Along Came a Husband (23 page)

“All the warrants have been issued,” Louis added. “We’re moving on this today, the moment the deal takes place. Kensington wants you in on the operation. He’s sending a chopper for you.”

Jonas stood in the hospital hallway tightly gripping his cell phone. He glanced inside the room and studied Missy’s unconscious face. Though she’d spent several hours in surgery and all had gone well, she still hadn’t opened her eyes. Her skin was as pale as the ashy paint on the wall, and it could possibly take days for her to regain any amount of energy. The doctors had told him he could head off to Chicago and most likely be back before she’d be coherent enough to notice he was gone.

Like that was ever going to happen.

“Tell Kensington I appreciate the consideration,” Jonas said. “You guys have to do this without me.”

“Man, this case took the last four years of your life. You telling me you’re not going to be there to wrap it up?”

Four years of living and breathing one assignment, planning day and night how to put those assholes away. Now the day was here. “Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you, Louis. I won’t be there.”

“Staying with Missy?”

“Yep.” He couldn’t take his eyes off her face.

“I don’t get it. She’s okay, isn’t she?”

“Yeah, she’ll be fine.” Physically. She’d lost a lot of blood, but thanks to Sean for quickly stabilizing her she was going to walk away from this mess no worse for the wear. For the most part.

“Then what’s the—”

“I need to…no, make that…
want
to be here, Louis, when she wakes up.” Even now, ten feet from her seemed too far away. He wanted her hand in his so he could feel her warm skin. He needed to hear the blip of her slow, steady heartbeat on the monitor to reassure him he wasn’t going to lose her.

“This is going to piss off Kensington,” Louis said.

“Like I give a shit?” Jonas could think of a million worse things than getting fired from the Bureau.

“I take it this means you and Missy won’t be divorcing.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“I envy you, man. A life is a good thing to have.”

“Round ’em up, Louis.”

“Will do.”

Jonas shut off his phone and slowly walked back into Missy’s room. Ron and Jan Setterberg sat in chairs on one side of Missy’s bed. He gave them both an encouraging pat on the shoulder and threw a blanket over Sarah’s prone form. She’d finally fallen asleep on a cot the hospital staff had provided for Jonas. Then he sat in his chair on the other side of the bed, took Missy’s hand and pressed his lips to her palm.

Much to his surprise, Jan stood and rounded the bed to come behind him. She put her hands on his shoulders, rubbed them good and hard, and then leaned over to whisper in his ear. “You’re a good man, Jonas Abel.”

He reached up and squeezed Jan’s fingers. Everything was finally so damned clear to him. There was no place he needed to be, nothing more important, than right here, right now.

Missy was everything, and he would never doubt that again.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” She had no clue who belonged to that masculine voice. Then again…

She cracked open her eyes to find herself in a dark hospital room, catheters in her arms, a heart monitor on her finger, bags of unidentified fluids hanging over her head. Her tongue felt thick, her mouth as dry as a dust ball.

“I’m talking to a man who puts his pants on one leg at a time. Just like me,” Jonas said.
Her dad. Go for it, Jonas.
“She doesn’t want you here. She’s made that perfectly clear.”

Immediately, her thoughts flew to the baby. Had she lost this one, too?
Please God, no.
“Jonas?” she rasped, her voice scratchy with dryness.

Like a dream, he materialized by her side. “Hey, there,” he whispered. Looking as if he hadn’t shaved, let alone slept for days, he reached for her hand. “You’re going to be all right.” He smoothed back the hair from her face. “Want some water?”

She nodded, and he grabbed a plastic cup from the bed stand and bent the straw to her lips. After taking a long sip, she licked her cracking lips. He set the cup down, and she squeezed his hand with what little strength she possessed.

“Melissa?” The authoritative voice sounded from the direction of the door.

Glancing toward the sound, she found her father, looking so much older than she remembered, standing just inside the room. Years may have passed since she’d last seen him, but he’d lost none of his commanding presence.

Missy glanced past him to her mother. She’d changed so much. She’d stopped coloring her hair and had grown it out in a soft, shoulder-length bob. Gray was taking over, highlighting her once naturally blond hair.

“Why are you here?” she asked, more of her father than her mother.

“Angelica, don’t you think it’s best you wait in the hall?” her father suggested.

“No, Arthur.” Not bothering to look at her husband, Missy’s mother brushed past him. “It’s best for me to be where Melissa wants me to be.” Holding Missy’s gaze, she came to stand beside the bed. “I thought we’d lost you for good this time.” A tear slipped from her lower lashes.

Missy put herself in her mother’s shoes and imagined what it must have felt like for her to lose a child. With how Missy had been affected by a miscarriage, it was quite possible she’d cracked, if not broken, her mother’s heart. “Hi, Mom.”

