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

A pang of guilt shot through him, tempering the anger that still simmered. He was blaming Phoebe for not telling him about the baby…but he’d been responsible for her sister’s death. No wonder she hadn’t told him.

The baby had grabbed a board book and was busily manhandling the sturdy pages. As he watched, she put it in her mouth.

“Here, honey.” Phoebe extended a brightly colored set of rings and confiscated the book. “We don’t chew on books.”

Wade looked at the frayed corners of the one she held. “Apparently, some of us do.”

She smiled, and abruptly it felt right between them again. “I’m working on it,” she said wryly. Then she glanced at her watch. “It’ll soon be dinnertime. Would you like to stay and eat with us?”

He raised one eyebrow.

“Are you planning to stay here tonight?”

“That’s the plan.” He stood and folded his arms. “If you spend the weekend teaching me how to take care of Bridget, then I could keep her while you work.”

“Don’t you have to work or something?” she asked in an exasperated tone.

“Or something,” he agreed.

“So you have to go back to California.” It wasn’t a question.

“No. I’m pretty sure I’m retiring from the service.”

She looked shocked. “But that’s what you’ve always wanted to do. To be. A soldier.”

“I’m not physically able to perform on the battlefield to the army’s satisfaction anymore,” he said quietly. “And I’m not interested in a desk job staring at a computer monitor all day. So I’m taking early retirement.”

“But what will you do?”

He shrugged. “I’m checking out a number of options. One of them is with a freelance security firm out of Virginia. I’d be establishing a West Coast office.”

“So you’d be going home?”

He noted with satisfaction that she still referred to California as home. But all he did was nod. “That would be the plan.” He shrugged. “But now, everything has changed.” He looked down at his daughter, who had rolled onto her stomach and was making swimming motions as she tried valiantly to get to another toy just out of reach. “Everything.”

Four

Phoebe still sat on the blanket at Wade’s feet and he reached down, putting his hands beneath her elbows and lifting her to her feet.

Her eyes were fastened on his face; her hands fell to rest against his chest for a moment before she moved away. She cleared her throat. “I understand it’s going to take some time to get used to being a father,” she told him, indicating the baby playing at their feet. Her voice was huskier than normal.

His body was having no trouble understanding that the woman he’d dreamed of for months—hell, years—was standing practically in his arms. The mother of his child. The anger he’d been hiding couldn’t be summoned. Instead, he found the thought surprisingly arousing. Here, right before them, was something they’d made together during those wild, impossibly wonderful moments they’d shared in the cabin.

He exerted a little pressure until she stopped resisting and let him draw her forward. “It’s amazing that we created that.”

She nodded, looking straight ahead at his throat rather than tilting her head back. “It’s a miracle.”

He pressed a feather light kiss against her temple and felt her body shudder. “I’m still pissed at you. But thank you.”

“I, ah—I don’t think—”

“Don’t think,” he urged. “I won’t if you won’t.”

He wanted to kiss her. He’d dreamed of it for so long that he could hardly believe this was real. Releasing her wrist, he put one finger beneath her chin and lifted her face to his. “Kiss me,” he said. “Relax and let me—ahhh.” In unison, they made an involuntary sound of pure pleasure as his thighs pressed into the cradle of her hips and his hardening body nudged the tender flesh between her legs.

He couldn’t wait anymore. He dropped his head and fastened his mouth on hers, kissing her hard and deep, pouring all the longing and frustration of the past two years into the embrace. He felt her hands clench on his shoulders, but she wasn’t pushing him away. Oh, no. He felt the way she melted against him, the way her fingers dug into his flesh and he knew she was going to be his again. But this time, he promised himself, he wasn’t going to be a cad, wasn’t going to leave her without a word.

This was a dream, Phoebe thought. It had to be. She’d imagined Wade kissing her so many times in the past year that it felt unreal to have him here, holding her against him. His tongue demanded her response, his big arms molded her close to the lean strength of his body. His state of arousal was impossible to miss, plastered against him as she was.

And memory rushed in, recalling the other time they’d been in this kind of embrace….

She was in heaven.

