Secret Dream: Delos Series, 1B1

by Lindsay McKenna

  Rayne pulled on her raincoat, buttoning it up. “Well, whatever you do, celebrate. Having a baby is something I dream about, too.”

  Cav knew that Rayne was a carbon copy of Lia in some ways. She was maternal. Loved children. Wanted a brood of them. But she had lost her husband to the drug soldiers in Mexico. He, too, had been a physician, and they had traveled once a year to Sonora, Mexico, setting up medical clinics in many villages that had no medical services nearby. Her husband, James, had been killed trying to stop the drug soldiers from stealing the medicines they kept in the back of their SUV for their needy patients. He’d been shot in the head in front of Rayne. Cav hurt for her, because she was just as kind and giving as Lia. She deserved better out of life. Rayne was thirty-three years old, and her baby clock, as she called it, was ticking. Soon she would be too old to have a baby, she’d told him once. It was a sad situation and Cav felt deeply for the doctor, who, to this day, traveled once a year to Sonora alone, still giving her time and charity to those who had so much less than she did.

  Rayne picked up her black leather purse, pulling the strap across her shoulder. Coming around her desk, she opened the door for them. Lia gave Cav a wobbly smile, wiping her eyes free of the last of her tears. He guided Lia out of Rayne’s office and into the hall of the hospital, helping her into her black wool coat.

  Rayne shut and locked her office door. She walked with them down toward the entry doors at the end of the green and white tiled hall, then caught Cav’s attention. “Tal Culver says you probably feel like collateral damage to all this massive planning Dilara and Lia and her mother, Susan, are doing for your wedding.” She gave them a wicked look. “I’m learning some Turkish and Greek greetings because their global family will be here for your engagement party near Christmas.”

  Cav shook his head. “That family is like a little UN.”

  She chortled and said, “Don’t I know it! The whole family is amazing to me.”

  Lia slid her hand into Cav’s as they walked to the sliding glass doors. “We’re going to have to bone up on some words in Turkish and Greek, too, Rayne.”

  “Yeah,” she said, smiling, “I think I’ll ask Tal to give you the same cheat sheet she gave me so you can at least stumble through the greetings like I’ll be doing.”

  Lia breathed in the damp, coolish air as she stepped outside. “I’d love to be able to greet them in their own languages.” The sky was filled with gray and white churning clouds, the rain having stopped. The trees were dressed in their autumn raiment, their leaves colorful, reminding her that it was her favorite season of the year. She felt Cav release her hand, his arm going around her instead. He always seemed to know when she needed to be tucked away at his side. She gave him a look of thanks, and they all headed out to the huge asphalt parking lot.

  Cav stopped at their silver Kia SUV and opened up the passenger-side door, helping Lia in. She waved good-bye to Rayne, who was parked in another row. Once Cav climbed inside, shutting the door, she whispered, “I’m pregnant.”

  He chuckled as he turned the key, the engine coming to life. “Indeed you are.”

  “Are you happy about it, Cav?”

  He felt her unsureness. Dilara had already buttonholed him about a woman’s emotions going up and down when she was pregnant. She was the only other person who had known that Lia might be pregnant and had a heart-to-heart talk with him about it, in case Lia was. He took her experiences to heart. Reaching over, helping Lia pull the seat belt across herself, he murmured, “I’m happy, baby. For both of us,” and he held her glistening gray gaze. He’d never seen such joy in Lia’s eyes except for that one special night when he knew as he’d made love with her that he’d gotten her pregnant. They had both felt it in their own way, and that was amazing to Cav as he drove slowly out of the wet parking lot. “What would you like to do?”

  “Go home,” she said, rubbing her brow. “I’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

  “I’ll make us dinner,” he volunteered. “Are you going to call your parents? Tell them the good news?”

  “Yes.” She sat back, her hands across her stomach. “I’ll call my parents when we get home. Mom is going to be deliriously happy. She’s been wanting to be a grandma for so long …”

  “I think your dad is going to be over the moon about it, too,” Cav said, pulling out into the quitting-time traffic of Alexandria. Their condo was only four miles south, but it would be stop-and-go on the streets of the quaint town.

