“What things?” she asked, her voice hoarse with tears. His eyes changed, grew distant for a moment. And then, she felt Travis open up to her, become available once more. Over the past two months, he would sometimes detach or go away from her. She wasn’t sure what it meant or what caused it. Sometimes, she thought Travis was remembering his friends who had died, the firefight where he’d nearly lost his life. In those moments, she wanted to be there for him but he wouldn’t let her. Maybe it was because he was a SEAL. Or a sniper. She was never sure. And those moments didn’t last long and always, when he came back, he was fully present for her, a team member again.
“My military contract is up in eighteen months.” Travis saw her confused look. “It means that if I don’t want to reenlist, I can walk away from being a SEAL in the Navy and become a civilian again.” Her eyes widened with realization. “I’m okay with getting out if you want me to get out, Madison.” His voice deepened. “I want a life with you. And I don’t want to put you through it with me as a SEAL. I lost one marriage to the fact I couldn’t be home hardly at all.” He reached out, stroking her cheek. “I want to be around you. I want to share my life with you, darlin’, not be half a world away fighting the bad guys. I’ve done my share of doing that, giving the Navy eight years of my life.”
Madison sat there feeling relief flood through her. His guttural tone rifled through her, sweet and hot. His gaze was narrow on her and she felt his invisible, caressing touch. His love. “I can’t see my life without you in it, Travis,” she said, opening her hands. “I’ve grown so used to having you with me.” She managed a shy smile. “We get along so well, in so many ways.”
He laughed a little. “Especially in the bedroom. And the kitchen. And out riding horses on a picnic and making love on the old, tattered blanket in a grove of live oak.” His mind ranged over their many creative ways to love each other. Madison was fearless, and God help him, he loved her for that. He saw her blush and look around, hoping the hired help did not overhear their private conversation.
“Well,” she said archly, “more than just the bed, Travis.” And then Madison relented. “You are an incredible lover.” She reached out, twining her fingers between his scarred ones.
“Thank you, but I happen to love a woman who sets me on fire, burns me up and makes me feel like cinders afterward.” He grinned over at her, his voice teasing. She blushed even redder, if that was possible. In some ways, Madison was old-fashioned and Travis was glad. She was loyal to those she loved. He’d seen it between her and her parents. Madison had a large, giving and sympathetic heart. Travis had felt that love showered shamelessly upon him, and was all the better for it.
He lifted her hand, brushing a kiss across her knuckles. “I want to marry you, Madison. Not now, but I figure in the next eighteen months we’ll be able to continue to know one another. I’ll come here every chance I get. We’ll spend those days or weeks together. We’ll keep plumbing each other’s depths in every way. What do you think?”
“I agree,” she murmured. “You’ll be stateside, thank God. And you won’t have to deploy to Afghanistan again. You have no idea how that lifts a weight off my heart.”
“I do,” he said. “Sometimes I’ll be able to get a weekend off. I’ve got other leave coming and I’ll get it on the books so you and I can share it. Does that work for you?”
She took in a long, ragged breath. “You have no idea,” she murmured. “I thought you were just going to walk out of my life, Travis.” She gave a pained shrug. “I was so afraid to tell you I fell in love with you. You never gave me a hint of how you felt about me.”
Leaning down, he kissed her tenderly. “I was telling you every time I touched you, darlin’, but I understand. I was having problems saying it, too. I felt it was too soon, that maybe you weren’t ready to hear it.”
She burrowed into his arms, wrapping hers around his middle. “Isn’t it funny?” she mumbled against his shoulder. “You’re the bravest man I’ve ever known and you were afraid to admit you loved me?” Lifting her head, Madison shook her head, mystified as she held his smiling eyes.
“You have no idea,” Travis told her wryly, “how often I called myself a coward. I could face a firefight but I couldn’t face you.” He kissed her nose. “I’m human.”
“I love the human,” she murmured. “He’s an incredible man.”
“And someday,” Travis murmured back, “your husband. And you’ll be my wife.”
