Panda had heard enough. He gave Lucy what he hoped was his most menacing glare, then turned to her parents. “I’d like permission to marry your daughter.”
Lucy narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re way ahead of yourself. First you have to tell them all the reasons you’re unworthy.”
Up until now, he hadn’t understood much of what she was doing, but he did understand this. She wanted him to rip off the Band-Aid fast.
“Would you like some coffee, Patrick?” President Jorik gestured toward the pot on the counter.
“No, ma’am.” She’d been his commander in chief, and he realized he was automatically standing at attention. The position felt good, and he stayed that way, feet together, chest out, eyes forward. “I grew up rough in Detroit, ma’am. My father dealt drugs, and my mother was an addict who supported her habit any way she could. I did some drugs myself. I have a juvenile record, spent time in foster homes, and I lost my brother to gang violence when he was way too young. I barely made it through high school, then went into the military. I served in Iraq and Afghanistan before I joined the Detroit police.” He was going to get it all out if it killed him. “I have a college degree from Wayne State, and—”
“College degrees …” Lucy interrupted. “He has his master’s. That used to bother me, but I’ve decided to overlook it.”
She was deliberately making him sweat bullets, but he was perversely glad she was forcing him to lay it all out. He switched to parade rest, hands clasped behind his back, his eyes just over their heads. “As I said, Wayne State. The only time I’ve been near an Ivy was working security for a Hollywood actress at the Harvard-Yale football game.”
“He’s got good table manners,” Lucy said. “And, let’s face it, he’s hot.”
“I can see that,” her mother agreed in a shockingly suggestive voice, which made him wonder exactly how different she and Lucy really were.
He plowed on. “There was a time when I stayed drunk for too long and got into too many fights because of it.” He clenched his hands behind his back. “But the main thing you need to know about me …” He made himself look at them. “I had problems with PTSD.” He swallowed. “It seems to be behind me, but I’m not taking any chances, and I’m in counseling again. For a long time, I was afraid to care too much about anybody for fear I’d hurt them, but I don’t feel like that anymore. I do cuss, though, and I have a temper.”
President Jorik glanced at her husband. “No wonder she fell in love with him. He’s just like you.”
“Worse,” Lucy said.
Her father kicked back in his chair. “I’ll take your word for it.”
Panda wasn’t letting any of these Joriks sidetrack him. He unclasped his hands. “With my past, I’m sure I’m not what you have in mind for your daughter.”
“Mr. Shade, none of your past is news to Mat or myself,” the president said. “You don’t really think we would have hired you to guard Lucy if we hadn’t had you thoroughly investigated.”
That shouldn’t have taken him aback, but it did.
“You’re a decorated soldier,” she said. “You served your country bravely, and your record with the Detroit Police Department is exemplary.”
“But,” Lucy said, “he can be a real idiot.”
“So can you,” her father pointed out.
Panda let his arms fall to his sides. “I also love your daughter very much. As you can see. Because if I didn’t, I sure as hell—pardon me, ma’am—wouldn’t be going through all this. Now, with all due respect, I need to talk to Lucy privately.”
Ms. Maybe-I’m-Pregnant-Maybe-I’m-Not suddenly turned wary. “Muffins first. You love muffins.”
“Lucy. Now.” He jerked his head toward the doorway.
She hadn’t finished punishing him, and she took forever getting out of her chair, looking exactly like a sulky teenager, which seemed to amuse her parents. “She used to be such a sweet girl,” her mother said to her father.
“Your influence,” he said right back to the former president.
If it hadn’t been for the baby issue, he wouldn’t have begrudged any of them their fun.
Her father wasn’t done. “Maybe you two would like to settle this in Mabel?” He made it both a question and a mandate.
The president smiled at her husband.
Panda had no idea what was happening, but Lucy seemed to understand. “I guess.” She displayed zero enthusiasm as she sauntered toward the back door.
