Worth the Wait

by Miley Maine

  “Why don’t you go ahead and tell him today? That way he’ll have some time to get used to it before I get there tonight. It might be overwhelming to have me there, too.”

  “He’ll be absolutely over the moon.”

  “Hey, Bree. Thank you,” he said.

  “No problem.”

  I was going to have to get used to including James in all the decisions I made about Ian. It was going to be a big adjustment, but it would be a good one.

  I took a shower, brushed my teeth, took a few aspirin, and got dressed. Downstairs, I poured myself a big glass of orange juice. A glance at the clock on the oven showed that it was already eleven-thirty am. I had never laid in bed that long, not even before Ian was born.

  Walter had filled an inflatable pool with water and Ian was happily using it to fill up his giant water gun while wearing a dinosaur costume.

  How do you tell a four-year-old the truth about his father?

  “Hey, little velociraptor, what’s up?”

  “I’m not a raptor!”

  “What are you?”

  “A T-Rex!”

  “Okay, scary T-Rex, let me have one of these super soaker water guns.”

  Ian handed me his least favorite, a purple and orange plastic gun that had to be pumped repeatedly. I dunked it in the pool. The cold water felt good against my skin.

  “You like James a lot, huh?” I asked. It was a pretty lame lead-in, but luckily four-year-olds didn’t require many smooth maneuvers into conversation.

  “Yes! I do. Is he coming over?”

  “He’s coming tonight.”

  “Yay,” he said, aiming the gun right at my face.

  “Hang on. Let’s go shoot the fence posts, okay?” I knew better than to make him sit down and stare into my eyes. He’d be paying way more attention if we were active than if I sat him down at the table for a ‘serious talk.’

  He hopped up and ran with me to the fence. “I’ll beat you,” he claimed.

  I pretended to run fast, but flailed and waved my arms while I was doing it, and as usual, Ian knew I was goofing around and giggled for a good thirty seconds.

  Once he’d settled down, I forced myself to start the conversation. “So. James is going to be around a lot more,” I said, lifting Ian out of a patch of buffalo grass. I sat him back down where the grass was worn down to mostly dirt.

  “He said he’d dress up with me at Halloween.”

  I shifted around. Now I was standing in the tall grass, and it made my shins itch. “Oh, yeah? What are you going to be?”

  “It’s a surprise, silly!”

  “Oh, okay.” Another milestone. I’d always helped Ian choose his costumes. He’d been opinionated even at two years old about how he wanted to dress up. Now James had moved into that role. It was a weird feeling, but a positive one. “Do you know what it means to get married?”

  “Adults get married,” he said. “Like Grandpa and Grandma.”

  How did he know that? I’d never mentioned marriage to him. “Yes, exactly,” I said, studying his face. Ian’s cheeks looked a little pink. If we stayed out much longer, he’d need a hat or sunscreen.

  “But Lacy’s not. And you’re not. But everyone else is.”

  “A lot of people are, yes,” I said. “James and I are getting married. What do you think about that?” I held my breath waiting for his answer.

  “Will he live here?”

  “He’ll live with us,” I said. Shit. I hadn’t thought about how to answer that. I had no idea where the four of us would be living.

  “He can make good eggs,” Ian said.

  What? How did he get to eggs? He must associate James with making eggs for breakfast, so I guess that made sense. You never knew with preschoolers. Now the hardest part. “Ian, do you remember asking me if you had a dad?”

  He nodded.

  “James is your dad. He didn’t know until now, but he’s very excited.”

  He turned toward me. “He’s my dad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will he take me to the park again?”

  “Definitely,” I said.

  “Will he play water guns?”

  “When he’s not working, I’m sure he’d love to.”

  “Can I call him Dad instead of James?” he asked.

  Aw, crap. My eyes were burning again. “I’m sure he’d love that.”

  “I’m going to blast him when he gets here!” He aimed right at my chest and squirted me.

