Rena placed her hand over her daughter's and let herself enjoy the momentary peace of simply celebrating the new life in their world. She blinked back tears.
"Oh Geez, Mom. Hormones, huh?" Chuckling, Nikki drew her hand away. "Have cravings kicked in yet?"
"God, yes." She swiped the back of her wrist over her watery eyes. "With a vengeance. I can smell those chicken wings from here."
Nikki's gray eyes flecked with sparks of mischief. "Be nice to me and maybe I'll fix you a plate once they're done heating."
"Brat."
"That's me. Always in trouble." Always in motion, too, Nikki scooped three granola-bar wrappers—starving Chris's, no doubt—off the coffee table, wadded them into a ball before lobbing them into a wicker trash basket. "How far along are you?"
What a loaded question since it would reveal the full extent of J.T.'s homecoming. Like her adult daughter wouldn't have guessed anyhow.
"Three months," Rena announced, then waited for the smart-ass comeback. Grown-up kids didn't accept quite as blindly as the little ones.
A knowing smile dimpled her cheek, inherited from her father. "A baby in time for Christmas. Cool."
Rena exhaled. Off the hook for now. Nikki pushed to her feet, starting a long-legged strut out of the room. Rena shifted in the overstuffed chair, adjusted her throbbing ankle on the pillow. She just wanted to get through this bizarre family reunion without an argument. One peaceful gathering. Bone-weary, heart-sore and more than a little rattled by the wreck and a short ride in her husband's arms, she didn't have the energy for confrontations before a serious nap.
They could all bolt back buffalo wings and chili and pretend everything was fine. Easy enough to do after twenty-two years' practice.
Nikki paused in the archway leading from the dining area back into the hall. She glanced over her shoulder, patting her own not-pregnant belly. "Oh, and Mom? Way to go, keeping those boundaries in place with Dad three months ago."
Winking, she spun away, glossy hair swinging against her ears with each cocky strut out of sight.
Rena wanted to call her daughter on that statement. Call herself, for that matter. But the brat had a point.
Thumping the minivan roof, J.T. stepped back from Julia Dawson's Windstar. She eased into the street and straightened, clearing the way for Bo's blocked Jeep to leave.
Which the young copilot would do, as soon as J.T. addressed one pressing matter.
J.T. jammed his hands in his pockets, dodging strategically planted clumps of flowers in Rena's tropical jungle that would put professional tour gardens to shame. He stopped beside the black Jeep. "Thanks for the help, man."
"No problem." Bo secured the canvas roof for an open-air ride. "Glad I could be here for you."
"You were more than just here for me. I won't forget." True. And he would do anything for this fellow crew member. Except give over his daughter. He wanted easier for his kid than the worries of military life.
A big part of the reason he'd left Rena, and now he had to figure out how to resolve all of that.
"Family's about more than blood relations, you know." Bo stared down at his wrist cast, flexed his scarred fingers poking out. Slowly. No wince. Not that showed anyway. His arm fell to his side heavily. "I owe you."
Spring sun baked J.T.'s head with reminders of a February desert sun in another country. "You don't owe me a thing."
God, he didn't want to talk about that time. Especially not now when he needed his defenses up in full force to work his way past his prickly wife.>He peered down at her. "Problem?"
She squeezed his hand, let her fingers linger in spite of his stunned eyes widening. "No doubt we're wrong for each other in a hundred different ways. But never, never have I found your touch distasteful. Far from it."
His fingers twitched against her, tightened, the only sign he'd heard her as his face stayed stoic. Unemotional. Handsome ruggedness carved in granite.
Still, he'd heard her, and her words meant something to him. Her defenses slipped, and she didn't have the heart to recall them, instead allowed the need building during their ride home to bloom.
She brought her hand up to rest on his neck again. "I thought you already knew that, except now I'm realizing maybe with everything else going on, you somehow forgot. Or wondered. And even though we both realize it's not enough, I just wanted you to know that we did share something mutual."
A smile dented a dimple in his face, so incongruous, and therefore all the more enticing. "Thanks, babe."
Her eyes fell to his mouth, lingered on the sensual fullness of his lower lip. She waited, wanted, even as pride wouldn't let her make the move forward. But if he leaned? She definitely wouldn't move away.
J.T. struggled to control the heat surging through him over something as simple as holding his wife. Damn it, he was not going to kiss her, no matter how good her soft hands and softer body felt against him.