He strode past her in what he hoped was an assertive manner, held the door open, then followed her across a stone terrace and into a backyard with well-defined gardens and mature shade trees. Lucy’s sneakers swished in the fallen leaves as she followed a brick path around what he guessed was an herb garden toward a large garage. As they got closer, she cut behind it onto a dirt path that led to an ancient yellow Winnebago. He finally remembered. This was Mabel, the motor home Lucy and Mat Jorik had traveled in all those years ago when they’d picked up Nealy Case at a Pennsylvania truck stop.
The door creaked on its rusty hinges as Lucy opened it. He stepped inside the drab, musty interior. There was a tiny kitchen; a saggy, built-in couch with faded plaid upholstery; and a door at the back that must lead to a bedroom. The small banquette table held a baseball cap, a notebook, a bottle of green nail polish, and an empty Coke can. Her siblings must use this place as a hangout.
If he asked Lucy why her mother had suggested they come here, Lucy would give him one of those looks that said he was a moron, so he didn’t ask. “This thing run?”
“Not anymore.” She plunked down on the sofa, picked up a paperback copy of Lord of the Flies, and began to read.
He tugged on his shirt collar. The place might be sentimental to the Joriks, but it was claustrophobic to him. Are you really pregnant? Do you really love me? What the hell did I say that was so wrong anyway? All questions he wanted to ask, but couldn’t yet.
He opened his collar button. His head nearly touched the ceiling, and the walls were closing in on him. He wedged himself sideways onto the banquette bench across from her. Even from here, he could smell the fabric softener from her red pajamas, a scent that shouldn’t have been erotic but was. “I told Bree about her father,” he said.
She didn’t look up from the book. “I know. She called me.”
He stretched his cramped legs across the motor home. She turned a page. His nerves had stretched to the breaking point. “Now that you’ve had your fun, are you ready to talk seriously?”
“Not really.”
If anybody else had given him such a hard time, he’d have either walked away or punched them, but he’d hurt Lucy badly, and she deserved whatever blood she could draw. She’d drawn a lot.
He made himself accept the fact that there was no baby. She’d lied. As painful as that knowledge was, he had to accept it. He couldn’t even let himself be angry, because her lie had accomplished what he hadn’t yet worked up the courage to do. Bring them together.
With a sense of resignation, he gave her the ammunition she needed to attack. “You won’t like this, but at the time, I really did think I was doing the right thing by breaking it off with you.”
She slammed the book shut, her icy reserve shattered. “I’m sure you did. No need to ask Lucy what she thought about the situation. No need to give her a vote or a voice. Go ahead and make all the decisions for the little woman yourself.”
“I didn’t exactly see it like that at the time, but I get your point.”
“Is that how this partnership is going to work? If there’s a partnership. You making the decisions for both of us?”
“No. And there’s definitely going to be a partnership.” He suddenly felt steadier than he could ever remember. If he needed proof of his new stability, all he had to do was remember the exhilaration he’d felt when Lucy had called to tell him she was pregnant. He’d experienced no fear, no doubts at all. Knowing she’d lied was a blow, but he’d fix that the first chance he got by making her wel
l and truly pregnant.
“You took away my power, Panda. Instead of laying out all the pros and cons and asking for my opinion, you cut me out of the discussion. You treated me like a child.”
Even in pajamas with every button fastened, she didn’t look anything like a child, but he couldn’t start thinking about what was under that red flannel or he’d lose his focus. “I’ve learned a lot since then.”
“Is that so?” Real tears glistened in her eyes. “Then why didn’t you come to see me? Why did I have to be the one to call you?”
He wanted to take her in his arms and never let her go, but he couldn’t do that yet. Maybe never if he didn’t get this right.
He squeezed off the bench and crouched in front of her. “I was working up my nerve to see you. I told you the biggest lie of my life when I said I didn’t love you, but I was scared to death I’d hurt you. Things have changed since then. I’ve stopped being afraid of loving you. Now go ahead and yell at me.”
She sniffed at the offense. “I never yell.”
