by Leigh Riker
Maybe Laila was your best mission, Molly had said.
In the middle of the walk, he stopped. Even though the team had stepped up to help now, he owed Laila more than that. But above all, he owed Molly.
Someday you’ll have to come home, Brigham, his grandmother had told him. Don’t wait until it’s too late.
He had nothing to offer Molly except his love. Why hadn’t he seen it before? That was all she’d ever wanted from him.
At the same instant he turned with Laila screaming her head off, he heard Molly’s voice call out.
“Brig! Wait!”
To his amazement, she was running toward him.
Brig tightened his hold on the baby and he ran, too. They met in the center of the walk, and with Laila between them—and a part of them—he hauled Molly into his arms.
“I can’t leave you like this,” he said hoarsely.
“I can’t let you go like this. Not again.” She spoke into the crook of his neck. “I’ll care for Laila, Brig. It was crazy for me not to offer. Of course I will. There’s no need to take her with you...your teammates will understand.”
She drew away, already lifting—prying—the crying baby from his arms. A second later she rubbed her nose against Laila’s tiny one and the baby stopped fretting. She looked up at Molly with clear recognition in her dark eyes. And smiled that perfect smile.
“You know what you’re getting into here?” he said, his gaze turning serious. “If you take Laila, and something happens to me over there like it did Sean...”
She shook her head. “It can’t. I won’t let it.”
He couldn’t help but smile. She meant it, too. “But if it does...” He insisted she consider the possibility that had been weighing more and more on his mind lately. As she’d said, he was a father now. He had to make contingency plans.
“If something did happen...Laila would stay with me,” Molly said. “I love her, Brig.”
“Okay, then,” he said on a wave of relief. “As soon as I get back to base, I’ll have the proper documents added to my file.”
But Molly hadn’t finished. “One more thing...” She raised up to kiss him. “Brig, I do love you,” she said. “I always have.”
“Same here.” He briefly closed his eyes. “I love you, too, Molly.”
At that moment the door across the street opened and Thomas stepped out. He must have seen the cab. He jogged over to Brig, clapped him on the shoulder and said a few encouraging words that Brig, feeling dazed, frankly didn’t comprehend. All he knew was that he had Thomas’s acceptance after all. Thomas grinned as he plucked Laila from Molly’s embrace, carried her back up the walk and went into the house. The door closed behind him. With no warning for Brig this time.
Alone with Molly, Brig took a shaken breath, knowing the words he was about to utter were the right ones. “So here’s what we’ll do.”
Her eyes were glowing. “Orders, soldier?”
“I learned from the master—the admiral, my mother still calls him. She followed him all over the globe.” He paused. “Could you do that, Molly?”
She appeared to think about that. “I’m not the best traveler, but I did fine on the trip to Indiana. That’s a start.” She smiled. “I’m even better at waiting.”
“But you won’t have to,” he decided. For some time Brig had been pondering the end of his career in black ops. He had Laila to think of now, and pretty soon there’d be new recruits running up his back anyway, eager to take his place, and rightly so. And he had Molly to consider.
He would always take pride in his service—for the rest of his life he’d still be one of them. But several of his teammates had already retired to spend more time with their families. Why had it taken Brig so long to realize that his own priorities had changed, too?
“Listen,” he told Molly as the cabbie blew his horn impatiently. “There’s nothing I can do today about taking off. My team is waiting. Something’s heating up on the Pakistan border—and to set your mind at ease about where I’ll be, I’ve just leaked classified information.” He smiled, only half joking. “But I’ve been thinking for a while now.” He looked into her eyes. “I need to fulfill my obligation for another year, but when that ends, I’ll move on to something...safer.”
She stared at him. “You’d really ‘hang it up’? Take a desk job?”
“No, I’d still want to do something physical. Like training other warriors.” A sudden doubt crossed his mind. “Of course, you’d have to move, at least once—if you can leave Little Darlings.”
