Lucas leaned his head back against the interior of the van. “Fuck. I can’t imagine what I would have done if that had been my girl. You’re right; we need to go back to blowin’ up the bad guys.”
The sound of an irregular beep caught my attention. I turned my head towards the sound to see my Commander pulling a secured satellite phone from his pocket. Jaxon got a weird look on his face as he glanced at the ringing device and then answered the phone.
“Uncle Sam, I hadn’t expected to hear from you while I was on vacation.”
Translation: What the hell are you doing calling me while I am still on a mission?
He was silent for a moment before his brows furrowed and he frowned. “That package isn’t due for another month. Are you sure it’s about to be delivered?”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and my gut churned. The look on my Commander’s face was not good. Suddenly, I had a bad feeling that I was not going to like what he had to say. When he glanced in my direction, I knew I was right to be worried.
“Understood. We’ll rush back so we can be home to sign for the delivery.”
Jaxon flipped his phone shut and then tapped on the small, tinted window that separated the back of the van where we were hiding from the cab our driver sat in. The window slid open, a few clipped Russian words were exchanged between Jaxon and the driver, and then the sliding window slammed shut again. Unexpectedly, the van sped up, and we had to grab on to the edge of the benches to avoid sliding into each other when the driver took a sharp right turn.
Not liking the sudden change in both my Commander and the speed the van was traveling, I leaned towards the man in charge. “What’s going on, Jaxon?”
“It’s time to get you home, Baker.” The matter-of-fact statement, paired with his deadly serious expression, made my stomach sink. Then a slow smile spread across his face until I didn’t think he could possibly grin any wider. “Apparently, your baby girl is on the way.”
Chapter
2
Where had all of the oxygen gone? I couldn’t breathe and was starting to feel light-headed.
A slap on the back from Riley was followed by a chorus of congratulations and jokes about my lack of facial color.
“I think he’s gonna pass out,” Arturo murmured.
“Nah, he’s not gonna faint until he sees his baby girl comin’ out of his woman’s hoo-ha. Once he gets a good view of that and realizes just how far she was stretched to push that little girl out, he’s never going to look at gettin’ laid the same way again,” Lucas joked.
“And just how do you know that, Young?” Jaxon asked him.
“My father warned me and my brothers never to look when the time came for us to have children. Said he made that mistake with my oldest brother and was so worried about what he saw he asked the doctor if he could put a couple of extra stitches in my mom when he sewed her up.”
I could not make myself laugh with the others. I had one thought running on a repeating loop through my mind.
It was too soon.
My baby girl’s due date was not supposed to be for another month. Why in the hell was she coming so early? Was there something wrong?
“Nothing is wrong, Baker. Well, nothing except the fact that your daughter apparently inherited your impatience.” Jaxon snorted.
Looking at him in a daze, I wondered how my commander had known that was what I was worried about. Had I said it out loud?
Jaxon rolled his eyes. “Yes, dumbass, you did. And you still are. Now snap out of your shit and get ready to unload. We should be at the airport any minute now. We’ll load up on our bird and make our way back stateside so you can get home in time for the big event.”
I heard Jaxon’s words, but my head was still swimming.
Belle was having my baby. Again.
I had missed my son’s birth almost fifteen years ago. Now there was a chance I would miss my daughter’s birth, too.
“You’re not going to miss shit, Baker! Now stop talking to yourself or I’m going to slap some sense into you!” Jaxon barked this time. “Jesus. Give him bombs, bullets, and bad guys, and he doesn’t blink an eye. Talk about babies, and he turns into a blubbering idiot.”
It took another ten minutes before our van came to a screeching halt at the airfield. Not waiting for the others, I threw the back doors open and leaped out the back with my gun in my hand before hauling ass to the private jet used to ferry us around on some of our missions.
The plane’s door swung open, and the steps dropped down just as I reached it. I took the steps two at a time to push past our pilot who watched my mad dash with wide eyes.
I was seated and buckled in my seat in thirty seconds flat, which caused our pilot, an Air Force veteran, to go on alert.
“Is there trouble I should know about, Mr. Baker?”
“No bogies behind us, Captain. Just fly this bird out of here the second you get those bozos on board. I’ve got some place to be, and you’re damn well going to get me there!” I barked back.
Was I acting like an asshole? Probably. Did I care? Hell no. My woman was having my baby. If I had to travel at the speed of light, I was going to get there in time to witness this birth. I would be damned if I was going to miss another one.
“Ignore his bad attitude, Captain Burke. He just found out his fiancée went into labor, so he’s anxious to get stateside,” Lucas informed our pilot with a smile as he moved to his seat.
Forgetting I had buckled my belt already, I tried to get up out of my chair to lunge at the man who was supposed to be my friend yet was currently taunting me. Of course, I went nowhere and ended up looking like a dumbass because of it.
Pointing my finger at Lucas who was now seated across from me as the others finished loading onto the plane, I snarled, “I’ll show you bad attitude, asshole, when I shove my size twelve up your ass. One day, it’ll be you with a baby on the way, and I’m going to laugh my ass off.”
Lucas’s face went blank, and the sullen attitude he had left Miami with made a comeback. “Not likely, bro.”