He was too smart to point out the fallacy of that statement. “I’m glad, because you’re not going to like this next part.” He tried and failed to find a more comfortable position. “Leaving you was hell, but as it turned out, it was the best thing I could have done for myself—for both of us—because I finally had something at stake that was bigger than worrying about all my symptoms coming back.” A branch tapped the roof of the motor home. “I figured out that, at some level, I believed I deserved to suffer. I lived, and a lot of my buddies didn’t. Once I understood that, other things became clear, and for the first time, I started to believe in possibilities instead of inevitability.”
He could see the last of her defenses beginning to melt, but she still had some struggle left. “I would never have put you through what you’ve put me through.”
She was kind of doing that now, but since she’d only begun torturing him yesterday and he’d been putting her through hell for months, he couldn’t complain. “I know, sweetheart.” He took her cold hands. “You can’t imagine how miserable I’ve been without you.”
That made her happier. “You have?”
He rubbed his thumbs into her palms. “I need you, Lucy. I love you, and I need you.”
She thought that over. “You do know, don’t you, that you’re on your knees.”
He smiled. “Yes, I do know that. And while I’m down here …” His smile faded as his collar started choking him again. “Luce, please marry me. I promise to love you and cherish you and respect you. I’ll laugh with you and make love with you and honor you with every breath I take. I know we’ll argue, but in the end it won’t matter because I’d give up my life for you.” Now he was sweating bullets. “Damn, I’ve never done this before …”
She cocked her head. “What about protecting me? That’s what you do best, so why aren’t you promising that, too?”
He couldn’t take it anymore, and he yanked off his necktie. “About that …” He loosened another collar button. “I … can’t figure out exactly how to say this.”
She waited, giving him time, her eyes so tender that the words came out more easily than he expected. “You’re my safe harbor. You don’t need protecting half as much as I do, so how about you take over that job for a while?”
She stroked his hair, her fingers like feathers, her eyes giving him the world. “I’ll do my best.”
“What about the rest?” he said, his voice unsteady as his life hung in the balance. “Are you tough enough to marry me?”
She brushed her fingertips along his cheek. “Tougher than you can imagine.”
His relief was so intense he felt dizzy, but he gradually steadied as she murmured her own love back to him. Then she got up from the couch, crossed to the door, and clicked the lock. As she turned back to face him, her fingers began opening the buttons on her pajamas.
He rose to his feet. A moment later his suit coat hit the floor.
Her pajama top fell open as she came toward him. She looped her arms around his neck, kissed him, the sweetest kiss of his life, full of passion and promise and the love he’d been looking for since he was born. But when their lips finally parted, she looked troubled again. “There’s more.”
“I sure as hell hope so,” he murmured, caressing the small of her back, just under her pajama top.
“No, not that.” She rested her hands on his shirtfront. “Once I stopped being furious with you long enough to realize that you really did love me, I had to figure out a way to get your attention.”
He understood. “It’s all right, sweetheart. I know you’re not pregnant.”
But that didn’t seem to satisfy her. “I came up with a plan. Temple and Max agreed to help me kidnap you, and—”
“Kidnap me?”
She looked suddenly smug. “We could have done it, too.”
When hell froze over. “If you say so.”
“The point is”—she tugged on one of his shirt buttons—“about me being pregnant …”
“I intend to take care of that real soon, but please don’t lie to me again.”
She opened one of his buttons and then another. “The thing is … I really wasn’t feeling well, so I started counting, and then I went to the doctor, and then …”
He stared at her.
Her mouth dissolved in a soft smile. She lifted her arms and cradled his face in her hands. “It’s true.”
Epilogue
LUCY RESTED HER HEAD AGAINST Ted Beaudine’s broad shoulder and gave a contented sigh. “Who’d have imagined after all we went through that we’d end up together like this?”
“Life works in mysterious ways,” he said.
