brody’s amused bark bounced off the walls of the custom theater room. The one Drae had designed and built while he and Lacey were on their honeymoon. Cam had to grin. His life was pretty fucking awesome.
“Okay, gentlemen,” the dog guru exclaimed as he walked up to the pole Lacey had installed at the rear of the room. “Since none of you fuckers ever had the balls to do musical theater, that leaves me to instruct y’all with some dance moves.”
“Nothing that’ll put me on my face,” Drae sniped with a whiskey swagger as he moved next to Brody.
Parker approached Drae and threw a fake punch. The two pretended to tussle as Alex and Calder laughed their asses off. He and Brody looked at each other and smirked.
“Move out of the way,” Calder boomed. “I’m a fucking surfer. Got a good core and know where my center is.”
“This oughta be good,” Brody drawled.
Grabbing the pole after a little jump, it was hilarious when Calder was able to do nothing more than hang on as he slowly slid down the pole. So much for thinking this shit was easy.
“Seriously?” mumbled Brody, who was knee-deep in an epic drunk. Cam had to laugh. He’d never seen the guy so loose. “You were supposed to pay attention to the video. Do I have to ask Cam to show it again?”
“Nah, fuck that,” Drae said with Lagavulin-infused St. John cockiness. Hitching up his jeans like an eighty-year-old, he grabbed the pole and tried flinging himself around it only to land like a rock on the floor.
Big Daddy stepped up and sneered at them all. “Move away, little boys. Let the monster dick have a try.”
“Monster dick!” Parker and Brody bawled with delight almost at the same time.
Took only a few seconds for the big guy to also make a fool of himself. Cam was enjoying this immensely.
Only Brody remained, and he’d done so much trash talking that Cam couldn’t wait to see what he brought.
“The trick, ladies,” he sneered at his inebriated cohorts, “is to keep moving. Like a hula hoop.”
Okay, Cam thought as he watched the insanely limber canine master do a couple of impressive muscle moves. But using the pole as a glorified chin-up bar sorta missed the point.
“You guys all suck,” he scolded with his best scowl after Brody hopped down and bowed to a smattering of applause.
Walking on a slight tilt—shit, that single malt was deadly stuff—he went to a control panel and tapped away until the sound system fired up and the catchy beat of a classic disco song filled the room. It was his wife’s favorite get up and boogie tune, “You Should Be Dancing” by the Bee Gees. Whenever he heard the song, he knew what his wife was doing.
His inner Tony Manero stepped up to entertain his grinning, laughing friends as Cam Saturday Night Fevered his way up to the pole. The next minute went by in a blur, despite his arm burning like the fires of hell as he swung and curled around the simple metal tube.
Leaving everyone slack-jawed, he showed them everything his ponytailed wife had taught him, and when his arm couldn’t take anymore, he hopped down and immediately disco danced his way in a circle until everyone else raucously joined him.
With the iconic disco song booming from the speakers, he and his band of brothers and friends drunkenly conga lined round and round, executing the best whiskey-soaked disco and country line dance moves of all time.