Her smile grew, happiness in her eyes. “Brig, I’ve been thinking, too. Even after the commission approved the expansion for Little Darlings, it didn’t feel quite right. Now I know why.” She hesitated, as if mulling over what to say, then she went on in a stronger tone, “I’ve made a decision, too. I’m going to turn the nursery part of the business over to Ann. She’s so good with the babies, and she’s more than capable at managing our staff. But—and this is a concession to Natalie and the neighbors—I’m going to keep the center as it is. There’ll be plenty of room for children from birth to age two who won’t be outdoors to play that much. No noise,” she murmured. “I’ll split the business in half. Then a newer building for the preschoolers can go up on a less residential site. My architect and I can look for the right location here before I leave. I’ll have the year, won’t I?”
“No more than that,” he said.
“I’m already thinking about another idea. What if I started a service near the base for soldiers who are deploying somewhere and have to leave their kids behind? A kind of clearinghouse where people take turns providing in-home care while other parents are gone?” She grinned. “I’ll call it Away from Home.”
“l like it. If you’re willing to, we could buy a nice house in Virginia with plenty of outdoor space for Laila. Let her make all the noise she wants. After the wedding we’ll get right on that and—”
Her eyes widened. “This is a proposal?”
Carpe diem, he thought. Seize the day. “This time a real one.” He pulled Molly close to kiss her. In the background the cabbie honked the horn again, but Brig ignored him. “Will you marry me, Molly Darling?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Yes. You know I will.”
After another, longer kiss he drew away.
“Then that’s settled, too. We’re settled.” He brushed a stray strand of hair from her cheek. “You and Laila start planning the wedding. I promise I’ll be there.”
“I’m counting on you.”
Brig had been about to take a step toward the waiting taxi but stopped. A chill snaked down his spine. “That’s what Sean said to me right before he went to the hospital.”
And at long last, Brig forgave himself for the accident that had taken Sean Denton’s life and Zada’s. Because in honoring his commitment to them and raising Laila with Molly, he would honor his friends, too. He knew they would have liked the woman he loved, liked her as a mother for their child.
Here, in the hometown he’d left so many years ago, he had not only found care for Laila, but in Molly, he’d found care for himself.
Their hands linked, she walked him the rest of the way to the cab. The driver gave them a thumbs-up and grinned. Before he opened the door, Brig slowly released Molly.
“I’ll be back,” he said, holding her gaze with the promise.
“I’ll be waiting.” Molly closed the small distance between them—and the larger one of their past—to kiss him again. “I’d wait for you forever.”
With her vow, his spirit lifted, but he’d taken enough risks in his life. She wouldn’t need to wait long this time. He would do his best to make this mission the shortest, safest, of his career.
Brig climbed into the cab, remembering how he’d come to Liberty Courthouse weeks ago with Laila in the pouring r
ain. This morning the sun was peeking through the clouds, the temperature was milder than it had been all winter and spring was in the air.
The cabbie tooted the horn before driving off toward the airport, leaving Laila’s car seat and bags at the curb. Brig saw Molly waving. On his way to yet another foreign hole-in-the-wall, he watched until, appearing smaller and smaller in the rear window, she finally disappeared. Just for now.
Brig relaxed against the seat cushion, ready for whatever one of his last missions might hold.
Bring it on, he thought.
In his mind, in his heart, he had already come home.
From his own internal war.
Home, at last, to Molly.
* * * * *
We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Heartwarming title.
You’ve got to have heart…. Harlequin Heartwarming celebrates wholesome, heartfelt relationships imbued with the traditional values so important to you: home, family, community and love.
Enjoy four new stories from Harlequin Heartwarming every month!
Connect with us on Harlequin.com for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!
Other ways to keep in touch:
Harlequin.com/newsletters
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
HarlequinBlog.com
ISBN-13: 9781460335550
IF I LOVED YOU
Copyright © 2014 by Leigh Riker
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com