by Joan Swan
Alyssa laughed. “As long as I get my belly button ring, my lips are sealed.”
“How are you going to keep him safe?” The words drifted from her mouth, more a thought than a solid question. She met Alyssa’s surprised eyes. “I mean, what if he’s, you know, gifted?”
Alyssa turned to pull supplies from a cabinet, opened them, and started threading a needle.
“You mean how am I going to keep someone from kidnapping him and using him as a guinea pig?”
God, what a terrible thing to say to an expectant mother. Her friends must think she was so twisted. “I’m sorry, Lys. I’m just . . .”
“Worried,” she said. “Get used to it if you’re thinking about having kids. Starts as soon as you’re pregnant and continues until the day you die. I can’t ever envision a day I won’t be worried about Kat or this baby.”
“Great.” Keira nodded. “That’s reassuring.”
Alyssa started stitching. “Maybe some statistics will reassure you. Your chances of dying in a car accident during your lifetime are about one in eighty-seven. Pretty high, right? Do you still drive? Yes. What do you do to keep yourself safe? Wear your seat belt, put your kid in a car seat, buy the safest vehicle, drive defensively, choose your roads carefully, et cetera. Right?”
Keira frowned. “Right.”
“And did you know a woman’s chance of getting cancer in her lifetime is two in three?”
“Shit, no. Ooops.” She winced. “Sorry.”
Lys waved away Keira’s curse. “Not a lot of control over that, right? So you do what you can—eat healthy, exercise, don’t smoke, get your yearly exams, listen to your body. And if something does happen, despite your diligence? You fight it. You get the best experts and fight it with all the modern technology and science you can find.”
“I see where you’re going,” Keira said. “The Special Forces guys, the security system at the house, Teague teaching you how to shoot.”
“You know Teague hates guns.”
Keira chuckled, watching Alyssa’s hands move, piercing her skin, tugging the string, moving on. “I remember. How times have changed. He’s good with a rifle.”
“He does what he has to do to stay safe and keep us safe.” Alyssa grabbed a bandage from the tray and taped it over the stitches on Keira’s arm, then gave her an extra squeeze. “The joy our family brings us every moment of every day is worth every second of worry and every extra effort for security.”
That was what Keira and Luke would have to do. They’d just have to build safety into their lives like Alyssa and Teague. They’d have to join forces with their extended “family” and now her real family. Circle the wagons, wasn’t that what they used to call it in the old days?
A fresh urgency pushed her from the edge of the table. She reached for the door.
“Wait—” Alyssa’s voice was edged with surprise. “I need to have Teague—”
“Later.”
She crossed the hall, put her hand on the knob, and for a split second thought about stopping to knock, then realized if she didn’t keep her momentum up, she’d chicken out again, so she walked right into the exam room.
Luke sat on the end of an exam table, shirt off, fatigue-clad legs dangling over the edge. And, good God, he looked amazingly sexy. His head was bent inspecting some sort of three-fold brochure in his hands as a man in his mid-fifties stood next to him, taping a bandage across the wound high on his chest.
Complex emotions radiated off him in waves.
The doctor stopped midsentence and gave her a look somewhere between shock and annoyance. “Can I help you?”
Luke’s gaze jerked toward her. He dropped the brochure he’d been looking at in his lap and sat up straight. The muscles of his chest and abdomen flexed. The sight shot heat from the center of her chest all the way to the soles of her feet.
“I-I-um . . .” She cleared her throat. “He’s mine.” What? “I mean, he’s my . . . my . . .” He’s mine, she wanted to repeat. She made a motion between herself and Luke, growing more self-conscious and frustrated by the moment. “I’m . . . with him.”
Luke’s eyes sparked, but she couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Alyssa came in behind her, her hand resting on the knob. “I’m so sorry, Adam. Keira”—her voice held that doctor tone, the one that always made Keira want to say ‘yes, ma’am’—“get your butt—”
“It’s all right, Lys.” Luke brought their heads back around. “She can stay. For now.”
For now? Keira clamped her mouth shut and started to cross her arms, then her stitches pulled and she dropped them at her sides again. Alyssa shot her a you’ll-pay-for-this-later look and backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.
A moment stood still while both men simply stared at her. The older man finally turned back to taping. Luke continued to look at her as if she’d finally gone and lost her last screw.
“I’m, um, sorry to interrupt, doctor.” She shifted her feet, threaded her fingers. “I’m just . . . I’ve been, you know, worried about him.”
Luke’s mouth curved. Just one corner. Hardly noticeable. It was the spark of affection in his eyes that clued her in to the grin. Then, as quick as it had come, the warmth vanished and he dropped his gaze to his hands and the paper there.
The dark turmoil within him eased, and Keira’s stomach loosened in response.
“So, doc.” He lifted a freshly intense look to the doctor, threaded the brochure through his fingers. “When can I do this?”
The other man pressed the last bit of tape to the bandage. “Any time. Just make an appointment with my nurse on the way out.”
“For what?” Keira’s gaze darted to the paper, now rolled into a tube in Luke’s hand. “Do you need a follow-up visit?”
