by Anne Marsh
She put on a burst of speed, and he remembered that she’d run track in high school. “You didn’t used to have a dog.”
He wondered what she’d do if he dropped by the side of the trail. “Maybe I did and you didn’t know it.”
They completed the next mile in silence. Okay. He jogged along in silence, counting each step and forcing his body into a familiar rhythm. She ran, rocking out to her iPod and staring straight ahead of her. She moved like a goddamned gazelle. Or the Energizer Bunny.
“Race me,” he gritted out, tapping her on the shoulder. “First one to your front porch wins.”
“What are the stakes?” She turned her head while she thumbed the music down.
Jesus. “Keep your eyes on the path.”
“Maybe you should have a baby.” She pulled to the right so he could move up beside her. “You’ve mastered mother hen.”
He imagined the faces of the guys in his SEAL unit if they’d heard that. He didn’t baby and he didn’t go easy. He pushed. Faster times, more push-ups, greater numbers of reps. Until Khost and the insurgents had broken him down. Not entirely, but enough that he’d wondered if there was any coming back.
Push, he reminded himself.
“If I beat you, I get to pick tomorrow afternoon’s activity.”
Which would absolutely, one hundred percent, not include running. His knee protested as he came down hard, letting him know that tonight’s date would be with a bottle of Ibuprofen and a heating pad.
“That’s not an incentive.” The trail picked up, heading uphill with alarming suddenness. He knew where they were now. They could loop to the left and be back at the house in a little over a mile. Or they could slog uphill another two miles and then make a three-mile return trip through the woods. His knee voted for the short route.
He pointed left. “Okay. If I lose and you pick, you can pick nothing.”
She eyed him. “I get rid of you?”
Nice to know how much she valued his company. “For one afternoon. I’m hard to shake.”
She turned the music back up. “You’ve got yourself a race.”
And then, before he could establish any more rules or count down a start, she took off on him. She darted down the trail ahead of him, feet flying. Her laughter floated back to him, a happy sound he hadn’t heard in ages. Of course she cheated. He looked down at Stan, who seemed to be wondering why they were hanging around back here when Abbie was having all the fun. The dog had a point.
“She’s going to smoke me,” he said.
Stan barked. Kade interpreted that as a yes.
Abbie had a short head start, and she knew the trail better than he did, but the truth was that she ran faster. Before Khost, he could have caught up with her easily. Hell, he could have tossed her over one shoulder—if she hadn’t been pregnant—and given her a ride to the finish line. He’d carried gear that weighed more than she did. Instead, he ran behind her, staring at her great ass as she tore over the trail at Mach speed.
Naturally, she crossed the finish line first, slapping her palm down on the top step with a dramatic crack. Stan bounded up toward her, licking her face and expressing loud canine congratulations. Hell, even the damn dog had beaten him.
“You lose.” She flashed him the bird... and a grin. There she is, he thought as she gave him the first glimmer of the Abbie he remembered. And for the first time since Khost, he wasn’t pissed off at his leg and his life.
He dropped down beside her, stretching. The problem wasn’t his lungs. It was his fucking knee.
“Leave,” she said happily. “I win.”
“You get to pick tomorrow’s activity. Not today’s.”
She frowned. “Now you’re splitting hairs.”
Fine by him if she didn’t want to play nice. He understood all too well that sometimes mean was the only way to not show the world how much things hurt.
“I’ll get the paint stuff,” he said instead of asking her what hurt and how he could fix it. She wouldn’t tell him anyhow, so he stood up, went inside, and started collecting paintbrushes and cans. The sound of a truck starting drew him back to the window. Abbie waved to him from the front seat of his truck.
“I’m tired of waiting,” she hollered. “And our alone time starts now.”
With another jaunty wave, she put his truck into gear and pulled out. Leaving him stranded. Since a miles-long hike back to town wasn’t part of his plans—he could practically hear his knee whimper—he pulled out his cell. He’d have to call for a ride. Katie would come, but she’d want a status update. Tye was a better bet if he didn’t want to be talked to death.
