“Get on top then,” he said. “Show me what you want to do.”

  She grinned, but he couldn’t see it in the dark. They could see the outlines of each other’s bodies but not facial expressions.

  She got up on her knees, straddled his hips, lined him up and then sank down fast, letting out a little moan. She hadn’t realized how quickly she’d gotten worked up. These pregnancy hormones had a positive for sure.

  “Touch me,” she said.

  She wasn’t normally vocal either when it came to sex, but with Hugh she just felt like she could say anything to him. He never judged her or made her feel as if she wasn’t enough.

  “Here?” he asked, his hands going to her breasts. His fingers lightly caressing her and then pinching her nipples. “I know you’re sensitive there. Do you like it?”

  “I do,” she said. “A lot. I think I could almost come from that alone at times when you do it.”

  He was getting a little more aggressive. Not like he had before she was pregnant, but she was sensitive enough to feel it more. The fact he knew his own strength and control to give her just enough at different points told her how considerate he was.

  How he thought of her first and foremost and didn’t just do what he wanted.

  She started to ride him now, up and down slowly, almost coming all the way out and then rushing back down on top of him.

  “I love it when you set the speed,” he said. “It tells me how much you enjoy what you’re doing. What you’re getting.”

  “I love how deep your voice gets when you talk to me during sex,” she said quietly.

  “Don’t be embarrassed to say that,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. “This is all new to me.”

  “New is a good thing,” he said. She was moving faster, not by choice but because her body just wanted to do what it did.

  Hugh was still playing with one nipple, but he was plumping and squeezing her other breast.

  Her hands were on her thighs as she rode him, but then she wanted to get a bit deeper. As worked up as she was, she wasn’t going to be able to come like this. It was as if he knew it and rather than move his hands to touch her where she needed some more, he yanked her down and crushed his mouth to hers.

  She started to grind against him, his hips moving up and down with her.

  It didn’t take long for her to realize she was the one doing most of the moving and Hugh was just trying to keep up.

  That was a powerful feeling for someone that never felt much power in her life, let alone in the bedroom.

  Just knowing that she had that much control over this big man under her had her body moving at a speed that might normally get her sick, but this time was bringing so much pleasure that nothing in the world could ever be wrong in her life if she froze this moment.

  When her body started to climb and then crest, she was all but screaming out his name as everything in her tensed and then relaxed with each pulse of her inner muscles.

  Hugh’s hips were moving up into her, working her more, and then she felt him coming right along with her, his arms holding her tight in a hug and bringing her close to his chest.

  His heart was racing again but for a whole different reason. She was pretty sure hers was too.

  After a few minutes when the two of them calmed down in silence, she moved to get up and go to the bathroom. He went in after her.

  Once he was in bed with her again, she moved to half be on his chest again. They were both dressed like they were before he’d woken her up.

  “Hugh,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I love you, you know that, right?”

  “I do,” he said. “I love you too.”

  “Then talk to me, please. You’re not going to get any better if you don’t say what is going on. You have to know that.”

  There was silence to that for a solid minute. She figured that was going to be the end of it, but he said, “It didn’t help me any when I was talking to a counselor about it.”

  “That wasn’t someone who loved you. That was someone doing their job,” she said.

  Another minute went by. “I was dreaming about the night we found where Kevin had been held.”

  She nodded her head against him. He’d brought up Kevin’s name a few times in passing. Said he’d been trying to email Kevin’s parents and for some reason there had been no reply.

  “I’m sure that is something that is going to stay with you for a long time,” she said. “But he’s safe now.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Is he?”

  “He’s with his parents,” she said. “You did your job. Maybe think of it as fate that you ran into him that night on an isolated road. Had you not been there on one case and going back to your hotel, he might have been captured again.”

  Hugh’s hand was rubbing up and down her back. “Those thoughts have played in my mind too.”

  “This is why you need to talk,” she said. “No one knows anything other than the facts. Why things happened when they did. It’s just the universe’s way of saying you needed to do what had to be done.”

  “Like the universe’s way of me putting a baby in your belly. That I needed that in my life along with you?”

  It made her wonder if their child was causing these dreams with Hugh. “Are you scared about the baby?”

  “No,” he said. “No more than any other new parent.”

  “Be honest, Hugh.”

  He sighed. “I worry I won’t be there enough for you. For our child. What if I get called out on a case one night and our child is sick or hurt and you need me?”

  “Then I’ll call one of my sisters. They are close by, and they’ve got significant others too. That is what family is for. I don’t want you carrying these burdens.” She let out a sigh. “These are burdens my mother had. I knew. I heard her talking to my father about them. I never told my sisters.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “We had no family around us. My father was often one of the few medical personnel there and we were foreigners. He left her alone for days on end with five kids. We were raised to stand on our own. To be prepared. To make sure we were aware of our surroundings and used logic in situations. Well, everyone but Ivy.”

  She laughed when she said it. Hugh did too. It seemed the time to at least make that joke.

  “She has it now,” he said. “Because of you and Jasmine. You’ve even admitted it.”

  “That’s right. Ivy had it inside of her, but she needed help showing it to the world. I knew that and though maybe I was hard on her at first, I knew enough when to step back and when to step in. I need you to know that I can handle things on my own.”

