Her Firefighter SEAL (12 page)

Like a normal guy.

Fortunately, living in Northern California meant outdoor sleeping was perfectly feasible. If he’d moved to Minnesota or Illinois or any other state with snow, he’d have been a Popsicle by now. He’d tried telling himself that the dark was simply dark. It didn’t have to mean anything. He didn’t even have to sleep through it. He could sit, read, run, or even work on the run-down vacation rentals he’d bought. His head, however, insisted that the dark was just like the dark in Khost. His captors hadn’t been the kind of guys to pass out nightlights. They’d also liked to pay midnight visits that had never ended well.

Strong—and Abbie’s teeny tiny front yard—smelled different. Good different. He eyed the sea of white flowers. She had big flowers, little buds, and tons of curly stuff vining between everything. He should probably google and come up with real names, but then he might have to surrender his man card. Maybe he could look up the language of flowers while he was at it and... he had no idea what he’d do with that knowledge.

The door opened behind him.
Busted.
Abbie’s sleepy voice almost drowned out the soft pad of her bare feet on the porch. “Kade?”

He cleared his throat. “Right here.”

She went for the obvious. “You can’t sleep?”

She dropped down beside him, looking rumpled and sexy. Naturally, he started thinking about taking her back to bed. He could turn on a few lights to appreciate the view. That wouldn’t be strange. She’d dragged on a misbuttoned flannel shirt that barely covered the tops of her bare legs. He wondered if she had bothered with panties and if she’d let him find out.

When she looked at him, he realized she was waiting for his answer. “Something like that.”

She patted her belly. “Sometimes insomnia comes with the territory.”

But she yawned as she said the words. He decided it was debatable if this was baby territory, or if she’d come out here because of him. Her next words confirmed his suspicion.

She looked at him, sympathy lighting up her pretty brown eyes. “You want to talk about why you can’t sleep?”

He’d rather discuss politics. The weather, his father’s recent colonoscopy, or the sad state of the California state lottery. In other words, anything. “Not particularly.”

“Uh-huh.” She leaned companionably against his shoulder. “You just came out here to admire my night garden?”

“Maybe I love flowers.”

She laughed, a husky peal that had him smiling. “Name one flower that you see.”

She was onto him. “Does
white
count?”

“Not even close.” Her eyes lit up though, and she started pointing to various white flowers and rattling off long, complicated names. She was cute when she got excited, although he hoped to God there wasn’t going to be a spelling test when she finished. His second grade teacher hadn’t covered
Ipomoea
. Of course, his second grade teacher also hadn’t looked like Abbie. When she paused, he pointed out different flowers, enjoying the sound of her voice, the way her breast brushed against his arm as she leaned forward to identify the half million flowers she’d crammed into the yard. She gardened the same way she had sex. Exuberant, happy, and with a
more is better
approach.

“You like to garden?” He asked when she finally ran out of plants to name. Stupid. She hadn’t planted those things because she hated doing it. Even he knew plants didn’t grow accidentally, not the pretty ones at any rate.

“I blame garden porn.” She sighed, and he was definitely missing something. “It’s a slippery slope. You buy one plant, and then you get on all these mailing lists, and people send you catalogs with pictures.”

“Of plants,” he asked cautiously. He was pretty certain she wasn’t talking about a
Playgirl
moment.

She nodded vigorously. “Gorgeous, beautiful,
purchasable
plants. Then you buy them, open up the box, and discover your new baby is about three inches tall and will take years to mature. So you buy more plants to fill in the empty space.”

He pointed to Stan. “Anything he shouldn’t eat?”

“Bulbs would be bad, but I haven’t put anything in recently. He should be fine.” They watched Stan rummaging around the yard. Eventually, the dog trotted over and curled up on Kade’s bare feet.

Fuck it. He lifted her up and dropped her onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her and leaning back on the porch. A step dug into his lower back, and the ground was cold where his doggie foot warmer didn’t cover everything, but he wouldn’t have traded his position for anything.

“Should have gotten a bigger dog.”

She laughed. “Somehow, I think Stan is a keeper.”