  “Oh,” she sighed, “Dad will be so happy! He’ll spoil our baby like he spoiled me.”

  “They’re okay with you being pregnant and not married?” Because Cav knew her parents were old-fashioned in some respects. They had a thirty-year marriage. And nowadays, Cav saw people living together and never marrying. He didn’t agree with that, because he wanted Lia to see his commitment to her. He was all in. They weren’t just living together to see if their relationship could work. Sometimes, he thought that when people merely cohabited with one another, it didn’t bring the relationship the importance that it should have. If both people knew they could walk away with impunity, whether there were children involved or not, it made it too easy for a couple to quit, give up and not put in the effort to make the relationship work.

  By observing Chief Jacoby’s marriage, how he devoted himself to his wife and children, and by watching Susan and Steve working daily with one another in their relationship, Cav had seen the kind of positive role models he hadn’t had in his own family. And he wanted Lia to know, without question, that he loved her and was 100 percent devoted to making their marriage, their relationship, work. Cav wanted to give Lia that symbolic promise. He loved her enough to marry her.

  He slanted her a glance. “I’m okay that you’re pregnant before we get married, Lia. But I want us to be married by the time our baby is born. I want to give him or her our name.”

  “Nowadays,” she murmured, “women don’t care if they’re married or not when they have a baby by the man they’re living with.”

  “No,” he agreed. “And it’s fine for them, but it’s not fine for me or for you. Your parents have a thirty-year marriage. I think you’re wanting the same thing.”

  “Better believe it.” She rubbed her belly gently. “I want our children to know that marriage is a good choice, not one they can throw away. I want them to see us working at our marriage every day. And it is work, but when you love the other person, it’s not a prison sentence.”

  “No,” he said, smiling a little as he watched traffic around them down the wide avenue, “we’re a work in progress, but at least we’re committed to one another. To our family.” And Cav knew just how important that was to Lia. And to himself.

  “I want what my mom and dad have, Cav. I know we can have it by working for it. I know we can raise our children with love.”

  “You’ll get no argument out of me,” he teased. He reached out, covering her hand. “Are you feeling better now?”

  Lia slanted him an amused glance. “I feel so high, Cav. This is a dream I’ve had forever. I played with the dolls my mom gave me from as far back as I can remember. I loved seeing my dad kiss my mom, hold her, and show his affection to her as I grew up. I wanted the same thing because they’re happy with one another. It doesn’t mean they don’t have strong discussions with one another, sometimes, but I never saw my dad ever demean my mom, and he always sat down and constructively talked things over with her. I used to sit at the kitchen table sometimes, listening to them talk with one another, not argue. There’s a huge difference.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, “there’s a big difference. So we’ll have lots of constructive talks?” He gave her a teasing look, watching the corners of her lips lift.

  “I’m sure we will.”

  “But we get along well with one another,” Cav reminded her. “We’ve complemented one another since we met. We were never at odds with one another, Lia.”

  Sighing, she leaned back, absorbing his profile as he
drove. “From the moment I met you, I just felt so good about your presence in my life, Cav. And that hasn’t changed at all. In fact, it’s grown deeper and wider the more I’ve gotten to know and be around you.”

  He grazed her pink cheek as he braked at a stoplight. “I feel the same way, baby, about you. About us.”

  Closing her eyes, she murmured, “I’m so happy, Cav …”

  He said nothing as his gaze moved around the major stoplight and the cars jammed bumper-to-bumper with one another. His mind moved to what he wanted to do for Lia in the near future. Knowing that she loved the country, the rural area where she’d been raised, they’d been looking at information on the farmhouses for sale that Dilara had found for them. He didn’t care where he lived, but he knew Lia did. And he wanted Lia to be happy. Cav could live anywhere with the woman he loved, but he knew Lia would flourish if they had a home out in the country, not in the city. Condo living wasn’t her style and he’d seen that often enough after they started to work at Artemis.

