by Soraya Lane
“Technically, I’m not military, but I get your drift. But what’s your problem with it, exactly?”
She sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, I respect any man or woman who serves our country. I’m one hell of a patriot; I just don’t like my family being in the line of fire.”
Humor shone from Noah’s gaze, and she knew he was about to make fun of her, try to embarrass her, only this time she was prepared.
“So if I quit the Navy you’d date me—is that what you’re saying?”
She felt the flush rise from her neck up into her cheeks, and no amount of fighting it helped. Bella held her chin up, refused to let him see how easily he could affect her with his choice of words. She could tell he was enjoying teasing her.
“Did I not mention the whole douchebag thing?” She was proud of her words, liked that she’d actually come back with something instead of hiding behind her wine.
“Douchebag . . . that’s interesting,” he replied, eyes fixed on hers. “And reminds me—did I forget to mention that I wasn’t drunk enough to forget our kiss? You didn’t seem to think I was a douchebag then.”
She shuddered, being deliberately dramatic. “Don’t go there, Noah. Just don’t.”
His laugh sent shivers down her spine and made her belly swirl. She hated the way he could make her feel.
“All I’m saying is that you didn’t seem to mind me so much that night.”
She took a big breath and raised her chin, refused to surrender. “We all make mistakes, Noah. I’m just lucky I realized mine within seconds.”
Noah finished his drink and set the glass down, then rose to retrieve the bottle. He wasn’t big on wine, but it was going down just fine, and he was liking getting Bella all riled up.
“You know, you should be like this more often,” he called out, seeing the baby monitor on the table and grabbing it on his way past, once he had the bottle in hand.
“Like what?”
She suddenly jumped up as he leaned forward with the wine, bumping straight into his shoulder.
“Oh my God, the monitor!” she went to rush past him, and he held it up.
“It’s fine—I’ve got it.”
“They could have been crying, calling out, and I’d—”
“Have heard them,” he assured her. “We would have heard the monitor from here, don’t worry.”
She stared at him for a long minute and then sat back down, holding out her glass. “Fill me up. And talk about that damn kiss one more time, and I’ll give you a serious black eye.” Bella’s smile was slow. “And a bloody nose.”
“I think we get along better when we’re drinking,” he joked, not bothering to acknowledge her threat. He knew when to push, and he also knew he’d almost pushed her too far.
Bella laughed, snuggling back into the sofa again. “You reckon? Because I’m pretty sure we’ve both been drinking whenever I’ve ended up thinking you’re a jerk. I doubt tonight’s going to be an exception.”
“Ouch.” Usually hearing anyone talk bad about him was water off a duck’s back, but suddenly he actually gave a damn what Bella thought of him. He had no idea why, but Gray had loved her, and he kind of wanted to impress her. Although all the thoughts he’d once had about wanting to take her to bed had to go—hadn’t he already given himself that pep talk? Noah glanced over at her again, at the way her tank top had slid low to show off a lacy bra, at her jean-clad legs tucked underneath her and the cute pink toenails peeking out. Damn. She might be uptight and seriously not his type, but he doubted any heterosexual man could be staring at her right now and not think wicked thoughts.
“So how are we going to make this work?” she asked, killing the flirt and pulling them back to reality. “What’s the plan?”
“We live here together, we share looking after the kids, and we just make it work as best we can. We need to agree to disagree on some things and just figure it out along the way.” He knew she’d hate that, that she was big on planning.
She gave him a look he couldn’t decipher. “So you’re planning on staying?” she asked. “I mean, permanently?”
“It’s what Gray wanted, and from what it said in the will, Lila, too. Besides, I’ve signed the paperwork.”
Her tone was as hesitant as her expression when she finally replied. “I just wasn’t sure if you’d want to do it—long term, I mean. Whether you could do it. It’s going to be . . . tough.”
He nodded, annoyed that she thought so little of him that she expected him to bail when the going got tough. “Sorry to say, but you’re stuck with me. I’m hanging around for the long haul.”
“I’m just worried about the kids losing you, too. About how I explain to them when you have to go away.”
“You explain it to them like Gray and Lila always did. They got it.” He shrugged. “Kids are resilient. They understand things so long as they’re explained.”
“I just wonder if they’d be better off without—”
“Without what? Me?” he scoffed. “Seriously, if you think they’re better off without me because there’s a chance I might not come back from an assignment, then you’re crazier than I thought. Hell, I could get hit by a car tomorrow and be gone.”
“Nice,” she muttered, putting her glass down with a bang on the coffee table.
“Bella, I didn’t mean it like that. Bad choice of words,” he tried to apologize.
“You know what? Don’t bother,” she said, standing. “I need to get some sleep. I’m in the master; the spare is all made up. Make yourself at home.”
He should have told her to go to hell, that he wasn’t the villain here. That the kids were better off with him in their lives. Only he wasn’t sure he was right. There was no way he was going to walk away from the boys, not when he’d promised Gray a thousand times over that he’d look after them if anything ever happened to him. But what the hell did he know about being a dad? He hadn’t had one of his own when he was a kid, had been taken in by Gray’s family when he was fourteen, long after he’d bounced from one crappy foster home to another.
