by Soraya Lane
“I don’t want you resenting us for this. Resenting me,” she whispered.
“And I won’t,” he told her honestly, smiling when she reached for him, fingers in his hair, tugging him closer. “I was ready. If I hadn’t been ready, I wouldn’t have done it. Couldn’t have. But going on this last deployment showed me that the timing’s right. I have to do what I have to do.”
He gave in, pulled up higher so he could kiss her, lips so soft at first, followed by desperation on both their parts. She gripped him tight, nails digging into his shoulders as he cupped her face, then pulled back to look at her before kissing her all over again.
“I’m scared shitless, but this feels right,” he confessed.
“Me, too,” she said, lips pillowy against his as she kissed him again. “Me, too.”
Noah wrapped his arms around her, head to her belly as she hugged him, cradled him against herself.
“I wish Lila could see us now,” he muttered against her. “See what she’s done.”
Bella laughed, her stomach moving against him. “You can say that again.”
“Can we go get pizza now?”
Noah pulled back when he heard one of the boys speak, dropping a final kiss to Bella’s lips as he rose.
“There’s plenty more where that came from,” he whispered into her ear.
She laughed. “Oh, there better be!”
It was early, so the restaurant was full of families eating pizza. Bella smiled back at a mom a few tables over when she caught her eye, and it got her to thinking how they probably looked like a regular all-American family. From the outside, no would know the pain they’d all gone through or ever imagine their struggles. But she also liked that they were a family unit, even if they were an unconventional one.
She glanced at Noah, caught his eye as he goofed around with the kids. There was no doubting how hard this must be for him, being back after doing God-only-knew-what, wherever he’d been, and giving up active duty, but she was so incredibly proud of him. How could she not be?
“What are you thinking about?” Noah asked.
The boys continued playing, toys on the table, pretending to shoot each other. She was on her own on one side of the booth, with Noah on the other in between the boys, his arms encircling them so they were tucked in close.
“You. Me. The boys.” She shrugged. “Everything.”
He looked relaxed, as happy as she’d ever seen him. Which helped with the shadow of doubt in her mind about his reasons for standing down. He loved what he did so much that it worried her, how he’d cope.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” he told her.
“Easy for you to say,” Bella muttered, smiling her thanks when the waitress set down two glasses of red wine and Cokes for the boys.
“Thanks,” the boys said in unison.
“They’re good boys, huh?”
Bella grinned. “They had a great mom and dad, that’s why.”
“You’re not such a bad mom yourself,” he said with a wink.
“Right back at you. Those boys love you so much, they just about burst when they saw you at school.”
“I feel the same about them,” Noah said, still smiling, but his words were more hesitant now.
“You can’t say it, can you?” she asked softly, fingers playing across the stem of her wine glass. “You can’t say that you love them, even though I know you do.”
Noah looked uncomfortable, removed his arms from around the boys, and folded them on the table in front of him.
“You’re so sensitive and sweet in some ways, but it doesn’t come naturally to you to say the ‘L’ word.”
“I’m not sensitive,” he grumbled.
“I would have said the same thing six months ago, you know, when I thought you were a complete jerk. But you are sensitive, in a nice kind of way. All tough man of steel on the outside and gooey on the inside.”
He grunted. “You’re right.”
“About you being sensitive or the—”
“The other thing,” he interrupted. “No one ever said it to me growing up, except for Gray’s parents after I’d been with them for a while, and that was just plain weird. And I’ve just”—he exhaled, looking skyward before meeting her gaze head-on again—“never said it before. Maybe I can’t.”
She closed her hands over his. “Yes, you can. Just say it.” Bella quickly corrected herself, squeezing his fingers. “To the boys I mean. Just tell them you love them.”
“It’s not that easy.” He looked pissed, or maybe he was just seriously uncomfortable.
“Hey boys,” she said, interrupting their game. “How much do you love Noah?”
“I love you this much!” Cooper said enthusiastically, holding his arms so wide he just about knocked his brother out when he stretched them.
“Yeah, we love you all the way to Antarctica,” Will said.
Bella laughed at them, glancing at Noah, seeing him visibly suck in a breath, gulping the air down.
“How about you, Noah?” she asked softly. The boys were staring up at him, waiting.
“I . . .” he started, faltering, looking at her like he was at sea without a life raft.
Bella touched his hands again, smiled over at him.
“I love you guys so damn much it hurts,” he finally said, voice gruff and deep as he slung his arms around the boys and pulled them in tight, kissing each of them in turn on the heads.
His eyes dragged over hers, made heat pool in her belly from the way he was staring at her. She’d pushed him, and it could easily have backfired, but he’d said it. Words that should have been so easy for a person to say, but for some were so damn hard.
“I hate that you grew up without being loved, Noah,” she told him once the boys had gone back to playing, weren’t listening to their every word. “But you’re very loved now. By all of us, not just the boys. My family adores you, Gray’s family adores you, and I’ll bet your Navy guys do, too.”
“Yeah, it’s just not so easy to accept,” he admitted. “When you’re not used to it. When your natural instinct is to question everyone’s motives when they’re kind or go the extra mile.”
