She was still alive.
Jake didn’t pretend that he wasn’t crying as he carried her out of there.
“She’s alive!” Wes was practically running in circles around him.
Harvard followed him, too, taking off his gas mask as they hit the fresher air in the hallway. “Sir, we intercepted six canisters of what we thought was the Triple X outside the gates. But it sure looks as if Zoe thinks she’s found the chemicals right here. There are six coffee cans in there, three empty. I think that’s what she was burning.”
“Stay with the rest of it, Senior,” Jake ordered him. “Don’t let it out of your sight.” He raised his voice. “I need to get Zoe down to the medics now. Let’s get this sideshow moving!”
With Vincent and his men in handcuffs, Bobby’s shotgun aimed at the CRO leader’s head, and with the rest of the SEALs surrounding Jake and Zoe, they went down the stairs and into the yard without mishap.
FInCOM had arrived, and as the dark-suited agents read Christopher Vincent his rights, Jake carried Zoe through the hole he’d blown in the fence to a waiting ambulance.
The medic gestured to a cot inside the vehicle. “You can put her there, sir.”
“No,” Jake said.
The medic looked at him in surprise.
Jake smiled to soften his words. “No, you see, I’m…I’m not going to let her go.”
“Ever?”
He looked down to see Zoe’s eyes had opened. Her voice was whispery from a throat that must’ve been raw from all the smoke she’d inhaled. Her hair hung in strings from her French braid, and her face was streaked with soot and blood. He was certain he’d never seen her look more beautiful.
“No,” he told her. “Not ever.”
The medic was about twenty years old and trying as hard as he could not to listen as he gently slipped several thin tubes from an oxygen tank into Zoe’s nose.
“Give us a minute,” Jake said to him. “Will you, pal?”
The medic faded back. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe Jake just stopped seeing him as he lost himself in the depths of Zoe’s eyes.
He touched her then, her face, her hair, her throat, unable to keep his eyes from filling again with tears. “I thought you died,” he told her quietly. “Lieutenant O’Donlon saw Vincent shoot you, and…we all thought he’d killed you, Zo.”
“Oh, Jake,” she whispered.
“But then you really could’ve died,” he said. “What the hell were you doing, starting a fire in a room without ventilation?”
“I was doing my job,” she said quietly. “And I trusted that you’d do yours and come get me out of there. I took a gamble that this teamwork thing would pay off.” She smiled. “I won.”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “I did, too.”
“I think this would be a really great time for you to kiss me,” she said.
Jake laughed and kissed her. “I love you, Zoe.”
She shook her head. “Oh, Jake, I don’t need you to say that.”
“Yeah, but I need to say it,” he said. “I thought I would never get a chance to. I thought…” He had to clear his throat before he could go on. “Zoe, I would be honored if you would agree to make this craziness legal and stay Zoe Robinson. You see, I’m too old to—”
“Jake, how can you ask me to marry you—in a completely half-assed way, might I add—and then in the same breath claim to be too old—”
“You want to let me finish? I am too old. I’m too old not to learn from the past. I didn’t expect to outlive Daisy,” Jake told her. “And let’s face it, babe, your job being what it is, it’s entirely possible that I could outlive you, too. I had a taste of that today, and it was pretty damn sobering. The truth is, neither of us can possibly know how much time we’ll have together. And we’re both of us too old to waste another precious second of it.”
Tears were leaving clean tracks in the soot on her face. For a tough operator, Zoe cried more than just about anyone he’d ever met. He kissed her. “Marry me.” He kissed her again, longer this time. “I want you to be my friend and my lover and my wife for however long forever lasts.” He smiled at her. “How was that? Not quite so half-assed that time?”
She was smiling through her tears. “That was…inspirational. And very persuasive.” She laughed. “Not that I particularly needed persuading.”
“If that’s a yes,” Jake said, “it’s very half-assed.”
Zoe laughed. “Yes,” she said. “It’s a yes.”
Jake lost himself in the sweetness of her lips. He’d thought she’d been taken from him. He’d lived an entire wretched lifetime in that endless fifteen minutes in which he’d believed she was dead. He loved this woman completely. But there would be people who looked at them and wondered, people who wouldn’t understand.
