Heart of a Hero: The Soldier's Seduction / The Heart of a Mercenary / Straight Through the Heart

“I’m not sure,” he said slowly.

Before he knew what she intended, she was down the steps and across the room, placing one small, cool hand on his brow. “Do you feel sick?”

He looked at her, standing so close to him in the shadows of the small living room, her eyes wide and worried. “No,” he said. “I’m not sick.”

Immediately she began to withdraw her hand but he caught it before she could move away. “Don’t go.”

She stilled, but didn’t speak. Her gaze flew to his face again as he tugged on her hand, drawing her closer. He threaded one hand through her hair, cupping her cheek, and rubbed his thumb lightly over her lips. She swallowed. “Wade, I…” She stopped and shook her head. “I’m glad we came to visit your father.”

He smiled, letting his hand drift from her face to play with the cool, silky strands of hair. “Me, too. Bridget’s already got him wrapped around one of those little fingers. Thanks for letting him give her a bottle tonight.”

“He never stopped talking to her the entire time. Did you notice that?”

He nodded. “He sounded pretty ridiculous.”

“Like someone else I know.”

“Hey! I do not sound ridiculous.”

“You’re right,” she agreed. “Just infatuated. Totally, ridiculously infatuated.”

“It would be impossible not to be,” he agreed. “She’s perfect.”

“Well, almost, maybe,” she conceded.

“She’s a lot like her mother,” he said. “Wrapping men around her little finger.”

She snorted beneath her breath. “You know darn well I never wrapped a man around any part of me.”

Silence fell between them as her retort registered.

Immediately, his thoughts turned to the cabin in the woods where he’d made love to her. She’d been wrapped around him then, her long, slim legs gripping his hips as he’d plunged into her with so little restraint he winced at the memory even as his body responded to it. “I’d have to disagree with that,” he said, aware that his voice had roughened.

Phoebe moaned softly, dropping her head so that her hair fell forward to hide her expression. “Bad choice of words.”

He put a finger beneath her chin. She might not be willing to talk about Melanie, but he’d be damned if he was going to let her ignore what was between them, too. “Not so bad. It reminds me of making love with you.” He caressed her bottom lip with his thumb again. “Do you remember what it was like between us?”

She drew her breath in sharply and her body tensed. For a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to answer him at all. But finally, she whispered, “I remember.”

He was more pleased than the two small words warranted that she’d admitted it. Sliding his arms around her, he drew her close. “Let’s make a new memory.”

She didn’t resist as he found her mouth with his. His pulse doubled its rate when he felt her small hands creep around his back. Her mouth was soft and yielding beneath his, her body equally so. Touching the closed line of her lips with his tongue, he gently traced the tender seam until she opened for him, then deepened the kiss as he gathered her closer.

He took her arms and pulled them up around his neck as he feasted on her mouth. She was so much shorter than he was that she had to stand practically on her toes, throwing her off balance and bringing her body to rest against his. Her soft belly pressed against him and his hardening shaft nestled into the cleft at her thighs, sending a surge of pleasure dancing up his spine.

Tearing his mouth from hers, he kissed a trail along the silken column of her neck, then nuzzled the collar of the nightshirt out of the way. She had only buttoned it as high as the one between her breasts, and he exposed a generous expanse of her pale flesh until the shirt drooped off one shoulder.

“Beautiful,” he breathed against her skin. He brought up a hand and cupped one breast in his palm, lightly brushing his thumb across the nipple through the thin fabric of the shirt.

She made a small sound and her head fell back.

“The baby was fussing so I—” Reston stopped halfway down the stairs with Bridget in his arms. Even in the dim light, Wade could see his father’s eyebrows rising.

Phoebe jerked upright with a startled sound, but when she tried to pull away, Wade refused to let her go. She buried her face in the front of his shirt as Wade met his father’s speculative gaze over her head.

“You do know this is how you got the first one, right?”

Wade couldn’t prevent the snort of laughter that escaped. “No, Dad,” he said. “This is absolutely, positively not it.”

It was Reston’s turn to grin while Phoebe made a quiet moan of mortification. “So,” he said. “You gettin’ married?”

“Yes,” said Wade.

“No,” said Phoebe.

If his father’s eyebrows had moved any higher they’d have merged with his hairline. “I see.” He turned and started back up the stairs with the baby, who appeared to have gone back to sleep. But just before he disappeared, he stopped and looked back, and his shadowed eyes held a sober expression that contrasted sharply with the grin of a moment ago. “That would please your mother,” he said quietly to Wade. Then he looked at Phoebe, who still hadn’t moved. He shook his head and his shoulders slumped. “Sometimes I still can’t believe she’s not here. She’d be tickled down to her toes with that baby girl.”

“Old manipulator,” Wade said quietly when he was sure his father was out of earshot.

Phoebe lifted her head from Wade’s chest, although she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. His father’s final words echoed in her ears, awakening all the guilt and remorse she felt for keeping the news of Wade’s child to herself.

Looking down the path her life was about to follow, it didn’t take a fortune-teller to predict heartbreak. Then again, if she didn’t marry him, that was a given.

She knew she was going to say yes, even before she opened her mouth. She’d rather live with Wade, knowing he didn’t love her the way she craved, than live without him. She’d thought he was dead and gone forever and it had felt as if half of her had died, too. She was going to take him any way she could get him, regardless of the pain she knew lay in wait.

“All right,” she said quietly.

“What?” Wade looked puzzled. He was still staring at the doorway where his father had been a moment ago.

“All right, I’ll marry you.”

That got his attention. Wade’s gaze shot to hers again and his gray eyes focused on her with a blazing intensity that made her cringe inwardly. “My father catching us kissing made you change your mind?”

She shrugged. “I just—I know Bridget deserves a family. An intact family,” she amended. He’d been right. A child was a good reason to get married. Every child deserved a set of parents.

And grandparents. I will never forgive myself for depriving her of knowing her paternal grandmother. If it was for a day, or a month, or even years and years, I should have thought about how they would feel.

Wade was looking down at her and his eyes still felt like two lasers examining her soul.

God, had she really just agreed to marry this man? This man whom she’d loved since she’d been a child on the playground? She had reasons, she reminded herself. Bridget needed a father; she deserved a stable childhood with two parents. Raising a family on a teacher’s salary could be done, but it wouldn’t be easy. With Wade’s help, they’d be able to give their daughter the things Phoebe wanted for her: music or dance lessons, sports opportunities, all the myriad activities that children of the modern world pursued.

Phoebe, on the other hand, only needed one reason to marry Wade: love. She’d loved him for what seemed like forever. And then he’d died and she’d had to accept it, though it had felt as if her heart had been permanently shattered.

And then…then she’d found out he hadn’t died at all.

Her stupid heart had bounced back a lot faster than her head. She was still having trouble believing that all this was real. But her heart was having no trouble at all loving Wade with even more intensity than she had when she was seventeen years old and he’d belonged to her sister.

“Good,” Wade finally said, startling Phoebe out of whatever internal argument she was having with herself. The expressions fleeting across her face ranged from tenderness to the deepest sadness he’d ever seen. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what she was thinking about. “When?”