“This is a good shock,” Gray soothed. “Ready for a hot bath?”
She handed him the emptied coffee cup. “Yes, but I can walk, Gray. Really, I can.”
He rose and smiled down at her. “I want to do it for you, baby. Let me draw the water for you, all right?”
She sat there enveloped in the warmth burning in his eyes, that careless smile curving his delicious mouth she wanted to kiss again. “Thank you, Gray.”
“Want some breakfast?” he asked, hesitating at the door.
“I’m not really hungry,” she murmured, automatically moving her hand across her belly. “But I have to eat....”
Nodding, he said, “Bacon? Two eggs? Toast?”
“Sounds wonderful,” Sky agreed. Pulling the covers aside, she pushed her legs across the mattress, the floor feeling cool beneath her feet. “Now,” she teased him, “you are going to let me walk on my own two legs to the bathroom, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. “This time. But you never know when I just might pick you up in my arms and carry you.” He grinned broadly and pushed away from the door, disappearing silently down the hall.
Sky sat on the edge of the bed, absorbing the silence in the farmhouse, the place where she’d grown up happy and loved. The robin outside her window was singing, and it made her feel a sense of peace she’d not felt since being tortured. Being home, having Gray here with her, the fact her father had dodged a bullet that could have killed him, all moved slowly around in her bruised heart. Looking around, she smoothed the sheet she sat on with her hand, feeling the material beneath her fingertips.
She was happy. Happier than she could ever recall. Lifting her chin, Sky stared at the empty doorway. And it was all because of Gray. Her heart swelled so powerfully with feelings of love for him, she sat there with her eyes closed, simply absorbing those wonderful emotions. In a span of three days, her life had been turned on its head, and she’d found herself nearly out of control, the threat of losing her father, the terrible things that lay between them unsaid and misunderstood.
With a sigh, Sky pushed off the bed. She slid her fingers through her uncombed hair and slowly walked toward the door. It felt as if she were walking through another door, another chapter in her life. A much better one. Filled with hope and love.
* * *
GRAY’S CELL PHONE rang when she was climbing out of the tub. She could hear Gray’s deep voice beyond the door, and she wondered if it was her mother calling about her father. Worried, Sky brushed her teeth, combed her ginger hair into some kind of order and got dressed. She padded out of the steamy bathroom and into the hall. The air was filled with the scent of bacon frying. Aiming herself toward the kitchen, she found Gray working over the stove.
“Who called?” she asked, stepping over to the counter, watching him lift the bacon out of the skillet and onto a plate.
“Good news,” Gray said, giving her a glance. “That was Cade Garner from the sheriff’s office.”
Frowning, Sky had completely forgotten about the other threat hanging over their lives. “Oh?”
Gray shrugged. “Well, maybe not good news, but it’s an end to our problems with Harper and his gang.” He put a paper towel over the bacon, absorbing the grease from it. “Cade said that Chuck Harper was found this morning at Ace Trucking with a bullet in the back of his head.”
Gasping, Sky stared at him. Automatically, her hand went to her belly, as if to protect her baby. “What?”
Gray took her by the arm and led her over to the table. He pulled out a chair. He had the plates on the table, two eggs on each one, toast ready to be buttered. “It was a professional hit.” He went to the stove and picked up the platter of bacon and set it before her. “Cade thinks the Garcia drug ring was really pissed off at Harper. He’d sent those two guys after me, and it failed. And then they had to spring those two from jail.” He sat down, holding her stunned expression. “Cade said drug-ring lords don’t give people like Harper a second chance when they screw up that badly.”
“God,” Sky whispered, her hand against her throat, staring at Gray. She swallowed hard. “What does it mean for you, Gray? Will that ring come after you now?”