He had a bad feeling that the woman in his arms was a keeper. She just wasn’t
his
to keep. That was the part he needed to remember because it was easy to forget when he was holding her like this. She was newly widowed and lonely, so making any kind of permanent move on her was off-limits. Except when had he ever thought about permanent relationships with anyone except her? He’d proposed to her once in high school, and he hadn’t realized until now just how much those words had meant.

He sat there, breathing in white flowers and Abbie.

After a while, she started playing twenty questions with him again. He’d figured out quickly that Abbie was a talker. She didn’t like silence. “How’d you find Stan? Was he a military dog?”

“There wasn’t a whole lot of finding involved, but he wasn’t a war dog. He didn’t sniff for bombs or uncover explosives. He just hung out around our base. He liked people, he preferred people with food, and we fit the bill.”

“He was a stray.”

“Strays are lost or don’t have homes.” Kade shrugged. “He wasn’t that once he found us. Hell, he was the only member of the team who didn’t complain about the MREs.”

“He didn’t follow you from Khost to here.”

“That
would
be one hell of a swim,” he acknowledged. She wriggled, settling in.

“He was waiting for me when I got free after the explosion.” When he’d finally gotten his chance to escape from his captors, he’d squeezed through a too-small basement window, tearing off his skin, wrenching muscles to fit because he had one chance—
one
—to get out and he wasn’t blowing it. He’d found himself on an unfamiliar street and then Stan had popped up. He wasn’t stupid enough to ignore a sign like that. After that, no way he left Stan behind when he’d headed state-side.

“Katie was told you got blown up.”

“It sure looked that way.” He patted his knee. “And part of me kind of did.”

“And you spent three months as—” She stopped, searching for words.

There weren’t any good words to describe that time. He’d been a punching bag. A bargaining token. The scapegoat for all of his captors’ bad moods and political setbacks. There had been hours of torture and beatings he’d rather not relive, even in his head, and that he definitely wasn’t sharing with Abbie. Not because she couldn’t understand, couldn’t take it, because he knew she was strong as hell. The right to sit here, holding her, living his life the way he wanted to... those were good reasons for what he’d done, and why he’d go back if he was needed.

“A prisoner,” he admitted. “But off the books.”

“It was bad.” Her careful statement said it all.

“Parts of it sucked.” Most of it. “There were okay moments, too. It wasn’t all bad, other than being separated from my team, knowing they were fighting without me. You could hear the mullahs wailing calls to prayer. Sometimes, the guards brought us tea. Plus, there were those blissful moments when shit had almost not hurt.”

“You weren’t the only prisoner?”

“That was one of the bad parts. The insurgents had a whole bunch of us, a couple of Europeans and at least one other American. They kept us pretty isolated, but we figured out how to communicate through the walls, and sometimes they paired us up.”

He’d been the only one to walk away, as far as he knew, and he’d bet that his former captives had vented their rage on the men he’d had to leave behind. They’d all been in different cells that night, and he’d had no way to reach them. He’d have wanted them to go without him. He knew that. But the reality of being the one to walk away sucked. He’d spent days debriefing, hoping that something he’d noticed or said would help Uncle Sam’s boys find the other prisoners. Knowing, however, that they’d have been moved immediately because Kade had compromised their location.

”Why can’t you sleep?” She was tenacious. He’d give her that.

“You’re not going to leave that alone, are you?”

“I could be convinced.” She ran her hand lightly over his chest, tangling her fingers in his dog tags. He drew her feet up, rubbing them in his hands. Cold feet he could fix.

She sighed. “Do you ever feel guilty?”

He dropped a kiss on her forehead. The move was stupid. Sappy even. But
carpe diem
, right? “I’d go back and fight in a heartbeat.” Fuck. He was all choked up, just sitting here on Abbie’s front porch.

“Me too,” she said. “For Will.”

He tightened his hold on her because, really, what was there to say? He’d go back for Will, too, and so would Abbie. Since neither of them could, however, they’d have to settle for sitting on her front porch and watching the sky slowly lighten as the sun crept closer and closer to the horizon.

Something moved beneath his hand.
Someone.
A little ripple, kind of like Abbie had a miniature alligator swimming beneath her skin, and the thing had just popped its head up to take a look. Another bump. Another delicate flutter.

She really did have a baby inside her. He’d known that, of course, but
feeling
the baby was a whole different thing.

