by Susan Stoker
Colt had been amazing the night before. He’d somehow realized that she was on the edge of a massive attack at her brother’s reception, and he’d taken her outside so she could get some space and air. She’d continued to shake and feel dizzy. She’d started hyperventilating and couldn’t catch her breath.
When being outside and away from all the guests hadn’t helped, he’d put her in his car and driven her to his house.
She hadn’t been worried. She knew who Colt was, Truck talked about him all the time. Ford trusted his commander, and he’d told her that she could too.
But she couldn’t stop thinking about what he must think of her. How weak she was. How pathetic. How he probably wanted to be anywhere and be doing anything other than babysitting her.
Part of the hell of her brand of anxiety was second-guessing everyone’s motives and whether or not they really wanted her around. She constantly had a war going on in her head that things weren’t really the way she thought they were.
But Colt had done everything right last night. He’d let her hang on to him to help her feel grounded. He’d put her in his bed and simply held her close. He’d talked about anything and everything for hours, rubbing her arms and letting her physically recover at her own pace.
She still internally questioned what he was doing and why he was helping her, but she’d put on the brave face she wore every day of her life and did her best to try to act normal. But eventually she’d fallen asleep, which was a miracle in itself.
Macie never slept well. Especially after taking a Vistaril. Those pills were reserved for when she really, really needed them. Normally her Lexapro tablets did the trick. But last night, in Colt’s arms, she’d slept like a baby for the first time in a very long time. It was a rare night that she slept more than four hours in a row.
Easing herself out of Colt’s arms as slowly and carefully as she could, Macie stood by the side of his bed, staring down at him for a long moment. His hair was graying at the temples, making him look distinguished rather than old. While he didn’t have a defined six pack, he wasn’t overweight by any stretch of the imagination. Macie remembered the way his chest and stomach had felt under her hand as they lay talking the night before. He was taller than her by a few inches, but at around six feet, he didn’t tower over her like her brother did.
His eyes were a unique shade of gray, and when she spoke, he looked her right in the eye. He never seemed to be bored or impatient with her when she had a hard time explaining how she felt. He was older than her by at least a decade, but at no time had Macie felt as if the difference in their ages was an issue.
Macie was drawn to Colt. She hadn’t felt the kind of chemistry she felt with him in a very long time. It excited her while scaring her to death at the same time.
They were both still dressed in the clothes they’d worn to the wedding and reception the day before. Colt hadn’t touched her inappropriately and hadn’t done anything out of line.
And that made Macie’s anxiety rear its ugly head once more. Was she not pretty enough? Did he not see her as a woman? Did he only see her as someone he had to rescue? Maybe he’d only helped her because he was Ford’s commander.
She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself, pinching her biceps to try to stop the ugly thoughts in her head.
When she felt more under control, Macie opened her eyes and looked around the room. She remembered something Colt asked her the night before. Making a split-second decision, and for once not analyzing it to death, she moved toward the table next to the bed. She remembered Colt saying last night that he always kept a pad of paper and pen next to his bed, so he could jot down any thoughts that came to him in the middle of the night.
She ripped off the top piece of paper and wrote a quick note.
* * *
Colt. Thank you for last night. If you were honest about wanting to have lunch sometime, I’d like that. ~Macie
* * *
She scrawled her phone number under her name and left it on the small table. Then, taking a deep breath, she did what her body and mind had been telling her to do from the second she woke up. She fled.
An hour later, Colt stirred in his bed and, when he realized he was alone, quickly sat up and looked around. He couldn’t see any indication that Macie was still there, and he didn’t hear her anywhere in his house.
Feeling disappointed, he threw back the covers and strode into his bathroom. He liked Mercedes Laughlin. More than liked her. Felt a need deep down in his bones to keep her close and to do whatever he could to make her life easier.
Because it was more than obvious Macie suffered from anxiety, and he hated that.
Colt had a cousin who suffered from the same condition, and he knew he had an uphill mountain to climb. He knew it was unlikely that she’d have gotten up the nerve to leave him a note or her number. Oh, Colt knew he could ask Truck for his sister’s phone number, but for now, he wanted to keep things just between them. He had a feeling Macie needed some time to process the night before and come to terms with what had happened. He’d give her some space…for now.
But he would see Macie again. He’d felt something between them, and had a feeling she’d felt it too. Simply holding her in his arms did more for him last night than actually making love to a woman had in the past. He’d loved how she fit against him. How soft her skin and hair was. He’d loved listening to the sound of her voice. And he’d especially loved knowing it was his touch that soothed her and the cadence of his voice that had finally lulled her to sleep.
Macie Laughlin had touched something deep inside him. And he wanted to explore whatever it was.