Phoebe nestled her face into Wade’s throat and felt him shudder as they danced. This was a dream. It had to be. But oh, what a dream. She never wanted to wake up.

“Hey, you.” She felt Wade’s lips move against her forehead.

She lifted her head and smiled up into his gray eyes. Even in the low light on the dance floor, they seemed to blaze with heat and desire. For her? She was definitely dreaming.

“I want to take you home tonight.” His voice was rough. “But I can’t. You’ve got the car.”

“You can drive,” she offered. “Since we’re practically going to the same place.”

“I wish we were going home together,” he said. “I’d like to hold you all night long.”

His frank words were shocking, in a knot-in-the-belly exciting kind of way, and she knew her eyes widened.

“I don’t want to rush you,” he said quickly. “I realize this is new—”

“It’s not new for me,” she broke in. She reached up and placed a soft palm against his cheek. “Wade, don’t you know I’ve—” loved you “—wanted this for a long time?”

He placed his hand over hers, holding it in place as he turned his head and pressed a hot kiss into her palm. He closed his eyes briefly. “I’m a dope. I never realized—”

“Shh. It’s okay.” She didn’t want him to feel bad, or awkward, about anything. “Let’s just start from this night.”

“That sounds like a solid plan to me.” He smiled. Then his hand slid down, freeing hers as he cupped her chin and lifted her face to his.

She caught her breath, sure he was about to kiss her. Oh, God, she would melt right into the floor if he did—

“What’s going on here?” The voice was strident, female, furious—and familiar.

Phoebe jolted, tearing herself free from Wade’s arms.

Melanie stood in front of them, hands fisted on her hips. “Thanks for taking such good care of my date, sister dear,” she said in a taut, sarcastic voice.

“Back off, Mel.” Wade’s voice was cool and commanding. “You didn’t even notice I was leaving. Why the scene now?”

“Wade.” Melanie turned luminous blue eyes on him and, instantly, the anger vanished and tears welled. “You—you brought me to the reunion. Why would you treat me this way?”

Wade shook his head. “Save the act for somebody who buys it. You couldn’t have cared less what Phoebe and I were doing—”

“Phoebe and you.” Anger distorted Melanie’s pretty features and she tossed her long, shining hair back. Her eyes narrowed as she focused on Phoebe. “Sneaking around behind my back. My own sister. My twin. You’ve always wanted him, haven’t you? You’ve been in love with him the whole time, but he was mine.”

“That’s enough.” Wade took Melanie’s elbow, but she shook him off. Around them, people had stopped dancing and were staring openly, watching the drama unfold.

And Melanie loved it, Phoebe knew. She was the quintessential drama queen. This act was perfect for her.

“No,” Melanie said, and her voice grew shrill. “That’s not nearly enough. I will never forgive you for this, Wade. And you.” She stabbed an angry finger in Phoebe’s direction. “I wish I never had to see you again!”

And with one final toss of her bright tresses, Melanie whirled and stomped away, fury radiating from every move. The only thing that spoiled it was that she’d had far too much to drink and she staggered as she headed for the door, jostling a gaping group of classmates. “Get out of my way,” she shrieked. She had worked herself into a sobbing fit of tears by that time.

Wade turned back to Phoebe. “We’d better go after her. She’s had way too much to drink.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “It’s a good thing she doesn’t have a car.”

“Come with me.” He held out a hand.

She shook her head, her throat clogged with sobs. “No. She’ll be impossible if she sees me. You know she’ll calm down if she doesn’t see us together.”

Wade nodded, letting his hand drop to his side as he acknowledged the truth of her statement.

She turned and walked to the table where her small evening bag lay. “Here.” She extended her car keys. “You take her home. I’ll catch a ride later.”

Wade took the keys. Then he caught her hand with his free one, bringing it to his lips for a moment. “I’ll call you,” he said.

Her heart leaped at the tender gesture. Could he really mean it? Could this evening, the moments between them on the dance floor, really be the day she’d dreamed of since she was old enough to feel her heart beating faster in his presence?

She offered him a shaky smile. “I’ll look forward to it,” she said, clutching the promise to her heart as he started away.

Just then, they heard tires shrieking in the parking lot.

