Heart of a Hero. Anne Marie Winston

little while? Ha. She might not choose to accept it, but he was here for good.

      He swallowed the thick knot clogging his voice. “Hi, Bridget,” he said. He was at a loss. What did you say to somebody this size?

      The child grinned, a wide smile that sent a cascade of drool down her chin and showed him two tiny pearly white teeth on the bottom. Then she turned her head abruptly into her mother’s shoulder.

      Before he could figure out what to say, Phoebe saved him. “Daddy,” she told his child. “Bridget, this is your daddy.”

      The baby peeked out at him with one blue eye, then grinned before hiding her face again.

      “Flirt,” said Phoebe. She walked across the room and expertly unfurled a large baby blanket while still holding the child on her hip with the other hand. Then she set the baby in the middle of the blanket.

      Bridget wobbled for a moment, then seemed to find her balance and sit straighter. “She just started sitting up by herself two weeks ago,” she told Wade over her shoulder. “Why don’t you come sit down and play with us? She’s not usually shy and she should get used to you quickly.”

      “All right.” He strove for a normal tone although his heart felt as if it were going to fly right out of his chest.

      He joined them on the brightly colored blanket. Phoebe was building a tower of blocks. Every time she’d get three or four stacked up, Bridget swiped her hand and knocked them over, squealing and chortling. Once, when Phoebe stopped for a moment, the baby smacked her little hands together and yelled, “Ack!” in a tone that left no doubt what she wanted.

      Wade hastily reached for another block. “Way to get what you want, kid.”

      Phoebe chuckled. “She has a mind of her own. And if she doesn’t get her way, she lets me know about it.”

      “Reminds me of Melanie.” He’d said it without thinking. The moment the words hit the air, he knew they’d been a mistake.

      The happiness drained out of Phoebe’s eyes, leaving them guarded and sorrowful. “Yes,” she said quietly. “Bridget does seem to have a stronger personality than I ever had.”

      He wanted to protest. There was nothing wrong with Phoebe’s personality. Just because Mel had been more vocal about everything under the sun didn’t mean Phoebe’s personality was any less pleasing. She just wasn’t loud and attention-grabbing, that was all. But he didn’t know how to say that in a way that made much sense, and he could almost feel the resistance in the air. She didn’t want to talk about Melanie, that much was clear.

      A pang of guilt shot through him, tempering the anger that still simmered. He was blaming Phoebe for not telling him about the baby…but he’d been responsible for her sister’s death. No wonder she hadn’t told him.

      The baby had grabbed a board book and was busily manhandling the sturdy pages. As he watched, she put it in her mouth.

      “Here, honey.” Phoebe extended a brightly colored set of rings and confiscated the book. “We don’t chew on books.”

      Wade looked at the frayed corners of the one she held. “Apparently, some of us do.”

      She smiled, and abruptly it felt right between them again. “I’m working on it,” she said wryly. Then she glanced at her watch. “It’ll soon be dinnertime. Would you like to stay and eat with us?”

      He raised one eyebrow.

      “Are you planning to stay here tonight?”

      “That’s the plan.” He stood and folded his arms. “If you spend the weekend teaching me how to take care of Bridget, then I could keep her while you work.”

      “Don’t you have to work or something?” she asked in an exasperated tone.

      “Or something,” he agreed.

      “So you have to go back to California.” It wasn’t a question.

      “No. I’m pretty sure I’m retiring from the service.”

      She looked shocked. “But that’s what you’ve always wanted to do. To be. A soldier.”

      “I’m not physically able to perform on the battlefield to the army’s satisfaction anymore,” he said quietly. “And I’m not interested in a desk job staring at a computer monitor all day. So I’m taking early retirement.”

      “But what will you do?”

      He shrugged. “I’m checking out a number of options. One of them is with a freelance security firm out of Virginia. I’d be establishing a West Coast office.”

      “So you’d be going home?”

      He noted with satisfaction that she still referred to California as home. But all he did was nod. “That would be the plan.” He shrugged. “But now, everything has changed.” He looked down at his daughter, who had rolled onto her stomach and was making swimming motions as she tried valiantly to get to another toy just out of reach. “Everything.”

      Four

      Phoebe still sat on the blanket at Wade’s feet and he reached down, putting his hands beneath her elbows and lifting her to her feet.

      Her eyes were fastened on his face; her hands fell to rest against his chest for a moment before she moved away. She cleared her throat. “I understand it’s going to take some time to get used to being a father,” she told him, indicating the baby playing at their feet. Her voice was huskier than normal.

      His body was having no trouble understanding that the woman he’d dreamed of for months—hell, years—was standing practically in his arms. The mother of his child. The anger he’d been hiding couldn’t be summoned. Instead, he found the thought surprisingly arousing. Here, right before them, was something they’d made together during those wild, impossibly wonderful moments they’d shared in the cabin.

      He exerted a little pressure until she stopped resisting and let him draw her forward. “It’s amazing that we created that.”

      She nodded, looking straight ahead at his throat rather than tilting her head back. “It’s a miracle.”

      He pressed a feather light kiss against her temple and felt her body shudder. “I’m still pissed at you. But thank you.”

      “I, ah—I don’t think—”

      “Don’t think,” he urged. “I won’t if you won’t.”

      He wanted to kiss her. He’d dreamed of it for so long that he could hardly believe this was real. Releasing her wrist, he put one finger beneath her chin and lifted her face to his. “Kiss me,” he said. “Relax and let me—ahhh.” In unison, they made an involuntary sound of pure pleasure as his thighs pressed into the cradle of her hips and his hardening body nudged the tender flesh between her legs.

      He couldn’t wait anymore. He dropped his head and fastened his mouth on hers, kissing her hard and deep, pouring all the longing and frustration of the past two years into the embrace. He felt her hands clench on his shoulders, but she wasn’t pushing him away. Oh, no. He felt the way she melted against him, the way her fingers dug into his flesh and he knew she was going to be his again. But this time, he promised himself, he wasn’t going to be a cad, wasn’t going to leave her without a word.

      This was a dream, Phoebe thought. It had to be. She’d imagined Wade kissing her so many times in the past year that it felt unreal to have him here, holding her against him. His tongue demanded her response, his big arms molded her close to the lean strength of his body. His state of arousal was impossible to miss, plastered against him as she was.

      And memory rushed in, recalling the other time they’d been in this kind of embrace….

      She was in heaven.

      Phoebe nestled her face into Wade’s throat