After he called for a ride, he eased onto the stoop to wait, propping his swollen knee up best he could.
She’d stolen his truck. Damned if it didn’t make him grin. But she wasn’t off the hook. She’d cheated first, and he wasn’t about to let that go. Sweet plans for revenge brewed in his head while he shot her a quick text.
“I’ll be by first thing in the morning for my keys.”
Chapter Four
Naturally, the key to Abbie’s front door was under the flower pot next to said door. She hadn’t even bothered with one of those fake rocks or tucking it under the doormat. Not wanting to be a complete dick, he knocked and turned the key at the same time. After all, he wasn’t trying to scare Abbie into early labor. He was merely... extending an invitation to go fishing. At five in the morning.
Okay. He was shanghaiing her.
He wasn’t taking no for an answer, and he did need to collect his truck from her driveway. So it all worked out, even if he was skirting the edge of several major felonies. Abbie didn’t play fair either—exhibit A being his truck—so he didn’t think she’d mind, although he did expect she’d yell. He’d had to borrow Katie’s car to get here this morning because fishing required supplies and he wasn’t schlepping a cooler and a bag of gear across town. Since Katie’s car was an import designed for midgets and his knee had enjoyed a meet and greet with the steering column, Abbie’s tab was growing. He’d performed the mental addition while he transferred his stuff into the back of the truck and then let himself into Abbie’s place.
His first impression of her cottage was that it was tiny. And girly. An enormous mountain of betasseled and furry pillows almost entirely concealed her sofa, as if the contents of Pier 1 had exploded all over the place. He’d cleared family compounds in Khost with less fluffy stuff for twenty people. Since the room yielded no sign of Abbie, he moved into the hallway. Bingo. The bedroom door was closed. At five in the morning, Abbie had to be in bed.
He pressed send on the text message he had queued up. See? He mentally telegraphed to Katie. Wisdom as requested. He had to smile at the sleepy curse from the other side of the door. She’d better hope that wasn’t Baby’s first word, or she’d have plenty of explaining to do.
His phone vibrated in his hand. Score. If she’d ignored his text, he would have had to turn around and go. Playing with Abbie required her cooperation.
It’s dark o’clock. Fuck off.
He tapped a new message. Au contraire. I say we go fishing. I’m outside your door. Literally.
He knocked on her closed door. This was the tricky part of the operation. Despite his warning text, there was the possibility that she got scared, and scaring Abbie wasn’t what he wanted to do. The mattress squeaked, reminding him forcibly of what he did want to do with her. Bedroom activities would be even better than fishing. She might have been his first lover, but she’d also been his best.
“Outside my door had better be a euphemism,” she called sleepily. Yeah. She knew exactly where he was.
He rested his forehead against the door. “Fishing is fun.”
Something rustled. Jesus. She didn’t sleep naked, did she? Because that hadn’t formed any part of his plans, although naked was good. Of course, he thought about naked possibilities for another moment, and parts of him warmed up to the idea right away.
He knocked again to distract
himself. “I’m coming in.”
She gave a sigh he heard through the door. “You don’t think showing up in my house in the middle of the night is the slightest bit creepy?”
“You stole my truck. Maybe I want my keys back.”
He pulled back as she yanked the door open to glare at him. She definitely wasn’t a morning person—because five in the morning wasn’t the middle of the night, no matter what she said. Her hair stood up around her face, and she had a crease on her cheek from the pillows. She looked even cuter than when she was all put together and barking out orders at the dance studio, or maybe that was because the white T-shirt she wore was semi-transparent and she most definitely hadn’t worn a bra to bed. He averted his eyes to the bare toes peeking out from her sweatpants. Her toes were cute. It was safe to look at her toes.
She poked him in the chest with a finger. “Your keys are on the kitchen counter. Fetch.”
He took a step back and grinned at her. “You might want to get dressed first.”