“Oh, Melissa.” She sat in the chair next to the bed and reached for Missy’s hand.

Missy didn’t have the energy to pull away, even if she’d wanted to. “How have you been?”

“Never mind about me. We’ve missed you.”

Missy nodded. That at least was a start.

Another woman slowly appeared near the periphery of Missy’s vision. Dressed in a black suit and a crisp white blouse and with her hair coifed in an updated, but professional, chin-length cut, she looked as if she’d just stepped off Wall Street. “I came as soon as I heard,” she said.

“Marin?” Missy’s vision glazed with tears.

“Hey.” Her sister leaned down and kissed Missy’s cheek, brushed a piece of hair off her forehead. “Artie and Max are on their way. Is that okay?”

“Sure.” Missy nodded. It’d be good to see her two brothers again. “But I’m not making any promises.”

“You don’t have to. They just want to see you.”

“Melissa?” her father said.

Her mother and Marin were one thing. Her father quite another. “I’m not ready for you, Dad.”

Jonas stepped in between her father and Missy’s bed. “Okay, that’s enough for now,” he said. “You guys need to leave.”

“But—”

“Leave.”

“Dad,” Marin said, grabbing his arm. “Let’s go.”

With a small smile and a last look filled with emotion, Missy’s mother stood. “Arthur, Marin’s right. Melissa needs to rest.”

“If she wants to see you when she’s feeling better, you can come back. Only if you promise to be nice…Senator Camden.” Jonas shut the door the moment they’d reached the hallway and came back to her bedside. “Ron, Jan and Sarah went to get something to eat. They’ll be back in a few minutes.”

She nodded. It would be good to see them.

“There’s someone else here who wants to see you.” He lifted a soft-sided carrier onto her bed. A tiny mew sounded from behind a mesh window.

“You brought Slim for me.” Her eyes misted as she poked her finger inside the bag and scratched the cat’s black furry forehead.

“He seemed lost without you.”

She glanced up at Jonas. “Shouldn’t you be with Louis Reynolds? Busting that big drug dealer?”

Settling the carrier beside her, so she could reach Slim whenever she wanted, he held her gaze. “They’ll manage without me.”

He didn’t want to leave her. As she looked into his solemn eyes, she knew the answer to the question that had been running through her mind. “Oh, God, no,” she cried, unable to stop a flood of tears.

He squeezed her hands. “There was nothing they could do, Miss.”

Again. Her throat closed as reality took hold. She’d miscarried again. She’d lost their baby.

He pulled her into his arms and let her cry. Once again, all hope for them seemed lost. She’d wanted this baby so much. For her. For him, too. When every tear seemed shed, he pulled back a bit and rested his forehead against hers. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this right now. There is a bright side.”

“What? Now you can leave me with a clear conscience?”

“I deserved that.” Jonas let loose a sigh.

“I wanted that baby, Jonas. More than anything.”

“I know, but listen. The bullet that hit you, hit an artery in your leg. Sean said you miscarried because of all the blood you’d lost.”

“So if I hadn’t gotten shot…” She closed her eyes and more tears surfaced.

“Missy,” he whispered. As best he could with all the tubes coming out of her, he pulled her into his arms and held her. “It means we can try again.”

She pulled back. “You want to try?”

“Absolutely, I want to stay. With you. On Mirabelle. In D.C. Hell, in Timbuktu. I don’t care. Wherever you are, I want to be.”

She had to ask. “What if I can’t have children?”

“Being a dad is something I’ve never thought much about.” He paused, squeezed her hand. “These days, it’s sounding…and feeling right. Adoption works for me. You’ve already started that process. It should be a piece of cake. But if it’s not, kids or no kids, Miss, the most important thing to me is being with you.”

“Forever?”

“And ever.” He kissed her cheek.

She sniffled. “You’re just saying that because I took a bullet for you.”

“Yeah, you did, didn’t you?” He chuckled. “Flew pretty damned fast, too, into the line of fire.” Then he sobered, swallowed back what looked an awful lot like tears. “Don’t ever do that again.”

They still had issues to work out, but one thing had been settled. Neither of them would be looking for a quick way out when the going got rough. Tears puddled in her eyes. “I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you again, of you dying for real.”

“So you really did cry at my funeral,” he whispered. “Didn’t you?”

“Buckets.”

He drew her hand up and kissed her fingers. “I love you, Miss. Bullet or no bullet. You’re the one true love of my life, remember?” He held out his hand, palm toward her.

She reached up and placed her own palm against his, matching their love lines. “How could I ever forget?”

“That’s not fair.”

“You making up rules as you go?”

Ron and Jan Setterberg. Herman Stotz and his wife, Crystal. Sarah, Hannah and Sean. All had become fast friends in the last five months. Even Sean.