* * *
Madison lay in Travis’s arms after making love with him. Dawn was crawling up on the horizon, the clock on the bedside table with big red numerals showing 5:00 a.m. Her hair was damp and clinging to her temples as he brought her close, kissing her brow. They were breathing raggedly, her breasts pressed against his chest. She luxuriated in the feel of his hard body, his large hand splayed out against her hips, holding her close.
“I’ve been spoiled,” she admitted with a sigh, pulling back just enough to see his shadowy face. It was his eyes, hooded and sated looking, that made her heart widen with love for him. “And I’m going to miss you in my bed.”
Travis kissed her lips and rested his brow against hers. “I’ll be here in spirit.” And then he grinned. “You’ll probably get tired of me pestering you every night.”
“I’ll welcome you with open arms, Travis.” She slowly slid her fingers across the crescent-shaped scar on the left side of his abdomen. He’d almost died from the gunshot wound. Almost... Her fingers lightly grazed the puckered scar that was six years old. Travis had earned a bronze star with a V for valor during that firefight. He’d rescued his best friend who had been badly wounded, pulling him out of the line of fire, taking a bullet himself. His friend had lived, and so had he. There were other scars all over his body, a testament to the harsh conditions a SEAL lived and fought in.
She felt his callused hand close over hers.
“I didn’t die,” he told her.
“I know,” she whispered. “But you could have.”
“But I didn’t.” Travis eased her hand away from the scar, slowly rolled over onto his back and then sat up. He brought Madison into his arms, resting across his body, her head against his left shoulder. “Let’s do something happy.” He reached over to the bedside table, opened the drawer and pulled out a small green velvet box.
Curious, Madison saw him set it on the mattress next to him. He pulled her hand from his chest, picked the box up and placed it in her palm.
“Open it,” he urged, leaning over and turning the lamp. Madison’s brows drew down as she looked at the box.
“It’s not going to bite you, darlin’,” he teased, his hand moving lightly against her back.
“Is this what I think it is, Travis?”
“Most likely.” He waited, watching tenderness come to her eyes as she looked up at him. She was definitely surprised.
“When did you do this?”
“I had a jeweler friend of mine in San Diego make it for you.”
Gasping, Madison blinked and stared at him. “That was two months ago!” She saw him preen a little. “You knew then?”
He lost his smile and became contrite. “I was hoping then.”
She shook her head and opened the lid. Two rings stared back at her. One was a simple gold wedding band. The engagement ring made her gasp again. “Oh, Travis...this is so beautiful.” She pulled it from the box, holding it up to the light.
“The stones are blue tourmaline,” he said, “the color of your eyes I love so much.”
Tears came to her eyes as she lightly touched the five channel-cut blue stones set in gold. “They’re beautiful, Travis.” Her heart expanded until she thought she’d burst.
“The jeweler asked what you did for a living and I told him you worked with horses. He said the stones should be shaped to sit in a channel within the ring so that they lay flat and you couldn’t catch them on anything.” His pulse skittered with anxiety. “Do you like it, Madison?” He’d taken such a risk in order
ing the rings. The tourmalines were good luck, he’d hoped, and they turned out to be much more than that.
“Can you put it on me?”
Travis nodded, “Anything the lady wants,” he drawled, slipping it onto her left hand. The fit was perfect. Travis enjoyed watching her hold up her slender fingers, moving her hand one way and then the other, the light catching the clear blue stones. They were exactly the same color of her moist eyes and he slid his hand across her shoulders, drawing her against him. “The gemstones do you justice,” he told her huskily, kissing her.
Madison sighed as he eased from her lips. “I’m just shocked. How could you have known then?”
He pushed the mass of blond hair off her shoulder, taming it toward her back. “I knew by the time we landed at Bagram that I loved you. Knew it was too soon but was bound and determined to chase you until I caught you.”
Giving him a wicked look, Madison whispered, “You’re a dangerous man, Travis Cooper.”
