Skin Deep (6 page)

She squinted up at him. “Is this—admiration? Is this budding friendship? I’m not sure I know what we should do with this.”

His expression turned a little embarrassed. “We keep pushing the stroller. My boy wants to swing, woman. Stop delaying the inevitable.”

She let him go, laughing, and they continued walking until they got to the playground area. She unbuckled Toby and held him up for Hotch. “Go play. Get to know your son. I’ll be over there,” she said, nodding at a nearby bench.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

She almost laughed again at his uncertainty. “I’m sure. You two should bond.”

“What if I break him?”

“Babies are surprisingly sturdy. You’ll do fine. Just remember he likes to scoot around, and he needs to be strapped into the swing chair.” She took the stroller to the bench with her and sat down.

She clapped a hand over her mouth as she looked back to see Hotch standing where she’d left him, Toby held aloft, feet kicking in the air. Toby squealed gleefully and Hotch looked around as though he thought he might be arrested for the outcry he’d caused.

“I’m doing this wrong!” he called to her.

“Hug him,” she shouted back.

Hotch tucked him against his chest. Immediately the tension in father and son melted as shoulders relaxed and arms entwined. Hotch smiled easily, and Erin breathed again. There was hope.

Chapter Four

“Last one,” Hotch called to Erin when she pleaded for them to go.

Hotch settled Toby on his lap, hugged him tight, and went down the hip hugging plastic mini-slide. Toby laughed. Only four days ago, he’d walked to the park with him and Erin for the first time. Now it felt like Toby had been in his arms forever.

After the first day, Hotch hadn’t been able to put him back in the stroller. He carried Toby or put him up on his shoulders. There’d been one short walk back where Hotch had held his little hands and waddled behind Toby as Toby tested his walking legs. And every time he had to give Toby back to Erin and leave, Hotch felt a desperation behind his sternum that only holding Toby again satisfied.

Hotch hefted the giggling boy into his arms with a dramatic sweep. Propped on Hotch’s hip, Toby pointed at Erin. “Mama!”

“Mama’s waiting. Let’s go get her,” Hotch whispered in Toby’s ear. “I know I want to go get her. That’ll be our secret. Don’t tell her.”

“Don’t tell her, what?” Erin said, smiling easily.

He smiled back. It was impossible not to when she looked at him like that. Her green eyes shone with tenderness as she looked between Hotch and Toby. She tilted her head to the side slightly. He’d bet she didn’t know she did that when she waited for Hotch to say something about their son.

“I can’t tell you. It’s a secret between me and my son.”

Something like surprise flitted through her expression, but her smile widened.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“I don’t think so,” he countered. “What was that look you just had?”

“I had a look?”

“Yep.”

Erin wheeled the cart toward the walking path. “You called him your son.”

Hotch thought about it for a moment. “I did.”

“It’s nice,” she commented softly.

Hotch kissed Toby’s pudgy cheek, then blew a flub on it. Toby erupted into laughter. “He’s the best son on the planet.”

“I can’t argue that.”

They passed under an awning of trees. The sighing leaves swished above them, dappling the light and giving Hotch the sense that they were alone in the world, and it was perfect.

“Hotch?” Erin stopped walking. When she looked up at him, he could see she was struggling with something. “Thank you for sticking around over your leave.”

“I don’t have anywhere to go but here. Besides, there’s this kid I’m kind of in love with.” Hotch looked at her intently. “Thank you for letting me meet him.”

She nodded. They began walking again. “I wasn’t sure how it would go over with you. It worried me, because I thought you’d be angry and blame me.”

“Why? I was there too. I was just as responsible for remembering protection.” He looked at the wide blue-green gaze of his son, at the tiny tentative smile as Toby put his palm over Hotch’s mouth and patted it as Hotch spoke, making his words come out funny.

Hotch blew a raspberry into his palm then scrubbed the tiny fingers over his jaw where whiskers already roughened the skin.

“Because that’s not the common response to surprise parenthood. It wasn’t mine.”

“Oh, really?” he teased, drawing out the last word. “So you blamed me?”

She laughed. “For a couple of days. Then I decided that wouldn’t get me anywhere.”

He hadn’t kissed her since that night behind the bar. It had been a fight to keep from doing it every time he saw her. It didn’t seem appropriate while they pretended to be a family at the park, and he drove home every afternoon. He wanted to stay, help Erin at mealtimes, and wake up with Toby in the middle of the night. Leaving them behind felt like he ripped off an arm and left it, every day.

“Move in with me,” he blurted without thinking.

Erin’s stride faltered, but she kept going. “I don’t know if I want to move to Gooding.”

“Aren’t you already here?”

“Visiting. I came back to town to see you.” She shrugged. “I figured I’d stay for a couple of weeks and leave when you were deployed again.”

Hotch caught her upper arm as raw fear seized him. “Don’t leave. Don’t take my son away, please.”

“I—don’t live here,” she said apologetically.

“You could live here. You could move in with me on base.”

“What? That’s insane. Why the hell would I want to live on base?” she snapped. “Did you miss the warm hello my father gave me?”

“But your mom lives here, right?”

“For now. She’s renting the place we’re staying in. I think she’s hoping Dad will come to his senses and beg forgiveness.”

“I have a home on base. It’s empty when I’m on deployment. It’s safe. The community is solid and the security is unparalleled. And when I’m home, I can be a dad to Toby,” Hotch reasoned in a rush.

“You’re asking a lot of me. I don’t want a military life. It’s been nothing but a kick in my ass for as long as I can remember. I don’t want that for Toby either.”

“Do you want
me
in his life?” Hotch asked carefully.

“Is that a threat?”

