Here And Now (American Valor 2) (26 page)

Within the half hour, they were checked in. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it would suffice, because it had a bed, it had delivery menus, and most importantly it had her. And he didn’t plan on them going anywhere for the next four days if he could help it.

Lucky swiped the key card in the lock and had barely shoved the door open when Rachel pushed past him to get to the bathroom. The door closed behind him as he tossed his beret on the dresser and set her small suitcase on the floor at the end of the bed.

“Do you need me to go get you some ginger ale and crackers?”

The toilet flushed but she didn’t answer. He waited a few seconds, then decided to get comfortable, taking a seat on the end of the bed. He unzipped his ACU jacket and unlaced his boots. Then, much to his surprise, the bathroom door opened and Rachel appeared with a smile on her face.

“I take it you weren’t sick.”

“Nope. The morning sickness has passed. I just really, really needed to pee.” She dropped her purse on the bed beside him and straddled his lap. “So, Mr. James? What did you have in mind for this weekend?”

“Plenty, Shortcake.”

The next few seconds was a flurry of hands and arms as she pulled and tugged off first his jacket, then the gray-green T-shirt he wore beneath and tossed them in the direction of a nearby chair. Her bright blue eyes widened as her soft hands smoothed over his shoulders, his arms, and chest. “Wow. RASP really does a body good.”

“Glad you approve,” he said with a laugh. He grasped the hem of her soft cotton dress. “Can I have a turn now?”

Rachel raised her arms above her head. “Sure thing, baby. Knock yourself out.”

“Well, well. What do we have here?” Lucky trailed a finger across her collarbone and down her sternum, admiring the heavy swells of her breasts. “I have to say these are amazing.”

“I know, right?” Rachel cupped her breasts over her bra and arched her back, lifting them higher and giving him one hell of a look. “I’ve never had boobs this great in my life.”

He pushed her hands out of the way, wanting to cup and caress her breasts himself. “Do we get to keep these?” he asked before leaning over to place a kiss to the soft skin that swelled above the lace.

“That all depends.”

Rachel leaned over to grab her purse and pulled a familiar-looking box from the side pocket. “I wanted you to put it on me,” she said, handing him the small velvet box. “Of course, I feel like I should be the one asking you since it took me forever to make up my mind.”

Lucky cupped her cheek with his hand. “So ask me.”

Rachel took his left hand in both of hers and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. Then those bright blue eyes lifted to meet his as she took a shaky breath. “I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. From here on out, wherever you go, I’ll go. Because I’m not scared anymore as long as I have you.” She took a fortifying breath. “So . . . Lucky James—”

He silenced her with a kiss, not really wanting her to ask because he was old-fashioned. And proposing was his job.

“Why didn’t you let me finish?”

“Because I asked first. And I’ve been waiting a long time to hear you say yes.” He lifted her hand to his mouth, kissed the tender skin of her wrist before he wrapped his hand around hers. “You’ve been a lot of things to me in these past few months. Friend. Coworker. Fishing buddy. Mother of my child. But what I really want is ‘wife’ added to that list.” The tears that had been building in her eyes finally spilled over onto her cheeks. He caught each one with his fingertip, brushing them away. “Rachel Louise Dellinger, will you marry me?”

She said “yes” several times, her voice never raising above a whisper. Lucky slipped the ring on her finger, happy to see it finally freed from its velvet confines and on her hand where it was supposed to be. He kissed her lips, her cheek, her neck, and shoulder before he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight against him. Now that he finally had her, he intended to never let her go.

Chapter Twenty-Six

May

L
UCKY STOOD IN
the middle of their new condo looking at all the work that still needed to be done before Rachel arrived in forty-eight hours. The living room alone was filled with paint cans and drop cloths, unassembled baby furniture, and beer coolers. But if he and the guys could finish painting within the next day, that would leave the following day for him to put everything together and clean up the house. That way, when that U-Haul truck pulled in the drive, he and the guys could move everything in right away and make this cold empty space feel like a home.

When his post-RASP graduation leave ended, Rachel returned to Oklahoma and Lucky reported to Hunter Army Airfield. If he’d had his way, she would have moved with him to Savannah that very day. But he was temporarily assigned to the barracks and she didn’t feel comfortable staying with people she’d never met before. She was also being practical not wanting to move multiple times. Rachel wanted to line up an OB/GYN before moving, give two weeks’ notice at work, and take another week to pack. When he reminded her they’d moved all of her things in a day, she was sure to point out she hardly had furniture then and she’d only been moving across town, not across the country.

For a time, it felt like she’d never get here, and he’d be lying if he said he worried more than once that she might change her mind.

So for four weeks he was here and she was there until their new place was ready to go. Luckily for them, he didn’t have to look very far since Bull offered to rent them the three-bedroom condominium he had been awarded in his divorce proceedings. A condo he would lose money on if he tried to sell. So leasing it to him and Rachel was a win-win for everyone.

Two weekends earlier, the C-Co guys packed up what remained of Bull’s things and moved them into a storage locker per his instructions. Then, under the strict supervision of Ben’s interior-designing wife, Marie, the guys spent the following weekend rolling on a fresh coat of builder’s beige paint on all of the walls. The only exception was the upstairs bedroom that would become the nursery, complete with an eastern exposure that would flood the room with early morning light and a scenic view of the marsh.

