The Captive's Return (Wingmen Warriors 10)

"Huh?" Her brow crinkled again.

He needed to remember that just because a kid was smart didn't mean she had his vocabulary yet. He had a lot more to learn than could be found in a few cartoon flicks, and far more than when he'd brought Tomas to the States. "Guys like me eat them for food when we're away from home.">Did he even notice? His instincts for children were better than he thought.

"I liked driving you crazy." Yet she found his paternal sway tugged at another corner of her heart with an equal, if different, strength.

"Oh, did you?"

"Did you really think I forgot my underwear beneath your pillow? Or that my perfume spilled inside your top desk drawer by accident?"

"I couldn't open the thing without getting turned on."

"I know." They had shared some wonderful times together. She'd lost sight of that joy buried so deeply under her guilt and grief.

His silvery-blue eyes glinted with more than a hint of arrogant surety. "Actually I was thinking more of the time at the ambassador's dinner when you—"

"Shhhh! What if Lucia wakes?" Their daughter didn't need to hear the details of gropings under a banquet table. "You didn't seem to mind one bit by dessert."

"You always were more woman than I could handle."

"I seem to recall you handled me just fine once we got back to your quarters that night," she retorted smartly—and vaguely in case her drooling daughter woke without notice.

His eyes snapped to hers, held, the humid air between them full of memories of what happened after that dinner—falling clothes and boundaries. They'd stayed awake all night and watched the sunrise together. She'd told him she loved him. He'd kissed the top of her head and breathed in deeply as if catching the scent of her hair. At the time, she'd grieved because he hadn't echoed her words.

Now she wondered why she hadn't cherished the intensity of his actions.

Again, here she was, needing his help. "Thank you for saving my brother five years ago and for saving us now."

"Did you really think I would walk away?"

"Of course not." He was too honorable.

He straightened, securing Lucia higher. "Come on, we need to get moving."

She pushed away from the tree and followed his broad shoulders again. She couldn't change the past, but she could set some parts of it straight again. Sure, her feelings still stung from his earlier comment about them being wrong for each other, but she couldn't do something childish like snap at him. She was woman enough now to know she owed him better than that.

Sara pulled up alongside him so she could see his face. "I wanted to say yes to your proposals."

He stopped blinking, a small gesture, but enough for her to know she'd surprised him, not that he said anything.

Okay, so her stinging pride burned a little hotter, but she'd made up her mind to see this through. "Don't you want to know why I turned you down?"

"You told me before." He hiked down a slight slope. "You loved your job, your country, your freedom."

"I was an immature idiot then." She grabbed a vine for balance down the small hill which felt more like a mountain, thanks to her now ten-ton backpack. "I wanted you to chase me."

"What?" His head jerked toward her.

So she'd finally shocked a real reaction from him. Wow. It had only taken five years, a mistaken death and a surprise kid.

She deserved to savor the moment. "I had to chase you so blasted hard, I wanted a sign that you felt the same frenzy."

"Good God, woman." He walked faster, boots stomping harder, trampling a patch of pink orchids. "You damn near brought me to my knees every time you I walked into a room."

Now that, she didn't believe. "You've never been on your knees in your life."

"Then you weren't looking very hard."

Further confirmation that she'd been an idiot. Her heart ached from more than exertion. She stepped ahead of him and stopped, forcing him to look at her full-on. "So you were really blown away for me."