Habit had Henry jumping out of bed and pulling on his pants at the first knock that sounded on his door.
“What’s wrong?” Betty asked.
He flipped the suspenders over his shoulders. “Someone’s at the door.”
“Wait!” She scrambled out of bed. “Let me put on my dressing robe.”
The knock sounded again as she slipped her arms into the oversize blue robe and tied the belt tight around her narrow waist.
She nodded and he unlocked the door. Opened it.
“I’m sorry, Henry,” Nate said. “May I come in, or can you come out here?”
“He can come in,” Betty said, taking a seat in one of the chairs.
Henry waved a hand and held the door wide as Nate entered the room. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“I know,” Nate said. “I apologize, but I just got a phone call. LeRoy Black’s been shot.”
An icy wave washed over Henry. “Is he—”
“He’s going to make it, from what I was told,” Nate said. “But Curtis Elkin escaped.”
“Damn it,” Henry hissed beneath his breath. “I told them to—” He let that go and asked, “Where?”
“Rockville. Last stop before they would have arrived in DC.”
In the recesses of his mind, Henry heard Elkin’s laugh, and how he’d said that he had backup. “It’s Burrows family and the Tribbianis from New Jersey. Bootleggers. But they’ve extended their operations west. Elkin had been slipping them information for years, and was prepared to take over the operations out here. It’s all in my report.”
Nate nodded. “The report was with LeRoy. No one else has read it.”
Henry rubbed his head. “How bad is LeRoy?”
“I don’t have those details.”
LeRoy had been his supervisor for years, and he thought of the last time he’d seen him, how LeRoy had to get home to his wife. Wife. Henry looked at Betty. He was no longer an agent. There was nothing he could do to help. Not the Bureau or LeRoy.
“I know you resigned, Henry,” Nate said. “I know it’s your honeymoon—”
“No,” Henry said. “I can’t.” He balled his hand into a fist, having never imagined he’d ever feel this torn in two again. He was married, to Betty, whom he loved more than the FBI. He did. He just hated not being able to help a man who had saved his life more than once. Nate knew that. Knew the trials and perils LeRoy and he had been through together. “Even if I could,” Henry said. “I would take days to get there. The trail will be cold by then.”
“I can have a plane in the air in half an hour,” Nate said. “Fly you straight to DC.”
It was tempting; he was the only one who knew about the Tribiannis’ connection to Elkin, but no, he couldn’t. He looked at Betty again, so his mind would understand all that he had, and all that he couldn’t give up. His heart knew it.
“I understand,” Nate said, slapping him on the back. “I’ll keep you posted.”
Henry opened the door and held it for Nate to exit. “Please do. Anything, everything you hear. Let me know.”
“I will.”
He closed the door and frowned at the sight of Betty putting clothes in a suitcase. “What are you doing?”
“Has anyone ever escaped while you were transporting them?”
“No.” His jaw locked tight. He’d instructed the agents transporting Elkin and Burrows to expect the unexpected. To be alert, ready, the entire trip. “Never.”
“This LeRoy man, the one who was shot, he’s a friend of yours?”
The air left his lungs like a punctured tire at the idea of LeRoy in the hospital. “He was my supervisor, and yes, a friend.”
“Then you need to help him.” She closed the suitcase. “You need to capture Elkin.” She turned, faced him. “Again.”
It was his suitcase she’d packed. Closed. “No. I resigned.”
“Because of me.” She walked closer, cupped his face. “Which was the very thing I didn’t want you to do. I said all those mean things about your job, because I was afraid to tell you the truth.”
“The truth?”
“I was so in love with you. So in love with you, and I knew you weren’t ready for that. You didn’t want anyone to worry about you. To be waiting for you to come home.” She closed her eyes and a smile formed. Opening her eyes, she rubbed his cheek. “But that is who I fell in love with. That Robin Hood. And that’s who I want to be married to.”
He grasped her waist. “I did say those things, before I realized how much I love you. I love you more than I love the FBI. More than I loved being an agent.”
She kissed him. “I know you do. But that doesn’t mean you don’t love the FBI. That you wouldn’t love being an agent. It just means you love me more.”
It was tempting, so tempting, to accept what she offered. To complete just one more assignment. Catch Elkin again, and this time, deliver him to DC himself, but he couldn’t. “I can’t go, Betty. I won’t go. You need me here.”
“I do, and I’ll need you tomorrow, and next week, and next year, and twenty, thirty, fifty years from now. And I’ll be here, me and the baby, and all the other babies that we have together, each and every time you return home from an assignment, because that’s when you’ll need me. You said we’d make this work, and we will.” She smiled and shook her head. “The longer we stand here talking about it, the colder Elkin’s trail is growing.”
