“Solomon,” she murmured thickly, “God knows I love you, too. But it’s not that simple.”
He scowled at her response. “What’s not simple about it?”
Could she tell him? She dreaded the effect it would have, terrified that it would somehow cause him to rescind his unexpected declaration.
“I’m pregnant,” she whispered, dropping her news like a bomb. There just wasn’t any other way to do it.
It was his turn to be speechless. “But you said—”
“I know what I said,” she cut him off. “And I thought it was true. I wasn’t out to trap you or anything like that, though I’m sure that’s the first thought to cross your mind—”
He seized her shoulders. “Don’t even say that,” he retorted, giving her a gentle shake. “Don’t even put yourself in the same category as Candace. Jordan,” he added in amazement, lifting his hands to gently cup her face. “When did you find out?”
“On board the aircraft carrier when they took my blood.”
His expression shifted from astonished to comprehending. “No wonder you were so emotional,” he realized out loud. “I thought it was something else, something awful.”
To her immense relief, he pulled her into his arms and held her, rocking her gently back and forth. He wasn’t hurling accusations. Wasn’t taking back his words of love.
“What do we have to do to keep this baby?” he asked in her ear.
She gave a watery laugh. How typically Solomon—as if pure determination would keep their baby alive. “I’ll know more after I see a doctor,” she told him. “It’s still early. But I can’t stay in bed the whole time. I have a child to care for—”
“Two children,” he corrected her. “Silas needs you, too.”
She leaned into him, her heart pounding with anticipation.
“Right?” he prompted.
“Right,” she agreed.
“So you’ll marry me,” he growled with confidence.
Jordan snatched her head off his chest and glared at him. “Solomon,” she warned.
“Okay, okay.” Heaving a sigh, he sank down on one knee and gently clasped her hand. “Jordan,” he said, stopping and clearing his throat. He pressed her knuckles to his lips to give himself more time. “Would you please take mercy on my pathetic, lonely soul and make me the happiest man alive?”
Touched by his earnest vulnerability and enjoying his groveling, Jordan took her time answering. “Well,” she equivocated, “I suppose.” Bending over, she kissed him with all the tenderness and relief overflowing her heart. How she loved everything about him, from the tickle of his moustache to the tremor in his touch as he cradled her head and kissed and kissed and kissed her! “But only on one condition,” she added, belatedly.
He looked suddenly concerned. “What?”
“We get a real house, so I don’t have to worry about our children drowning.”
He shot to his feet, confident again. “I’ll build you a great big house,” he swore. “At this rate, we’re going to need it,” he added optimistically.
Giddy with happiness, Jordan threw herself into his arms and wrapped her legs around him. “I love you!” she declared.
“Careful,” he warned.
“That won’t hurt the baby.”
“Oh, I’m not thinking about the baby,” he countered, backing her against the tree. “I’m thinking about making love to you, right here, right now.”
“Mmmm,” she agreed, losing herself in the desire that warmed his eyes to quicksilver. “Let’s go home, then.”
He dropped her like a hot potato, pulling her behind him as he strode to the door. “Silas, Miguel, we’re going home.”
They had to wait, though, because the children were taking turns riding Sean Harlan’s back. The chief looked up and grinned, displaying dazzling, white teeth. “Took my advice, did you?” he said to Solomon.
“Remind me later to buy you a beer,” Solomon growled.
“Oh, hell no. I want to be the best man,” said the bald chief, making Jordan wonder how he’d known there was a wedding in the making.
Epilogue
“God damn it, Jordan, take something for the pain!” Solomon implored. Watching her endure increasingly ferocious contractions was hurting him nearly as much as it was hurting her.
“No,” she gasped, clutching the upper edge of the mattress as if to pull herself up and out of the pangs that gripped her.
“It’s almost over, Mr. McGuire,” soothed the nurse, gauging Jordan’s progress. “She’ll be able to push in just a minute now.”