“What the hell…?” Wade began to run full-out.

Phoebe rushed after him. She reached the door just in time to see her car flying out of the parking lot and down the road, and she knew immediately what had happened. Melanie knew Phoebe kept a spare key in a magnetic box in the wheel well. She’d taken the car.

Phoebe tore her mouth from Wade’s. “This isn’t—we can’t do this.” She was embarrassed that she was practically panting. And then she realized that she had a death grip on his wide shoulders. And worse, she’d made no move to separate their bodies, which were stuck like two slices of the peanut butter bread she often slapped together for lunch.

Wade’s eyebrows rose. There was a glint in his eye that looked almost dangerous. “We just did.”

“Anymore,” she tacked on belatedly, removing her hands and stepping back, forcing him to release her.

“Ever?”

“Ever.”

“Because…”

“Because your life is in California—” she spread her hands “—or wherever, and mine is here in New York now.”

“Mine won’t be wherever anymore,” he informed her. “I’m going to live here if that’s where you two will be. It’s not half-bad.”

“It gets really cold in the winter.”

“I lived at West Point for four years, remember? Believe me, I know how cold it gets here.”

“You always said you wanted to live somewhere warm,” she reminded him.

“Being around for my daughter is a lot more important than worrying about the temperature. So your reasoning doesn’t hold. What else is bothering you?”

“Well…It isn’t fair of you to spring this on me without giving me a chance to think about it.” I can’t get involved with him.

Why? He wanted you after the funeral. And before, at the dance.

Wanting isn’t love.

It’s a start.

No false hope, she lectured herself. He wanted to teach Mel a lesson at the reunion. It wasn’t his fault she’d flown off the handle and everything had gone so horribly wrong. And the other…What guy’s going to say no when a woman pretty much tears his clothes off and has her way with him?

“Take your time. I’m listening.”

But he wasn’t. His eyes were on Bridget, watching her every move with an intensity that was painful to see. It was obvious he’d forgotten all about the kiss.

Bridget was happily oblivious. She was still lying on the floor with the toy she’d finally managed to snag. She rolled over on her back and was vigorously shaking it so that a musical chime sounded inside.

“She entertains herself well for her age.” Phoebe glanced at her watch, trying to keep her voice from quavering. It tore at her heart to see Wade so desperately interested in his child. “But any minute now she’s going to realize that it’s snack time.”

Friendly. Neighborly. That was the ticket. She could ignore her temporary lapse in judgment if she just concentrated on remembering Wade several years earlier as he’d been before—before anything had happened. They’d been friends. No reason they couldn’t continue to be friends.

Wade still wasn’t looking at her although she had a feeling he knew exactly why she’d changed the subject. But he didn’t object, merely followed her cue. “Won’t a snack spoil her dinner?”

“Not if it’s a small snack like a cracker. And we don’t usually eat until close to six.” And then they’d sit down to dinner together, just like a real family.

A real family? What was she thinking? They were not a family. They were two people who had known each other for a long time and who now shared a child. But they hadn’t shared most of the other basic details that members of a real family would have.

And they might not be a real family, but they certainly were going to be doing many of the things that families did. Her best bet, she decided, was to treat him as a tenant. Or no, maybe a boarder…he’d already announced he was moving in, so they were going to have to handle all the dumb little details, like meals and who bought toilet paper.

And there was the fact that they hadn’t really talked about custody or visitation or any of the much bigger issues that had been haunting her all day. “I have to get dinner organized,” she said, knowing she sounded less than gracious. “Nothing fancy, just a roast I put in the Crock-Pot this morning.”

“I love red meat. It doesn’t have to be fancy.” He said it with a straight face and perfectly innocent eyes. Was she only imagining the double entendre?

She felt her face slowly heating and she turned away before he could see her blushing. “I’ll make dinner if you’d like to play with Bridget.”

“What do you do with her when you’re alone?”

“She comes into the kitchen with me. I used to put her in an infant seat and sing to her but recently I’ve been able to lay a blanket down and let her roll around on it.”

“She looks like you.” He was watching Bridget again.

“Until she decides she wants something. When she’s determined, she sets her jaw the same way you do, and her eyes get that intense look.”