“Don’t ask me again. I’m not going fishing with you.” She looked down and must have performed a T-shirt assessment because she folded her arms over her chest. He could have told her it was too late for that. He’d looked, he’d enjoyed, and now the image of her pregnant boobs was happily filed away in his brain for future enjoyment. Still, if she took too long to get her butt into his truck, they’d miss the best fishing time.
“Okay. Now I’m telling you,” he said.
She opened her mouth, but they had fish to catch, right? Tossing her over his shoulder was out since squishing Will or Wilma Junior wasn’t his goal. He settled instead for scooping her up in his arms. Funny how that made her shriek and pummel him.
“You don’t weigh enough,” he said, laying in a course for her bedroom. He couldn’t take her fishing in her pajamas, cute as they were.
She sputtered something about high school and overrated and... yeah, that sentence included both penis and dick.
He tapped her lightly on the nose. “You’d better hope that baby of yours isn’t listening. He’s going to arrive with the mouth of a SEAL. Clothes?”
She blinked, catching up with him. “You are not dressing me. Kade Jordan, you put me down right now.”
Someday soon, he should tell her how he felt about orders—and not taking them. She wiggled, however, and that reminded him that he was standing in her bedroom with a bed not three feet away. She definitely needed more space. And he needed to get laid.
With someone else.
~*~
Pompous. Arrogant. Jerk.
Kade held her effortlessly against his chest like they were playing some kind of game. The problem was that he had a most excellent chest, and her current position had her thinking naughty thoughts about grown-up games. Sex games. Or just plain old, hot, nasty sex. Which had nothing to do with Kade, she reminded herself hastily. It was just that widowhood necessarily included a sexual drought. That’s what this was. She didn’t love or even really want Kade—she was just lonely and she had fond memories of Kade’s gorgeous chest. He’d been part of her past though, while Will was supposed to have been her future.
Tears prickled behind her eyelids, and that made her mad, which was another welcome change of pace. Getting mad at Kade was allowed. As usual, he was a dick and all kinds of wrong. It was also only fair, since he’d broken into her cottage and was manhandling her without an invitation.
While she was having her introspective moment, however, Kade was grabbing clothes with one arm.
“Down,” she ordered, and he shoved her clothes into her arms.
“Hold,” he countered, and then he stole the blanket from her bed and wrapped it around her. “I saw a movie once where they did this with a carpet.”
The move pinned her arms in place. She wriggled. Shoot. Was he this dominating in bed? Because he’d been deliciously take-charge in high school, but... No. Bad brain. The only problem was she didn’t think her brain was doing the thinking at the moment.
“You can’t do this,” she said, but even she heard the breathless anticipation in her voice. Shoot. To cover, she started listing all the reasons fishing and kidnapping were bad ideas. Never mind that her reasons were all code for Reasons I can’t have sex with you.
“See? Get it all out?”
“You have no idea what I’m going to get out.”
“Promises,” he said lightly. “Is there anything you need to take with you?”
“Put. Me. Down.” Unfortunately, he wrapped a mean blanket, and he had the end tucked between them. Kade had never been stupid.
“If we’ve forgotten anything, you can wear my stuff,” he said and headed for the door just like that.
“Toothbrush,” she shouted. Because, sweet baby Jesus, if she really had to go fishing before the sun came up, she wasn’t doing it with morning breath.
“Got it,” he said with a grin, detoured to her bathroom, and then carried her outside. With a flourish, he locked the door behind them. “See? All safe and sound.”
“Isn’t that too little, too late?” She could only imagine what her neighbors were thinking. Stan barked a loud hello from the truck, encouraging anyone not already plastered against the window to hurry up and come take a look.
Kade dropped her gently onto the front seat of his truck and buckled her in. Nice to know he valued personal safety. He’d always been a “condom at all times” kind of guy, and she’d never even had to ask him. He’d just done it. And... bad brain. She had to stop thinking about Kade and bed in the same sentence.
