by Susan Crosby
“Well, go on, son,” Aggie said, grinning. “Kiss the woman you love.”
Jake’s blue eyes lasered Keri’s then lowered to her abdomen and back up again.
“Welcome home,” she said, her voice shaky, her whole body quivering.
“Yeah, go kiss her, Papa,” Dixie shouted. “She’s been waiting a long time for you.”
Keri could see it was all too much for him. Whatever he’d been doing had only been made worse by coming home to find he was about to become a father. He was thirty-seven, but he looked years older.
He started to speak, then spotted Nana Mae, who had made her way over to him. His eyes went soft. Tenderly, he gathered his grandmother close.
“I missed you,” she said, patting his back. “There’ll be plenty of time to catch up with the rest of us. You go ahead and greet your girl.”
He headed toward Keri. A smile came over his face. He picked up speed.
She trembled with relief. Everything was going to be okay. He was in shock, but he wasn’t rejecting her. Okay, good. Okay. Good. Breathe…
Then he was there, within touching distance. He curved his hands around her arms. “Look at you,” he said, as if he’d been waiting for her. Then he took her into his arms. She hugged him back—
“I’m going along with this only because of my grandmother,” he whispered in Keri’s ear then released her, keeping her hand in his as Aggie started shooing people out.
Stunned, Keri said nothing, couldn’t have mustered a word.
“Mom,” he said. “You don’t need to do that. We’ll just step into the kitchen for a minute.”
He led Keri away, a journey that seemed to take an hour, during which she plastered a smile on her face. When the door was shut and they were alone, he released her.
“We’re in love?” he asked.
“I-”
“And this—” he gestured toward her belly “—is mine?”
“Yes.”
“I’m supposed to just believe that?”
“You can do the math. If that doesn’t work for you, we can do DNA tests after it’s born. I don’t need proof, but I figure you do.”
“It? You don’t know the gender?”
“I decided not to find out. Where have you been, Jake? Why couldn’t you call home?”
His mouth hardened. His eyes lost their sheen. “In Venezuela. Nothing like a little kidnapping to stir things up, eh? And revenge. Only sometimes it’s not so sweet.”
Chapter Two
Jake turned away from Keri’s horror-filled eyes. He shoved his fingers through his hair and stared at the floor. All he wanted was some peace and quiet. To sleep in his own bed. To take a shower whenever he felt like it, for as long as he wanted. To eat something he could identify.
Instead he’d been blindsided with a pregnant Keri Overton, the woman who’d consumed his thoughts night and day for far too long. The woman he’d been locked up with—because she thought she knew better than he about how criminals operate.
And then there was his brother. Yeah, Donovan was a dead man. During the almost three-hour drive from the San Francisco airport to Chance City, he hadn’t once mentioned Keri, who was not only pregnant but on the brink of giving birth. To his child. The result of a one-time, “are we going to get out of here alive?” moment after they’d been kidnapped together, along with her boss/patient. One damned time. And apparently she had everyone in Chance City snowed, convincing them they’d been in love.
“Did you even recognize me?” she asked from behind him.
He blew out a breath. “Not at first.” He should have, considering everything, but he’d been caught off guard, especially by her pregnancy. Would never have thought of her in terms of being pregnant. She’d had months to call and tell him that bit of news, all that time from Labor Day until Christmas before he’d gone deep undercover. She hadn’t called, so he’d decided he was safe from that worry.
“Would you have recognized me?” he countered, facing her.
“I don’t know. You’ve lost weight, and your hair is long. You look older. Maybe it’s the beard.”
He laughed coldly. Yeah, he’d aged about a hundred years. “Well, you’ve gained a lot of weight, and your hair is much longer, too.” She’d had short, straight hair before. Now it was almost shoulder length and wavy. But still a rich, shiny brown, a much deeper shade than her eyes—
The kitchen door swung open, and Donovan came in.
“Thanks for the heads-up,” Jake muttered.
Donovan ignored his sarcasm. “Everyone’s gone except family. Everything okay here?” he asked, looking from Jake to Keri.
“You should’ve called ahead,” Keri said. “That kind of shock can send a woman into labor, you know. And what about your mom and grandma? I thought you were in Alaska, anyway.”
“I was, until Jake called. We coordinated our flights to arrive in San Francisco at the same time.”
“Give us a minute more,” Jake said to his brother, not wanting dissension, too tired to participate. He shoved his hands in his pockets, found the small gold medallion he carried with him, rubbed it enough to heat it up.
“Sure,” Donovan said. “I just wanted you to know who was still here.”
As soon as the door shut, Jake focused on Keri. “Why does everyone think I’m in love with you?”
Her cheeks pinkened. “I didn’t think it was necessary to disillusion them. Besides, I was protecting your image.”
“And yours.”
“Yes. And our child’s. Your town…adopted me. But also I needed them, so I let them think what they wanted.”
He recalled the excited, hopeful look on his mother’s face as she’d waited for him to kiss Keri, the woman he loved. He closed his eyes, exhausted.
“You need to sleep,” Keri said, touching his arm.
He pulled back. “Where are you living?”
“With your grandmother. I’ve been helping take care of her.”
