MIDNIGHT CHOICES

by Eileen Wilks

His mouth quirked up. "Then I'll just say I'm better. I found out I hadn't lost myself, after all. I can still do what I have to." The smile faded and his eyes turned somber. "How's Zach?"

  "When I left, he was telling his father about the bad man with the gun." She remembered the way he'd grabbed Ben's cheeks, making his father look directly at him, just as he often did with her: He was a bad man, Dad. He was very bad. He wanted me to shut up. He had a real gun, an' he was mean. So the please-man shot him.

  "I'd give damned near anything to have spared him that."

  She threw him a suspicious look. "You haven't talked yourself into believing this was all your fault somehow, have you?"

  "No." This time she could see the amusement dancing in his eyes. "I can occasionally tell the difference between myself and God."

  She exhaled in relief. "That's good. At least you were able to spare him…" Seeing me shot. Gwen swallowed. Her son was better than her at putting the hard stuff into words. "That he's talking about it is a good sign, I think. When my little chatterbox can't talk about something, then I worry. Not that everything's okay. It'll take time for the memory to fade." She sighed and pulled idly at a tuft of grass.

  "We want to shield them from everything," Duncan said. "At least from the really hard things like death, pain, fear. But we can't."

  We. That had a good sound to it. She reached for his hand. For several minutes they sat in silence in the warm spring sunshine, holding hands and listening to a few lazy-sounding birds announce themselves.

  Eventually he shifted, releasing her hand. "I'd forgotten how angry I was after my folks died. Not at first, but for several months whenever I dreamed about them, I was furious. I'd yell at them for trying to trick me, pretending they were alive when they were really dead."

  "I did that, too," she said, surprised, "after my father died. I would dream he was alive again, and I'd be so happy – then I'd realize he couldn't be, and I'd be angry."

  He nodded. "I've been doing that with Pat. You were right, you know."

  "Was I?" She smiled, pleased. "About what?"

  "I needed to know what he was trying to tell me in my nightmares. The message was pretty simple." His face eased into one of those slow smiles that melted her. "'Get over it.' That's what he wanted me to hear."

  "That's certainly simple." And not very helpful, she thought.

  "It's what I needed to hear. I'd been so busy dragging Pat's death around with me I couldn't remember his life. What he was really like." The muscles under his eyes tightened, and his voice turned rough. "He was one helluva good man, Gwen."

  She didn't answer with words, just scooted closer to him. He put an arm around her, and she leaned her head on his shoulder. "You were right about something, too," she told him.

  "Oh?" He brushed her forehead with a kiss. "What's that?"

  "I need to start asking you questions. No," she said, straightening so she could look him in the eye. "I need to make some things clear."

  "Gwen—"

  "I know you've got a lot still to settle," she said quickly. "Some of it you'll need to work out on your own. But you don't have to be alone while you're working things out. You don't know if you want to stay in the service or not. So what? Unless there's some other reason you don't want me around, I don't see any reason for you to … to end things between us when you go back to the base." There. She'd said it. Her heart was thudding against her ribs. She was terrified. "Unless you have a problem with my money, the way Ben did."

  "I think I've got a handle on that. Seems to me that if you can deal with the fact that I shoot people for a living, I can adjust to you being rich."

  The laugh that bubbled up was a trifle unsteady. "I'm not too crazy about you getting shot at, either. But I guess that's fair."

  "Good. Gwen." He brushed a strand of hair back from her forehead. He was smiling. "I love you."

  "Oh." Her body went light, as if all the sunshine in the world had just poured into her. "Oh," she said again, and touched his cheek. "I love you. I love you so much. I didn't think … Duncan?"

  He understood what she was asking before she knew herself and answered with his arms, his lips and his body. All that sunshine bubbled up and poured from her to him, from him to her.

  Very warm sunshine, it was. She was breathless when she settled her head on his shoulder, breathless and smiling. "That's lovely," she said, meaning all of it – the kiss, his words, his love.

  He sifted his fingers through her hair. "I have a confession to make."

  "Okay."

  "You don't sound too worried."

  "Because I know you don't have anything terrible to confess. You love me. I love you. The rest is details. I'm good at details."

  "This is … a rather important detail. It's about your cancer."

  That did send a tremble of alarm through her. She straightened so she could look at him. "Yes?"

  He licked his lips and looked away. "It scares me."

  She waited. "That's it? That's your confession?"

  "You don't understand. I…" He scrubbed a hand over his face. "I know it's important for you to be able to talk about it. I've listened. I want to listen whenever you need to talk about it, but I don't know if … I'm scared of letting you down. Of saying the wrong thing, letting my own fear make yours worse. You need someone whose head is screwed on better, someone who doesn't break out in a cold sweat when he thinks about … about how it could come back."

  "Duncan." She gripped his arms with her hands. "Are you going to deal with your fear by having an affair?"

  "No! Good God. Of course not."

  "Will you leave me because you can't deal with it?"

  He shook his head impatiently. "That's not what I mean."

  "Well, that's what I mean when I talk about real problems. What matters is that you'll stand by me and I'll stand by you. Maybe neither one of us will know what we're doing half the time. We'll muddle through." He didn't look convinced. "Say the wrong thing to me," she demanded. "Go ahead. Say the wrong thing and see if I fall apart."

  He looked away. "This is stupid."

  "No, it isn't. There's something more bothering you. I can tell."

  "Can you?" He met her eyes again. "All right. I wish like hell you could have my baby someday. And I'm terrified you might try to."

  Her eyes filled. "Me, too," she whispered. "Oh, Duncan, me, too – both the longing and the fear."

  He caught her to him and held her close. A few tears leaked out of her closed eyes and she let them. He stroked her hair.

  "See how well that works?" she said after a moment. "Talking about the details, I mean."

  She felt the muscles of his cheek bunch and knew he was smiling. "While we're talking, there's another detail we need to discuss. Ah … whether you could be happy as the wife of a cop."

  "Duncan!" She sat up straight. "You've decided what you want to do? And you're asking me to marry you?"

  "What did you think I meant when I said I wished you could have my baby?"

  "It's not the same. You didn't ask." She waited, but he didn't get the hint. "You still haven't asked," she pointed out.

  He took her hand. His eyes searched hers, and they were as nakedly open to her as they had been the first time they'd made love. "Will you marry me, Gwen?"

  "Yes." She threw her arms around his neck. "Oh, yes."

  He rocked her. "You don't have the foggiest idea how selfish I'm being, do you? You just went through hell. If I were a little less selfish, I'd give you a chance to get your feet under you again before tying you to me, but I'm not."

  "Now, that's just dumb." She was getting distracted by the smell of him, a man-and-soap scent, mixed with something that was pure Duncan. She kissed his throat. "We need to work on this habit you've fallen into of thinking you don't deserve to be happy."

  "Know what I think?"

  "What?"

  He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her lightly. "I think you're getting damned good at people stuff. And I �
� I've found my forward, and it's with you."

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