Heart of a Hero: The Soldier's Seduction / The Heart of a Mercenary / Straight Through the Heart. Lyn Stone

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      “This isn’t fair,” she said, pulling her mouth back far enough to get the words out.

      He kissed the line of her jaw. “I don’t care about fair. All I care about is making us a family.”

      Was it his imagination or did her body tense the slightest bit?

      It was definitely not his imagination that she withdrew from the kiss slowly but surely, stepping back and straightening her sweater. “Give me time to think about it. This is the rest of my life we’re talking about here.” Her voice was quiet but he recognized that tone. When Phoebe dug in her heels about something, there was no budging her short of using dynamite. And he had the sneaking suspicion that might not even do it.

      “It’s the rest of all of our lives,” he reminded her.

      “I know.” She sounded weary. “Let me think about it.”

      “When can I expect an answer?”

      She spread her hands. “I don’t know. We can talk again…when we come back from California. All right?”

      He nodded grudgingly, not happy about it but unwilling to push further in case he really annoyed her and she decided she couldn’t stand him for the rest of her life. “All right.”

      The following weekend, Wade made the travel arrangements for their California trip. The weekend after that, they left right after Phoebe took leave from school at lunch on Friday.

      Bridget fussed for a bit early in the flight but, after a bottle and some cuddling, she settled down and went to sleep for a while. As Phoebe looked down at the beautiful baby girl in her arms, she was amused again by the determined little chin…oh, that was Wade all over.

      Wade. Amusement faded as she thought of his marriage proposal, if it could even have been called that, and the fist squeezing her heart tightened painfully. He wanted to marry her to make a home for their child, and because they knew each other well enough to make it work. But he hadn’t said anything about love.

      Could she marry him, knowing that he didn’t love her the way she wanted? Oh, he cared for her, she didn’t doubt that. And he clearly desired her. But he’d loved and desired Melanie once, and she knew that her sister would always hold his heart. She, Phoebe, had never expected that she’d have any part of him, much less marry him and bear his children, so how could she complain?

      As the jet began its landing descent, Phoebe hungrily gazed out the window. There was Mission Bay, the water sparkling in the sunlight, and the golf course of La Jolla. The university, the naval base, the zoo. The lighthouse, high atop a cliff.

      The freeway heading north was packed with traffic all rushing to exit the city, all driving at typical breakneck speed California-style. She could hardly wait to be in the middle of it.

      And before she knew it, they were. Wade had rented a car for the long weekend since he didn’t have a car of his own. He’d never seen the need before, he’d told her. When he’d come home, he’d just driven one of his parents’ vehicles.

      As they entered the outskirts of their old neighborhood, Phoebe realized she was holding her breath.

      It still looked much the same. Small yards shaded by flowering trees; tricycles, bikes and skateboards littering yards and driveways; brilliantly colored flowers fronting many of the carefully kept small homes.

      You could see the ocean from the end of their block, she knew. And as Wade drove to the end of the dead-end street and turned around so that he could stop the car along the curb in front of his father’s house, she craned her neck to look out over the steep cliff just beyond the barrier the city had placed there.

      She couldn’t see the beach, which had to be reached by going down a steep, winding road from the top of the hill, but the vast expanse of the ocean lay before her. Today it was a deep, dark blue, with bouncing whitecaps tossing spray into the air in all directions. A wave of nostalgia hit her like a rough breaker, smashing over her, swamping her.

      She’d missed that view so much. Who was she kidding? She wasn’t an East Coast girl. She loved the wild, untamed Pacific. She wanted Bridget to grow up with memories of smooth, rounded cobblestones littering the beach, of water so cold it made your teeth chatter. She wanted to take her daughter to the pretty beach in Laguna Niguel where they had spent a day each year on a sort of family mini-vacation, to tell her stories about her grandmother and her Aunt Melanie….

      But it was harder here, Phoebe thought, swallowing. Here where all the memories of her sister and her mother lurked, it was harder to ignore her grief and go on. That had been one of the main attractions about the job in New York. But now the past she’d run from had caught up with her, and because of her own stupidity, she owed it to Wade to stop running and let him get to know his daughter.

      Phoebe turned her gaze to her old home, four doors down the street, wondering about the family who lived there now. Did they have a pet? Her mother’s poodle, Boo-Boo, had dug holes all over their backyard until he’d gotten too old to do more than lie on the porch and yap at the neighborhood kids on their bikes.

      Were there children? She couldn’t tell from the outside. The garage door was down and there were no bikes or kid equipment littering the yard. And a tall hedge made it impossible to see into the backyard. Was the lemon tree her mother had planted still there?

      “Hey.” Wade’s voice was quiet. “You okay?” He touched her back lightly.

      “I’m okay.” She squared her shoulders. “It’s odd to come back here and not be able to go home, if you know what I mean.”

      He nodded. “I can imagine, even though I’ve never experienced it.”

      But in a way, he had. “How different is it without your mom?”

      He shrugged. “Not so. Dad always did give her a hand with the housework and cooking, so it’s not like he was helpless.”

      “But the dynamics change.” Oh, did they ever. Some of the most miserable times of her life had been the weekends and college breaks she’d spent at home in the first year after her mother had passed away. It wasn’t like it had once been before between Melanie and her. They’d each been grieving, but instead of drawing closer, their grief had isolated them and she’d found herself reluctant to visit as much. It was easier to stay on campus and immerse herself in her life there than it was to go home and enter the silent world of grief that she and Melanie had shared. Mel had stayed in their house, gone to a community college. She’d never really gotten away from the memories and Phoebe had sometimes wondered if Mel resented her for that. It had been Melanie’s choice to keep living there, but had it kept her grief from lightening?

      Phoebe grieved, too, but life had gone on and, somewhere along the way, she’d made the decision to do the same thing.

      “I guess you know all about the way a family changes,” he said quietly.

      She nodded.

      “When your mom died, things changed. But after Melanie died, your whole world was different, wasn’t it?” The quiet sympathy in his voice was nearly her undoing.

      She swallowed. “Yes. Losing Mom was hard. But losing Mel…Logically, I know that her death wasn’t the catalyst for my life taking СКАЧАТЬ