What now? He couldn’t live apart from her. People would ask too many questions, Nana Mae in particular. He’d spent his life living up to his grandmother’s expectations, as had all his siblings. He wasn’t about to start disappointing her now.
But at the moment, he couldn’t formulate a solid plan. “You need to come home with me, to my cabin. We have to figure out what we’re going to do.”
“All right,” she said, her voice low and raspy.
“We’ll make our goodbyes. They won’t be happy to have me leave again, but I don’t see any other solution.” There were details to be worked out, but those could wait.
Yesterday, before his flight home from Caracas, he’d almost gone looking for her but decided against it. If she’d wanted to see him, talk to him, she would’ve made the effort. She’d told him she wasn’t an accumulator—no house, no car, no major possessions. He gathered that meant people, too. So he’d come home, wrung out, needing to hole up for a while. Now he couldn’t, at least not alone.
Taking her arm, he moved toward the door, presenting a united front. He was completely aware of her. She was seven inches shorter than him, physically strong, reed slender when she wasn’t pregnant, competent as a nurse and caregiver and, beyond question, the most duty-bound person he’d known, which had been the problem in the end.
Touching her now sparked his most enduring memory, however, the one that never left his thoughts—how she was a wildcat in his arms…
His mother’s face lit up when they returned. He let go of Keri to give his mother another hug, then his grandmother, then his sisters. He vaguely recalled seeing some of his nieces at the party, but they were gone now.
“I’m sorry to take your helper away from you, Nana Mae,” he said to his grandmother, slipping into the familiar role of grandson, which had never included lying to her before. “Thank you for understanding that I want her with me.”
“There was no question about that, Jake. Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be fine. You go on. We’ll give you lovebirds
some time.”
He spotted his youngest brother then, waiting by the door, and hugged him hard. “You haven’t made up with Dixie yet, Joe?”
“Nothing’s changed.”
Jake couldn’t read anything in his voice or expression. “Give me a day, then we’ll talk. For now, we’re going to swing by Nana Mae’s house and pick up some of Keri’s things then head to my cabin,” Jake said to the happy, still teary-eyed group. “Give us a little time, okay? I’ll be in touch.”
“My truck’s loaded with all the baby gear,” Joe said. “I’ll drop it off. Dix and a few others are headed to your place now to stock your refrigerator. Then we’ll leave you alone.”
Jake nodded. “Thank you, all of you, for not asking questions about what I’ve been doing. I’m sure you’re curious, and I’ll tell you when I’m up to it.” He waited, hiding his impatience, as Keri hugged everyone, then she and Jake went with Donovan to his rented SUV.
He wondered if she would accept that he didn’t want to talk to her, either. In his experience, women needed words. He barely had enough for cohesive thought, much less conversation.
And now there was too damn much that needed talking about.
From the backseat, Keri tried to memorize the route to Jake’s house as Donovan drove them, but she got lost in the twists and turns of the forested road. She’d never seen Jake’s cabin. Aggie had asked several times if she’d like to, but Keri always said no. She didn’t think he would like her invading his personal space like that, even pregnant with his child.
Talk about invading personal space.
The thought made her smile, which disappeared when the baby shoved a foot up against her rib cage, making her straighten then arch to accommodate the little soccer player. She grunted a little as she shifted.
“You okay?” Jake asked from the front passenger seat, looking over his shoulder.
“Your child just scored a goal.”
He eyed her for a few long seconds. “Did it hurt?”
“It’s uncomfortable, not painful.”
They pulled into a gravel driveway. Tucked into a grove of trees sat a log cabin, Joe’s truck parked beside it. He came out the front door as they came to a stop.
“I stacked all the baby stuff in your office, out of the way,” Joe said. “I’ll come back and help put the crib together, or whatever else you need. Just let me know.”
“Thanks, Joe,” Jake said. He’d held out a hand to Keri to assist her from the SUV but let go of her when she was steady on her feet. “Go on in,” he said to her. “I’ll be right behind you.”
She thanked both of his brothers, then went inside, leaving the door open for him. From the window she watched the three men talk for a minute, then hug, putting a lump in her throat. Would he tell her what he’d been doing all this time? Could he? She thought he’d been working for a private security firm the past seven years, not the government, so how was it he went deep undercover? He’d spent eight years in the army after college, working in intelligence. Or maybe special ops. He was vague about it all. All she knew for sure was he was fluent in a whole bunch of languages, and those skills had been utilized constantly by the military.
As soon as he headed toward the cabin with her suitcases, she turned around and surveyed the room. The ultimate guy space, she thought, all wood and dark colors, a huge rock fireplace, contemporary kitchen, big-screen television. The bedroom and office must be down the hallway. After spending all that time in Nana Mae’s house, with its lace curtains and delicate furniture, this was like entering a dungeon. Not a whole lot of sunlight found its way indoors.
There were framed photos spread along the sofa table, pictures of his family, including one that included all thirty-one McCoys, one with Aggie and his late father, a sweet one with his grandmother and a couple in which he wore an army uniform, one with an arm slung over another man’s shoulders, the other with a group of ten men. She was glad he left the pictures out in the open, glad he hadn’t shut away that part of his life.