“Soon, I won’t be,” he said, holding her, resting his brow against her cheek. Madison slid her arms around his shoulders.
“I’ll bet Mom and Dad will want us to set a date,” she said.
“What do you think of two weddings? One at Coronado, because my whole platoon wants to be there when we get married. The other here at your parents’ home?”
“That works for me. I know how close you are to your friends.”
“Yeah, we’ve bled for one another. Literally.”
Madison hugged him gently. “I know,” she whispered, her voice strained. He’d lost six men in his platoon over the years. Six friends who had bled and fought at one another’s sides. Madison knew Travis would always be in touch with his brothers, whether he was a SEAL or not. “Maybe a week before you get out? You’re officially on leave and won’t most of them be there getting ready to deploy back to Afghanistan?”
Travis nodded. “That’s a good idea. Everyone will be back at Coronado, ready to pack and deploy.” Sometimes, SEALs had to wait four or six months before their brothers could be at the same time and place to see them married. Travis wouldn’t have that problem. And he wanted to share his joy with his brothers. So often they dealt in death and grief. A wedding was a godsend.
Twenty-four Months Later
“Travis?” Madison called as she climbed out of the pickup truck. It was nearly noon and the blisteringly hot August sun made her want to duck beneath the shade of the overhanging roof of the tack house. She pushed her sunglasses up on her head, her blond hair in a braid down the center of her back.
Where was her husband? Excited, she halted near the corner of the building, in the shade, and looked around.
Her mother had told Madison she’d seen Travis down at the main arena working with a six-month-old Trakehner colt earlier. Craning her neck, she saw the arena was empty. It was too hot to work a horse, anyway. She hurried back to the pickup to get her bottle of water. She could barely contain her excitement.
Her father chugged by on a John Deere green tractor, pulling a load of baled alfalfa hay that would be put in their main barn. She lifted her hand to him, and he smiled and waved in return. Drinking more of the water, she waited until the tractor rolled by before turning the corner and leaping up onto the wooden porch.
“Travis?” she called.
“In here...” His voice drifted through the screen door of the tack room.
The heat was stifling as she pulled it open and saw him cleaning a bridle with some saddle soap on the floor. He was dressed in a black T-shirt that showed off his powerful upper body, very dusty jeans and a pair of cowboy boots.
“Hey, where did you go?” he asked. Travis smiled, thinking how, even six months after getting married, she hadn’t changed one bit. Just grown more beautiful. He swore he could see a glow in her face.
“Umm, I had to go into town,” she hedged. “God, it’s hot in here, Travis. How do you stand it?” She came and sat down on a bench near where he was working.
“Afghanistan,” he said dryly, putting the final touches to Odin’s leather bridle. He took a clean, soft cloth and gave the tobacco-brown leather a final buff. Holding it up, he was pleased with his work.
Snorting softly, Madison finished off the bottle of water. She could barely sit still, dying to tell Travis the good news. “That looks nice.”
It was Travis’s turn to snort as he unwound from the floor and carried the bridle over to the wall, hanging it on a hook. “Yeah, it’ll stay that way for a week.”
Wiping her damp brow with the back of her arm, she said, “Let’s go out to the porch swing. At least there’s a breeze out there, and it isn’t so hot.”
He picked up his black baseball cap and settled it on his head. “Since when did you start whining about the temperature?” he teased, cupping her elbow and walking her to the door.
“I’m not doing so well in the heat, of late,” she agreed. Travis stopped at the small refrigerator and pulled out two cold bottles of water. He handed one to her before sitting down. “You do look flushed.” Her cheeks were bright red and she was perspiring more than usual. “Are you feeling all right?” he asked, drinking half the bottle of water.
She curled up in the swing, one leg beneath her, the other lightly pushing the swing. “I’m fine. Fine.”
He wiped his mouth and looked at his watch. “Your mom said you had to go into town. I was looking for you earlier.”
“I had an appointment,” she said, holding the cold, frosty bottle between her hands.
“With?”