It was late May, the three-year anniversary of their almost wedding, although that wasn’t why they’d all gathered at the lake house, which gleamed with a fresh coat of bright white paint and sparkling navy shutters. Instead they were celebrating Memorial Day weekend and the beginning of another summer.
Toby and two of his teenage friends dashed after Frisbees, with Martin loping at their heels. One of Bree’s nephews chatted awkwardly with Lucy’s youngest sister, while Tracy and Andre looked on in amusement. Lucy gazed at Ted’s clean-shaven jawline. “No offense, but I’m so glad I’m not married to you.”
“None taken,” he replied cheerfully.
In the distance, she could hear the faint sound of hammering. In another month, the roomy log buildings would be finished and ready for their first set of campers. “Frankly, I don’t know how Meg does it,” she said. “Living with your perfection has to be tough on someone like her.”
Ted nodded somberly. “It’s a burden, that’s for sure.”
She smiled and gazed across the yard toward the new barbecue pit, where her parents were chatting with a slightly awestruck Temple and Max. “Being married to Panda is a lot easier,” Lucy said.
“I’ll have to take your word for it,” Ted replied. “He kind of scares me.”
“He does no such thing, but I’m sure he’d take that as a compliment.”
Ted squeezed her shoulder. “It’s good we weren’t this comfortable with each other when we were engaged, or that wedding might really have happened.”
They both shuddered.
Meg and Panda came toward them. Who could have imagined that her surly bodyguard would have turned into such an exemplary husband?
Because Meg had been a terrible influence on Ted, he planted a kiss on top of Lucy’s head just to see if he could make trouble. That backfired, however, because Lucy liked to cause trouble, too. “Your husband is hitting on me,” she called out to her best friend. “By the way, how does it feel to be his second choice?”
Meg offered up her smart-aleck smirk. “I could totally have had Panda if you hadn’t pulled your disappearing act. He was definitely coming on to me the night of your so-called rehearsal dinner.”
“Well … You did look hot that night,” Lucy agreed while Panda and Ted swapped glances that declared them both
the most fortunate and the most put-upon of spouses.
“It’s weird,” Meg said. “We should so be married to each other’s husbands.”
This time all four of them shuddered.
“I’ll tell you what’s weird.” Bree came up next to them, Mike at her side, a sleeping baby tucked in the Snugli he wore as proudly as an athletic jersey. “The four of you. I’ve never seen such strange relationships. Mike, aren’t they all a little weird.”
“Now, Bree … Some people might say that about us.”
“You’re too good to be true.” Bree gave him a private smile that locked out the rest of the world.
Toby peeled away from his friends. “He’s not that good. He got into my M&M’s stash last night.”
Mike grinned, grabbed Toby around the neck, and gave his head a gentle knuckle rub without disturbing Toby’s baby brother. “You need to find a better hiding place, son.”
In the past three years, Toby had shot up ten inches, and girls had started calling the house, which drove Bree crazy. But Toby had his head screwed on remarkably straight for a fifteen-year-old, and Lucy wasn’t worried.
Between babies and blossoming careers, they’d experienced so many wonderful changes in their lives. But there had been difficult times, too. Lucy still grieved the loss of her grandfather Litchfield, and Bree had miscarried early in her first pregnancy. Fortunately, the joyous birth of Jonathan David Moody a little over a year later had eased the pain.
One of the changes that had most shocked everyone except Lucy had been Panda’s decision to hire more employees so he could go back to school for a counseling degree. He now took only the security jobs that kept him near home and devoted the rest of his time to the more important work of helping other wounded warriors get their lives back, something he discovered he had a talent for.
Lucy found that motherhood meshed well with her growing writing career. She was a natural storyteller with an inherent ability to make the lives of the kids she helped come alive. She’d just started her third book, this one focusing on the eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds who’d aged out of foster care and had no place to go. She’d also become the go-to authority on at-risk children, which made her a popular guest on television news and talk shows. At the same time, she continued to work one-on-one as a volunteer at a Chicago drop-in center so she didn’t lose touch with the work she loved the most.
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