She could have unbuckled and hopped out. She was also damned certain he knew that as well as she did. But... he’d made her curious. And she was awake now. Too bad he couldn’t have chosen a tropical getaway surprise instead of an early morning fishing expedition.
“You’d better have coffee,” she said when he slid into the driver’s seat.
He jerked a thumb toward the cup holders on the dash. Look at that. Two tall paper cups of something that smelled suspiciously like coffee. She’d bet he’d gotten her decaf too. He was a thoughtful guy beneath the prickly exterior. He put the truck into gear and eased out onto the street. Fishing it was.
He looked over at her briefly as she worked an arm free and snagged the coffee closest to her. “Why cardio barre?”
“Excuse me?” Now he wanted to exchange chitchat?
He returned his gaze to the road. “Last year, you worked for the school district.”
“I coached the dance team. Are you a career counselor now?”
“It seems like a big switch, but I know firsthand how good you are.” His easy grin made her smile, too, instead of pointing out that the switch up was no bigger than changing from a SEAL team to working a fire station in Strong, California. Instead of telling him to back off, she found herself explaining.
“I’d always wanted my own studio, and I needed a change. And then the school district helped me out with that one by cutting the dance team.” She might be the milk manufacturer for the Peanut’s first months, but there would be plenty of other things to buy, starting with an endless supply of diapers and onesies. This baby wasn’t going without, so a new job had been in order.
He nodded. “Yeah. I hear you there. How are you going to keep on doing that after the baby is born?”
“I’m still figuring that part out.” So money was tight. She pinched a mean penny, and she’d figure it out like she always did. Will had been a contract employee, which meant she wasn’t eligible for a pension or other state-funded benefits. It went without saying that the hotshot team would always be there for her, but it felt like charity and she’d gotten her fill of that in high school. After her dad had been laid off from his job as an engineer, he’d only found part-time work and the family income had taken a nosedive. She’d worked weekends at a fruit stand to buy her own tampons and shampoo along with groceries for the family, too. It had been tough, but she’d made it then and she’d make it now.
She didn’t
want taking care of. If she was being honest with herself, she didn’t know what she wanted, but she did know one thing. She was a fake who was tired of faking. She also wasn’t a nice person, because Will hadn’t been her sun, moon, and stars, and he should have been. Kade wouldn’t be volunteering to help her if he knew the truth. She grabbed the coffee. Kade was nice. She wasn’t. End of story.
~*~
Kade hoped to God Abbie didn’t need to pee or puke or do any of those things a pregnant woman did. Or so he’d heard. His experience with pregnancy consisted of eyeing Gia Donovan’s pregnant belly from the other side of the jump team’s hangar during his occasional visit. He wasn’t father material, uncle material, or even babysitter material. Hell, he probably shouldn’t be trusted with Stan, but Stan was pretty basic. Feed him, walk him, pick up the poop. Abbie was far more complicated, and he had no idea how to interpret the expression on her face. Gas pain, nausea, something else? Fuck, but he was out of his league here.
“Roll the window down if you have to puke.”
She took a long gulp of her coffee, and the stuff stayed down. Maybe that ruled out his nausea theory. “Why would I do that?”
“Because it’s going to be a long ride to the lake if we’re both stinking of vomit?” Memories pushed at his head, demanding insta-replay. Not going there. He’d puked his guts up in Khost, laid there in a stinking puddle of his own bile because he could hold in the screams but not the bile. Those bad times had no business here in the cab of his truck with Abbie.
“No.” She shook her head, and he could feel himself being moved to the idiot of the century mental bucket she kept in her head. Still, her disdain was better than reliving Khost. “I mean, why would I throw up?”
“Because you’re pregnant?” Hello.
A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. He felt a punch of awareness he had no business feeling. She was his former girlfriend, a widow, and his current rescue mission, not his date or even a possible blip on his horizon. He tightened his hands on the wheel, battling an unfamiliar urge to pull over on the side of the road and wrap his arms around her. She wasn’t the hugging type, and she hadn’t given any indication that she wanted full body contact with him. Which was fine with him. Mostly.
