“So, that’s-”
“That’s why I pushed you away the first time. I’d made your father a promise to protect you, and letting you into all that shit that was inside of me wasn’t protecting you at all.”
“And now?” I bite my lip as I look up at him, at this man who’s basically gone to the very edge and somehow come back to life; this man who makes me feel complete and alive like I’ve never felt before; “Is all of that history finished now?”
He shakes his head; “No- it’s not; not entirely.” He slides his hand through my hair to the back of my head as he pulls me close and grins at me; “But for now, I think I can let a lot of that shit go.” He winks at me; “Seems I’ve got more important things to think about now.” He leans in and kisses me, and I lose myself in him.
“Ms. Archer?” I break shyly away from Hudson as one of my staffers pokes her head out the door. Ok, Hudson and I are out in the open now, but PDA still makes me blush like a schoolgirl, even if he’s trying something in public every chance he gets.
“Yes?” I say, clearing my throat.
“There’s an older gentlemen here to see you.”
*****
Major Lawson nods a thanks as I pour him a glass of iced tea; “So, you’re going to win this thing, you know.”
I smile; “Ah, well thank you for your positive thoughts!“
He shakes his head, smiling; “No I mean, I’ve been doing this a long time, Ms. Archer, and you just plain have it. You are going to win this election.”
“Well, thank you, sir.”
“I’ve got a proposition for you though.” He takes a sip of tea and smiles at me; “I want you to do your two year stint with New York, and then I want you to quit.”
My eyes dart to Hudson before I turn back to the Major; “Excuse me?” I shake my head; “Listen, Major Lawson, if you think you can-”
“Because I want you to stop piddling away with this local yokel state stuff and come with me to D.C.”
My jaw drops as I stare at him; “What?”
“You have a unique quality, Ms. Archer, and a talent for statesmanship that you don’t see often in this business, as strange as that sounds.” He puts his glass down and steeples his hands in front of him; “I want to run you for U.S. Senate, Ms. Archer, so that I can put you on with Veterans Affairs where you can do some real good.”
I’m speechless, my mouth opening without words as my heart jumps up into my throat, and I realize I’m grinning like an idiot before I can even say anything. Major Lawson just smiles at me; “I’m going to assume that’s a yes?”
“Thats-!” Holy shit is that a yes! “Yes! Major, yes! I’d be honored!”
Hudson is squeezing my hand and the Major’s eyes drop to that joining before he looks up at him; “Oh, and don’t think I don’t have plans for you too, Banks.”
Hudson frowns; “Sir?”
“We want you in D.C. too, actually. We’re starting up a new panel on VA affairs and post-combat aftercare, and we need a chairman.”
Hudson chuckles quietly and shakes his head; “Sir, I appreciate the honor, but I don’t think I’m the man who-”
“William Archer and I were quite close, Mr. Banks,” Major Lawson looks pointedly at Hudson; “Quite close.”
“Sir, I-”
“Son, I’ve seen war on three different continents, and after the shit-show you boys saw over there in that damned desert, I’m amazed you came back alive at all.” Hudson closes his mouth, and as I squeeze his hand, I feel him respond back.
Major Lawson looks at Hudson and nods; “What I’m trying to say is, son, I know about all the other stuff that came after, and I’m here today to tell you that I don’t really give a shit about all that. You’re a hell of a Marine, an even more impressive leader, and one of the strongest men I’ve known. I want you working where you can help.” He winks; “And seeing as I’m pretty much in charge of military records, I think we can go right ahead and gloss over those other things.”
Hudson is staring at him like he’s just handed him the keys to the world, and all I want to do is jump into his arms right there and kiss him.
The Major nods towards me and grins at him; “Just so long as you keep looking after William’s girl here.”
Hudson turns and looks right into my eyes, his grin wide and his shoulder looking free of a weight that he’s had on them forever; “Always, sir.”
We of course wait until the Major leaves before I let myself all into Hudson’s arms and into his kiss; “Always, huh?”
“Yeah,” He says, smirking at me; “Always.”
Epilogue
We don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl yet, but we’ve got either William or Christine picket out for names after my Dad and his Mom. I know Hudson’s pretty excited at the idea of having a little girl, but I’ve told him that there are plenty of Archer girls already without adding one more little probable spit-fire to the mix.
It was a small wedding with basically just the immediate families; my two sisters and my Aunt Kelly on one side, and the two guys who are for all intents and purposes his brothers on the other. We asked Major Lawson to walk me down the aisle, and Bryce ended up taking one of those online ordination classes and married us right there in the gardens of my father’s house. We were barely pregnant at the wedding, but that didn’t mean there weren’t plenty of jokes about the “shotgun” nature of it, especially after Logan told me the story of my Dad literally breaking up an arranged wedding in Angola between some local warlord and this poor child of a girl with an actual shotgun. Turns out my Dad was kind of a badass, which kind of makes the tattooed, scarred up, ex-mercenary, ex-drinker, ex-playboy of a Marine who’s now my husband make a whole lot of sense, if you subscribe to that weird Freudian stuff.
I can’t say the aftermath of the blowout with Donald and my telling everyone about Hudson and I was all a fairy-tale ending, because that’s just not real life. Donald did end up suing Hudson, who ended up having to settle for some not-that-crazy-amount - well, for him - out of court to avoid criminal charges. Of course, after that he used every considerable connection he had to make sure Donald didn’t work in politics ever again, so I hope the $40,000 or so that he walked away with was worth it. And I did take a hit in the polls after the announcement about the two of us; guess some people have a problem with other people’s happiness. I still won though, by some almost record-breaking numbers, and on the next term, I was sworn in as the youngest State Senator in New York history. The victory was only made sweeter when we got wind of a massive lawsuit being leveled at Chet by three of his staffers for sexual misconduct.
I’m due in two months, so I’m of course as big a fucking whale these days. But for some insane reason I still can’t believe, my hunk of a husband still seems to find me irresistible, and he’s still trying to start things with me in public that we should not be doing in public. I know even as excited as he is, he’s worried about having kids just because of his own upbringing and the stuff he’s witnessed in the world. But I know he’s going to be an amazing father. I think the fund we’ve recently started up to rebuild schools in Afghanistan is helping too; helping him work through some of things he saw over there.
After the baby, I’ll be taking some maternity leave before I finish up my term with New York, and then I’m putting my career into Major Lawson’s hands; both of us are actually. We’re excited for whatever comes next, and since we’ve got each other, I know what does come is going to be something amazing that we face together. The things you care about are the things worth fighting for. We’ve both fought for what we care about, and somehow against all the odds, we’ve found our happy ending.
The End
Table of Contents
Blurb
Author's Copyright
Dedication
Author's Note
Table of Contents
More From Aubrey Irons
Excerpt
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
&nb
sp; Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
Untitled Document
Mailing List
About The Author
Contact
Crude - Chapter 1
Crude - Chapter 2
Cockney - Chapter 1
Cockney - Chapter 2
Heat: A Soldiers of Fortune Romance
Blurb
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Secret: A Military Stepbrother Romance Page 46