Bella was so close to telling him the words herself, confessing that she was in love with him and probably had been for weeks, but she held back, not ready to go that far. Not yet.
“Who ordered Hawaiian?
“Me!” Both boys yelled enthusiastically.
Bella sat back and watched the boys, trying not to stare at the big boy in the middle. Every inch of him was gorgeous—his big broad shoulders, body hard and muscled without being bulky, face so handsome that it took her breath away sometimes staring into those blue eyes so full of warmth. Not telling him how she felt was one thing, but she was already a freight train going full steam with no brakes. The only person she was kidding was herself.
She took a slice of her pepperoni, in heaven as she swallowed the cheese. No wonder her sister had loved this place.
“Mom and Dad used to order pepperoni, too,” Will said, munching his pizza and watching her.
She grinned, happy he’d brought them up. She liked talking about them, especially when they able to reminisce without it being sad. “Your mom and I grew up eating pepperoni because Granddad always got to choose, and that was his favorite. If he’d just gotten back from being away on deployment, he’d insist on eating pizza at least three times that first week home. We loved it.”
She met Noah’s gaze and almost melted into a puddle at the expression on his face.
“I always craved pizza when I was away, too. I’d be sitting there freezing my ass off, and I’d swear I could smell it, I wanted it that bad.”
“And did you ever get it?” Cooper asked, so innocently that Bella reached over the table to touch him.
“No buddy, not until I got home. We didn’t get a lot to eat, just what we needed to keep us going, and we’re trained to deal with it. It’s just part of what I do.”
“Do you know ho
w many people you’ve killed?” Will asked, still eating, asking it like it was the most normal question in the world.
“That number isn’t the important one—it’s how many people’s lives I’ve saved by doing what I’m trained for.”
Bella was relieved by his answer, not wanting to know. Or maybe just not wanting the boys to know, to shield them from the harsh reality of war.
“So you’re not gonna tell me?” Will looked disappointed. “Daddy never would either. Said it was nobody’s business but his own.”
“Sounds like you had a smart daddy,” Noah joked.
“Yeah, and now I’ve got two.”
Bella almost dropped the slice of pizza she was holding. Will was happily eating still, like he hadn’t just dropped an emotional bomb on the table. Cooper seemingly hadn’t noticed his words, and Noah had frozen. She cleared her throat, looking between the boys, not sure what to say.
In the end, neither she nor Noah said anything. There was nothing to say. But they did both smile. Bella felt like her cheeks were going to crack she was smiling so hard, at the same time as her eyes felt like they were going to flood with tears.
“Don’t kids say the darnedest things?” she murmured as she nursed her wine and took a sip.
“Hell,” he said, taking a big gulp of his. “You can say that again.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
August 2015
Dear Bella,
Just because Lila isn’t writing you anymore doesn’t mean you have to stop looking for letters. Maybe it’ll be once a week or once a month, but I promise to keep our dates going and surprise you whenever I can. I’m not good at doing romantic stuff, but I will write to you. It’s the one thing I actually can do because Gray’s mom always made me write to her whenever I was away for longer than a few weeks, so I’ve had practice.
Every Thursday night will be for you and me, to go out and just be us. Not parents or anything else, just you and me getting to know each other. I’m shit scared of the future, of my new job, of being a dad to the boys and being something to you, but we’ll get there. I promise. I’m stubborn and determined at the best of times, but at least what that means is that when I commit, I commit 110 percent.
Today you need to get ready for adventure. Put on your bikini under your clothes, baby, because we’re heading to the beach! The kids are with your parents all weekend, your mom is swinging past this morning to get them, and we’re going to learn to paddleboard, like you should have been doing that time you were in Mexico. Then I’m taking you out for ice cream.
I feel like I’m in free fall here, but the one thing I do know is that you’ve made me a better man. You and the boys.
Noah
The boys were playing in the yard, sticks held high as they pretended to shoot each other. Bella nursed her coffee, smiling as she watched them. No matter how she felt personally about kids and guns, she’d had to let it go. It seemed that guns were in the boys’ DNA whether she liked it or not.
A noise made her turn, and she opened her mouth to tell Noah what they’d been up to. Only no one was there. Bella frowned, glancing out the window again and seeing Noah join Cooper and Will. When she turned again, she realized there was a letter sitting on the table. So Noah was just in the room.
She didn’t recognize the handwriting on the envelope, her name scrawled across it, but her heart still skipped a beat. It wasn’t from Lila, but she’d grown to anticipate what her sister’s letters would contain, and for some reason this one made her feel the same. She set down her coffee and reached for it, sliding her nail under the seal and opening it, eyes traveling fast over the words, greedily digesting them. But she skipped to the end before she finished the first sentence. Noah. The letter was from Noah. She dropped into a chair and went back to the start, forcing herself to read more slowly.