“Jesus,” Solomon swore, swimming in a clammy sweat. He couldn’t wait for it to be over. Watching Jordan suffer for fourteen hours of labor was worse than any SEAL op he’d ever been on. He’d done everything he could think of to make it easier for her—massaged her lower back, held her in a warm shower. But the pain only got worse, and there was nothing he could do, this time, to protect her.
“I need to push!” Jordan suddenly cried, sounding panicked.
“That’s fine,” said the nurse. “Push with the next contraction, as I count to ten.”
“Where the hell is the doctor?” Solomon raged, alarmed at the thought of proceeding without him.
“He’s with another patient,” said the nurse. “He’ll be in shortly.”
“Now!” Jordan gasped.
“Take a deep breath and push. One, two, three, four . . .”
Solomon gripped Jordan’s hand as she bore down for ten seconds.
“Draw another breath and push again,” said the nurse.
Jordan made a sound like a moose in mating season. Oh, dear God, when would this nightmare end?
“I see a head,” said the nurse, sounding surprised. She stepped over to a speaker on the wall. “We need a doctor in room 114, right now!” she called.
In the same instant, Jordan let loose with a scream that turned Solomon’s blood to ice. The baby’s head appeared abruptly between her legs. Solomon raced to the foot of the bed. Being a SEAL hadn’t prepared him for this.
Jordan screamed again, and the entire baby slipped out of her with a gush of clear liquid. With an exclamation, Solomon caught the warm, squirming bundle, and gaped, incredulously. “It’s a girl!” he croaked. “With red hair. Look!”
As he showed his catch to Jordan, the doctor burst into the room, donning gloves as he hustled over.
“You’re late!” Solomon growled, relinquishing the slippery baby with reservation.
On knees that felt squishy, he went to embrace his wife, shedding a tear of private relief now that her agony had abated, though he could still feel her trembling. The echo of her screams reverberated in his head, making him shudder. “It’s over, sweetheart,” he rasped, embracing her, reassuring himself at the same time. “You did it. You did it all by yourself.”
She accepted his fervent praise, still quaking. “That was . . . oh, my God.”
From the corner of his eye, Solomon watched the doctor suction the baby’s airways. An impossibly sweet cry rent the now-quiet room.
With an expression of rapt astonishment, Jordan reached instinctively for her baby. The doctor obliged her, placing the newborn on her belly. “Hush, sweetheart. Mommy’s here,” she soothed.
“Mommy and Daddy,” Solomon emphasized, wanting acknowledgement for his part in the drama.
“You want to cut the cord, Dad?” asked the nurse, handing him a pair of scissors.
He did the honors with hands that shook. The baby was then whisked away to be measured and weighed. Solomon listened to her cries and stroked Jordan’s hair as she avidly watched the nurses tend her baby, her gaze hungry and filled with love.
“My brave wife,” he murmured, marveling at her heroism. “Have I told you how much I love you today?”
“A couple of times,” she answered, sparing him a wry smile.
“Here she is,” announced the nurse, handing back the baby, now securely swaddled. “All six pounds, four ounces of her.”
Holding a collective breath, they took leisurely stock of their daughter. Violet-gray eyes, set in a heart-shaped face, regarded them, uncritically.
“You’re so pretty,” Jordan exclaimed with boundless wonder.
Solomon couldn’t speak. Love had a stranglehold on his vocal cords. Amazing that such a tiny creature could summon such devotion in him. Like Jordan, she was his riptide.
He placed the tip of his finger in her tiny grasp, not at all surprised by the strength of her grip.
Jordan’s eyes brimmed with happy tears. “I’ve waited so long for you,” she whispered.
All my life, thought Solomon, his gaze sliding from daughter to mother.
His continued quiet drew Jordan’s questioning gaze. “What are you thinking?” she asked him.
“I’m thinking of a poem I’m going to write for you,” he admitted sheepishly. “An epic poem praising your heroic feats.”
“Careful,” Jordan warned, glancing meaningfully at the doctor. Solomon’s passion for poetry was a deep, dark secret. “Your daddy is a romantic,” she whispered to the baby. “What are we going to name you?” she asked.