With those three words, the conversation ended, and I felt like a jackass. My battle brother was hurting something fierce, but he would not confide to any of us what exactly had happened before leaving Miami to make him that way. Riley and I suspected it had something to do with that girl from his past he had run into at Ice’s strip club, After Midnight, but no one knew for sure.
Sensing the tense atmosphere, Riley waded in as the peacemaker, as he often was these days since his brother Declan was still out of commission. “You’ll never believe what I walked into the other day when I visited Declan at his temporary house.”
“He was doin’ the nurse?” I joked.
Riley shook his head. “Nope. It was the opposite. The nurse was trying to do him, and he was telling her no. Can you believe that shit? The biggest man-whore we know was trying to fight off a chick who was trying to wrap her lips around his cock while he was all but defenseless in a wheelchair.”
Lucas snorted. “Since when did he become Saint Sullivan and take a vow of chastity?”
Riley’s face became contemplative. “I think that explosion took out more than Declan’s back. I think it might have knocked some sense into him, as well. He hasn’t even so much as flirted with a woman since he woke up in the hospital, asking for one feisty redhead.”
My jaw dropped in shock. “You’re shittin’ me, man. He’s asking for Teagan?”
Riley nodded. “Yeah. You know, I’ve always known there was something different about her when it can to Dec. He doesn’t do repeats like that, but whenever she slipped in to see him, he dropped whatever he was doing. He always got a little broody after he’d wake up to find her gone, too.”
“Those two are a match made in Hell; you know that, right?” I asked him.
Riley shrugged in response. “I’m not so sure, Baker. There’s something about Teagan that gets to my brother, a feat no other woman has ever pulled off. For that reason a
lone, she gets my vote until she fucks it up.”
For the first time since I had met the lady killer known as Declan Sullivan, I was worried about the man. Teagan Roberts might be my woman’s best friend, but she was also a force to be reckoned with. An impenetrable barrier surrounded the woman from letting anyone other than Belle and Seth close. Her childhood had basically ruined her emotionally. I was not sure even a man as driven as Declan would be able to get through that emotional armor she wore.
“Don’t be so worried about Sullivan. He’ll either win the woman over or he won’t,” Lucas muttered.
Bringing my focus back to the somber man, I asked, “And if he doesn’t win her? What does he do then, Lucas?” I was not asking so much about Declan as I was subtly asking about Lucas himself.
Lucas shrugged a shoulder, trying to act nonchalant. “He moves on, Baker. Life is what it is, and sometimes you don’t get what you want. The world doesn’t end, so he’ll learn to move on with the world.”
I was about to ask him if he was learning to move on with the world when the plane started to move, bringing my attention back to what was waiting for me across the ocean.
Grabbing the arms of my chair tightly, I started praying for speed.
Jaxon walked out of the cockpit and took the seat next to me. “Flight time back to the states is almost twelve hours. Captain Burke says he’ll have us there in eleven. It’s the best he can do.”
I blew out a frustrated breath. “Right. Eleven is better than twelve, so I won’t bitch.”
Jaxon’s lips tipped up in a smile. “You know—”
The look on his face was the one he gave us before he came up with some whacked out motivational story to ‘help’ us somehow. “Sir, you’re not about to tell me some shit about Confucius, are you? Because, frankly, right now, Confucius can go blow it out of his ass.”
My Commander barked out a laugh. “I’m not a Confucius fan, Baker. Sun Tzu, on the other hand… The Art of War should be a mandatory read for every soldier, in my opinion. But, since you bring up Confucius, this reminds me of something he said. ‘It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.’ ”
I was pretty sure my left eye was starting to twitch in frustration. “With all due respect, sir, if you’re going to spend eleven hours quoting dead guys, I might duct tape your mouth shut and stuff you in the bathroom.”
“Don’t get your panties in a wad, Baker. I’m just trying to keep your mind off Belle and your baby since it’s such a long flight.”
I shook my head in disagreement. “Nothing is going to take my mind off them. My little girl is a month early, and I have no idea why. Right now, there’s nothing more important in this world than them. I won’t feel better until I can see for myself that everything is okay.”
Jaxon reached out, clamped a hand on my shoulder, and squeezed. “Have faith, Baker. It’ll be okay.”
“Faith got me through fifteen years without the love of my life. What faith did not get me is the time I lost with my son. I’ll always have faith, sir, but sometimes it’s up to us to make it happen. This is me making damn sure I don’t miss one more second with my family. I’m sure you can understand that.”
A sad look crossed his face. “More than you know, Baker. I understand more than you know.”
Chapter
3
I spent eleven hours repeating a mantra of steps in my head.
One: Make it through the long ass flight without killing anyone.
Two: Get off the fucking plane and to the hospital.
Three: Pray like my life depends on it that I have not missed my daughter’s birth.
Four: Give my woman a kiss.
Five, which was conditional on whether my little girl had arrived or not, and I was sure as hell hoping not: Watch the delivery of my second child.
I had silently dubbed it Mission Delivery.