“You don’t understand. There’s no way of knowing how long catching Elkin could take. How long I’d have to be gone.” He was getting too close to saying yes, and change the direction of his thoughts, to why he couldn’t go. “We don’t even have a house. You can’t stay here at the hotel the entire time.”
“Looking for a house will give me something to do while you’re gone, and I can live at my parents’ house. All of my things are still there.” She grinned and glanced at her suitcase. “Trust me—everything I own doesn’t fit in one suitcase. I can also show your parents the city. Your parents, who—I guarantee—love you. Almost as much as I do.”
He’d given up being an agent for her, and that had been the right choice. And now, she was... He shook his head. “You are making this too tempting.”
“No, I’m making this right, Henry. We both kept things hidden before, because we were scared, but there’s no reason to be anymore. We’re married. We are going to have a baby. That makes me so happy, and I want you to be just as happy.”
“I am.”
She shook her head. “You’re justifying, just like you said people do. I did that, too, right up until you walked into the church, and then I couldn’t remember a single reason why I couldn’t marry you. Except for one. That I didn’t want you to change because of me.” She hooked her hands beneath his suspenders and pressed her body up against his. “You gave me everything I wanted, and this is the only thing I can give you. Please let me. Please.”
In his job, more people had lied to him than told the truth. He knew the signs of both. Right now, she was being completely honest. This beautiful, amazing woman he’d married. “You really mean this, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
He shook his head.
She cupped his face. “I told Jane that I couldn’t marry you, because I thought that would be as if I was trying to be someone I’m not.” She smiled brightly. “And Jane asked me, what if marrying you would be my chance to be who I am? She was right. This is who I am, Henry, the wife of an FBI agent, and I’m very, very proud of that.”
His heart swelled in his chest, full of love for this amazing woman. Not because she was giving him permission to be an FBI agent, but because she was right. She had found herself and because of her, he’d found himself, too. “You are wrong about one thing. This isn’t the only thing you can give me. You already gave me everything I wanted. You. You are more than everything I ever wanted.”
She kissed him, a long, passionate kiss that was full of promises. Future promises. As their lips parted, she said, “Just come home to me, safe and sound.”
Betty told herself she wouldn’t, but then, knowing that was impossible, gave in to tears as soon as Henry left. Only because she already missed him and would until he returned home to her.
There was no use going back to bed; she wouldn’t be able to sleep, so she took advantage of the empty bathing room down the hall, then packed her suitcase and straightened up the room while her hair dried.
It was amazing how good she felt. She missed Henry tremendously, and would until he returned, but that was part of the reason she felt so whole, so complete. It was all because of him. He had rescued her from so many things, including her own misconceptions.
She was afraid for his safety, but she also believed in him. Believed he’d come home safe and sound. The fact that Elkin had escaped was proof that Henry was the best agent. No one had ever escaped under his watch. That made her proud. Everything about him made her proud, especially being his wife.
She was about to leave the room when a knock sounded on the door. “Who is it?” she asked, already holding the knob in her hand.
“Esther and John, dear,” Esther said.
She opened the door.
John, nearly as tall as the door, had silver hair, and Esther, barely past his elbow, had snow-white hair, and both were smiling.
Smiling in return, because it would have been impossible not to, she said, “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Esther repeated. “We thought we’d ask if you’d like to have breakfast with us, since Henry left with Nate.”
“We are terribly sorry about that,” John said. “And we promised Henry we’d keep an eye on you for him.”
They were good people; she could feel their love for Henry, and she loved that about them. “That is very kind of you, and I would love to have breakfast with you. Thank you.”
“Afterward, we could go look at that house Nate mentioned,” John said. “Or other ones, if you’re interested.”
Delight filled her. “I would like that very much.” She pulled the door closed behind her. “And I would love to hear more about Henry. About how you chose him for adoption, and everything, just everything about him.”
“Gladly,” Esther said while they walked down the hallway. “We would like to learn about you, too, dear. We feel so blessed that Henry found you. As blessed as we felt upon adopting him. That was hard for him, being fifteen and still living in the orphanage.”
John slid open the elevator door for them. “Remember how that headmistress tried to make us choose someone else? Someone younger?”
“Oh, do I,” Esther said with a miffed pucker. “I was so angry with her. We had met nearly every child in that place, and Henry had stolen our hearts. He was so easy to like, so polite and studious, and so...”
“Cautious,” John said, pulling the door shut and pushing the button.
“Yes, cautious,” Esther said. “That’s a good way to describe it.”
“That’s also what makes him an excellent agent,” John said. “He was so enthralled with the Bureau, would spend hours talking to Nate about it every chance he got. Nate warned us, they rarely hired young men, that it would be tough for him to get it. We told Henry he could study any subjects he wanted to study, become anything he wanted to become—he was the one who chose law enforcement, the Bureau.”