“Wow,” he said, giving up on being smooth or even vaguely articulate.

“Someone else is awake,” she said softly.

Her fingers covered his and who knew? Sitting there like that, together, was the best damned thing he’d done in a long time.

––––––––

Chapter Twelve

T
hat weekend Kade was parked on a firehouse bunk bed, waiting for an emergency call that probably wouldn’t come. Wishing a fire on someone sucked, he reminded himself. Good guys—
decent
guys—were thrilled if the weekend was slow and devoid of all action. Yeah. He sucked. Hanging around the firehouse with the guys was boring, all wait and no
do
. Wildland firefighting got his vote every time. When he worked with Donovan Brothers, he used his ass for parachuting, not sitting. And, bonus points, a forest fire was a nice big impersonal flaming inferno that usually ate up trees instead of people’s personal lives and homes.

The Strong firehouse had a second story that stretched the length of the station.  Bunk beds lined two of the walls, and there was a minikitchen and a big screen TV. As places to wait went, Kade had passed time in far worse. He had no business complaining, even if the noise level approximated that of a dance club in the middle of a freeway. Where the locals were also setting off TNT blasts on the shoulder.

When had he gone to bed and woken up an old fart? A couple of years ago, he’d have been wrestling for control of the Wii or trading creative insults with the group raiding the fridge. Yep. He’d officially fallen off the edge of “young and crazy” and landed firmly in “ready for middle age and a minivan” territory. The worst thing was, he didn’t mind.

A large hand smacked the back of his head. “You okay? You’re looking peaky.”

Okay. Maybe he wasn’t so old, because he drove his elbow backward into Grady Brogan’s midsection. Grady cursed and returned the favor with a noogie. Since Grady had singlehandedly led Cal State Fullerton to multiple wrestling victories, Kade didn’t stand a chance of hell of breaking free of the headlock.

When Grady finally let go, Kade turned the page in his book. He probably should have bought the ebook version, but he’d borrowed this from Gia Donovan. Or, more accurately, he’d pilfered it from Rio Donovan’s desk when Kade had swung by the smoke jumping hangar on Thursday to see when he could rejoin the team. Which had been yesterday. The visit had gone okay. Rio had agreed he could join the training jumps and they’d take it from there. That wasn’t an unconditional
welcome back to the team
, but it was a start.

He turned the next page and studied the diagram. Whoa. Female reproductive organs were a whole lot less sexy in black and white. Squeezing a baby out through that teeny tiny exit also seemed like an anatomical impossibility. Jesus, but he was glad to be a guy.

Grady wandered back, shoving a handful of popcorn into his mouth. “Whatcha reading?”

“A book.” He definitely should have gone with the ebook.

Grady tugged. Kade held on. “What is this? Second grade?”

Grady twisted, trying to reading the title. Yeah. He’d left himself wide open for what was coming next.

“
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
.” For a moment, Grady looked blank, but then an evil grin spread over his face. “Congratulations, Jordan. You’re pregnant.”

Despite the movie night, three competing music sound tracks, and the assorted beeping and vibrating sounds of half the contents of Best Buy, every head in the firehouse turned and lasered in on Kade.
Shit
.

Someone grabbed for his T-shirt, and a playful wrestling competition ensued. Kade lost when Grady pinned his legs and two other guys got his arms. His T-shirt flew up.

“You’re not showing yet.” Damned if Grady didn’t sound almost disappointed.

“I’m feeling violated. Fuck off.” He bucked, but Grady didn’t budge.

Grady patted Kade’s stomach. “Someone needs to explain the birds and the bees to Jordan.”

“Maybe he’s expecting twins.” An unidentified someone elbowed him in the stomach. Kade was almost certain it was an accident.

He shoved, and when they let him up, he held out his hand for the book. It sailed through the air and smacked onto the floor beside him.

Ten faces looked expectantly at him. “Story time!” Grady crowed.

This wasn’t second grade. It was kindergarten. Dammit. He and Abbie hadn’t talked about taking their relationship public. Mostly because he didn’t know what to call it. He was her booty call and her loaner guy. He was also, he hoped, something more, but they definitely hadn’t put words on what they were doing.