While Lucky and Ben taped off the trim, and Danny covered the wide plank floors with drop cloths, Gibby pried the lid off the first gallon of paint.

“You’re having a boy?” Gibby shouted.

Lucky, Danny, and Ben all turned to see Gibby holding up the can lid, the underside coated in light gray-blue paint. Within an instant, three pairs of eyes were staring back at him.

His eyes went back to the can lid held in Gibby’s hand. “We don’t know what we’re having. Rachel wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Maybe she found out and this is her way of surprising you with the news?” Ben suggested.

“Like those cake reveals!” Gibby added. “Where they cut into a frosted cake and the inside is either pink or blue.”

All eyes now landed on Gibby.

“First of all . . .” Danny started. “That’s weird. People do stuff like that? And how the hell would you know about it?”

Gibby shook his head. “I have three sisters, man. I know way too much about shit like that.”

Hearing the commotion, Marie appeared in the doorway. “Is everything okay?”

When Lucky, Danny, and Gibby dared to question Marie’s color choice, wondering out loud whether or not blue would be appropriate for a little girl, Ben quickly abandoned his post and ran for the hills, leaving his little Italian wife standing in the doorway and blocking their exit. She proceeded to give them a thirty-minute dressing down about the art of interior design and explaining that in this scenario she was the commanding officer. Questioning her expertise was akin to insubordination, especially since their idea of stylish colors began with cinder block gray and ended with desert sand.

There were no further questions.

Over the next two days the four of them taped, painted, and assembled furniture, with Ben being the only one authorized to hang the plantation shutters and curtain rods. According to Marie, he had been properly trained and possessed the installation experience the others lacked.

No one dared question her.

Finally, with the draperies hung and the new furniture moved in, assembling the crib was the only major item left.

“You have to insert the tenon of the Crib Ends Top A into the slot of Crib Ends Bottom B before you insert the bolts through the legs and the threaded inserts.” Gibby flipped to the next page of instructions, shook his head, and took another drink of his beer.

Lucky held up a wooden piece in one hand and a bolt in the other. “Is this a Top A?”

“No,” Ben answered from where he sat in the window seat. “That’s a Bottom Stretcher Bar.”

“What the hell is a Top A?” Lucky asked.

Danny held up another crib piece. “This has an ‘A’ sticker on it.”

Lucky took it from Danny’s hand and held it up against the other. “But it looks just like this one.”

Much to everyone’s amusement and surprise, the exception being Ben who’d been down this momentous path more than once, it took Lucky two hours to finally win the battle of Tab As and Slot Bs. Once the crib assembly was complete and standing on its own, Ben grabbed hold of one side and gave it a violent shake.

“What the hell are you doing?” Lucky asked, fearing he was going to undo the last two hours of hard work.

“Stress test.” Ben moved to the opposite side and repeated the action. “Have to make certain this thing is structurally sound. Trust me when I say that while toddlers might be small, they’re mighty. And those little terrors will give this crib a run for its money.”

Lucky shook his head, silently praying his kid wouldn’t be anything like the mini-monster that Ben described.

Just as he heard the rumble of a large truck, his phone chimed in his pocket. After a quick glance at the screen he took off down the stairs and out the front door as his father backed the large U-Haul truck into the driveway while Brenda parked her SUV along the curb. Rachel must have been as excited as he was, because she flung open the car door and hopped out the moment Brenda came to a stop.

He met her in the middle of the front yard and wrapped her up in his embrace, her belly noticeably larger than the last time he saw her in person. “God, I’ve missed you,” he whispered in her ear. He buried his face in her hair, soaked up her warmth, breathed in her scent, his heart and mind at ease for the first time since he’d arrived in Savannah because she was finally here with him.

Lucky held her face in his hands and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, before he knelt down and placed another to her belly. “Hi, baby,” he whispered, and when he rose to his feet he noticed the shimmer of tears in her bright blue eyes.

Her fingers skimmed over the light stubble on his face. “It’s still so strange to see you without your beard. And your hair, it’s so short.”

“Having a change of heart?”

She ran her hand over the top of his head. “Absolutely not.”

I
T WAS HOURS
before she had him all to herself. His friends stood on the front steps, anxious to meet her the moment she climbed out of the car. They were able to steal a few minutes alone while Lucky gave her a quick tour of the condo but then he and the guys went right to work unloading the U-Haul. They spent the next hour carrying in boxes and mattresses and the new couch Lucky had bought her. Brenda and Duke helped unpack a few things, but left to check in at the bed-and-breakfast Lucky booked for them as a thank you for helping them move and driving her across country.

By the time they were done, it was well past dinnertime so it was only right to feed them. Then they spent the next three hours eating pizza, drinking beer, and telling Ranger stories. Ben and Danny were just as Lucky had described them. And Gibby was just as she remembered. Together the three of them were funny and loud and had a million and one stories. Most of the time Lucky was content to sit back and listen, unless he thought he was portrayed incorrectly. Then he was quick to lean over and whisper loud enough they could all hear that he thought they were full of shit.

