I’m staring up at the big yellow sign with the honeybee logo just as my wife comes out of the door with a hand over her belly. I rush toward her and pull her into my arms. “So are you happy?”
She laughs. “How can I not be?”
I drop down into a squat and kiss Jenna’s belly. “What about you, little guy? You happy?”
Jenna groans, and her hand goes to the side of her stomach. “You know anytime you talk to him he kicks me, right?”
I raise up and pull her into my arms. “I’m sorry.”
She laughs again. “No you’re not. But I’m not mad about it.”
“Really! Really, we have a shop to open in three days, and I can’t get anything done because you two are always making out,” Madison hollers from the open front door of Honeybee. Jenna was right. She called it that Madison would move to Tennessee and follow her. I don’t think Jenna is the only reason she moved here, but I’ll save that story for another day.
I lean my head against Jenna’s. “So your friend is trying to cock block me.”
Jenna smiles up at me. She does that a lot these days. She’s always smiling, and it’s in that smile that lets me know we made the right decision when we moved here to Tennessee. She loves this place... and everyone loves her. I still go a little crazy sometimes, especially when I see someone admiring my wife. I’ve been known to go a little crazy over her, but luckily, Whiskey Run is a small town, and it seems everyone knows she’s mine. I don’t know anyone stupid enough to go against my friends and me. That’s one good thing about being stationed in a small town.
“So what about you?” Jenna asks.
I put my arm around her shoulder and walk her toward the awning to get her out of the sun. “What about me?” I ask her.
She stops and grips the front of my shirt with both her hands. “Are you happy?” She’s serious when she asks me, and I can’t help but wonder if I’m not doing something right. She has to know how happy she makes me. “Yes, I’m happy. You make me happy.”
She pulls me in for a kiss just as my phone goes off. I hate to, but I have to answer it. “This is Riggs.”
“Wheels up in thirty.”
My body tenses when I hear Nash’s voice on the other end and can tell he’s on edge. My commander never lets anything get to him, and knowing that something has put this in his voice lets me know it’s something bad. “I’ll be ready. Anything I need to know?”
Jenna holds me tighter as I listen on the phone. “Yeah, Riggs. It’s Brooklyn. She was kidnapped.”
“Brooklyn!” It’s like a sucker punch to my stomach. Brook is like one of us. She’s Walker’s secretary, and she’s always around headquarters. Whoever it is that came for Brook, they came for all of us. “I’ll see you soon,” I say and hang up the phone.
“Someone has Brook?” Jenna asks.
“Yeah, honey. I have to go. I love you.”
She nods. “I know. I love you too.”
I bellow for Madison, and she sticks her head out the door. “Code Blue, Madison.”
Worry fills her eyes. We made this up when I go on missions. She’s to help look out for Jenna now that she’s pregnant. “I got her,” she says, and I have no doubt she does.
Jenna’s still holding on to me. “I don’t want to let you go.”
I kiss her, committing her taste to memory. “I know. But I have to go. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I love you, baby.”
With one last kiss, I turn to go. Jenna’s echo, telling me she loves me too, follows me to my car.