“No, I mean, I’m military. You can’t get more die-hard bleed red-white-and-blue than a SEAL. That’s who I am.
I
want to be in his life, but do you want me there?”

“Of course I do,” she said on a long sigh.

“What about you?” Hotch stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers.

Her gaze met his warily. “And by that you mean?”

He bent down, claiming her lips in a gentle but thorough kiss. Toby slobbered on Hotch’s cheek in his own version of a kiss that left them both laughing. Hotch ruffled his hair, and turned his attention back to Erin.

“I want you close. We have something,” he said.

“Chemistry and a kid. That’s what we have. It’s not enough to base a relationship on.”

“Then don’t call it one. Call it being my roommate and house sitter. The rent is free and so are all the utilities. I’ll portion off a percentage of my paycheck we agree upon for child support. If you decide to get a job, the base has daycare for military families.”

“I’m not military. I’m not even your girlfriend.”

“Then marry me.”

“What?” she exclaimed.

“Marry me. You’ll be family. You’ll both have benefits. I’ll know I have someone to come home to. Give us a chance,” he suggested.

“Marriage isn’t a game, Hotch. My parents had to work at theirs, and it still fell apart. I’m a single mom who irresponsibly got pregnant by another guy at her boyfriend’s funeral, and whose father would rather disown her than look at her again.” She looked away. “I’m a mess. I’m not somebody’s pretend wife.”

He slipped his arm around her shoulders. “If it’ll make you feel any better, I promise to sleep with you every night and enjoy it.”

She elbowed him in the ribs, but she was laughing, and that’s what he wanted to see. Though marriage and moving in hadn’t been on his agenda, it didn’t sound like such a bad idea. He liked her. A lot. He’d thought Erin the girl was sexy before, but Erin the mom was
smokin’
. The fact that she’d had his kid made him want to see her belly filled with another child. Not that he’d push the issue. He just really liked knowing that her body had created another person with their essences. God, that was sexy.

“I have something for you,” she said.

“Will it require a condom?”

“Gutter much?”

“Can’t help it. I’m walking through the park with my son on my hip playing patty cake on my shoulder and charming the joggers, while my hot almost-wife-mother-of-my-child is swinging her lovely hips, next to me.”

Erin arched an eyebrow. The effect was ruined by her blush and the subtle lift of her smile. “I’m serious.”

“Okay. What do you have for me?”

“A copy of Troy’s journal. It was in the box. I’ve read it, and there’s a lot in there I think he’d want you to know.”

“He left that to you,” Hotch said seriously. The familiar swell of guilt threatened to choke off his good mood.

“He loved you. Most of his journal is about how important you were to him, and how much he looked up to you.”

“He had to. I was three inches taller than him.”

“Hotch.”

Apparently, she wasn’t going to let him get away with playing it off. “I don’t want it.”

“Why not?”

He shook his head. “I just don’t.”

She didn’t press the issue. He was glad. There would never been enough time to forgive himself for that accident. Nebraska would still be alive if it hadn’t been for Hotch. For the millionth time, he wondered why he hadn’t ushered Nebraska out of the lock first. Why that time? Why did the outer door malfunction that day? That moment? That man?

Nebraska’s torn body hanging on by stretched flesh, his intestines and blood spilling into the royal blue ocean. Hotch could still feel the submarine beneath his feet as he’d tried to help, the underwater cry from his best friend when pain took over. It should have been Hotch. He always went last, except that last time. It was his fault Nebraska was dead. If Erin knew that, she’d never want to see him again.

Hotch hugged Toby close. He’d have hugged Erin, too, if he thought she’d let him without asking questions. He couldn’t lose them. He’d never had a family after his parents died, and he was sent to foster care. The prospect of losing them now terrified him. It would be the cruelest joke fate had to offer him.

Erin’s hand rubbed his lower back. “Hey, what just happened?”

“I don’t want to lose you, Erin.”

“You mean Toby.”

“Either of you. You’re all the family I have, and you’re perfect. Stay with me. I’ll be able to help you with Toby and get to know him in the time I have on leave. If you want to stay when I’m gone, my house is yours. If you don’t, I’ll help you get wherever you’re trying to go.”

“So when my dad told you to stay away from me, this was your translation?”

“Your dad is my CO, and I respect him, but there’s no regulation that can dictate who my family is.”

“Do you have room for us?”

He couldn’t have hidden his smile if he tried. “Yes. I live in a two bedroom house.”

“Toby and I can room together.”

“Room with me. Bunk with me. Marry me,” he urged.

They’d stopped in front of her mother’s tiny rental home. She searched his gaze for several long moments. She reached for Toby, and the baby held out his arms to her. Once he was settled, he fisted her hair happily. Erin tugged his tiny shirt down over his round belly.

“I’ll come stay with you,” she agreed slowly. “I’ll sleep in your room with you. I think we’d both enjoy more of that. Marriage? I’m not ready and when I am, I need it to be real, and that means no military men.”

Hotch whooped and hugged his family. “At least think about marriage and give me an answer before I’m recalled. You might need the coverage and income. I want to be there for you however I can.”

“A marriage of convenience?”

“You don’t think you could learn to love me?” he teased.

“I come with baggage.”

“We all have baggage.” His smile faded. “I’ve made my share of mistakes. Toby isn’t one of them and neither is having you move in with me. That part feels
right
.”

“I need a day to pack and prepare Mom.”

“Tomorrow morning I’ll pick you up, load the car, and we’ll go to my place. Then we’ll walk to the base playground. I need to fill out the necessary access paperwork for you too.”

He’d also be locating any and all documentation for a quickie wedding if she changed her mind. They didn’t have much time left before he had to report for duty. He wasn’t going to waste it, and if she was comfortable sharing his bed like she said she was, he had more opportunities to make her reconsider her answer.