He walked into his closet and changed into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Then he moved to his door to head downstairs and fix himself some breakfast. Feeling strangely charged, even though Macie had snuck out on him, he opened his bedroom door and pulled it closed with a little too much force. It slammed shut behind him, and Colt winced. Shrugging, and glad he wasn’t living in an apartment anymore and his carelessness wouldn’t wake anyone else up, he headed down the stairs toward his kitchen.
Colt never realized that when the door had slammed shut, a slight breeze moved through the room, picking up the note Macie had so nervously written and blowing it to the back side of the table and off the edge. It slid down to the floor and ended up under the bed with the multitude of dust bunnies that lived there, destined to remain unfound and unread for weeks.
Harley and Coach, two years after the weddings.
* * *
“You still want to do this?” Coach asked Harley.
“Absolutely,” she said confidently.
“Then on the count of three,” he said. “One. Two. Three!”
On the last number, he pushed them both out of the plane, and Coach smiled as he heard Harley scream in glee as they plummeted toward the ground.
She’d come a long way since that first jump they’d taken together. Him being hit in the face by a bird was truly a freak accident, and once he’d convinced her to try again, she’d decided she loved it.
Coach monitored their altitude throughout the jump and when it was time, he tapped Harley on the shoulder. She reached back and he helped guide her hand to the parachute cord. They pulled it together, and he laughed when she grunted after being jerked upward by the parachute opening.
They glided toward the ground with Coach steering. They landed without any issues right in the middle of the landing zone.
The second they were on the ground, Coach unclipped her harness from his and turned them until Harley was under him. Her brown eyes sparkled with life as she smiled up at him. He loved her even more than he had the day they got married. She hadn’t changed in the least since that day. She was still slender, still had the same shoulder-length light brown hair, but her confidence had grown tenfold.
“Like that?” Coach asked.
“Of course,” Harley said. “It was just the thing I needed to get my day started.”
“That and the orgasm, you mean,” Coach corrected with a grin.
“Oh, yeah. Maybe that too.”
Coach tickled her as best he could through the jumpsuit she was wearing. When he took pity on her and let her go, he loved how she clung to him.
“I love you,” Harley said.
“Love you back. Are you ready for today?”
“Yes. There’s no way they’ll turn me down,” Harley said with confidence. “I’ve been carrying the This is War line for years. If they want me to keep working there, they’ll have to pay for the privilege.”
Coach loved how passionate Harley was for her job. She loved creating the video games. But when one of her games had been altered significantly to make it unnecessarily violent, after she’d submitted the final code, she’d lost it.
They didn’t have children, a mutual decision, but Harley was more than aware of how kids were being desensitized to violence through social media and games like the ones she designed.
She’d found the nerve to tell the president of the company that if he didn’t rewrite her contract to say that she was the only person who could approve changes to the final product, and give her a hefty raise in the meantime, she’d quit and go work for his biggest competitor.
Coach knew she’d have no problem doing just that too. It wasn’t a bluff. Harley was good. More than good. She’d continued to learn a lot throughout her career and she was the best programmer the company had. Bar none. She’d also gotten a lot more confident over the years. Coach attributed that to being happy, and to having kick-ass female friends who always had each other’s backs and celebrated each other’s successes rather than tearing each other down.
Today was her meeting with her boss, and the president of the company. They’d either give her what she wanted or she was out of there.
“Are you up for some breakfast before you have to call in?” Coach asked.
Harley worked remotely, which allowed her to stay home with their cat and two dogs all day. Many times he’d come home to her sitting on the couch with a dog on either side of her, the cat draped over her shoulders, and her fingers moving with the speed of light over her keyboard.
“Of course,” she said. “Omelet with all the good shit I like?” she asked.
“As if I’d make you anything else,” Coach told her. “What did Davidson and Montesa say last night? Are they good?” He truly liked her siblings, and was always interested in what they were doing.
“Oh, yeah. Montesa is heading off to St. Thomas on vacation today. She told me to call her after my meeting to let her know how it went.”
“Her husband finally convinced his workaholic wife to go?”
Harley smiled. “Yup. Crazy, huh?”
“Absolutely. And Davidson?”
“He offered to beat up the president if he didn’t give me what I wanted,” Harley said with a laugh.
“Sounds like something he’d do.”
“Thank you for giving me everything I didn’t know I was missing in life,” Harley said as she brought up a hand and curled it around the back of Coach’s neck.
“You’re welcome, Harl. Anything you want is yours.”
“Anything?” she said with an arched brow.
Coach pressed his hips into her belly, letting her feel his erection. “Anything,” he said.
“You know what adrenaline does to me,” Harley said coyly, peering at him from beneath lowered lashes.
Coach had her up and walking toward her Highlander before she knew what was happening. She giggled and gathered up the parachute trailing behind them as they walked. “In a hurry?” she asked.
“If you want to have time to eat before your call, yeah.”
Coach was aware they had plenty of time. Even though he’d had her that morning, he knew he wouldn’t last more than a couple minutes the second he got inside her. She always did that to him. Every time they made love, it felt like coming home.