“I do not set my jaw.”

Phoebe smiled. “Okay. I must have imagined it about a million times in the last twenty years.”

He had to chuckle at that. “You know me well.” The amusement faded from his eyes. “And that’s another reason I need to be in Bridget’s life. She deserves to know how her parents met, that we grew up together.”

How her parents met? He made it sound as if they were an old married couple. That thought hurt. Hurt enough that she couldn’t face him anymore, and she walked away without looking back. But when she reached the kitchen door and she did glance his way again, Wade was still standing there eyeing her with a speculative expression that made her very, very wary. She knew what he’d said about not fighting over Bridget…but could she trust him?

She watched him walk over and lower himself to the floor, tailor-fashion. He was incredibly limber for such a big man. Any man, really.

Bridget turned toward him with a delighted smile as he picked her up and set her in his lap. She promptly grabbed his finger and dragged it into her mouth.

Wade looked at Phoebe over his shoulder with a pained expression. A chuckle bubbled up and nearly escaped, and she couldn’t help smiling as she moved into the kitchen. He was the one who’d wanted to get to know his daughter.

But she sobered rapidly as she checked the roast. Dear heaven, what was she doing? She couldn’t just give in and let Wade live in her house!

But she didn’t have a choice. If she didn’t let him have free access to Bridget, he’d go to a lawyer.

In her heart, she knew she could never fight him on the issue, anyway. She felt terrible for keeping her pregnancy from him, worse that she’d never told him about his child. Guilt would kill her if she denied him one moment of time with his child.

And she’d never forgive herself for not telling him—or his family, when she’d thought he was gone forever—and letting his mother die without ever knowing she had a granddaughter.

Even if he’d been dead, as she’d assumed, she should have gone to his parents. She knew it, and she knew it was part of the anger that leaped in his eyes each time he dropped the carefully friendly facade.

She shivered as she assembled ingredients for biscuit dough and got out broccoli. He would never forgive her for that. Never.

The kid was a ball of fire. He sat on the floor of his daughter’s bedroom later that evening, listening to the sounds of her bath progressing. He wondered who was wetter, Phoebe or the kid. Bridget made noise nonstop, giggling, squealing and occasionally shouting. In the background, intermittent splashing indicated that the bath wasn’t quite over yet.

A few moments later, he heard Phoebe’s footsteps in the hallway. She stopped in the doorway to the bedroom, the baby in her arms.

Bridget was wrapped in some kind of white towel with a hood, and she sent him a cheery smile that showed her two front teeth. Phoebe set her down beside him, and her diaper made a funny plastic hiss when she plopped down on the carpet. She immediately began waving her little arms, opening and closing her fingers, her babbling beginning to escalate in pitch until Phoebe snatched up a book and thrust it into her hands. Bridget squealed, a sound so high-pitched that it made him wince.

Yep, definitely a ball of fire.

And he meant that almost literally, Wade decided, eyeing the brilliant curls, still damp from her bath, that peeped out from beneath the edges of the white terry cloth on her head.

“Time to get you into your pajamas, little miss.” Phoebe came over and sank down beside them holding a set of pink pajamas. “Here,” she said to Wade. “If you want to keep her next week, you’d better start practicing how to get baby clothes on and off. Sometimes I think the manufacturers sit around and brainstorm ways to confuse parents. Hey, c’mere, you.” She deftly snagged the baby, who had begun to roll out of reach. “Oh, no you don’t. It’s bedtime.”

Bedtime.

If someone had told him he’d be sleeping under the same roof with Phoebe two days after he’d flown east, he’d have figured they were nuts.

Bedtime. Phoebe.

How the hell was he going to sleep knowing she was right in the next room?

His daughter screeched as Phoebe set her in front of him again. “Go for it,” she said, smiling.

“You’re going to enjoy this, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yeah.” She chuckled. “I had to learn by doing, so it’s only fair that you have the same experience.”

“Thanks.” He picked up the pajamas. There were snaps in places he didn’t even know snaps could be sewn. And his hands were about twice the size of the little piece of clothing. This was going to be interesting. To his relief, Phoebe returned to the dresser from which the pajamas had come and began putting away items from a clothes basket set atop it.