She reached out and slid her hand along his upper arm and resting it on his broad shoulder. “Dr. Marls.” For a moment, she held her breath and watched the expression on his face. Even though it had been six months since Travis had left the Navy, his hair was just as short as ever. The hard, physical work on the farm had kept him just as toned and hard as when he’d been a SEAL. His brows dipped as he considered the name.
“Are you okay?” His voice dropped.
“I couldn’t be better.” She was almost to the point of bursting. “I’m pregnant.”
Travis felt his heart thud in his chest. Momentarily at a loss for words, he said, “You are?” Seeing the joy dancing in Madison’s blue eyes, wriggling like a happy puppy, unable to sit still, he blinked and assimilated what she’d just said.
“Pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“Two months?”
“Yes. Right after I stopped taking the pill.”
“That was fast.”
“Well, Cooper, given how you never leave me alone at night, it was inevitable.”
Travis grinned and touched her cheek. “You could have told me stop.”
Pouting, Madison admitted, “That wouldn’t have been any fun.” Closing her eyes, she sighed, feeling his work-roughened hands, the wild tingles sliding downward, making her breasts grow tight.
“I’ll be damned,” he breathed. “We’re going to be parents.”
“Yes.” Madison opened her eyes and drowned in his intense green gaze. “Are you happy, Travis?” They’d discussed starting a family sooner, not later. She was twenty-eight and they wanted to be young enough to enjoy whatever children they would have.
Leaning down, Travis kissed her smiling mouth tenderly. “Crazy happy,” he murmured against her lips. Easing away, he released her and brought her into his arms.
Travis moved his large hand across her belly. “You need to take extra good care of yourself, darlin’.” She was carrying their baby. A good shock flowed through him. He leaned over and kissed her lips again. “I wonder what color of hair she’ll have? Blond? Like yours?”
“I don’t know.” Madison sighed, loving his hand across her belly. It was such a loving and protective gesture on his part. “What do you want?” she asked him, tipping her head up and meeting his warm green gaze.
“Don’t care as long as the mother and baby are healthy,” he murmured. “You?”
She stretched against him, sliding her hand
across the T-shirt that fit him like a loving second skin. “Dr. Marls said women usually know what they’re carrying.”
“Do you?” Travis was always stunned by women’s intuition. It wasn’t something to make fun of.
“I feel like it’s a little boy.” Her eyes sparkled with humor.
“Sounds good to me.” He chuckled. Travis gazed at their new home that was nearly finished on the other side of the arena facility. Since they’d arrived home, he worked daily with several construction workers to get the rambling, single-story house completed for him and Madison. “Good thing we built four bedrooms into that house of ours,” he said.
“Yes, it is.” The house would be done in another two months. “We’ll paint one bedroom blue and the other pink.”
Travis smiled and kissed her brow. He inhaled the jasmine fragrance of her gold hair and her special feminine scent. “Just in case,” he teased.
“Just in case,” Madison agreed, hugging him, absorbing the strength of his arms around her.
“Life is good,” Travis said. Better than he’d ever thought it would be. He was the first of the Sidewinders to leave the military. And over the past half year, he’d remained in touch with his football friends who were scattered around the world in black ops. He’d come a long way since age eighteen, when he’d joined the Navy a day after he’d graduated from high school. And now he held an incredibly tender-hearted woman in his arms who loved him with fierce passion.
Travis moved his mouth near her ear, tendrils tickling his nose. “You know what? Life is good because you’re sharing it with me. Forever...”
Epilogue
On St. Patrick’s Day, Daniel Travis Cooper was born in College Station, Texas. He had his father’s black hair and green eyes, and weighed eight pounds, three ounces. Madison Cooper welcomed him into the world with the help of two smiling midwives at their new home. Travis got to birth his son, who slipped from his mother and into his gloved hands, squalling and ready to take on the world. Mother was tired but happy, holding her lusty son to her breast for his first feeding. Father sat nearby, smiling, tears in his eyes.
Course of Action: Out of Harm's WayAny Time, Any Place Page 10