Instead of snapping at her, being an asshole, he rose and stopped her, hand on her arm.
“Just let me go, Noah,” she said, not looking at him.
“Bella, I’m not going anywhere,” he murmured.
“You’ve already said that.”
“Just give me a chance,” he said. “Give me a chance to help look after these kids instead of expecting me to be a fuck-up.”
She still didn’t look at him, but her body softened, her arm no longer rigid as he held her.
“Can you just give me that?” Noah asked.
Bella finally lifted her gaze, brown eyes hard to read. “Yeah, I can give you that.”
He wished he hadn’t touched her or stood so close to her in the first place. She smelled like shampoo and perfume, nothing overpowering—just a light aroma that stayed with him even as she walked away. Noah listened to her head up the stairs, the just-audible creak of the floorboards as she disappeared for the night. Then with one hand, he retrieved both their glasses by the stems and with the other, picked up the bottle.
Life had a way of changing course when he least expected it, just like it had so many years ago for him. He walked into the kitchen, left her glass in the sink, and poured a little more into his, sitting alone at the table. He needed a moment to think, to gather his thoughts. Because he wasn’t good at dealing with this shit, with the memories that plagued him, even though he’d told Bella otherwise, made out like he could compartmentalize and not blame himself for things.
When he’d thought no one loved him, when life couldn’t get any worse, along came Gray’s parents. They figured out he was alone, found out that he was skipping out on foster families and bouncing around the system, and they made it their mission to take him in. It had taken them a while to get the paperwork sorted; they’d paid a lawyer even though he knew for a fact they hadn’t had a lot of spare cash at the time, and they’d been the first people in his l
ife to do what they’d promised. Teachers had felt sorry for him and offered to help, given him lunch and done their best, but no one had ever really stepped up and followed through, actually helped him out when they said they would, even though he’d come to school with countless black eyes and bruises. But Gray’s family had been different, and so had Gray.
Tears pooled in his eyes as he sipped his wine, the room dark except for the light in the kitchen and the lamps Bella had left on. He missed Gray like crazy, and he doubted he’d ever get over losing his best mate. He didn’t let the first sob escape until the house was dead silent, until he knew for sure that Bella was behind a closed door, and even then he suffered in silence, let his body heave but forced the noise down.
“I’ll do it even if it kills me,” he muttered once he’d composed himself, hoping that Gray could hear him, looking skyward. “Those boys are gonna be loved. If it’s the one thing I do in this lifetime, it’ll be making sure those boys are loved and looked after every damn day of their lives.”
He finished the wine, swallowing his guilt and pain along with it, before putting his glass in the sink and flicking out all the lights. He trudged up the stairs in the dark and headed for his room, almost pausing for a second outside Bella’s and then cursing himself for being so stupid. She’d made her feelings for him brutally clear more than once, and if she wanted him in her bedroom, she wouldn’t have walked off in a huff for bed. But no matter how much she tried to push him away, something about Bella made him curious, especially now he’d seen her let her guard down a little. He’d always known Bella the perfectionist, Bella the interior designer, and now he’d seen Bella at home, Bella with the boys. And it was this second version of Bella that intrigued him.
Noah pushed open the door to his room, stripped, and slipped beneath the covers. He’d hardly slept in days, which meant he was well overdue for some shut-eye.
CHAPTER FIVE
August 2014
Dear Bella,
I’m worried about you. Seriously, you need to go on a second date with one of these guys! Give one of them a chance. They can’t all be as bad as you think, and don’t keep comparing them to Brody. He was a first-class jerk, and I know all it’s done is make you hate military guys even more than you already did, but geez, do you want to end up alone? The crazy cat lady? I know you don’t actually have any cats yet, but you’re already worrying me. It’s okay to say yes and have fun and let your hair down. I don’t want you being so careful that you end up at fifty alone and wishing you’d opened yourself up a little more. I saw you hurt, and I saw you fight back, and I believe in that strong woman. I believe in you, and I want you to be happy.
I love you, Sis, but you need your own Gray, not just me in your corner. Someone who has your back, someone to love you, someone to have gorgeous little Bella babies with. See you next week, and if you haven’t been on a second date with one of those guys by the time I get back, then I’m going to take your love life into my hands, okay?
It’s tough over here. The things I’m seeing, the things I hear. It’s scary to be a woman in this position, knowing what I know. But if we don’t have strong women in the world, prepared to fight for a cause, it’d be a pretty sad world. I know we have to disagree sometimes, but I honestly do feel like this is my calling, that I’m doing the right thing by being here. Even if I miss home so bad that it’s almost crippling some days, the pain I feel at being away from my boys.
Lila xxoo
Noah woke with a start, bolt upright at the noise. His heart was racing, pulse igniting as he threw the covers off and leaped from the bed, pulling on his boxers as he ran out the door.
“What’s happened?” he muttered as he watched Bella disappear into the boys’ room. The scream was piercing, would have damn near woken the dead it was so loud.