“No,” he rasped, gripping her hand, seeing the fear come to her eyes. “I’m in agreement with Cade on this one, baby. The ringleaders don’t want this kind of high profile where they’re trying to house and distribute drugs. They want this all to go away. By taking out Harper, they’ll install another lieutenant in their organization to take over Ace Trucking.” He patted her hand, seeing the fear subside in her eyes. “And I’m sure they’re wanting a guy who will keep a very low profile, not be on the sheriff’s list like Harper continued to be. Come on. Eat up.”
Sky barely tasted the salty bacon, but she ate. Her mind whirled with the implications of the news. “So, Cade thinks you’re safe now?”
“Yes.” Gray cut up his eggs. More important, Harper wouldn’t be a blight in Sky’s life every time she went to town. He didn’t have to worry about the bastard following her, threatening her. Gray would never tell Sky, but he was damned glad Harper was dead. It solved all their problems, as far as he was concerned. In Sky’s present condition, he wasn’t going to discuss it with her. He could see another kind of relief in her expression, however, understanding she would be safe to go to town by herself now.
“Wow,” Sky murmured, buttering the toast on her plate. “So much is happening all at once.”
“We can hold on to one another during this storm,” he said. He saw her cheeks begin to flush, her flesh no longer translucent and tense. “And this morning when I got up, I called Iris.”
Sky stopped eating for a moment. “You told her I was pregnant? That my father pulled through?”
“I did.” Gray saw more relief in her eyes, understanding Sky was fragile, and she wouldn’t be up for the Elk Horn Ranch family coming and visiting her, hugging her and making a fuss over Sky. “Iris is ecstatic that you’re pregnant. She said that she would hire another woman to take your place right away because you needed to rest.” He saw her relax and close her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, he added, “Iris isn’t upset with you, Sky. She’s happy for all three of us because I told her I would be taking care of you from now on.”
“I’m just so glad she’s not upset with me, Gray.”
“Your PTSD makes you think the worst, not the best,” he said, cleaning up everything on his plate. He pointed his chin in the direction of her plate. “Keep eating.”
Grinning a little, Sky made a real effort to eat everything. “You really are a helicopter father, McCoy.”
“Guilty as charged,” Gray said. He wanted Sky to smile a whole lot more. And he silently promised her he would move heaven and hell to give her that kind of space and environment. He wanted Sky to flourish.
“What time is our flight back to Jackson Hole?” she asked, finishing off the second piece of toast.
“3:00 p.m.”
“I want to see my parents.”
Gray stood and cleared the plates. “We’ll leave in about an hour,” he said, putting the plates in the sink. Sky had chosen a pale lavender T that beautifully outlined her upper body, the fabric hugging her small breasts. She wore a loose-fitting pair of gray gym pants, and he wondered if her waist was expanding, the elastic giving her relief from the tightness of wearing the jeans she normally wore. He sat down at her elbow, holding her soft gaze that shone with love for him alone.
“We have one more very important thing to address,” he told her. Gray pulled a small box from his hands and set it before her. Taking her hands, he rasped, “Will you marry me, Sky? Be my best friend? My lover? My life?”
Her eyes widened in surprise. Her lips parted and then she looked down at the red velvet jewelry box and then up at him.
“Gray...” She whispered unsteadily, staring at
him, feeling tears prick her eyes.
Releasing her hands, he gave her a smile and slowly opened the box, revealing a wedding ring set. “I’d been holding on to these for the last two months, baby. I was waiting for the right time to ask you. Every day, I’d get up, thinking this was the day. And then something would happen, and I knew it wasn’t the right day. And then your father falling ill, possibly dying, really was more important, so I just packed the rings with me, hoping against hope he wouldn’t die.”
A soft sound caught in her throat as she stared in disbelief at the rings. The engagement ring consisted of seven channel-cut diamonds set into the ring. The wedding band was thin gold and engraved with a floral pattern around it. “Gray...” She reached out, her fingertips barely brushing them.
“Well?” he prodded with a grin. “Want to marry me, Sky?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice catching. “Yes.”