  The water was lukewarm, but it felt like a blessing. This conversation at four years old had to be a heck of a lot easier than it would have been at fifteen. Now that Ian would have James in his life, maybe he wouldn’t blame me for the time they’d missed.

  I breathed a deep sigh of relief. Ian was unfazed, and James would hopefully be able to forgive me one day. Everyone else could mind their own business.

  By that evening, I still felt a little under the weather, but once I knew James was on his way home from work, I got dressed up for our date. I took a bath with lavender scented salts, a rare treat from Lacy. I brushed my teeth with baking soda and I dug my old curling iron out of the drawer so I could make the waves in my hair a little more pronounced.

  One I had my hair fixed, I put on a little makeup. My skin was usually clear, so I never wore much during the day. But I was feeling pretty feminine as I brushed mascara onto my lashes and put on a little lipstick.

  I rarely dressed up and I never wore dresses, but I did have a nice blouse and a nice pair of dress pants to wear with dressy sandals. It might be nice for James to see me looking like an actual woman for once and not a farm hand.

  And I’d picked up a surprise for him. After he’d mentioned the lingerie, I’d wanted to wear some for him, but I hadn’t had time to drive to Dallas and I didn’t have the money to order online.

  I didn’t think of myself as sexy, but he seemed to like what he saw. It was a pretty weird place to buy lingerie, but when I was at the grocery store, I kept walking past the pasta and the bread aisle, and went straight into the underwear section.

  To my shock, the choices weren’t only plain white cotton. They had satin bras in pink and black, and panties that matched. It wasn’t Victoria’s Secret, but it was affordable. I chose the black set and tried it on in the dressing room.

  Even in the harsh grocery store lighting, the bra and panties looked pretty nice. I didn’t work out at a gym, but all the work I did on the farm kept me lean, and I even had some decent muscles.

  Now, in the dimmer lighting of my bedroom, the lingerie looked even nicer. I spun around, checking myself from every angle.

  I smile at my reflection. “Not too bad for something I found in Laurel Bay,” I said to myself. It felt nice to dress up for James; I’d have to do it more often, because I had a pretty good feeling about what was going to happen tonight.

  28

  James

  I would have much preferred to spend the day at the ranch with Bree and Ian than working, and that was a first for me. There had never been anything that captured my attention the way my job did, but now I had Ian and I had Bree. And for the first time, I felt like I had a father and a stepmother, too.

  A family.

  But if I was going to support my kid now, I couldn’t lose my job just because I didn’t like the dreary paperwork that came afterward. Although most of my day had been spent trying to interview Dr. Smith and investigating any connections that might still exist with the group of terrorists that wanted to cripple the Texas power grid. We’d also had to get the FBI’s legal attaché office in Brazil involved, too, to investigate the group’s origins.

  Dr. Smith, which was not his real name, wasn’t talking, but after his arrest, we’d seized the servers from his house and we’d been able to piece together some of their plans after finding a manifesto with the group’s emails. The group really believed in their cause, but they had very few resources. Then Smith had shown up to fund their cause. We’d traced another terrorist cell to Lubboc
k and another near Amarillo, and a potential one near Austin.

  When I parked my SUV, Ian was waiting for me on the porch, which was a much better way to end a long day than walking into an empty condo. This time he was dressed as a mini-firefighter. The big red hat kept slipping down on his head.

  He came flying at me as usual. I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of that. I still hated that Bree kept him from me, but one side effect of not having him was that I didn’t take him or any of the quirky things he did for granted. I hoped I never would.

  “Put out any fires today?” I asked him as I lifted him up.

  “Lots!” he said with his usual enthusiasm. “Spin me around, Dad!”

  Dad.

  I’d always heard the saying ‘my heart stopped,’ but I’d never identified with it. When I was pissed off or when I was terrified, like last night when Bree was missing, my heart always sped up. It pounded and my blood rushed. But hearing Ian say the word ‘Dad’ created a new feeling. I couldn’t feel anything for a second and my brain froze up.