Twenty minutes later, he breathed a sigh of relief. “There. I think that’s it.”

She came over and knelt beside him to look, then raised her gaze to his and nodded. “You got it. You pass Clothing the Baby 101.”

He snorted. “What’s 102?”

“Well, 102,” she said, “is the class where you learn the Murphy’s Laws of Childrearing. Like, ‘a child does not have to go to the potty until after you have completely zipped, buttoned and snapped every loose fastener on a snowsuit.’”

“Sounds like you already know them.”

“Teaching,” she said, “has taught me at least as much as I’ve taught my students. Which reminds me, no school tomorrow. It’s Saturday,” Phoebe said. “Bridget’s not much for sleeping in so we’ll be up anytime after six or so.”

“Six! You’re kidding. I’m on leave.”

She shook her head. “No such thing when you’re a parent.”

“I’ll get up with her if you’d like to sleep in.”

Phoebe looked at him as if he’d spoken another language. “You’d do that?”

“Well, sure. It must be tough being the one on call every minute of every day.”

“It’s not so bad.” Her tone was stiff, as if he’d offended her. “You’re welcome to get up with us,” she said, “but until you learn your way around the kitchen and our morning routine, it’s probably best if I get up.”

“Phoebe.” He rose and stopped her with a hand on her arm as she moved by him. “I am not trying to take your role in her life away, and I wasn’t trying to slam you again for—I just want to learn everything there is to know about her.”

She nodded, although she wouldn’t look at him. “I’m sorry for getting prickly.” The air of tension left and her shoulders sagged. “This is going to take some getting used to.”

That it was. He watched as she bent over and picked up a discarded shoe and sock. She’d changed from the neat skirt and blouse she’d worn to school that day into a pair of faded jeans and a T-shirt, although she’d neatly tucked the shirt in and added a belt. Probably her version of hanging-around slob clothes.

Her backside was slim and rounded beneath the jeans. Damn, but he was annoyed with himself. He had a lot more important things than sex to think about tonight, and yet every time he looked at Phoebe all rational thought fled and he became one big walking male hormone.

Bridget let out a squeal and he came back to earth abruptly. Phoebe scooped the baby into her arms. “What are you fussing about, you silly girl?” she asked. “Would you like your daddy to read you a story?”

The kid couldn’t exactly answer yes, but Phoebe motioned him over to the big maple rocker and set Bridget in his lap anyway. She came to him as if she’d known him all her short life, settling easily into his lap, then popping her thumb in her mouth. He read the story but after just a few minutes, her little head nodded against his chest and the thumb fell from her slack lips. Glancing down, he realized she’d fallen asleep.

His throat was tight and his chest ached; she was so precious! It was almost too much to believe, that this beautiful child was his.

He wanted to snuggle her against him but he was afraid if he moved she’d wake up. And so he sat with Bridget in his lap until Phoebe stuck her head around the corner of the door frame. “Is she asleep?” she asked in a hushed tone.

He nodded.

She came into the room and knelt at his side, lifting the baby into her arms. As she transferred Bridget’s weight, the underside of her breast pressed against his arm for a moment, and her warm, intoxicating, feminine fragrance teased his senses. Instantly, awareness rose, and with it arousal. He wanted to kiss her again. Hell, he wanted to do a lot more than that. He watched silently as she rose to her feet with his child in her arms, and the knowledge that they had made this precious little person together was, oddly, a whole new kind of aphrodisiac. Their daughter had been conceived that day in the hunting cabin, and it didn’t take much effort at all to recall the sweet, sizzling passion that had bound them together in far more than just a physical way.

Then Bridget’s tiny arms hung limp and her head fell onto Phoebe’s shoulder as Phoebe lifted her into her crib. She brushed a kiss across the fiery red curls as she laid the child down, and he swallowed hard, another emotion joining the riot of sensations rushing through him.

How was it possible to go from not even knowing his child existed to loving her more than he loved his own life in less than a day? He didn’t even know her, really. And yet…he did. And he would. Another shock jolted him as he realized he could imagine her five years from now—because he’d known her mother at that age as well.