He was a career soldier, and proud of it. She was proud of him, of everything he fought for. But what did it mean for them? She’d deploy with him in a heartbeat, follow him anywhere he meant to go. She loved him, had always loved him. But it was too soon. Too fast.
Jeremy sauntered into the bedroom carrying two cups of coffee. “In case you were wondering, yes, I also provide valet service.”
She forced a smile and sat up. She couldn’t let him know she was worried. Not when they had so little time left together. “Thank you,” she said, taking a mug.
His gaze roamed over her face. “What’s wrong? You look upset.”
She sighed. Damn the man for knowing her so well, right down to her false smiles. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just so…happy.”
He quirked a brow. “And that upsets you…?”
“You’re leaving.” She swallowed hard. “I’ll miss you here.”
“I’ll miss you, too.” He kissed her forehead and settled at her side. “We’ll make it work, though. My weekends are always open.”
She nodded. “I can make mine work.”
“Or…” He locked those scorching eyes on her. “When you’re ready, we could look into you coming out with me.”
“When I’m ready?” she replied with an uneasy laugh. “What about you? Don’t you have to be ready, too?”
“I’ve been ready to spend my life with you for years.” He set his coffee down, took hers, and set it on the nightstand. He slid his body over hers, pressing her down into the bed with his deliciously hot weight. His fingers laced with hers and held them pinned to either side of her shoulders. “I’ve just been waiting for you to feel the same. When you’re ready, so am I. I want to have it all. Marriage, kids, crappy base housing.” He grinned. “I want all of that, but only with you.”
The lawyer side of Erica’s brain said it was too much, too fast. Divorce rates were ridiculously high, especially among military spouses. But her heart wasn’t listening. Her heart had waited far too long to be this happy.
Had waited far too long to have him as her own.
She let her heart decide, for once. “I’m ready for all of that. I love you. Whether we live here or there…I’m yours.”
He captured her lips in a brief, dizzying kiss that bordered on savage. “You’ll never be able to get rid of me.”
He moved to kiss her again. She pressed her fingers to his mouth. “Hold on. I do have one request.”
“Anything.”
“When they ship you back overseas, don’t get shot.”
He laughed. “Love, I told you, I’m too ornery. I’m only vulnerable when it comes to you. There…I’m completely defenseless.”
She fingered the dog tags dangling between them. “I like the sound of that.”
“Planning to abuse me mercilessly?”
“Maybe not mercilessly.”
He laughed. She smiled and traced her fingers over his lips. He was so amazing. So right for her. The split in his lower lip was still healing; she touched it gently. One stupid night in Vegas, one fistfight he never should have gotten in, had thrown him out into the desert and brought him back into her life.
She couldn’t imagine how she’d managed without him.
“You and me,” she said. “I think we can handle anything.”
“Together?” he asked.
“Together.”
He pressed his lips to hers. She wrapped her arms around him. Things might be uncertain. They might be hard. But right now, she’d never been more certain of anything in her life.
Wherever he belonged, so did she.
Epilogue
Erica stood in the huge crowd of women and children, and peered anxiously over their shoulders. Any minute now, the bus would pull in and Jeremy would come striding out. He’d been overseas for seven painfully long months. Her body hummed with anticipation. She fidgeted and tightened her grip on her homemade WELCOME HOME sign until she felt the wood creak under her chokehold. She relaxed her fingers and stole a quick glance at her watch.
Still only seven thirty. Damn it.
“Relax,” Tommy soothed, and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “He’ll be here soon. Any minute now, he’ll come strutting out.”
“I’ll relax when I can see him again,” she snapped, and instantly regretted it.
She couldn’t help herself. She was big as a house and cranky as a rattlesnake, with a bite twice as toxic. This morning’s fight with the dispatcher at Pendleton hadn’t helped, but someone needed to fix the plumbing in their shitty little base bungalow. She rubbed her swollen stomach and grimaced. The sun beat down on her head, boiling her alive. Was it always this damned hot in San Diego, or was it just her pregnant hormones trying to boil her alive?
The front of the crowd stirred. Voices rose. Erica stood up straight. Her heart tripped over itself. Tears prickled her eyes. Please, God, let it be him. This rollercoaster was killing her.
“I can’t see, Tommy. Are they here?”
Tommy stood a good foot above her, well above the crush of people. He’d flown out to help with her pregnancy during the last grueling months, but right now he wasn’t enough. People milled in front of her, behind her, next to her. Everyone was here except the one person she truly wanted.
“Tommy!” She jammed her elbow into his ribs. “Say something. Do you see them?”
“Ow! I’m looking, brat.” He craned to see. “Yeah, I think I see the bus. They’re coming out. Shit, they all look the same in their gear.”
She watched every face that moved through the crowd, each soldier rushing into the arms of mothers, wives, brothers, sons. Not one was Jeremy. Several of the women around her cried out names and fought through the crowds to reach their men, but Erica was silent. Searching. The emotion, so thick in the air, was nothing compared to the bubbling cauldron of frustration and lonely, choking need ready to boil over inside her.
As the crowd thinned with no sight of him, Erica practically screamed. “Where the hell is he?”
One last straggler stepped off the bus. Everyone else faded as Erica’s eyes locked on him. His gaze found her immediately, and the moment their eyes met, her smile nearly burst across her face and her eyes overflowed. He practically vaulted down the last step off the bus and took off running. She laughed and fought through the crowd to meet him, letting her house-sized belly lead the way. Her sign dropped to the ground. She didn’t care.