  I stood there, not moving, holding Ian in the air. Then everything around us came rushing back: Ian’s kicking legs, his delighted giggle, and the smell of fresh hay. My eyes stung and my throat burned. I’d bonded with this kid before I knew he was mine, and now knowing he was part of me was a real head trip. I didn’t want to miss another second of his life.

  I’ve been accused of lacking emotion by more than one person. Coworkers, friends, and women I’ve dated—including Bree—have all said my blank expression drove them nuts, and not in a good way.

  Ian just called me Dad. Had Bree suggestd it? Or had he come up with that?

  I didn’t know where Bree and I would live, but it was a given that I’d be doing everything in my power to make sure we could live in the same town, even before we were married. The thought of going back to Houston and seeing him just every other weekend was unthinkable. Now I just had to get the FBI to agree.

  I spun the kid around until we were both dizzy. I slumped against the porch railing. “Whew. I better stop.”

  “Dad, are you going to puke?” he giggled.

  He seemed to like saying it as much as I liked hearing it.

  He saw one of the barn cats race by, and he was off. “Here, kitty!” he yelled, which made the cat flee to a crawl space under the house.

  While I was still recovering from spinning Ian around, I sat down on the bottom step of the porch and Bree stepped out. When she stepped into view, I grabbed onto the railing and pulled myself up, whistling at her.

  “Look at Mom,” I said to Ian.

  “You look nice, Momma!” Ian said.

  “I guess I’ll be keeping my suit on,” I said. “I don’t want to embarrass you.”

  She smiled. “As if that’s possible. You have an instant cool factor just from being an FBI agent. I know we’re just going to the diner, but I’ve been so grimy lately. It felt nice to clean up.”

  “Well, you look amazing,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Still a little sluggish, but good,” she said, which was a relief to hear. We said bye to my parents and to Ian, and we got in the SUV to go back to the Laurel Bay Diner.

  “So,” she said as soon as we were seated in a booth. “I’d rather get the hard parts of the conversation over with.” She motioned with her hands. “And I don’t think this will be the only hard conversation we have about this topic. I’m fully prepared for this to be an ongoing thing between us.”

  “What hard parts?” I was mystified as to what she meant.

  “How we’re engaged, but we probably wouldn’t be if we hadn’t ended up in the middle of a hostage situation with kidnapping and shootings and terrorists,” she explained.

  “Fair enough. But it really brought home what was important, and I think we can get past it, don’t you?”

  “I hope so. I don’t want us to be old and bitter,” she said. Without asking, the waitress brought her an unsweetened tea with lemon and asked what I wanted.

  “I won’t let that happen to us,” I said.

  “We’ve already had enough drama to last a lifetime. Our story alone could fuel a soap opera for a year.” She chewed on her lip for a minute. “Do you think we should see a therapist?”

  “I think it’s a good idea,” I said, as the waitress brought me a beer. I didn’t drink a lot, but tonight I figured I’d have a Shiner with dinner.

  “You do?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I’ve done it before. It was mandatory after a previous mission. I’ll probably have to do it again for work. I don’t see why I shouldn’t do it for personal reasons. Have you seen one?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “I haven’t had the money, but I’m up for it.”

  “Let’s schedule it,” I said. “My insurance should cover all but twenty-percent if we go to couple’s counseling.”

  The waitress came back and we both ordered hamburgers. “I’m so hungry,” Bree said, and I had to agree that a burger sounded nice.

  Now onto the fun stuff. I had an important question, too. “Hey, how would you feel about me taking Ian with me to pick out your ring?”

  “I think that’s a great idea,” she said.

  I bit into one of my fries. The fries had always been good, and that hadn’t changed in five years. “Ideally, I would have had involved him in asking you to marry me, but I didn’t want to wait,” I said.

  “It was perfect the way it happened,” she insisted.

