Eric scanned the coffee shop for the Admiral as he waited by the hostess desk.
A waitress swept by with a tray arranged with cups, saucers, and a pot of tea or something in the center, leaving behind the sweet scent of cinnamon.
He watched a man use a paddle to remove a pan from the ovens behind the counter.
The MRE he ate at noon had long since run its course.
The hostess appeared. “You can sit anywhere you’d like.”
“I’m looking for an older fellow with gray hair and a military bearing.”
“We have outdoor seating at the side of the shop. He’s at one of the tables there.”
“Thanks. I’d like to order a cup of black coffee and some of those cinnamon rolls to take outside.” He nodded toward the kitchen.
“I’ll get them for you. How many rolls?”
“At least four.”
“I’ll bring them to you.”
“Thanks.” He wandered through the tables to the side entrance where tables were set up beneath an awning.
Admiral Stewart sat alone at a table nursing a cup of coffee.
Eric could almost feel the man’s hostility as he progressed across the patio to the table. Ignoring it, he pulled a chair out and sat down. “The waitress is bringing out my coffee and some cinnamon rolls.”
“I don’t eat sweets.”
“That’s all right. I’ll take them home to Rylie.”
The mention of home seemed to ramp up Stewart’s emotions and his jaw muscles rippled.
A waitress came to the table with his order. As she set out plates, silverware, and napkins, Stewart’s reaction cooled.
“We haven’t officially moved in together. But Rylie needs as much help as she can get with the baby, and I live up to my responsibilities.”
“What do you do that helps her?”
“I give Reed a bottle at five every morning so she can get a four-hour stretch of sleep.” He started just that morning. And holding his son while he guzzled his milk made him feel bonded to him in a new way. “I bathe him, change him, and walk the floor with him if he’s fussy. He’s my son. I want to have as much time with him as I can.”
“And what will she do the months that you’re deployed?”
“She’ll take care of our son, and wait for my calls, just like she did this deployment. I’ll call home as often as I can, give her as much moral support as I can, and make sure if something happens to me, she and the baby get my benefits. I’ve already signed paperwork to take care of that.”
“It will be hell for her.”
“It will be hell for both of us,” Eric said, finally losing patience. “I have no other family, sir. I don’t know if you’re aware of that.” He was certain the man had pulled his file. “Rylie and Reed are the only people on the planet who have a blood tie to me. I can’t describe what that feels like. It’s a gift. A precious gift, and I don’t take it lightly.”
“Yet she kept her pregnancy from you.”
Eric nearly ground his teeth, but instead reached for one of the sweet rolls and took a bite. He chewed slowly. “Know thine enemy” was taking on a whole different meaning for him. He only wished he’d known about her father earlier. “She said she didn’t want to ‘dent my edge.’ Those are the exact words she used. I read somewhere that you were injured during two deployments before your wife died. What dented your edge?”
Steward eyes went flinty and he raised his cup to take a drink. “That’s none of your business.”
“Your daughter remembered it, though. Enough to worry that finding out I was going to be a father might throw my game off. She has a strong protective instinct with the people she loves. She thought she was protecting me from you by not naming me as Reed’s father. She said you were relentless.” He masked his anger with a blank stare. “She was having difficulties in her pregnancy, and you were still pressuring her about it. And you already knew.”
For the first time, Stewart looked away. “I just wanted to confirm it was you.”
“Rylie has too much respect for herself to sleep around. If you don’t recognize that, you don’t know your daughter at all. Why was it so important to know it was me?”
“I was hoping it wasn’t. I wanted it to be anyone but you. I know what she’ll go through being with you. The constant training, the long months apart, all the things that go along with the job. She’ll be raising Reed alone for most of his life. Just like my mother raised her alone after Rosalind died. And I know the temptations she’ll face with you being gone, and how alone she’ll feel. Couples aren’t built to live apart like this job demands of them. I wanted something better for my daughter. If you truly love her, walk away. Give her a chance at a normal life with a normal man.”
“Why didn’t you do that with Rosalind?”
“I was too saturated in the SEAL belief that to give up was to fail.”
“I think that’s a cop-out. I think you didn’t want your life to change. If you’d wanted Rylie to have a normal life, you could have resigned your commission after her mother died and stayed home with her. You could have moved on to something else. But you didn’t change a thing.”
Eric controlled his voice with an effort. “But something did change for her. Your constant need to control her. She talks about that a lot. And that’s all you’re interested in doing, even now. Unlike you, I trust Rylie to make her own decisions about her work and her life. No matter what she and I decide to do as a couple, it will be because we talked about it and made the decision together. Not because I tried to manipulate or control her.”
Stewart jumped to his feet, flushed with anger. “We’re never going to reach any kind of agreement on this issue.”
“No, sir, we’re not.”
Stewart turned away.
“You didn’t ask me if I loved her. Isn’t that important enough to know?”
