In the Line of Duty (First Responders 2)

Her eyes opened wider as she began to pay attention. “Really?”

“And a house is kind of big for one person. I thought you might like to live in it with me.”

She sat up, fully awake now. The blanket fell from her shoulders and puddled on her lap as she looked

into his eyes. It was the half-grin that did it. She couldn’t resist that crooked smile and the gleam in his eyes.

“You’re asking me to move in with you?”

He shook his head. “Not exactly…” He took a breath, shifted on the couch and took her cold hands in his. “I’m asking you to live with me…as my wife.”

She bit down on her lip. Jake was proposing. In the middle of the worst storm of the winter, at four-thirty in the morning during a power outage, he was asking her to stay with him forever.

“The promises I couldn’t make to you last summer,” he said softly, “I want to make them to you now. I still don’t know what the future holds for us. No one does. But I know I want to promise you that I’ll do everything in my power to make you feel happy and loved and valued. I love you, Kendra. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to make that commitment.”

“Oh, Jake.” Her lower lip quivered. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Sure you do.” He grinned. “You weren’t the only one who was wandering through your life. You’re the one who made me want to look to the future again. I needed someone to challenge me, and you sure did that.”

Her answering laugh was full of emotion…was it joy? She thought it might be.

“Come on, Constable,” he said lightly, but there was a gleam in his eyes that spoke of a deeper, more beautiful emotion than she could name. “You know you want to.” He held out his hands, wrists together. Just like he had the night she’d put him in handcuffs and thrown him in jail.

“This isn’t the drunk tank,” she cautioned. “You don’t get out the next morning. You’d be shackled to me forever.”

“I certainly hope so.”

She smiled and put her hands over his wrists. “Then my answer’s yes.”

He gave a whoop and pulled her into his lap, kissing her lips and holding her close. She held on to him tightly, feeling for the first time ever like he was absolutely, irrevocably hers. The future seemed laid out before them, wide and unknown and full of possibilities.

“Just one more thing, Officer,” he whispered cheekily in her ear. “I do hope I get rewarded for good behavior.”

She giggled and shifted her weight suddenly, pinning him down on the sofa beneath her. “Oh, definitely,” she promised, and pulled up the blanket.