“I have to be really honest with you,” he said, looking into her dark brown eyes. “There’s a big difference in our ages, and nothing we do or say is going to change that. I know you don’t care, and I don’t care anymore, either. But people—my colleagues—are going to look at me and look at you and think I’m getting away with something here.”
Zoe reached up and touched his face. “Your colleagues and friends are going to look at me and think I’m a poor substitute for Daisy.”
“You are,” Jake told her. “But then again, Daisy would be a tremendously poor substitute for you.” He kissed her hand. “I’m not looking for a replacement for Daisy. There’s no such thing. I’ll always love her—it’s important you know that because she’s part of my past. But there’s room in my heart for both the past and the future. And babe, you’re my future.”
There was so much love in her eyes as she looked at him he nearly started crying again.
“I love you,” she said.
Jake smiled. “I know.”
Epilogue
“You all right?” Billy Hawken asked.
“Yeah,” Jake said as the limousine pulled up to the church.
He looked at the kid. Kid. Jeez. The kid was a Navy SEAL with the somewhat dangerous-sounding nickname of Crash. The kid was also older than Zoe. The kid hadn’t been a kid in fifteen years. Heck, even back when Billy was ten, he hadn’t really been a kid. He was still far too serious, far too intense—except when he was with Nell, his wife.
Jake had heard the two of them giggling together until nearly two last night, up in the guest bedroom. Crash Hawken—giggling. Whoever would’ve thought it possible?
“Are you okay with this, kid?” he asked as they got out of the car. Kid. Jeez. Old habits died hard.
Billy didn’t hesitate. “I am. Completely,” he said. He smiled. “Zoe looks at you the way Nell looks at me. I’m happy for you, Jake.”
“I love her,” Jake told the young man who was the closest thing to a son he’d ever had, the young man to whom Daisy was the closest thing to a mother he’d ever had.
“I know,” Billy said. “I’ve seen the way you look at her, too.”
“This isn’t just a…a second-best kind of thing.” Jake felt the need to explain. “Zoe and me, I mean. But that doesn’t mean that Daisy wasn’t—and isn’t—first, too. God, does that make any sense at all?”
Billy hugged him. “Yeah, Jake,” he said. “You know, I had a dream about Daisy last night. She was having lunch with William Shakespeare. It was weird, but nice. One of those dreams where you wake up and feel really good.”
“Shakespeare, huh?” Jake laughed. “Cool.”
“Yeah.” Billy motioned toward the church. “You want to go in?”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “Come on, kid. Let’s go get me married.” He put his arm around Billy’s shoulders, and together they walked up the stairs.
Zoe was a vision.
Walking toward him, down the aisle of the church, on her father’s arm.
Sergeant Matthew Lange, USMC, Retired.
Matt seemed like a really nice guy, a straightforward, honest guy. He seemed genuinely pleased that Zoe was marrying Jake. Lisa Lange, Zoe’s mother, was also honest
ly happy for her daughter. They were good people, solid people.
It was kind of cool, actually. He’d never had in-laws before.
His children had a chance of knowing at least one set of their grandparents.
His children.
Zoe smiled into his eyes as she took her place beside him, and he couldn’t help but think about last night. While Billy and Nell had been giggling in the guest bedroom, Jake and Zoe had been sharing their own secrets.
Such as the fact that Zoe wanted his baby. Enough to retire from her job as a field agent—at least temporarily.
It hadn’t been an easy decision to make. She was good at what she did. And the Agency would miss her, badly.
Jake suspected her decision was at least partly based on the fact that she knew how badly he wanted children. Daisy had been unable, and found the adoption process too painful, and…
He’d tried to convince Zoe that he would be okay with whatever decision she came to, but the truth was, his biological clock was ticking. Sure, he could father a baby when he was sixty-five, but how long would he be around to take care of that child?
Last night, she’d come to him with the ultimate wedding gift. And last night, they just may have created a small miracle.
Jake took her hand.
And as he promised Zoe all that he could promise her, he smiled.
“I love you,” he whispered as he bent to kiss his bride.
Zoe smiled, too. She knew.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-0616-2
THE ADMIRAL’S BRIDE
Copyright © 1999 by Suzanne Brockmann.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, MIRA Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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