“I know you do. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here trying to find a way around me.”
He wasn’t going to go around him. He was going to go through him. “You hurt her—every time you refuse to accept her for who she is instead of who you think she ought to be.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“She’s more than that.” He shook his head again. “She didn’t want you at the hospital when she had the baby because she thought you might try to gain custody if something happened to her. What does that say to you?” He picked up the bill, rose and shoved away from the table. “I’m going to ask her to marry me. With or without your blessing.”
He strode past Stewart and into the shop. The crowd had thinned, leaving only two people at the tables. One guy using a computer looked like he’d been there a while, and a woman was reading a book while she sipped a cup of what had to be tea from the teapot next to her.
The girl at the counter was ringing up a customer. She looked up as she pushed the key to open the drawer. Eyes wide, she shook her head at him.
The man standing at the counter half turned to see what was behind him. He crammed the wad of cash the girl handed him inside the pocket of his jacket, and pivoted toward Eric, his hand sneaking to his side.
Admiral Stewart sauntered up to Eric’s right, and Eric finally got a good look at the stranger’s face. Dark brown eyes, glazed and wild, scruffy beard, teeth yellow from smoking. His nose flat, the bridge wide.
The next moment the man lifted and swung his extended arm toward Eric—.
“Gun!” Eric’s warning came out as a shout. Someone screamed. Everything seemed to slow down as he shoved Stewart out of the way. The admiral fell just as the pistol fired.
Eric felt a punch to his right side. He gripped the man’s wrist, pivoted, dragged the shooter’s arm in close against his side and jerked it down hard over his forearm. The man screamed as the blow hyperextended his elbow and it popped and he dropped the weapon and it cartwheeled to the floor.
Eric slammed his elbow back twice, hitting the guy in the face, rocking his head back and breaking his nose. The shooter went down like a felled tree.
Eric kicked the gun away then stood over him in case he got back up.
The girl behind the cash register peeked around it. “Mister, you’re bleeding.” She grabbed a fistful of paper napkins and held the out toward him, her face sheet-white.
“Call 911,” he said. The pain of the injury to his side sliced through him and he bent slightly at the waist as he pushed the towels against it. “Fuck.”
Stewart was back on his feet. “Let me see how bad it is.”
Eric raised his arm and removed the napkins. He gritted his teeth as Stewart jerked the tail of his camouflage shirt up, along with his T-shirt, and bared the injury, putting pressure on the wound front and back.
“You are one lucky son of a bitch. It went straight through.”
Pain screamed through Eric, again making him nauseous. A nearby chair looked inviting, but if he sat, he might not be able to get back on his feet. “It doesn’t feel so fucking lucky. It hurts like a son of a bitch.”
“A stitch or two and you’ll be as good as new.”
A siren wailed in the distance.
He’d seen enough bullet wounds in his time to know better. When he was certain he wasn’t going to boot, Eric glanced at the admiral. “You’re a lying asshole, you know that?”
“Yeah, I suppose I am. Maybe you shouldn’t have saved my life.”
Rylie’s heart raced and she sucked in gasps as she rushed through the hospital emergency entrance and headed for the check-in desk. She held Reed’s small head still so she wouldn’t jar him in the baby carrier strapped to her chest.
“Take it easy, Rylie. He’s going to be fine.”
While every nerve in her body was screaming with worry, her father’s calm was annoying as hell.
Her voice shook as she spoke to the woman behind the plexiglass shield. “Eric Anderson. He was brought in with a gunshot wound about an hour ago.”
They had just found a way to ease the tensions between them. If something happened to him before they had a chance…
“Someone will be with you in just a moment. If you’ll go right over there and sit, they’ll take you back to where he’s being treated.”
Her father took her arm and guided her over to the seats. “He’s fine. He walked to the ambulance on his own and climbed in.” He set the hastily-packed diaper bag on the floor next to her.
She breathed in the smells of disinfectant and some kind of cleanser that seemed to linger in every hospital waiting room.
“That doesn’t prove a damn thing. If half his arm was blown off, he’d still be on his feet.” She flashed her father a look. “Isn’t that what you train them to do, stay on their feet and stay in the fight until they…can’t?”
She wanted to scream. He’d come off deployment without a scratch and been shot in a coffee shop. Sweet Jesus.
“I’ve had a similar injury, Rylie. He’ll be sore and moving slowly for a while, but he’ll heal. I still can’t believe you thought I shot him.”
“You’ve been a real dick, Dad. You avoided meeting him four times before he deployed. What were you afraid of? That he might actually be a good guy?”
Jack ran his fingers through his graying hair. “Pretty much.”
She was momentarily stunned silent.
“I’ve seen his file. He’s an excellent SEAL. Numerous commendations, nothing but praise in his evaluations. He’s an expert dive instructor and jumper. He’s an expert marksman. But the better they are, the more action they see. He’s good. And he’s up for another promotion.”
