"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.
"Good night," she whispered, keeping the phone cradled under her chin for a silly sentimental moment before she thumbed the Off button.
Her eyes drifted closed. She inhaled his scent to mix with the sound of his voice still in her head and drifted into that twilight restfulness, neither asleep nor fully awake, when thoughts took their own direction. Remembering the summer weeks after she'd met J.T. when they'd stolen every moment possible together. Every time they'd said goodbye on her porch or hung up the phone, she'd been certain she would die if she couldn't be with him forever.
Teenage melodrama? Maybe. But also intense and wonderful.
Then one night, parked by the shore, they hadn't been able to wait any longer. Tugging the zipper down on his flight suit, her hands found their way inside.
She'd reveled in being safe and free when he held her, touched her. And yes, he'd said he loved her, those words sending showers of excitement rushing over her because if this honorable man loved her, then she wasn't tainted by her family. She'd believed the words with all her heart back then, not questioning whether or not he really meant them until many years later after too many silences between them.
How safe she'd felt in his arms, safety nearly as intoxicating as his touch, the way he seemed to know just where to stroke until her pulse pounded in her ears. Louder. Louder still until she'd thought she would shatter—
Shatter?
Rena bolted upright. Wind gusted through her front window, through the jagged hole. Glass sparkled on her floor.