  “In the dark, standing in a ditch beside a highway?” I stared across the table at her. She was all dressed up, and had her hair fixed, and smelled incredible. But I liked her just as much when she was decked out in her plaid ranch clothes and her dusty boots.

  She nodded while laughing through a sip of tea. “While I was covered in blood.”

  “Right after you’d been kidnapped. And escaped. You can’t leave that part out,” I said.

  “Well, I am a first responder.” She pointed a fry at me. “Maybe I should go into law enforcement instead of veterinary medicine.”

  “I don’t know if I could handle that,” I said. The thought of her in danger on a daily basis would have me on edge every second.

  “Isn’t that a little hypocritical? I mean, you were here five seconds and you got shot.”

  “Hey, that’s different,” I protested.

  “Oh, because you’re a man?” she asked with a whole lot of sass.

  “No. Because it’s my job.”

  “It could be my job,” she said. “Or are you saying I couldn't hack it as a police officer or an FBI agent?”

  “I think you’ve already proved you could hack it and then some. You’re the one who snooped around in a terrorist’s home, barged into an empty house without backup, and then escaped a kidnapping after being drugged. There are lots of agents who never go through that much in a thirty-year career.”

  “Ooh, was that a compliment?” She started laughing so hard she coughed and had to cover her mouth with a napkin.

  “I’ve given you compliments,” I said.

  “I’m teasing.”

  Had I not complimented her enough? I’d been so focused on this case and on all the ways she’d wronged me both past and present that I hadn’t stopped to appreciate her properly. Oh, I’m sure she knew I found her attractive, but I wanted her to know how much I appreciated her heart.

  “Seriously, there’s so much I respect about you. You’ve had so much thrown at you. Your dad never came through, your mom died when you were young, you had a baby and didn’t get to go to college, and then the ranch, which you sank your whole heart into, has been struggling through no fault of your own.”

  “James. Stop,” she said, as the waitress brought our check.

  “No,” I said. “You need to hear it from me. Do you know how impressed everyone in this town is that you started the volunteer fire department? Every single time I’ve interviewed someone about the power grid attacks, they’ve hardly been able to answer becaus
e they want to tell me how awesome you are.” Every last bit of that was true.

  “Well, I am pretty awesome,” she joked as I paid the bill and we both thanked the waitress.

  I didn’t want her to dismiss the way I felt; she might have made a bad decision, but it didn’t negate everything else about her. “You are. Really. And I know you don’t need my approval, but I’d like to give you my support.”

  “Thank you. That means a lot,” she said as we made our way to the truck. We chatted all the way back to the ranch, mostly about Ian and about the kind of stuff he liked doing during the summer.

  Once we were back at the ranch, I pulled her into my arms. She tucked her chin under my head and fit her body up against mine.

  “We still need to talk about where we’re going to live,” she said.

  “Mmm,” I said. At that moment, I’d have given up my career with the FBI and move to a remote island if that’s what she wanted. And as always, when my body was pressed against hers, it reacted. My libido didn’t care that this wasn’t the best time for my cock to get hard.

  It didn’t take her long to notice. “I guess you’re not as exhausted as I thought,” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter. If you’re close to me, I’m interested. I’m interested when you’re not close to me, too, it's just easier to control.”

  “Well. I’m interested, too. I think we should celebrate. We’re engaged, and the night of our engagement I passed out. And you’ve solved your case, so that’s two big reasons.”

  “I don’t know that you need to exert yourself like that,” I said.

  “I’m not sick. And I’m not driving.” She whispered into my ear, “I want you.”

  Before I could respond, the door burst open and Ian bounced through, followed by Mary and my father.

  Oh, shit. I dropped my arms and moved to sit at the table, desperate to conceal my erection. Ian came bounding up, shoving a corn dog in my face. “We got you some dinner,” he announced.

  “Oh. Thank you,” I said, taking the corn dog from him.

  “Eat it,” he said.