Luke’s blue eyes skipped to her again. The remaining anxiety ebbed. A soothing balance and sense of well-being filled its placed. Keira felt it settle on her like a warm light.
He held her gaze a second longer, then refocused on the doctor. “I’d like to do it now.”
“Do what now?” She stepped toward Luke. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you want to . . . ?” The doctor’s eyes cut to Keira, then back to Luke. “Take some time to think about it, Luke. You’re so young—”
“I’ve had three years to think about it. I know I don’t have an appointment, but I’ll pay you in full, in cash, if you do it right here, right now.”
Luke’s jaw set. She knew that look. Panic leaked into her chest. She jerked the paper out of his hand and scanned the front.
“Vasectomy?” She crunched the brochure in her hand and glowered at Luke. “A vasectomy? What the hell, Luke?”
The doctor took off his gloves and rubbed his hands together. “It’s really a simple procedure.” He directed his reassuring tone toward Keira. “If you’re worried about how his chest wound would affect this, it was a through and through. The bullet went in clean and came out clean. I stitched him up, gave him a prescription for antibiotics. He’ll need follow-up care, physical therapy, but considering how young and healthy he is, he should be fine.”
Sweat broke out on Keira’s forehead. For half a second, she allowed herself to imagine a future in which Luke had gone through with the vasectomy. This was an opportunity she would have jumped at a few days ago. All Luke—no kids. Which also meant no facing her past, no fighting her demons, no risk.
It took less than a quarter of a second for a hollow sensation to invade her chest right where her heart lived. And for the first time, she realized that was the fear Luke lived with when he thought of going through life without children of his own, without making a family with her.
“The procedure is done right here in the office,” the doctor continued, “with a simple local anesthetic. We have all the latest equipment. Recovery is usually very smooth and quite fast with few side effects—”
“Can you . . .” Keira closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. Can you ju
st give us a minute?”
“Absolutely.” He looked at his watch, then with another cautious glance at Keira, turned his gray eyes on Luke. “If you decide you want to do it now, I’ll need to know pretty quick.”
Luke nodded. “Okay.”
As soon as the door closed, words burst from Keira’s mouth. “That explosion fried your last brain cell.”
A dry laugh scraped out of Luke’s throat, but he said nothing. Just pressed one hand to his thigh and stared at her from beneath those golden brows.
Anger, frustration, and a truckload of fear built again. “Stop looking at me like you’re waiting for my head to spin around.”
“Then stop acting like you’re possessed.”
“I’m not the one asking for a vasectomy on the spur of the moment.”
“You’re not the one with the dick that’s keeping us apart.”
Her mouth opened, ready to shoot back with another dart, but nothing came out. In fact, nothing even came to mind. Because her mind was in as many knots as her heart.
She blew out a breath. “Didn’t you hear me in the tunnel? I told you I wanted to have a family with you.”
“You told me that because you wanted me to fight to stay alive.”
She swallowed back tears. But there were too many. Remembering the fear of him slipping away from her was too strong. “No.” She held out her hands, still tinged red, as wetness slid down her cheeks. “I said that because your blood was seeping through my fingers and I was scared to death I was going to lose you and never have a chance to fix my royal fuck-up.”
Luke’s warm fingers closed around her wrist and pulled her toward him. He dragged her between his knees and clasped his hands at the small of her back, securing her there.
She ran her fingers over the skin of his chest, grateful for the beat of his blood at the base of his throat. “I’m sorry I’m so messed up. But I love you. And after finding Cash and seeing him reunited with Mateo”—she pressed her forehead to his—“I know that’s what I want. A family. With you.”
“Baby—” His voice shook. “You are not messed up. Look at me.”
She heaved a breath and lifted her eyes to his. And she knew. There was no going back.
“You are not messed up. You are perfect. As is. I want you. As is. Only you. Do you hear me? Only you. As is.” He brought one hand around to lift her chin up when her eyes dropped away. “Keira, I can live without kids. But I was wrong when I thought I could live without you. You already are my family. The only family I need. I’m trying to make a permanent statement here.”
Her breath stuttered on every inhale, every exhale. But it wasn’t nerves. It was excitement.
She trailed her hands up his chest and let her fingers slide through his hair, wrapped them around the nape of his neck.
“I have a different kind of permanent statement in mind. What do you think of honeymooning somewhere . . . tropical? Lots of water—waterfalls, ocean, beaches, lakes. Not a desert in sight. Somewhere we could have lots of privacy to start working on that family?”
Excitement flashed in his eyes. That luscious mouth lifted in a smile she could look at forever. “Are you asking me to marry you, O’Shay?”
She narrowed her eyes, but smiled back. “Are you in my head again, Ransom?”
“No, baby. You were projecting. Loudly.”
He brought his hands up to cradle her face between big, warm, steady palms, and everything inside her calmed. This was exactly where she belonged.
He bent his head and brought their faces close. “And here’s my answer.”
His mouth covered hers, and a single word resonated in her mind.
Yes.
BRAVA BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2012 Joan Swan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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ISBN: 978-0-7582-7922-4