Garrett and Erica Taylor had invited a small group of islanders to their house for a Christmas dinner for which Erica had pulled out all the stops. Lasagna. Risotto. Two different baked fish dishes, one in a creamy savory sauce, the other tomato based with onions and fresh herbs, along with a capon and a variety of vegetables and salads. Cured meats, cheeses and olives. Pound cake, cookies and homemade candies. And an assortment of breads from sweet to crusty that would make any mouth water.

Jonas was so full he had a feeling he wouldn’t need to put another single thing in his mouth for a week. “Do you eat like this all the time?” he asked Garrett.

“Why do you think I have to work out so much?” Garrett said, chuckling. He leaned toward Jonas and added, “Herman’s talking about retiring. I could use a good deputy.”

“Deputy, my ass.” Jonas snorted. “Better watch out or I’ll take your job.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

They both knew Jonas was quite content working as a consultant to the Bureau and the DEA, flying to D.C. once a month for meetings. Though he’d set up an office in Missy’s—their—house and managed to keep himself plenty busy, life on Mirabelle was proving to be peaceful in a way Jonas had never expected. Hell, he never even carried his gun around any longer. Kensington had told him several times his job would be waiting for him should he change his mind, but there was no chance of that ever happening.

He glanced at Missy and watched her laugh as she bent toward Sarah. Nope. No chance in hell. These days any job change for Jonas would more than likely involve downriggers and a captain’s license. In fact, he had his eye on a nice-sized boat for sale in Bayfield and it wouldn’t take much of his savings to start up a charter operation. FBI agent or captain, it didn’t matter. Not anymore.

Missy put a hand on the slight bulge of baby at her waist and Jonas swallowed as emotion overtook him. Every single ultrasound had shown a healthy baby girl. Missy still worried something might go wrong. Jonas knew, in his gut, their little girl was going to be just fine. Men had intuition, too, he’d had to remind her.

The sound of a baby crying came through the monitor sitting on the kitchen counter.

“Not ours,” Erica said.

“Certainly not mine,” Sarah said, laughing.

Jonas glanced at Missy and smiled. “Ours. I’ll get him.” He went to the guest bedroom near the back of the log home, bent down and picked up his newborn baby boy.

Jessie, the young woman from Duluth, dissatisfied with every other prospective parent had, upon hearing their entire story, insisted on meeting Jonas. One more visit to Mirabelle and she’d asked Missy and Jonas to adopt her child. They’d no sooner signed all the paperwork than they found themselves pregnant to boot.

“Shh, shh.” Jonas patted his son’s back. The baby quickly quieted, but Jonas stayed in the room, enjoying this one-on-one time with his son. He kissed his soft cheek and looked in those big, dark eyes. “Sweet dreams,” he murmured.

Missy came into the room and wrapped an arm around Jonas’s waist. “For a man who thought himself incapable of love, you’re sure doing an awfully good job.”

“You think?”

“I know.” She kissed him, nipped at his lower lip.

He dipped his tongue softly inside her mouth and felt the stirrings of arousal. After all these months, he would’ve thought his need for her would’ve been satisfied to some degree. Instead, it’d only grown stronger. He loved looking at her naked. All those amazing curves. That beautiful swell in her tummy. “Let’s go home,” he groaned, cradling the baby in his arms.

“We just started a game. It’s—”

“I have a better game in mind.” He nuzzled her neck, knowing it would send the appropriate shivers down her spine. “In front of our own fire.”

“Are there cards involved?”

“No.”

“Dice?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Mmm,” she moaned and leaned into him. “Now you have me interested.”

Loud laughter suddenly erupted from out in the great room and someone called out, “We can hear you in there!”

“Sex fiends!”

“Get a room!”

Jonas glanced up. “How the—?”

Grinning, Missy snapped off the baby monitor. “Nosy lot, aren’t they?”

Jonas chuckled. “Yeah, but I like ’em.”

She sobered, then ran a hand over his cheek. “Are you happy?”

“Perfectly.” He turned his face and kissed her palm.

“Sure you won’t ever regret leaving the Bureau?”

“Positive.”

“What if I told you I wanted to move closer to my parents, so our kids could be closer to my mom as well as my brothers and sister?”

No mention of her father. In time, maybe that, too, would come. Maybe someday soon he’d even come to terms with his own father. “I’d say your wish is my command.”

“We could use some of my trust fund money to buy a house in D.C.,” she suggested. “Split our time between there and here. What do you think?”

She no longer felt the need to prove anything to anyone by not spending her trust fund money, and he’d given up feeling threatened by her wealth. Their respective bank balances no longer seemed to matter.

“Missy, I don’t care where we go or what you do with your money as long as I’m a part of the equation.” He put his hand on her stomach and kissed her slowly. “It’s our time.”

“And timing,” she whispered, “is everything.”