Betty nodded, fully believing that.
“We were careful, though,” Esther said, “because of how wary Henry was, since the first day he entered our home, and never pushed anything on him, including our love. He didn’t know what love was, growing up the way he had, and I—” She glanced up at John. “We think that scared him.”
“I completely understand that,” Betty said. She did, and she believed that was why she and Henry were so drawn to each other right from the start. Two lost souls looking for love, yet scared to death to receive it. “Did you know the headmistress tried to talk him out of being adopted by you?”
“No!” Esther said, pressing a hand to her chest.
“Yes,” Betty replied. “Despite her efforts, Henry was fortunate that you adopted him.”
“No, we are the fortunate ones,” John said. “And fortunate again that he found you. That he finally knows the joys of love.”
“And we’re hopeful,” Esther said.
“Hopeful?” Betty asked.
“That the two of you will allow us to come visit,” John said, hugging Esther with one arm and looking down on her. “Regularly.”
“I guarantee it,” Betty said. “In fact, if Henry agrees upon the house Nate mentioned, there’s plenty of room for guests.”
Henry watched the ground growing closer and closer. He could get used to this type of travel. It had been nerve-racking at first, when he’d flown to DC four days ago, but now, about to arrive in Los Angeles within a fourth of the time the train would have taken, he’d gladly fly to his next assignment and back.
Back to Betty.
Lord, he’d missed her. Her face. Her laugh. Her kisses. Her body.
He’d talked to her on the telephone last night, before leaving DC, as well as every day he’d been gone. She’d sounded so happy, so excited, each time they’d spoken. He had been, too. Just hearing her voice had helped the longing inside him.
During their first call, she’d asked about the house Nate had mentioned, if he would consider buying that one. He’d consider buying the White House if that was the one she wanted. She’d laughed when he’d told her that.
His uncle had looked into the house, and must have done whatever it took, because that was now their house. She’d told him last night that her sisters and his parents had helped her, and that when he arrived in town, that was where she would be. At their house. Their home.
The sun was setting, and it would be dark soon, but there would be a car waiting for him when he landed and he was certain he’d make the trip across town, to her, in record time.
Just as he’d been sure he’d capture Elkin in record time. He had. Because he’d known where to look, thanks to his interrogation of Burrows when he’d captured Elkin the first time, in Los Angeles.
He’d not only captured Elkin, and delivered him to DC; three members of the Tribianni gang were also behind bars.
That had been almost as rewarding as knowing LeRoy had been released from the hospital and was on his way back to Texas. The bullets had missed any vital organs, and LeRoy would have nothing but a few more scars in a few weeks.
Henry would take over his workload, overseeing field agents, during LeRoy’s recovery, and after that, they’d split the area LeRoy had been covering, which made LeRoy very happy.
It made Henry happy too, because he’d be based out of Los Angeles, traveling only when one of his men needed him. It was perfect. He was still an agent, yet also home where he could be a husband, and next May, a father.
Thanks to Betty.
He had so much to thank her for.
So much to love about her.
Lost in thoughts, he had to grab ahold of the seat to keep from bouncing out of it as the tires beneath the plane hit the ground and bounced several times before smoothing out and finally rolling to a stop.
The Bureau-issued car was waiting for him, and he made it across town in record time.
Lights shining in the windows made the house look different. A good different. Homey. Welcoming.
But it was the woman who threw open the door and ran toward the car that made his heart swell. He opened the car door, jumped out, and caught her in his arms in the middle of the yard.
He kissed her until his lungs burned, sucked in air, and then kissed her again. And again.
“I missed you so much!” she said. “So much!”
Her arms were wrapped around his neck, and her legs around his waist. He spun in a circle out of sheer delight and relished her laughter before he kissed her again. Then, he carried her across the lawn and into the house. “I missed you so much.”
“I can’t wait for you to see everything!”
“I’m looking at everything I want to see,” he said, staring at her.
She laughed. “Put me down so I can show you.”
“On one condition.”
Nodding, she asked, “What?”
“That you show me our bedroom first.”
“Deal!”
He released his hold, and she grasped his hand as soon as her feet touched the floor.
“This way!” she said.
They ran up the stairs, laughing.
Within seconds of entering the room, he’d seen what he needed to see. The bed.
Within seconds after that, they were on it.
His fingers fumbled in his rush to get her clothes off, while hers wrestled with his suit. When skin touched skin their fumbling stopped and they stared at one another. The passion, the desire, shimmering in her eyes, sent a wave of something through him. He wanted her as badly as she did him, but what he felt was more than that. He loved her, had admitted that more than once. But until this moment, he hadn’t realized how deep, how strong, how powerful and encompassing that love was.