Gray eased the engagement ring out of the bed of the box. “I wanted something that was practical for you, Sky. The diamonds are cut to lie in a channel on the ring so they can’t be torn out and lost.” He took her left hand, hoping like hell it would fit. Gray had had to guess. The ring slipped on her finger as if it were meant to be there. When he saw Sky lift her hand, looking at the ring, Gray knew she liked it. And it was beautiful, like her.
“I— It’s stunning, Gray. And you knew two months ago?”
Gray felt relief because Sky clearly loved the rings. Sitting back in his chair, he said, “In truth, baby, I knew it the first day I met you. I had a hell of a tug-of-war with myself because from the get-go, I was so powerfully drawn to you, I didn’t know what to do. What to make of it.” He opened his hands and held her glistening gaze. “I need to tell you about my first marriage to Julia.”
Sky nodded. Gray had told her early on he’d been married before and that Julia had died. He hadn’t told her how. Seeing Sky’s eyes darken and become serious-looking, he pushed on. “Like you, Julia was an R.N. She worked for Healing Hands Charity, a global NGO, nongovernmental organization. Julia had devoted her life to the Quechua people of Peru. I met her because Liz Standsworth, the owner of the charity, wanted someone like myself who could protect her out on the trail. There was a lot of drug running in the area.” He frowned. “Six months after we met, we fell in love. I tried to get Julia to leave Peru because the drug war was heating up in the area. She refused. And then she started getting personality changes. She went back to the States for a checkup. Came back.” He shrugged, his voice lowering. “She had an inoperable brain tumor and was given six months to live.”
“Oh, no,” Sky whispered, her hand pressed to her lips, seeing the pain in Gray’s expression.
“I wanted to marry her right away.” He shrugged. “I would spend the last six months with her. So we did. We were flown into a village, and when we landed with medical supplies, a Russian mafia gang hit us. I was shot and went down. Julia ran between where I fell and the gunmen in the jungle.” He slowly rubbed his hands and remained silent for a moment. Looking up, he held Sky’s pained-looking gaze. “Julia died instantly. I recovered and came back to the States. That was two years ago.”
“Were you over her before you met me?” Sky wondered, feeling deeply for Gray, for his tragic loss.
“I didn’t know it, but I was,” he admitted quietly, rubbing his hands along his thighs. “I fell for you hard, Sky. I didn’t have a relationship in my mind, but when I saw you, things happened.” He gave her a slight smile. “It was then I realized my grieving for Julia had run its course. I’ll never forget her, Sky.” He touched his heart. “She’ll always be a part of me.”
“As well she should,” Sky agreed, her voice strained because she realized other things now. “When Harper hit on me, this must have caused you a lot of worry.”
Gray sighed and nodded. “It did. And then when his men tried to kill me, I felt like I was doing a rerun of what had happened down in Peru.”
“You were afraid you’d lose me to a drug runner’s bullet, too?” She stared at him, seeing the anguish set deep in his eyes. His mouth had tightened, as if he were barricading himself against the truth.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Why didn’t you share this with me earlier, Gray?”
“Because,” he said gently, giving her a loving look, “you were combating PTSD. This would have been just one more load for you to carry, Sky. I wasn’t about to put it on your shoulders.”
“Okay, that’s fair. I guess if I were in your shoes, knowing how hard I was struggling, I’d probably have made the same decision.”
“Thanks for understanding.”
“Promise me one thing?”
“Anything,” Gray said.
“If there’s ever anything you need to get off your chest, you come to me? We talk it out? I don’t want you seeing me as someone who can’t handle real life. Because I can, Gray.”
He saw the spark of determination in Sky’s set expression and grinned. “That’s a promise, baby, that’s going to be easy to keep from here on out.”
She nodded, satisfied. A marriage was about sharing, partners helping one another, not one spouse carrying all the loads by himself.
“But you fell in love with me anyway. Even after what happened to Julia?”
Gray nodded. “Yes. I figured it out a month into our relationship.” He extended his hand, drawing her right hand into his. “I wasn’t sure you loved me, Sky, but I got the rings made, and I held on to them, hoping that someday, you would tell me you loved me.”