He rushed in after her, saw her bent over the bed, arms engulfing one of the boys in a cocoon. Then the other woke and when he realized it was Will, he took the initiative and dropped to the boy’s bed, pulling him up to hold him.
Noah stared at Bella, still bleary-eyed and trying to figure out what the hell was going on. “This happen every night?” he asked, hoping he was wrong.
She nodded. He could see her clearly with the two nightlights in the room sending out a soft wash of light. “It’s getting worse, not better,” she murmured, soothing him as she cuddled, one hand stroking Cooper’s hair, the other holding him tight as she held him to her body. “It’s why I sometimes just put them in bed with me from the start, so we all get a decent sleep.”
“Am I doing the right thing?” Noah asked, nervous as hell all of a sudden, even though he was used to doing so much with the boys. He wasn’t used to doing the hard stuff, though—he’d always been the fun uncle who could pump them full of sugar, send them crazy playing in the yard, and then flee the scene. And he sure as hell wasn’t used to dealing with their emotional needs.
“You’re fine.” Her smile was soft, her face serene, even though Cooper was still crying, his little body shuddering every so often as he tried to catch his breath, traumatized from whatever had woken him. He was clutching his toy bunny as hard as he was holding on to Bella, the toy squished to his face.
Noah got it, and he knew Gray would have, too. If Cooper was having night terrors, then it was something Noah could deal with, something he could work on with him. The terrors were the worst part of his job, the flashbacks, waking up cold and sweaty, sheets tangled and damp from memories that wouldn’t go away and that hit when you were least expecting them. He blinked, taking a deep breath and pushing them away like he always did, not letting them get to him. Just because he knew the theory about how to help didn’t mean it had worked on him.
“What do we do now?” he whispered, thinking Will had fallen asleep, but too scared to put him down in case he woke. He was feeling hot, on the verge of breaking out in a sweat, having to hold the little guy.
“I think I’ll take Cooper into bed with me,” she said, struggling to stand with the big four-year-old in her arms. Noah wanted to reach out to steady her, but Will had suddenly tightened his already vice-like grip on him.
“Not without me,” Will cried out, suddenly wide-awake. “I want Bella, too.”
Bella sighed and nodded at him, walking from the room. “Bring him in. Can you just lie him down on the other side of me?”
Noah followed, glancing away when he noticed how short Bella’s nightie was. It had ridden up high, was showing off almost all her thigh and her butt, and when they passed the nightlight, he was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing underwear. When she dropped to put Cooper down, he crossed to the other side and laid Will down, except Will wasn’t letting go of him, arms looped firmly around his neck.
“What do I do here?” he asked, suspended over the bed.
Bella turned, Cooper still in her arms. “Won’t he let go?”
Noah shook his head. “No.” It was harder to see in Bella’s room, although a small light from the hall was on so he could just make out her face, hair tangled around her from the way Cooper had been looping it through his fingers.
“You might have to hop in with us all,” she said. “Sorry.”
Noah put Will down gently and lay down beside him, his body tight to his, length to length now they were on the bed. His body temperature rose instantly, not used to being jammed so tight to a little person who seemed to be trying to attach to him like glue. He also wasn’t used to sharing a bed with . . . anyone. He liked his own space, especially because he knew that he was usually woken in the night by his own terrors.
“’Night,” Noah said, voice low and quiet, refusing to give in when the boys were so settled finally.
“Thanks, Noah,” Bella whispered back.
He didn’t know what it was, but something about Bella’s tone softened something inside him, told him that he needed to give her a break even when she blew at him as icy as the Antarctic. Neither of them had banked on this happening, on having to step up and figu
re out how to make the best out of the worst situation, but here they were.
He wriggled one arm free of Will, the other still wrapped around him. Gray would be having a chuckle at him now. He had Bella in his bed, something they’d always joked about happening only when hell froze over, and Gray’s two boys were making sure he wasn’t going to get close to her.
Bella stretched and had to thrust her arm out to stop from falling out of bed. Light was filtering in, the sun already starting to shine, and she moved away from Cooper. He was like a tangle of limbs to sleep with, and her neck was sore from having him half on top of her all night.
“Morning.”
“Noah!” She glanced down, quickly adjusted her nightie to make sure she wasn’t showing any nipple. Her breasts were straining to escape, the fabric all twisted around her. “I forgot we were all sharing the bed.”
“You get much sleep?” he asked, rubbing at his eyes.
“A little. You?”
He shook his head, pulling up into a sitting position, doing the same kind of extraction she just had. Noah’s chest was bare, his shoulders against the fabric headboard, fabric she’d chosen for Lila when she was designing her interior. Her sister hadn’t been worried about everything looking perfect—the complete opposite of Bella—her only concern being not wanting anything to look too girly. Gray liked masculine, and so Bella had worked hard to find just the right look for them. Now, seeing Noah pushed back against it, she realized the room was perfect. His hard muscles looked at home against the dove-gray color, the white waffle duvet covering his lower half, making even the linen look sexy.
She averted her eyes, looked at his face. There was something about his big broad chest, muscled arms, and the sprinkling of dark hair arrowing down his belly that was making her want to curl her toes into the sheets.