It looked like I was going to successfully complete the first step of my mission by not killing anybody. The plane was on a descent, which was good news. However, if any of the boys cracked another joke about my fidgeting, I was going to give in to my growing annoyance and knock them the fuck out. Jaxon was not helping the situation, either. He kept trying to talk about famous dead guys I knew nothing about and giving advice. Although I thought the world of my commander, I was about to tell him where he could take that advice and shove it.
The second our plane’s wheels touched the runway, I was unbuckling my seat belt. My team members would be hard pressed to keep me from jumping out of the plane before it stopped so I could hurry up and get the hell out of there. If it were not for the knowledge that I would hurt myself, and therefore delay getting to Belle, then that was exactly what I would do. Eleven hours on a plane with nothing except thoughts about my family had me on edge.
I was waiting by the door when the plane finally rolled to a stop. It took me approximately thirty valuable seconds to open the door, and then I was sprinting down the stairs like a madman. I left my gun, my teammates, and my commander behind without a second thought. I was full steam ahead … until I saw who was standing before me.
My son Seth … and Sheriff Charlie Jenkins.
If I had a nemesis, it would be him. The man had warmed Belle’s bed periodically through several years of his friendship with her during the time we were apart. He had also been half in love with her and asked her several times for a committed relationship, which she had turned down every time. If his friends with benefits relationship with my woman was not bad enough, Jenkins had been the closest thing to a father figure my son had when I had not even known Seth existed. I had a million reasons to hate the asshole, but because of two reasons I was stuck with him on the proverbial edges of my life—Belle and Seth.
Walking up to Seth, I wrapped my arm around his shoulders and gave him a hug. “How’s your mom?”
My boy fidgeted from side to side. “She’s good, Dad, but we should hurry up and go. I don’t like being away from the hospital.”
I took the keys from Jenkins’s outstretched hand as I headed towards Belle’s big black pickup truck. Seth was already climbing in the passenger side as I started to round the back end when Jenkins stopped me.
“Baker, wait a minute.”
I turned to face him, noting the leery look on his face. “Listen, I know you’re not my biggest fan—”
I snorted. That was the understatement of the century.
Jenkins ignored me and kept going. “Regardless of what happened between Belle and me, we were always friends first. That’s not something I want to lose. I don’t have any family left except for Belle and Seth. I don’t want to steal your family; I just don’t want to lose them completely, either. I’ll never poach your territory. All it took was one look at you and Belle together, and I knew it had always been you. We don’t have to be best friends, but I’m asking you to not push me out of their lives.”
Damn, I wanted to hate the man. With every fiber of my being. However, he had been there for Belle and Seth when I had not. A part of me appreciated that my family had not been left completely alone. They’d had friends like Jenkins to help them out.
He was right; we would never be close. I would light myself on fire before that ever happened. However, I guessed I could be a little less hostile so my woman and son didn’t lose someone who was obviously important to them.
Reluctantly, I held my hand out to him to shake.
Cautiously, Jenkins reached out and grabbed it.
We shook like two men making a deal that grated on our very nerves, but at least it was a start.
Without saying another word, we separated and climbed up into the truck on our respective sides. Me in the driver’s seat and Jenkins sitting in the back behind Seth.
My son was eyeing us both carefully as I turned the truck to head out of the private section of the airport.
“I hope you’re not mad I called Charlie, Dad.”
I shook my head back in answer. “Don’t worry about C
harlie and me getting along, Seth. I understand he’s important to you and your mom. I wouldn’t do anything to take that away from the both of you.”
When my boy stayed quiet, I took a peek at him and saw a mischievous look on his face.
He smirked then asked, “Does this mean we can all go camping now?”
The muscles in my left eye started to twitch again. “Son, do I look like the sort who wants to hold hands and sing Kumbaya?”
Seth laughed. “How about a fishing trip instead?” My boy did like to push his luck.
“Maybe,” I answered grudgingly, and Jenkins snorted a laugh behind me. It was time to change the subject. “What happened to your mom, Seth?”
He wiped his hands down his face. “She was taking a nap, slept for about two hours. When she came out of her room, she told me to call a taxi and get her hospital bag. I knew it was too early, and she seemed sort of freaked, so I asked her what was wrong. Mom said she was leaking, or some shit like that. I didn’t ask any more questions. No offense, Dad, but I don’t really want to know what was leaking, ya know?”
Huffing a laugh, I said, “I get you, buddy. If I were you, I wouldn’t have wanted to know what was leaking, either.”
“Anyways, I grabbed her stuff, we got to the hospital, and Mom kicked me out of the examination room because she said I would be scarred for life. So I stepped out of the room and started making phone calls. First to that emergency number you left me, then Aunt Teagan, and then finally Charlie.”
Not willing to comment on the Jenkins situation, I switched gears. “You get a hold of your Aunt Teagan?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Seth shake his head. “They said they would pass on a message that Mom was in labor. That was all.”
“Okay. Did the doctor come out and tell you what was going on?”
“Yeah. He said Mom and the baby are okay and my little sister decided to poke a hole in her amniotic sac. If Mom doesn’t go into labor naturally within twenty-four hours, they’ll have to induce her because she’ll risk getting an infection that could harm both her and the baby.”
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