  He wanted her to make a nest out of the home she fell in love with. His job, as he saw it, was to give her the world as much as he could. His position at Artemis paid him a damned high salary for his expertise. For that, he was grateful. But over his years as a security contractor, he’d squirreled away the bulk of what he’d earned and invested it in the stock market. He’d made his considerable savings work for him, and he was now worth over four million dollars. Cav had told no one because it wasn’t anyone’s business. He would, however, tell Lia. He wasn’t going to hide anything from the woman he loved.

  Lia had no idea of his financial worth—yet. He could afford to buy her the house of her dreams. His heart expanded with a fierce love for her. In the coming weeks, he was sure there was going to be a lot of adjustment for Lia, but at least this time, it was going to be due to happy events like her pregnancy. It wouldn’t be because of some trauma, thank God. She’d gone through enough of that. A five-year hell. And he’d had no idea when he’d been hired by Robert Culver that he was going to fall in love with a woman whose life had been put on the line.

  Glancing over at her, he saw Lia had closed her eyes, a new contentment in her features, her mouth now soft and relaxed, unlike before she knew she’d become pregnant. Since they’d come home from Oregon and visiting her parents, Lia had been glowing. Sometimes, that radiance just seemed to emanate from within her. Maybe being pregnant did that. He wasn’t sure, but he’d noticed those new subtleties since returning to Virginia.

  Right now, to him, Lia looked like a beautiful Madonna wrapped in the vulnerability and innocence that would always be a part of who she was. Every day, she was getting stronger, standing on her own two feet again, regaining that old confidence she’d had before the trauma five years ago. Cav knew he’d played a part in it, supporting her, feeding her with his love. Lia would only get strong if she was allowed to stand on her own. Being a SEAL, he knew the inner workings of a positive relationship. They were a team, as he saw it. And he applied what he’d been taught in BUD/s about teamwork, the kind that made a group stronger, to her, and to them.

  In BUD/s, he had seen negative teamwork, saw how it tore a team apart and weakened it. And he’d seen the positive side of it as well. There were times that Lia did need support, either verbally or with his physically holding her, or gently getting her to see that she needed to do something on her own without his being right there. So far, Cav was grateful for his experience because he was helping Lia rebuild and recapture her old self from before the trauma. She was blooming before his very eyes, getting stronger incrementally every day in small but important ways. He would never enable her. His only challenge was being too protective of her, which was easy to do. SEALs protected their loved ones, no question. Chief Jacoby had shown him that fine line, however. He could have smothered his wife and two children by being overprotective. He called it being a “helicopter parent”—hovering over your children, never allowing them to solve their own problems, leaving them weak and unprepared to go into the world at large and survive and thrive in it.

  Cav knew those fine lines to walk with Lia. Now, with her carrying their baby, he was feeling super-protective of her and knew he had to monitor himself more closely. He had told her they were a work in progress, and nothing was more realistic than that statement. He smiled to himself, inching along in the traffic. In another two miles, they’d be back at their condo building and out of this human rat race. Glancing over at Lia, he saw that she’d dozed off. He was keeping her up too late at night making love with her. He was going to have to rethink it because now she was eating and sleeping for two. She needed a full eight hours of sleep, not to be kept up for a few hours every night instead. Smiling faintly, he knew Lia was going to have to adjust, too. Her sexual appetite was just as healthy as his; they complemented one another in that way. But now they were going to have to make changes so that she could get the rest she really needed. He’d just get creative. He smiled. Maybe, after being pregnant, Lia would lose her need for sex. Cav didn’t know. That was something else to talk about and explore. And he could discuss it with Rayne, because she was a doctor and dealt with pregnant mothers and was aware of the kinds of changes that occurred in a woman’s body.

  No question, he was on a steep learning curve and wanted to get ahead of it for Lia’s sake. He’d have a chat with Rayne, who was easy to talk with. Reaching out, Cav lightly brushed Lia’s cheek. She was truly asleep, and he smiled tenderly, loving her fiercely. Tonight, he’d make sure she got all the sleep she needed. Love, as he had discovered with her, was about more than just sex. It was so much more. A comforting warmth spread throughout his chest, enveloping his heart. Lia was carrying his child. He was going to be a father. His life was changing remarkably, but for once, it was on a happy track, unlike his life before he’d met and fallen in love with her.

