"Because we want to keep you safe."
"I'm too sleepy to argue."
He must be even more exhausted, and the longer she talked, the longer before he erased those dark circles under his eyes.
She crossed into the room with him, a simple double bed in the corner covered by what looked to be a handwoven blanket with rusty red and gold geometric designs, a reminder of her heritage she would soon leave behind. Shutters on the outside fit over bars and glass on the inside.
Bulletproof? Probably. She shivered.
He jerked a thumb toward the footstool and cane rocker with his survival vest and grimy flight suit hooked over the back. "I'm not offering to sleep in the chair."
"I did not plan to ask." She sat on the edge of the bed, toeing off her shoes. Memories of how hot they'd been for each other, always hungry for more, tingled through her until her br**sts tightened in response. "We've slept together before, many times. It would be ridiculous to claim modesty."
The mattress creaked and dipped on the other side from Lucas's weight, and she realized they'd never slept together as husband and wife. How strange was that? They'd shared a bed and more, even through the night, but somehow this felt different, strange.
Frighteningly wonderful.
He stretched onto his back, on top of the covers, his feet hanging off, his eyes closed and breathing steady. But he wasn't asleep. She couldn't be sure how she knew, yet she did.
His arm extended—the uninjured arm—thumping to rest and reaching across, broadcasting a temporary truce by inviting her to curl against his side. He'd said he was sorry and she believed he meant it. She could even look past his assumption she'd used drugs since he'd never suggested it was her fault. Actually, she could envision her pseudo-uncle resorting to addiction if she hadn't been so easy to manipulate through her child's health.
Yes, she could forgive Lucas for that assumption, but even with her heart softening, she wasn't sure she could forgive him for doubting her about Lucia.
Still, he waited with his arm out, his other arm cradled against his chest. Where she wanted to be, needed to be, in case this was their last chance.
Swinging her feet onto the mattress, she sank down to rest beside him, fit her body to his as his arm curved around and he cupped her shoulder. She let her head rest on his chest, too tired to talk or even cry.
But not too tired to notice the whipcord strength of the hot, honed body against hers.
For five years Sara had haunted his dreams. Sometimes laughing with him while blowing bubbles at his birds. Sometimes crying in shadows where he couldn't reach her.>They'd found her flight suit and combat boots wadded up in the brush outside of Chavez's compound. They had reason to believe she was on the move with someone else, given markers found along the main road out.
There wasn't a thing he could do to help her. Although he'd been over and over the possibility of tracking her himself.
But reason and logic had gotten him this far in his career, and despite the personal need to account for every member of his squadron, logic told him the best course of action now was to follow the protocol for this kind of situation. Something he damn well wished Seabrook had done in the first place.
Why had she left to search for him? He'd never been the kind of team-player commander that crews embraced. God knows he made it a point never to connect personally with the people in his command. Yet this woman he barely knew beyond her personnel file had taken a foolish risk to bring him back before the compound started exploding.
A humbling thought he didn't quite know how to process.
Search-and-rescue teams had been deployed. They knew their job. In this case, to fix what he'd screwed up. He'd lost one of his people on his watch. It didn't matter where he'd been or what he'd been doing, he was in charge.
And who knew how close Seabrook and her captor had been?
While Lucia snoozed on, he studied the little hand clasped in his. She still didn't look a thing like anyone in his family. In movies or books, the surprise proof of heritage was some bizarre crooked finger or matching birthmark on the butt of both the baby and the dad.
Except he didn't have a birthmark on his ass, and so far as he knew, neither did anybody else in his family. Not that he'd been lurking around in the showers to check.
Uncurling his hand around hers, he counted fingers and the tiniest thumb he'd ever seen. Sara had said Lucia was small because she was a premature baby as well as naturally petite. That made sense.
It should have made sense right from the start, if only he'd listened.
No matter how much they'd changed, Sara knew him well enough to understand he wouldn't turn his back on her or Lucia. She had no reason to lie to him about being Lucia's father.
Lucia.
He looked at those little fingers again, touched his pointer to her palm. Reflexively in her sleep, she closed a fist and held on.
His chest clenched so tight he damn near couldn't breathe. This was his daughter. He didn't need butt birthmarks or preemie proof.