Jake came through the open doorway as she waited. She saw a change come over him, in his posture, his expression, his breathing, the reality of being home overwhelming. He set the suitcases down and looked around. His shoulders slumped. After a few long seconds, he moved down the hallway, opened a door and went inside, shutting it behind him, leaving her standing and watching. Silence followed, agonizing silence.
Time dragged. Into the fourth hour she heated a mug of soup and carried it onto the front porch as the sun set. The rich minestrone comforted her in the unfamiliar surroundings, a stark reminder of how little she knew about Jake, even though all they’d done was talk for the three days they were locked in a cell together.
Well, that wasn’t all they’d done, given that she’d ended up pregnant—
The screen door opened, and Jake stepped onto the porch. He glanced her way, then stood between the rough-hewn posts at the top of the stairs, arms folded, feet planted, and looked out at his property, with its tall pine and majestic old oak trees, manzanita dotting the landscape, as well, and small boulders. The land was untamed by hoe or lawn mower. There was plenty of greenery, but nothing in bloom, even though it was spring. Keri had come to love the Mother Lode area of Northern California, so different from anywhere else she’d lived.
His shirt was wrinkled, as if he’d not only worn it to bed but hadn’t moved an inch the whole time. One side of his face held indentations from the pillowcase.
“It’s beautiful here,” she said, when she couldn’t stand his silence any longer.
He nodded. She waited, wishing for a rocking chair, which would at least give her something to do, but his porch held only two Adirondack chairs.
“There’s minestrone soup in the fridge,” she said. “I could heat some up for you. If you’d rather have some rotisserie chicken, there’s that, and plenty of salad vegetables.”
“Thanks. I’ll get it when I’m ready.”
She started to stand, then realized she couldn’t gracefully get out of the deeply slanted chair, so she settled back again. “Your mom told me that you’re not here often.”
“A few times a year.” He stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets and rested one foot on a lower porch rail, still not looking at her.
“So you’re usually on the road?” she asked.
He sort of laughed. “On the road,” he repeated, shaking his head. “You know what I do for a living.”
“I know you do high-level security work. I know you carry a gun. But I don’t know why you would go undercover for five months.”
When he didn’t answer, she said, “Am I not allowed to ask questions? You intimated I had a hand in it somehow, because of the kidnapping. Don’t I have the right to know what that means?”
He finally turned around. Keri rested her hands on her belly, her fingers splayed, protective.
“Let me settle in. I need to get it all clear in my mind first. A lot happened. I do apologize for leaving you alone earlier. Honestly, I didn’t have another word in me.”
“That’s understandable.” She shifted her hands, deciding to shift the conversation, too. “The baby’s moving.”
His gaze dropped.
“Space is tight now,” she said, “so it’s pretty confined. I can’t feel the movements as easily as a month ago. I love lying in the bathtub watching the baby move. It’s slow motion, but it always amazes me. Would you like to feel it?”
He hesitated. “Not right now,” he said finally.
She didn’t push. There was nothing else to say except, “I’m glad you’re home.”
It was as if someone had turned off a switch inside him. “This isn’t home,” he said.
“It isn’t? You have another house somewhere?”
“No. This is the only house I own, but it’s just a house. It’s a tax deduction, and privacy when I need to be in town. If it weren’t for my family, I would never have bought the place, any place. I travel light.”
“I do, too, as a m
atter of practicality, not choice. You and my parents would get along really well.”
There was a long pause. “I imagine I’ll find that out for myself sometime in the future.”
She pictured him meeting her parents. The only thing they had in common with Jake was traveling light. He was serious and controlled. Her parents were…neither. They were good people, though, kind and selfless.
Keri looked around her, patting the chair arms several times, wondering where to take the conversation next. “This feels like a home to me. You have mementos. Pictures. It’s furnished and decorated.”
“My sister Cher insisted. She always was bossy. Comes from being the firstborn, I think.”
Keri was glad to see him finally smile. “I like all your sisters.”
“Me, too.” He pushed away from the railing. “Minestrone, you said?”
“And chicken. Salad. Sourdough bread.” She extended her arms. “Would you give me a hand up, please?”
He hadn’t allowed enough space between them, so her belly bumped him. He took a quick step back.
“I know it’s a shock,” she said hesitantly.
“I should’ve known something was up, given Donovan’s conversation during the drive here. You know he’s a journalist, right? I’m used to him asking questions. He always had an insatiable curiosity, that stereotypical “why? why? why?” kid. But he was pushing for more information about the kidnapping today, instead of the job I’ve been doing that took me out of touch.”
“You mean you hadn’t told him about us being kidnapped?” She remembered back to the time when she first met Donovan in the diner, and the cold, hard look he’d given her when he found out who she was. She figured Jake had clued him in.
“I did, but I didn’t tell him your name.”
“He came to his own conclusions, then. I’ve only seen him once since Christmas. He came home for a wedding. Noah Falcon?”
Jake looked surprised. “Noah got married? That’s great. I was here for his brother David’s wedding in November.”
“Their other brother, Gideon, got married, too. He and his wife are expecting. So are David and his wife.”