A car door slammed. She couldn't turn her head to see.
"Tag!"
A voice. Who? Her muddled mind sorted through… Bo Rokowsky, a member of her husband's squadron.
Bo would make the perfect distraction to keep J.T. occupied at the moment.
She patted his arm. "Go talk to Bo. I'm fine."
J.T.'s scowling eyes flicked from the uniformed workers back to her before he finally nodded. "Okay. But I'll only be a few yards away if you need anything."
"I know. Thanks." She tracked his towering body retreating as best she could without moving her head until he disappeared.
She opened her mouth to tell the paramedic about the baby—
"Ow!" Her foot jerked in the paramedic's grasp.
J.T. landed right back in her line of sight. "What's going on? Is it broken?"
"We won't know for sure until we get X rays, sir," the paramedic answered.
X rays? Not while she was pregnant. And especially not during her first trimester. Pain flashed through her foot again. A whimper slipped free.
The paramedic called to his partner, "Seventy-five milligrams, Demerol."
"What?" Rena struggled to understand through her pounding head.
"Just something to help you with the pain, ma'am." The uniformed man swung toward her with a syringe.
"No!" she shouted involuntarily.
J.T. stepped closer. "Yes. Do whatever she needs. Rena, you don't have to grit through this."
Oh, hell. She needed to spit this out fast and quiet to the paramedic. "I can't take any medications."
"Ma'am, really, this will help settle you." The syringe hovered closer to her arm.
Damn. Damn. Damn. No more time for quiet, reasonable explanations.
Rena inhaled a deep breath that stretched achy ribs. "I'm not agitated. Just pregnant."
He'd already taken one missile strike this year. Didn't seem fair a man should get blindsided twice in a few short months.
Boots rooted to the ground, J.T. watched Rena being loaded into the EMS transport. She stared back at him apologetically without speaking. There wasn't time or privacy to talk anyway since the paramedics had moved even faster after her surprise announcement. A whole new set of medical concerns piled on now that they knew she was pregnant.
Pregnant.
The lone word knocked around inside his brain along with anger at Rena for her secrecy—and an undeniable surge of protectiveness for this new child. J.T. braced a hand against the oak-tree trunk, forced his breaths to stay even.
Rena was pregnant. Again. Well, they'd sure celebrated one hell of a reunion after his return from Rubistan. One with apparently lasting results.
More of that protectiveness chugged through him. Five minutes ago, he hadn't known this kid existed. Now he did and that changed everything.
He understood Rena well after twenty-two years, and she was too proud to let him back in the house because of the baby. The woman carried around enough pride to break the average human being.
The EMS truck lights cranked on. He pushed away from the roughened oak, tossed a quick farewell and thanks to Bo before stalking toward his truck.
J.T. slid inside and slammed the door. Shifting into drive, he steered off the curb to follow the fire department's EMS down the tree-lined street.