  Cav didn’t know what would happen as they continued to live and grow together, but from his perspective, they were on an incredibly joyous journey at this time in their lives. Every day, he was going to be grateful. And he was going to love this woman who held his heart so lovingly in her hands.

  The End

  Don’t miss Lindsay McKenna’s next DELOS series novel,

  Hold On

  Available from Lindsay McKenna and Blue Turtle Publishing and wherever you buy eBooks!

  Turn the page for a sneak peek of Hold On!

  Excerpt from

  Hold On

  By the third day at the Kabul, Afghanistan orphanage, Army Sergeant Beau Gardner had been pleased to observe that Callie was less grumpy toward him. Between his rounds with Matt inside and outside the orphanage, he’d volunteered to help change diapers at the diaper station. He’d told Maggie, the owner of the charity, that he was good with babies and that if she wanted, he’d feed, bathe and diaper them if she wanted.

  Well! She jumped at his offer and he found himself in what they called “the baby room” when he wasn’t on his security walks. And by now, he was used to the rhythm of the busy, overcrowded orphanage.

  Beau was dealing with a three-month-old baby girl as her nine-year-old sister, Aliya, stood nearby looking on. She watched as he placed her tiny sister on the soft white blanket spread across the table where diapers were changed. He was busy talking to Aliya in Pashto, drawing her out, making her feel comfortable in his presence as he unpinned the soft cotton diaper from the gurgling baby girl. He smiled down at the little one, her green eyes wide with wonder as he gently removed the dirty diaper, dropping it in a nearby bucket of water and bleach. He’d also volunteered to clean dirty diapers and put them in the aging washing machine at the back of the orphanage, afterward.

  Callie McKinley peeked in through the open door, her attention caught by the low, soft conversation between Beau and nine-year-old Aliyah. It seemed impossible that a man of his height and size could move so delicately as he slipped a fresh diaper beneath the baby’s bottom. She had to admit it, just watching him made her heart turn over w
ith emotions she hadn’t felt for a long time.

  Beau was truly a sight, she had to admit, with his tall, broad shoulders, his Kevlar vest over his long-sleeved blue tee. His jeans fit his body to perfection and Callie could no longer ignore it. But it was Beau’s low, crooning voice in that southern drawl of his that mesmerized both her and the baby. He was a Delta Force operator, a badass, yet he expertly pinned each side of the infant’s diaper into place with safety pins. He made sure her little crocheted booties were snug on each of her waving feet, brushed her black hair aside from her round face with his spare, calloused fingers.

  “Are you done?” she now asked, coming into the room. Callie leaned over, giving Aliya a warm hug.

  “Just about,” Beau murmured. He rearranged the baby’s wool pullover. “Cute little thing, isn’t she?” and slid one hand beneath the baby’s tiny neck and the other beneath her buttocks, lifting her up and handing her over to Callie.

  “She’s adorable,” Callie admitted, gently taking the baby. “I’m ready to bottle feed her, now.”

  Nodding, Beau said, “She’s all yours. I’ve got diapers to rinse out,” and he grinned, leaning down and picking up the tall plastic bucket filled to the brim with wet, dirty diapers.

  Callie laid the baby against her shoulder, patting her back gently. “You’ve done this a time or two, haven’t you?”

  “Told you before,” Beau said, smiling broadly, “I have two younger brothers, and my Ma put me to work as soon as I could handle a diaper, clean it, and replace it on my baby brothers. It wasn’t lost on her that I was good at it,” and he chuckled, moving past her and heading down the hall toward the laundry room.

  Callie frowned, sliding her hand comfortingly along the baby’s back. Ever since she’d snapped at him a few days ago, he’d acted as if she no longer existed. No more hungry, longing looks in her direction from him. No more flirting with her. Yet, Beau had made himself quite indispensable around here, just like Matt Culver, another Delta Force sergeant, had. They were good men and brave soldiers, and they cared about this place and the kids. It wasn’t a game to them, although Callie didn’t fool herself. Matt was here because he was attracted to Dara. Her sister was definitely falling for the Delta Force sergeant, too—she could see it. And Beau had showed up to court her.