Around midnight, with the guys finally gone, Lucky led her upstairs to their bedroom, laid her down on cool sheets, and did his absolute best to make up for the past eight weeks apart. The time away from each other wasn’t easy, but Rachel considered it good preparation, an army wives boot camp of sorts to prepare her for a military marriage. As they laid there in the darkness, the moonlight streaming in through the plantation shutters, she imagined this is how it would always be when he returned after a long training session or even longer deployment. How all that time apart would fade away into the background as they lay in each other’s arms, sharing stories about things the other missed.

She still couldn’t get over the shape of his body now. How much harder, leaner, his muscles were. The first time she saw him in the ER she’d thought he was the best-looking thing she’d ever seen in person. And now he’d gone and made himself look ten times better. She could hardly believe he was hers.

Even more surprising, how he completely changed her life for the better. By showing her there was so much more to life outside her little bubble. Because of him she’d quit her job, given away her brother’s truck, and moved halfway across the country to a city she’d never been to. And soon she’d be a wife and a mom. Her life was a lot like this house he’d found for them to live in—far better than she ever could have imagined.

She smoothed her hand over his face and lightly scratched the chin covered in a day’s worth of stubble. He smiled at her, and despite video chatting almost every day they were apart, she was still surprised by the dimple in his cheek no longer hidden beneath his beard.

“You look happy,” she said.

“I am.” His hand smoothed idly over her belly, alternating between sweeping side-to-side movements and lazy circles. The baby was still for the moment, but Lucky was trying his best to jump-start a kicking session. “In some ways it’s like I never left the army. The training is the same. The places are the same. For the most part, the people are all the same. But when I’d get back to the barracks and things were quiet, like now, that’s when I missed you the most.”

Lucky smoothed his hand across her arm and shoulder, finally reaching her jaw, his fingertips curling around her ear as his thumb brushed across her cheek. “So yeah, I’m very happy.”

And then, without any warning, he threw back the covers and sat up in bed. “You need to get dressed.”

Rachel looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table. “It’s not even five in the morning. I’m pretty sure there’s nowhere I need to be right now.”

But he didn’t relent, taking hold of her wrists and tugging her into a sitting position. His eyes and smile conveyed his excitement as he leaned over to kiss her forehead, the tip of her nose and then to her lips. “Come on, Shortcake,” he whispered against her lips. “There’s something I want to show you.”

L
UCKY M
ADE HIS
way around to the passenger door where he helped Rachel out of his Jeep. Instantly her head tipped back, her gaze traveling upward, to the bright light at the top of the lighthouse.

“I didn’t know places still used lighthouses.”

“They don’t, really. Not with all the navigational equipment that’s available these days. I think it’s more for the history and charm than anything else.” He took hold of her hand as they made their way across the boardwalk. “Just so you know, they do a lot of weddings here.”

He looked to see what her reaction might be, but she was too busy looking at the sand oats and the dunes and everything else.

“Is that right?” she replied.

Just as he anticipated, Rachel didn’t take the bait. As long as it took her to say yes to his marriage proposal, he could only imagine how long it would be before she set a wedding date. He didn’t care where or when they had it. Or if they invited two hundred people or kept it to the two of them. None of that mattered. He just wanted Rachel to be his wife. The sooner, the better.

When they reached the end of the boardwalk, she sucked in a breath.

“What do you think?”

Rachel shook her head as if she couldn’t find the words.

Lucky wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her to his side as she looked out at the ocean for the very first time. The sun was just breaking over the horizon, adding streaks of pink and orange to the dark blue sky.

“It’s amazing. Beautiful.” She turned to look at him with a bright smile on her face. “And definitely bigger than the farm pond.”

Lucky chuckled. “Just a little bit.”

They made their way onto the sand to the water’s edge, walking along where the tide slid up and over their feet before retreating back into the ocean. He liked listening to her talk about how soft the sand was. How white it was. He loved watching her discover this place, seeing her smile, hearing her laugh as she wriggled her toes in the sand and the foam tickled her feet. She kept stopping every few feet to gather another shell until the pockets in both her jacket and his were stuffed full.

“I found another one of those pink ones,” she said, leaning over and plucking a half-buried shell from the sand. She was rinsing it clean when the tide receded and a tiny crab scuttled across her toes. Rachel panicked, screaming and jumping around as if the crab was the size of a dog instead of the size of a pink eraser. In all of the excitement, she threw the pink shell she’d found at it, and the tide came in and swept it away.

Rachel held her hands up in surrender. “You know what? I’m done.”

“No more shells?”

“Not after that.” Rachel brushed her hands together, knocking off the sand and grit from her fingers. “Besides, I’m hungry.”

“Say no more.” He held out his hand and she twined her chilled fingers with his as they made their way back to the Jeep.

Much to his surprise, they’d had the beach all to themselves the entire time they’d been there. As they started the mile walk back to the lighthouse, their hands swung between them as they walked hand in hand. Lucky could easily picture their future, how one day there would be a child between them, holding on to each of their hands as they swung back and forth.