Jack glanced away, then met her eyes. “He saved my life, Rylie. The man was going to take us both out.”
“Why?”
“The police said the thief was coming down off his drug of choice. He saw the parking lot wasn’t very full and just wandered in, hoping for some quick cash. They’re pretty sure he’s the same one who’s hit two other places following the same pattern.
“The girl behind the counter had already given him the money from the register, but there we were, two large men standing right behind him. Eric recognized him for what he was, and his body language was what alerted me first, and the guy had me in his sights until Eric shoved me just as the gun went off. He disarmed the man and had him down and out of commission before I could get on my feet. I was useless.”
“Your job is different now, Dad. You’re still in good shape, but no one expects you to be at your peak like you were when you deployed with the teams. You’re fifty-four years old now.”
“I’d lost my edge long before I left them, Rylie.”
She’d never heard her dad talk like this before. “You were active duty for twenty years. That’s more than most last. And now you use other skills to drum up funding and make certain they get what they need to do their jobs.”
A nurse came through a closed door and went to the counter. At the woman’s gesture she turned in their direction. Rylie rushed to her feet. “Ms. Stewart?”
“Yes.”
“Petty Officer Anderson is resting comfortably. To be on the safe side we’re going to take him into surgery and explore the wound to make sure no debris has been left behind and no injury has been done to the tissue around the wound. But he wants to see you before he goes in.”
If they were taking him into surgery it couldn’t be as cut and dried as she was making it out to be. She felt tears building again and shut them off ruthlessly.
“How old is your baby?” the nurse asked as they walked.
“A week. We just had a checkup today.”
“I’m sorry this has happened to your family like this. But we’re going to take really good care of Eric. This is a trauma unit, and the doctors here really know their stuff.”
“Thank you.”
They went through the door that opened up into compartmented rooms that curved around a central nurse’s station. The nurse took her to one of them. “They’ll be coming to get him any moment. He’s been given a sedative, so he’ll be a little groggy.”
Eric’s eyes were closed as she eased into the space. An IV hung next to the bed and tubing ran to his arm.
When she brushed his sun streaked blond hair back from his forehead, his eyes opened, but he seemed to have trouble focusing. “Hey.” That one word was a little slurred.
“Hey, yourself. I can’t let you out of my sight for a minute without you getting into some kind of trouble.”
He smirked. “It just follows me where ever I go.”
She bent to press a kiss to his forehead, then his lips. “I wanted my father to like you. But you didn’t really have to get shot so he’d sing your praises.”
He laughed then grabbed his side. “Don’t make me laugh, baby, it hurts.”
“Okay. No more laughing until you’re better, then.”
He touched the strap of the carrier. “How the hell did you get Reed into that contraption?”
“I’ve been practicing with a stuffed bear. I’m getting better at it. It’s easier to carry him this way than to lift the car seat carrier. I can take him out so you can touch him.”
“He’s asleep, don’t disturb him.” He brushed his fingertips over the baby’s head.
His pale blue gaze snagged on her. “You know I’m crazy about you, don’t you?”
She started to tear up.
“I lived for those phone calls while I was deployed.”
“I did too. My father’s never going to interfere, ever again, I promise.”
“He’s an asshole.”
“Yeah, he is. But I think he’s coming around.”
“When I’m back on my feet, I want you to do something for me.”
“What’s that?”
“I want you to marry me, Rylie. Not because of the baby, but because we love each other.”
Tears streamed down her face. “You need to ask me again when you’re not under the influence.”
He laughed, then swore as he gripped his side.
She looked toward the doorway at the sound of feet approaching. What if something happened to him during surgery? Panic shook her and her mouth and throat went dry.
“You have to be okay, Eric. I love you so much.” She touched the carrier where Reed lay against her. “We love you.” She gripped his hand. “We’ll be here waiting for you.”
“It’s going to be okay, honey. I’ll be right back.”
Two male nurses entered the room, and in a sort of synchronized routine unlocked the wheels of the bed and maneuvered it out the door. One of them said, “If you’ll return to the waiting room, Dr. Russo will be out as soon as they’ve finished.”
She stood in the hall and watched their progress until they turned the corner.
She should have said yes. She wished she had. But she needed to be certain it wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction to the baby and…everything else.
She went back out the door and paused at the entrance to the waiting room. Where it had been nearly empty before, every seat was filled.
As she looked around the room, she saw Tucker…and Pretty Boy…and every other member of Eric’s team. Tucker and Nick came to greet her. “Viking called me from the emergency room. He didn’t want you to be alone while he’s in surgery,” Nick said. “We thought we’d come keep you company and meet little Viking.”
He’d called his family to comfort her. Their easy manner made it easier, but she still struggled not to wail. “Th-Thank you so much for coming.”