Crude: A Stepbrother Romance (57 page)

“Sir, I-”

“Son, I’ve seen war on three different continents, and after the shit-show you boys saw over there in that damned desert, I’m amazed you came back alive at all.” Hudson closes his mouth, and as I squeeze his hand, I feel him respond back.

Major Lawson looks at Hudson and nods; “What I’m trying to say is, son, I
know
about all the other stuff that came after, and I’m here today to tell you that I don’t really give a shit about all that. You’re a hell of a Marine, an even more impressive leader, and one of the strongest men I’ve known. I want you working where you can help.” He winks; “And seeing as I’m pretty much in charge of military records, I think we can go right ahead and gloss over those other things.”

Hudson is staring at him like he’s just handed him the keys to the world, and all I want to do is jump into his arms right there and kiss him.

The Major nods towards me and grins at him; “Just so long as you keep looking after William’s girl here.”

Hudson turns and looks right into my eyes, his grin wide and his shoulder looking free of a weight that he’s had on them forever; “Always, sir.”

We of course wait until the Major leaves before I let myself all into Hudson’s arms and into his kiss; “Always, huh?”

“Yeah,” He says, smirking at me; “Always.”

We don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl yet, but we’ve got either William or Christine picket out for names after my Dad and his Mom. I know Hudson’s pretty excited at the idea of having a little girl, but I’ve told him that there are
plenty
of Archer girls already without adding one more little probable spit-fire to the mix.

It was a small wedding with basically just the immediate families; my two sisters and my Aunt Kelly on one side, and the two guys who are for all intents and purposes his brothers on the other. We asked Major Lawson to walk me down the aisle, and Bryce ended up taking one of those online ordination classes and married us right there in the gardens of my father’s house. We were
barely
pregnant at the wedding, but that didn’t mean there weren’t
plenty
of jokes about the “shotgun” nature of it, especially after Logan told me the story of my Dad
literally
breaking up an arranged wedding in Angola between some local warlord and this poor
child
of a girl with an
actual shotgun
. Turns out my Dad was kind of a badass, which kind of makes the tattooed, scarred up, ex-mercenary, ex-drinker, ex-playboy of a Marine who’s now my husband make a whole lot of sense, if you subscribe to that weird Freudian stuff.

I can’t say the aftermath of the blowout with Donald and my telling everyone about Hudson and I was all a fairy-tale ending, because that’s just not real life. Donald
did
end up suing Hudson, who ended up having to settle for some not-that-crazy-amount - well, for
him
- out of court to avoid criminal charges. Of course, after that he used every considerable connection he had to make sure Donald didn’t work in politics ever again, so I hope the $40,000 or so that he walked away with was worth it. And I
did
take a hit in the polls after the announcement about the two of us; guess some people have a problem with other people’s happiness. I still won though, by some almost record-breaking numbers, and on the next term, I was sworn in as the youngest State Senator in New York history. The victory was only made sweeter when we got wind of a massive lawsuit being leveled at Chet by
three
of his staffers for sexual misconduct.

I’m due in two months, so I’m of course as big a fucking whale these days. But for some insane reason I still can’t believe, my hunk of a husband still seems to find me irresistible, and he’s still trying to start things with me in public that we
should not
be doing in public. I know even as excited as he is, he’s worried about having kids just because of his own upbringing and the stuff he’s witnessed in the world. But I know he’s going to be an amazing father. I think the fund we’ve recently started up to rebuild schools in Afghanistan is helping too; helping him work through some of things he saw over there.

After the baby, I’ll be taking some maternity leave before I finish up my term with New York, and then I’m putting my career into Major Lawson’s hands; both of us are actually. We’re excited for whatever comes next, and since we’ve got each other, I know what
does
come is going to be something amazing that we face together. The things you care about are the things worth fighting for. We’ve both fought for what we care about, and somehow against all the odds, we’ve found our happy ending.

The End

The Soldiers of Fortune series continues!

Soldiers of Fortune: A Military Bad-Boy Billionaire Romance Series

"For every shadow in the world, there's a light somewhere else..."

Four men.

Four broken pasts. 

Four chances at redemption...

Author’s Note:

All books in the Soldiers of Fortune series are standalone, HEA titles. That said, your enjoyment of this story may be even more enriched by reading them in the order shown above.
 

Click the book covers above, or the links below to read now!

Heat

Burn

Scorch

Roar