The baby blinked at her, clearly receptive to suggestions.
“Isolde,” suggested Solomon, his mind on epic poems.
“I don’t think so.”
“Helen of Troy.”
“Helen’s the name of your XO’s wife,” Jordan pointed out.
“Penelope, the wife of Odysseus,” he suggested.
“That’s the name of your commander’s wife.”
“Jesus!”
“That’s a boy’s name.”
Solomon clicked his tongue in mock exasperation. “What was the name that you finally settled on, smart ass?”
“Rachel,” said Jordan, gazing deep into the baby’s eyes. “Rachel Marie McGuire, after my mother.”
“Ah,” said Solomon, recognizing a perfect fit. Silas had been named for Solomon’s father and Miguel, christened just last month, was now Solomon Miguel McGuire. He put an arm around his women and sighed. Their family was complete. “Let’s call the boys in,” he suggested.
“Let the games begin,” Jordan agreed, with a chuckle.
About the Author
Marliss Melton enjoyed an exotic childhood growing up overseas where entertainment meant riding on elephants in Laos, Sunday visits to museums in Paris, and tracking tigers in northern Thailand. With the world her home, Marliss excelled in language, music, and storytelling. She has taught various aspects of language in high schools and colleges, including the College of William and Mary, her alma mater. She has written eight books since becoming published in 2002, branching into two subgenres of romance, medieval historical and romantic suspense featuring Navy SEALs. Marliss lives in Virginia with her navy veteran husband and their five children.
THE DISH
Where authors give you the inside scoop!
From the desk of Michelle Rowen
Michael Quinn used to be a vampire hunter. Now, he’s a very reluctant vampire in search of a magical cure for what ails him in LADY & THE VAMP (available now). He’s nursing a bit of a broken heart after being on the losing end of a love triangle in my first two Immortality Bites titles, Bitten & Smitten and Fanged & Fabulous. He doesn’t know that true love is just around the next corner, and she’s got a wooden stake with his name on it. To help this tall, dark, and “fangsome” vampire bach-elor on his quest for love, liberty, and the pursuit of a hot, blond mercenary named Janie, here is something that Quinn might encounter in your average, everyday vampire bar.
Top Ten Vampiric Pick-up Lines
1. “I don’t drink . . . wine. But, how about a piña colada?”
2. “Hey, you! You, in the black!”
3. “Didn’t I go to your funeral?”
4. “Baby, you don’t look a day over 350!”
5. “You have a beautiful neck, mind if I bite it?”
6. “You look just like David Boreanaz!”
7. “Are you one of the children of the night? Would you like to be?”
8. “Where have you been all of my long, tortured existence?”
9. “You, me, a bag of blood. Whaddya say?”
10. “Is that a wooden stake in your pocket or is it . . . ? Okay, never mind.”
Then again, perhaps Quinn should just steer clear of vampire bars for the time being. It’s just a suggestion.
Happy reading!
www.michellerowen.com
From the desk of Marliss Melton
Dear Reader,
It has been said that every novelist draws on what she knows and that her stories are, in some ways, autobiographical. So, reading any author’s work is a bit like glimpsing the skeletons in her closet or her underwear hanging out to dry! This often-embarrassing phenomenon couldn’t be truer for me than it is in DON’T LET GO (available now), the fifth book in my Navy SEAL series.
I’ve never been to Venezuela to do mission work like Jordan (the heroine of DON’T LET GO), but I did study abroad in Ecuador during college. I never adopted a child like the little boy Jordan wants to adopt, but I cherished my little Thai foster sister, who went on to be adopted in the United States. I’ve stood in her sister Jillian Sander’s shoes, a widow with young children, hoping to carry her boys through their grief in the most positive way possible. I’ve watched a relationship develop between a fatherless boy and a man willing to fill a giant’s shoes. But, most obviously, I’ve loved a man like Solomon McGuire, a man who is passionate in all things, secretly romantic, and sometimes hard to live with.
