"Hey, babe, it's me." J.T.'s voice rumbled through the receiver.
Her elbow tingled with the phantom memory and damned if she didn't crave a hamburger.
Tucking the phone under her chin, she sank deeper into her pillows, releasing a fresh whiff of J.T. "Hey there to you, too. I thought you were supposed to take off an hour ago."
"Weather delay. We're leaving soon though. Thought I'd check in to see how your doctor's appointment went today."
She stifled down defensiveness. Just because he cared about the baby didn't mean he wasn't concerned about her, too. The two weren't mutually exclusive. "Everything looks good—really looks good. They did an ultrasound."
"Ah hell, I wish I could have been there."
"I have a picture here for you. It shows so much more than we saw with Nikki and Chris. The newer technology is amazing."
"Then it's probably not a waste, after all, that we got rid of the old baby things, what with the improved stuff on the market."
"Picking out the new furnishings will be fun." Would they do it together?
"I guess it was too early to tell if it's a boy or girl."
"Yeah, in a couple more weeks, though."
"I want to go with you to your next appointment."
The quiet request shouted his resolve. He loved his kids. Her heart ached for him and what she knew he wanted. "No matter how things turn out, I understand this is your baby, too. You should be there."
He didn't answer for a second, the phone lines filled only with background voices from the squadron. Finally, his exhale echoed. "Thank you for that."
Guilt tweaked, hard, as it had done when she'd grieved over J.T. ringing the doorbell at his own house.
He was a good man. Even if he frustrated the hell out of her, she couldn't deny his honor, strength. He deserved better from life.
She could at least give him more today. "If you believe old wives' tales, then the baby's heart rate indicates this one's a boy."
"Another boy, huh? Either way's great by me. We haven't talked about names or anything yet. Do you have any ideas, family names?"
She'd named Chris and Nikki after an aunt and uncle she'd visited, respected, wanting to give her kids something positive from her side of the family. "What about your family this time? Or have you changed your mind since Chris was born about not having a James Taggart Price Jr.?"
"No junior," he answered without hesitation. "Going through school as Price Tag is a tough moniker."
One that stuck through to Air Force days with his call sign. She'd never considered the irony of it before, given his constant worries about money. "Okay, no junior. I'll pick up a couple of baby-name books and we can make lists."
A dangerous little emotion called hope started to flutter inside her. He really was trying. He'd been working hard to relate better with Chris, like during their talk in the garage.
Except she might be better off not thinking about the garage and a half-naked J.T. in workout clothes, arms and legs muscled, bared, sheened with sweat.
"Rena? Are you still there?"
"Oh, yeah, sorry. I was, uh, I don't know. I must have zoned out. No offense. You remember those near-narcoleptic moments of the first trimester."
His chuckle rumbled through the phone line and vibrated inside her. "I'll be quiet when I come in so I don't wake you."
Uh-oh. Too easily she could envision the times he had woken her after a flight. His eyes intense, charged, adrenaline all but dripping from him, and then he would pour all that intensity into making love to her, like in the kitchen after his return from Guam.
To this day, she couldn't look at that stenciled ivy without remembering the heat of him moving against her, in her, bringing her to a screaming release at eleven o'clock in the morning. Yeah, she even still remembered the exact time.
"Hey, Rena? I hear Scorch calling for me. Time to roll. See you when you wake up in the morning. Good night."
The line went dead.