He’s taking me on a date. Now her heart was really thumping. She reread the letter, tried to wipe the smile off her face and couldn’t. Bella shut her eyes and wished her sister were sitting beside her so that they could have laughed and giggled. And so she could have told her that she wasn’t scared anymore—not scared of taking a risk when it came to love. Noah had changed something within her, made her want more. And she was going to jump in head first instead of holding part of herself back.
“You found it.”
Bella glanced up, nervous even though she knew it was stupid to be. They shared a house together, and now suddenly he’d left her a letter, and she was a bundle of nerves.
“I guess I’d better go get the boys’ bags packed?” she asked, not blinking as she stared into his eyes. He was leaning in the open doorway, arms crossed, showing off biceps she desperately wanted to drag her fingernails across.
“Already done,” he said.
Bella stood, leaving the letter forlorn on the table and walking toward him, even though her bare feet felt like they were made of lead. She wanted to be close to him but yet something kept holding her back, a part of her still trying to resist, a part of her that couldn’t believe all this was really true.
“Thank you,” she whispered, stopping in front of him.
Noah never moved, his body language never changed. And it gave her the confidence to step in closer, to reach her hands up and place them gently on his shoulders.
“For what?” he asked.
She stood on tiptoe. “For the letter. For understanding. For everything.”
Noah was still immobile, still relaxed and sexy as hell, leaning against the door, and she brushed his lips, tasted him, kissed him so gently over and over. His arms unfolded to let her closer, and she touched her body to his, grazed her chest against his and smiled when a soft moan echoed from him.
“You’re trouble,” he muttered, arm closing around her middle.
“You haven’t even seen the half of it,” she joked, linking her fingers into his short hair and forcing him forward, locking him in place so she could kiss him all over again.
A toot outside signaled someone had arrived, and she heard the boys calling out. Bella took her time, not stopping, still kissing Noah, groaning when he pulled back slightly and she dropped flat to her feet again.
“I think that’s your mom,” he whispered into her ear, his gruff tone only making her want to keep her fingers clenched into his arms and not let him go.
Bella laughed. “She’s been telling me to start dating for the last couple of years. Believe me when I say that she won’t mind seeing you taking advantage of me.”
Noah tugged her closer, held her tight, mouth to her hair. She sighed against his chest, luxuriated in the smell and feel of him.
“I’ve been so scared of letting anyone close for so long, and now . . .” She didn’t even know what to say.
“Now you’re more scared than you’ve ever been, but there’s a little voice in your head telling you that it’s worth it.”
Bella looked up at him, head tilted back, arms around his waist. “Yeah. Something like that.”
“You ready to play today?” he asked, lightening the mood.
“I’m not exactly super sporty, but I’ll give it a go,” she said with a laugh, pulling back when she heard her mom’s heels click on the timber floorboards.
Noah slapped her on the backside when she turned, making her squeal.
“Everything okay in here?” her mom called out.
Bella glowered at Noah over her shoulder before greeting her mom. “Everything’s fine. Noah just needs to learn some manners, that’s all.”
Her mother laughed, eyeballing Noah over her shoulder as she stepped in to embrace Bella.
“I get the feeling like I walked in on something here. Want me to go back outside with the boys?”
“Mom!”
Noah’s hearty laugh made her turn and glare at him, and then she caught her mom’s smile, and she couldn’t keep a straight face any longer.
“You guys are wicked. Absolutely wicked,” Bella told them.
“Don’t I know it,” Noah gr
owled as he came up behind her and slipped his hands to her waist.
Bella’s cheeks flooded with heat, as much from the feel of Noah’s hands on her as the knowing smile on her mom’s face.
“I’m not so sure about this.” Bella felt like a fish out of water. She grimaced, trying to keep her balance on the board the instructor had placed her on. More like a girl who didn’t want to end up in the water.
“You’re doing great,” Noah cheered, only a few yards away but looking perfectly at ease on his board, like he’d been doing it all his life.
“You sure they didn’t teach you this as part of your SEAL training?” she grumbled.
Noah laughed and she scowled, wobbling as she tried to change her balance.
A guy went past them, standing on his board and making it look beyond simple, his dog sitting up front and wearing his own buoyancy vest. The canine watched her as they passed.
“I swear that dog was giving me a smug smile.”
Noah grinned. “Hey, mutt! Stop checking out my girl!”
Bella burst out laughing and promptly wobbled and fell off the board, landing with a splash in the surf. She emerged spluttering, feeling like a drowned rat. So much for looking good for our date.
“Couldn’t you have chosen something normal, like a fancy lunch?” she demanded, water dripping off her nose as she pushed back her sodden hair.
“Your sister made you go hiking and shooting. I thought this would be a breeze,” Noah said, standing now and paddling straight past her.
“Help me back up,” she said, glowering at the instructor as he stood watching her. He guided her back up, and she took a big breath, steadying herself. “This damn board isn’t getting the better of me, and that man isn’t going to show me up.”
The instructor helped her and she listened, focused on what he was telling her, blocking everything else out. And then she was standing. Bella smiled to herself as she gripped the paddle and slowly pushed it through the water.
“Take that, SEAL!” she yelled. “Whoop!”
“Not too fast,” the instructor called out as she scooped the paddle through the water.