If it were up to me, I’d shout it to the world, but I was trying to respect the privacy she asked for. She never asked me for anything else, so I thought I could give her that. But in reality, it’s just wedged a space between us. The only reason I can see her taking off is that she knows I’d make a big display of being back home and in her arms. There’s nothing I want more than to have her with me, and that’s all I was trying to get back to. She’s running because she’s scared. I know it in my bones.
Well, that’s over and done. The hiding is happening no more. Life is short, and I got all the proof I needed when I thought I’d never see her again when I was out in the fucking jungle. I’m going to get her and drag her ass back to our home no matter what she says. I know what’s inside her damn heart. Because it’s the same thing in mine. And I won’t have her belittle what I feel for her or what we share by sticking it in a corner.
When I make it around to the back of the building, I see there’s an exit. I grab the handle and it turns, making me feel both relieved and pissed. How could she be so careless?
I walk in and close the door behind me, locking it. I look around. I see some of the supplies she ordered. I walk down a hallway, I see the room the glow was coming from.
My heart breaks at the sight. Alice is cuddled up on an air mattress in the corner of the room with a little lamp on the floor beside her. God, why would she subject herself to this? Doesn’t she know she deserves to sleep on a bed of silk? She deserves to be treated like a queen, not to be homeless and in desperate need of a safe place to sleep.
Tears sting my eyes, and I angrily push them away.
No. Not my woman.
I stomp over to where she is and scoop her up in my arms. She jerks away and lets out a tiny shout as I stride to the front and out the door.
“Major—”
“No. Don’t you dare say a word to me until we are home,” I growl as I carry her out to my car. “Our goddamn home.”
Chapter Two
Alice
“Why does nobody want me?”
Thomas misses a beat in his step but keeps moving toward the front door of the house. I don’t know why I say it out loud. Maybe it’s all the silence eating at me. The car ride felt long without either one of us talking. I still don’t know how he drove with me in his lap.
I know why I said it out loud, because I want him to tell me it’s a lie. But he keeps quiet while moving toward the house. I feel myself start to get sick.
I hold on to him tighter, and the nausea fades a little as I breathe him in. I feel calm for the first time since he left for his mission. But it only lasts for a moment because then I remember there might be another mission soon. And another after that. I could still lose him. I’m letting myself sink even more into him knowing that he could be taken from me so easily. Just a phone call and he’d be gone. Forever.
I was so confused when he’d gone on a mission to begin with, because Maggie said he never did. A small voice in the back of my head wonders if it was me who pushed him to go. Maybe he needed to get away from me for a while. It was something my dad did to get away from my mom and me—always working late, always asking me to leave him alone because he had work to do, when he was really doing other things. Like going to bars or playing games on his computer. He did it so much I stopped asking questions. I stopped trying to get his attention.
I hear the front door open, and I dig my fingers into Thomas, my nausea coming back full force. I bury my face into his neck, not caring that I’m being a coward about seeing Maggie. Maybe she’ll be so excited about the two of us being back home, that she’ll ignore the fact that we’re together.
“Fuck, I missed you holding on to me. You have no idea.” His voice sounds almost choked as he says it.
“I have to tell you something before we see Maggie,” I rush to say, remembering that she knows I’m pregnant. If she see me with her dad like this, I’m guessing she will know who the father is.