Her smile grew, slowly, sweetly.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said, certain she’d read his mind. His face.
“And to think we were both afraid of this,” she whispered. “The most wonderful thing on earth and in heaven.”
Confused, he kissed her nose. “Afraid of what?”
“Love. We were both so afraid of it, that we kept it locked inside us, hidden away, afraid to share it because then we might never get it back.” She stroked his face. “Now we both know that that’s how it grows. By sharing it.”
His throat went dry, his eyes stung, as he thought of all the love John and Esther, Nate, and then Betty, had shown him, but he hadn’t seen it, hadn’t accepted it, because it had scared him. He’d never have realized what love was capable of, how it could transform lives, if he hadn’t met her. He may be an FBI agent, but she had truly uncovered the greatest secret, the greatest power of the universe.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” she repeated.
“Almost as amazing as you.” Becoming a father still frightened him a touch, but he knew, all he had to do was watch her, and learn. He could do that.
She giggled; then her eyes grew serious. “I missed you. So very, very much.”
“I missed you, so very, very much.”
Henry didn’t see the rest of the house that night. That could wait. Showing her how much he’d missed her couldn’t.
The following morning, she gave him the full tour, including the basement. All the furniture that had been down there, covered with dust sheets, had been carried upstairs, to various rooms, and other furniture had been purchased. The cupboards were full of dishes and pots and pans, and all sorts of other necessities he’d never known were necessities, other than the food in the pantry and fridge.
Shaking his head, he poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove. The entire home shone like a new penny. “You must have worked day and night while I was gone.”
“No, I had help. My sisters, your parents, my mother, even my father, who, by the way is boasting that I married an FBI agent as if he picked you out himself, and you don’t even want to get him started on who your uncle is. That’s the most famous person he’s ever met.” She laughed, then fluffed the curtain on the back door. “I missed you, terribly, but it was fun. Setting up our home.” Settling both of her hands on her stomach, she said, “I’m so blessed that you entered my life.”
Esther always said that. A chuckle rumbled in his throat as he set down his coffee cup, crossed his arms and attempted to look serious. She was a little nymph. His sea nymph. And the smile on her face said she was hiding something.
“What else do you have to tell me?”
“James helped me, too.”
He lifted a brow, only because he could believe it.
“Just with the outside. The way the windows had been boarded up really needed to be repaired, and he’s a very good carpenter. Just very, very boring.”
“Is he?”
“Yes.” Her face was glowing, her eyes sparkling, as she crossed the kitchen floor and slid her arms around his neck. “Nothing like you. My Robin Hood.”
He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the floor, so she was the one looking down at him, and kissed her. “I’m glad I’m the one you married.”
“Me, too.” She kissed him. “So very, very glad.”
“Knock, knock.”
“We are in the kitchen, Jane!” Betty shouted.
He didn’t let her down, was still holding her off the floor, up against him, when Jane walked into the kitchen.
“Hello, Reuben,” she said, setting a box on the table.
He laughed, kissed Betty, and then set her down. “What is it with you and that name?”
“Reuben?” She shrugged. “I just like calling you that. It makes you scrunch up your nose.”
“It does not.”
She shrugged, then punched him on the arm. “I do like how happy you’ve made my sister.”
“Thank you.” He picked up his coffee cup and took a sip. “Coming from you, I take that as a compliment. Probably the only one I’ll ever get.”
Laughing, she pointed at him and winked.
He leaned over, and whispered into Betty’s ear, “How did you ever keep that one in line?”
His insides quivered slightly at the smile that appeared on Betty’s face. It was another one of those feigned ones. He looked at Jane and then back to Betty.
She grabbed the coffeepot. “More coffee?”
“No.” He set his cup down. “What’s in the box, Jane?”
She picked the box up. “Just a few of my things. One never knows when one may find adventure on a quick getaway. I’ll take them downstairs now,” she answered nonchalantly.
A bit too nonchalantly. “Her things?”
Betty stepped over and looped both of her arms around one of his. “Yes, she’s going to keep a few of her things in the basement.”
He nodded, once, then the shiver returned. “Why?”
Betty kissed his cheek. “Because it will be safer for her to use the tunnel than ride the trolley by herself.”
Oh, yes, that was worth quivering over. More so than a mobster with a gun. What the hell had he gotten himself into now?
“I thought you’d agree with me,” Betty said.
He lifted her chin and kissed the tip of her nose. If it made Betty happy, then he agreed with it. “I do,” he said. “As long as she doesn’t sneak upstairs when she’s passing through. We don’t need an audience.”
“She won’t. I promise.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
He’d never get enough of her. “Prove it.”
The twinkle in her eye said the challenge was on, even before she tugged on his arm, saying, “All right. I’ll prove it. Right now.”
Her answer couldn’t have pleased him more.