On their way to the parking lot, he held out his hand and sighed in contentment when she took it. “Love you, Harl.”
“Love you too.”
They both smiled all the way home.
Chase and Sadie, three years after the weddings.
* * *
Chase sat at his desk and looked over at his wife. Sadie was in the conference room with a potential customer. She was always the one to conduct the initial meetings with the women who came inquiring about their services.
A year ago, he’d chaptered out of the Army, and even though his friends had told him he’d be sorry, he hadn’t regretted one second of his decision.
He and Sadie had opened a branch of her famous uncle’s bodyguard services here in the Fort Hood area. With his background in investigations, Chase was easily able to discover information on the exes of their clients. They had a staff of four men who rotated through jobs, and Sadie did most of the paperwork in the office, especially now that she was pregnant with their first child. Chase supervised the bodyguards and occasionally offered backup when needed.
Chase still had a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that he was going to be a father. He’d watched his sister get married and have babies, and had enjoyed being an uncle, but it was completely different knowing he’d have a son of his own soon.
Sadie patted the distraught woman on the shoulder and awkwardly stood up, her eight-months-pregnant belly preventing her from moving anywhere quickly anymore. He met her at the door to the conference room and put his arm under her elbow to help balance her as she waddled to the leather chair in the corner of his office. She’d long since stopped sitting at her desk, as it was uncomfortable for her.
“Is she okay?” Chase asked.
Sadie nodded. “She will be.”
“I guess we’ve got a new client then?”
Sadie smiled. “Yup. She has two kids and is scared her ex is gonna try to snatch them and take them back to Kuwait, where he’s from.”
“Roger is between jobs right now. I’ll get him on it. You have the ex’s information for me so I can start researching?”
“Yup.”
Chase leaned down and kissed the tip of his wife’s nose. “Relax for a bit while I get her home and check out the security at her place. You’ll be all right for a while?”
She shook her head at him in exasperation. “Yeah, Chase. I think I’ll be fine here by myself for ten minutes until Rayne stops by and collects me for lunch.”
Chase didn’t even care Sadie had realized three months ago that anytime he couldn’t be with her, he’d arranged for one of their friends or his sister to be by her side. The last thing he wanted was her going into premature labor or getting hurt when he wasn’t there to help her.
He wasn’t going to tell her that her uncle was also keeping tabs on her with an invisible app he’d installed on her phone.
“Nothing’s going to happen,” she said softly, running her hand over her belly. “We’ve made it this far, we’re fine.”
The worst day in Chase’s life was the day a year and a half ago when Sadie had miscarried their child. He had only been ten weeks old, and it hammered home how fragile life was…and how precious.
“Of course you are. Call me if you need anything,” Chase ordered as he stood and began to gather the things he needed to assess their new client’s safety at her home.
“Hand me my laptop?” Sadie asked.
He did.
“And my cell?”
Chase happily retrieved that from the edge of his desk.
“Can you get me a bottle of water before you go too?”
With a smile, Chase walked over to the small fridge in the corner of the office and pulled out a water for her. He also grabbed a serving of string cheese, and a piece of chocolate cake left over from the night before that he’d brought into the office, just in case.
Sadie smiled up at him as he handed her everything.
“Anything else?” he asked, having no problem fetching things for her.
“No, I’m go
od now. Thanks.”
Without a word, Chase pulled the small ottoman over and picked up her feet and placed them on it. He made sure the blanket on the back of the chair was within reach and he scooted the small table next to her chair so she could reach it better.
“You’re too good to me,” Sadie said.
“Never,” Chase vowed, then kissed her one more time before standing and heading out. He stopped in the doorway and looked back at her. “I’ll spend the rest of my days doing any and everything to make your life, and that of our son, perfect.” Then he blew her a kiss and left.
Truck and Mary, five years after the weddings.
* * *
“Are you ready?” Truck asked his wife.
Mary didn’t take her eyes away from the doorway as she nodded her head eagerly.
They were in Banbasa, India, a little over two hundred miles east of Delhi. Before meeting with the adoption agency, they’d never heard of the small town, much less the orphanage named The Good Shepherd.
At first, Mary had been opposed to having any children, or even pets. She was deathly afraid the cancer would return. But after a year had passed and she’d gotten the all-clear from her doctors, then two years, then three, she began to make comments in passing about children and how cute they were.
Truck had finally sat her down and point blank asked her if she wanted kids.
She’d cried but admitted that she hadn’t thought she did. After her awful upbringing and experiences, she was afraid that she wouldn’t know how to be a good mother. But after spending a lot of time with her friends’ children, she realized how much she wanted to have a family. They’d had several conversations with her doctor, and while he said her having kids wasn’t impossible, there were risks. They’d decided to adopt.
“Do you think they’ll like us?” Mary asked fretfully.