My second chance at love, my husband, most profoundly influenced the development of Solomon’s character, from his black moustache to his New England dialect. Of course, I had to pair Solomon with a woman who resembles me, at least in regards to her hair color and the speed at which her baby was born. Not every reader is going to fall head over heels with this commanding character, but there’ll be plenty who do. All I can say, ladies, is, “Sorry, Solomon is all mine.”
To see a real–life photo of my inspiration, just check out the photos page on my Web site www.marlissmelton.com. And while you’re there, check out a preview of my next SEAL Team Twelve book, featuring the blue-eyed, baldheaded Chief Sean Harlan.
Did I mention that my husband is also bald?
Yours truly,
From the desk of Elizabeth Jennings
Dear Reader,
Charlotte Court, the heroine in PURSUIT (available now), is a truly gifted artist, who perfected her craft in Florence, Italy. Art is her entire life until a murderer comes after her and she has to go on the run to Baja California. That’s where she meets Matt, a former Navy SEAL, a rough, tough guy, who falls head over heels for her and is blown away by her talent.
Like Charlotte, I spent a number of years in Florence, Italy, immersed in an artistic environment. My mom worked at a US graduate school of fine arts—now, alas, defunct—in a beautiful villa nestled in the green hills just below Fiesole, Villa Schifanoia. Legend has it that this was the villa where the young Florentine noblemen and women fled to avoid the plague in Boccaccio’s Decameron.
We lived around the corner from a fabulous international art school that was in itself a small masterpiece. It was in a 16th century deconsecrated church in the Borgo San Frediano, simply a stunning place to study art. Just a glimpse inside felt like being magically transported back to a Greek or a Roman temple.
I’m arty, but not visually gifted like the students I grew up around. I love words. At the time, I was learning characterization, hooks, and motivation, studying the masters, going over the writing again and again and again, revising and rewriting until I got it right.
I founded a writer’s group in Florence that met in the basement of the American church—quite an eclectic group of people. I was the only one writing romance and it did me good to pit myself against those who had no sympathy for or knowledge of the genre. It stiffened my spine. And, boy, did I learn how to tighten up my writing.
Since I was putting myself through this intense apprenticeship, exactly as a young Renaissance artisan working in a bottega or the young artists in that beautiful school, I had an enormous amount of sympathy for the work involved in becoming proficient at an art.
Charlotte Court was born then in my mind, all those years ago. A beautiful woman, exceedingly gifted and hardworking, who lives for her art. I had her study at this wonderful art school. She was alive to me—her drive to paint and draw almost obsessive, yet totally understandable.
I have held Charlotte in my head and heart all these years, and in this, my eighth book, I have finally given her life.
She is put to the test in PURSUIT. Wounded and hunted, she shows immense courage and fortitude. I like to think that her art gives her strength and grace.
Happy reading!
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed reading DON’T LET GO as much as I enjoyed writing it. Between the gut-wrenching drama and the heart-thudding action, this book reminded me of a roller coaster.
So, on to the next wild ride . . .
Did you happen to notice Sean “Harley” Harlan again in this book? His gorgeous baldness first appeared in NEXT TO DIE when he gave Joe a dressing–down for taking his place on that fated mission. In uniform, Sean is all business flashing blue eyes, and he can out-perform any officer on the teams. In DON’T LET GO, we see Sean in his civilian-mode: a laughing, teasing hunk of fun, as laid-back as a guy can get. And he loves kids, taking immediately to Ellie Stuart’s fatherless boys. But Ellie herself is off limits. Sean has learned the hard way not to date women with children, regardless of their appeal. He hates breaking little hearts when his relationships end. But there’s something about Ellie that keeps Sean coming back. And when Ellie’s three boys are mysteriously kidnapped and Ellie herself is being framed, Sean spearheads a wild and ultimately deadly search to reunite mother and children. But with Ellie constantly at his side, his self-restraint is wearing thin. Will he violate his rule and sleep with her? Will he break the hearts of the boys he’s determined to save? Read the next rollercoaster ride in my SEAL series, coming in Spring 2009.
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