“And I never did.”
“Well, I didn’t, either. For obvious reasons now.”
“Because I was afraid, too, Gray. I knew I loved you early on. We were good in bed, and you were helping me thrive. I was afraid that I was a yoke around your neck, that my PTSD symptoms were going to eventually destroy what we had.” Sky shook her head and gave him a look of apology. “I was so scared of losing you, Gray. And I was even more scared of admitting how I felt about you.”
He snorted and shook his head, his fingers growing more firm over hers. “And here I was understanding your first priority was getting your life back and in some semblance of order after what you went through. I held off saying anything, baby, because I thought by me telling you I loved you, it could be seen as one more stress on you. One more brick on that load you were carrying already.”
Sky lifted his hand and kissed the back of it. “We are really a pair, aren’t we?”
“And then some,” Gray agreed, sharing a slight grin with her. “I told you I loved you last night when you were crying, but I didn’t think you heard it.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t.”
“Just as well,” Gray said, getting up. He pulled Sky into his arms, feeling her body against his, her arms sliding around his neck. He leaned down, taking her mouth with all the tenderness he had in his heart for Sky. That wonderful sound caught in her throat, and she melted like hot honey into his arms. She was his. She would be his wife!
Suddenly, Gray’s entire world shifted and refocused as he felt her smile beneath his lips. He had a treasure beyond his imagination. Sky was so courageous, always a fighter, always trying to get well. His admiration for her inner strength, her ability to reach out to love him despite her tragic wounding, never ceased to amaze Gray. She whispered his name, reached up on her tiptoes and kissed him with all her womanly love.
* * *
ALEX AND BALIN PASCAL traded looks of shock. Not only had Gray McCoy appeared out of the blue, but Sky had just revealed that she was pregnant and that they were going to get married.
Balin burst out into tears, her hands against her face as she sobbed. Alex slid his arm around his wife, tears in his eyes, too. But they were tears of happiness. Balin stood up, going over to her daughter, enfolding her gently. “This is so wonderful, Sky. I�
��m so happy for you...for Gray,” she said, eyeing her future son-in-law warmly.
“Thanks, Mom. It means so much to us that you’re happy for us.”
Gray held Alex Pascal’s gaze. Was the man happy? He seemed somber. Maybe thoughtful. Gray had never met him until a few minutes ago, when he’d shaken the man’s hand. He could see the telltale marks of a black-ops warrior in Sky’s father, even though Alex looked pale and was recovering from a near-fatal illness. He noticed how Sky got her blue eyes from him.
Tension raced through Gray because above all, he didn’t want her father to rail about how his daughter had gotten pregnant out of wedlock. A lot of people nowadays didn’t care about that, but military people were more conservative. And maybe Pascal was one of them. Gray didn’t mind if Pascal took him on, but there was no way he was coming after Sky again. Alex had already wounded his daughter so deeply that she almost hadn’t survived his emotional and verbal assault against her.
Balin patted Sky’s shoulder, sniffing and smiling through her tears. “Do you know yet? A boy? A girl?”
Sky shook her head. “No, I won’t find out for a while. I have to get to Dr. McPherson, and when we know, we’ll let you know, okay?”
Balin smiled and slid her arm around Sky. “I’m so happy, Sky. This is a good surprise.”
“A happy ending,” Sky agreed, sniffing, too. She took a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose. With Gray standing tensely at her side, she felt the energy between the two men in her life. Their gazes were locked with one another. Like two alpha wolves circling one another, sniffing one another out, testing one another. She slid her fingers into Gray’s hand. And then she gave her father a longing look.
“Dad? Are you okay with this?” He was so hard to read. But he’d been that way all of Sky’s life. She felt tension radiating off Gray, as if he were getting ready to go into battle. He didn’t know her father like she did, and she was sure Gray didn’t trust him. Not after what he’d already done to her.
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