  “You’re not going to be alone,” he said quickly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I know you’re not. I’m telling you, I need you to understand and accept that I’m going to be just fine. That you can do your job. You can focus on that and know you don’t need to take care of me every minute. That we are a team and we can do this. When the baby is left with you while I’m out, I’m not going to worry you might not feed or change them at the same time or way I would. You’ll figure it out and if you or I make a mistake, it’s not going to harm them over those things. Our lives are full of mistakes that get us to these points.”

  “You’re pretty smart,” he said.

  “I am. Which is why I want you to open up to me,” she said. “Not worry yourself to the point you can’t sleep. You can’t eat. You can’t focus on your job. It’s not healthy.”

  “My mother told you, didn’t she?” he asked.

  “She did,” she said. “Not a lot. I’d like to hear it from you if you want to tell me.”

  “I’ll never get that way again,” he said.

  “That’s right, you won’t, but you need to tell me so I can look for the signs,” she said. “So I can take care of you too.”

  “I don’t deserve you,” he said.

  “Please,” she said. “Don’t do that. Don’t say that. We deserve what we get in life because we make sure we have it and get it.”

  “Smart again,” he said, kissing her forehead. “And as for me ending up in the hospital. I don’t know how it happened. I told you my marriage wasn’t great. I was worried it was ending and trying to figure out a way to not have it fail when deep down there was no saving it. Then everything happened with Kevin and me shooting his captor. The nightmares were nightly. I wasn’t eating much and drinking a lot of coffee. Living on caffeine and stress. Not a good combination. One morning I woke up and started to cough up blood.”

  “Oh my God,” she said, sitting up.

  “I thought I was dying. All that went through my head was what the heck am I going to do? I can’t tell Keri this, she’ll freak out.” Her eyes filled fast enough that a tear must have escaped. “Why are you crying?”

  “Because that should be the last thing you worry about. She should have known and been the first one there holding your hand and at all appointments.”

  “It didn’t work that way,” he said. “I left to go to work but drove to urgent care. They sent me to the ER.”

  “Keri had no idea you were there?” she asked. How could a wife not know? “Was she upset when she realized you were there?”

  “I didn’t call her until I was admitted and could tell her what was going on,” he said. “It was hours. I had a bleeding ulcer. They went in and cauterized it and kept me overnight to monitor me. Then I went home on meds. Keri was stunned. She was upset I never told her and when I said I didn’t think she could handle it because she couldn’t handle me even talking about why I was stressed, she cut me off and said I needed to rest.”

  “Bitch,” she said and then bit her tongue. “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” he said. “But now you know why there was no hope for our marriage. My mother flew in even though I said I didn’t need her to.”

  “She would have wanted to make sure you were taken care of,” she said. “My mother or sisters would have done the same. Even my father. Well, if he could have. No, he would have sent my mother.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “That is your family. That is my family. That’s what I want in my life and I’m getting it with you. I can see that now. I wasn’t going to get it with Keri.”

  “So can you start to relax some? Will you talk to me more?”

  “I’ll try,” he said. “If you do the same.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “Dahlia, you haven’t said a word about what is going on with your parents and I know you’ve talked to your mother twice in the past few days since you broke the baby news to them.”

  She didn’t think this was going to get turned around on her. “Not much to say,” she said. “You saw their reactions.”

  “There has to be something to say because you’ve said before you don’t talk to your mother more than once a week. That it’s normally more email communication.”

  “She just wants to check in on me. She’s doing it for my father too. Some of the questions are of a medical nature. She did say she was sick like I am when she carried me and only me.”

  “Is this the first you’ve heard this?” he asked.

  “Yes. My father is disappointed,” she admitted. “He was with Jasmine too, but Jasmine and Wesley got married pretty quickly after. They’d been dating longer than us. They went on a trip to Italy and he proposed and they decided to get married there, then came back and had another ceremony here. No big wedding or anything.”

  “I didn’t know that. What do you want?”

  “Right now, I want us to be good. I want you to open up to me and trust that I’ve got your back just like I know you’ve got mine.”

  She felt him take a deep breath and let it out. “You’ve got it.”

  She nodded, let out a yawn and started to relax. There was no way she was saying she wanted to get married at some point.

  They weren’t at some point. They were at this point.

  And right now, this was good enough.

  37

  BE A PARTNER

  Saturday, a few days later, Hugh was glad that they had a long weekend for Labor Day.

  Dahlia was out in the yard planting some flowers and plants that Jasmine had told her would work well right now and bloom in the spring.

  He told her to do what she wanted. The fact that she was turning his house into a home for them was more than enough for him.

  A few days ago when he’d woken up after he and Dahlia had their heart to heart in the middle of the night, he’d expected to feel embarrassed but hadn’t.

  He’d felt lighter in his heart than ever before.

  When he got out of the shower that next morning, he was shocked that Dahlia was in the kitchen making breakfast. Normally she got in the shower after him but not that day.

  Bacon and eggs were cooked and on plates, his coffee was in a cup and she’d made a joke about making sure he had a good breakfast to start his day.

  He’d never wanted someone to take care of him, but he had to admit it felt damn good to let some of the stresses go.

  He’d lost the budget battle too and wasn’t even upset over it. The fact that she wanted a household fund set up in an account in both their names just told him that was her form of commitment too. He refused to split the bills evenly and told her that. His compromise was to say she could put in a percentage of payments that equaled a percentage of her salary to his.

  She laughed when they found out she wasn’t that much further behind him. Guess he had no clue what she was being paid. He just wasn’t used to having someone be a partner with him and it was taking some getting used to.

  When he heard the doorbell ring, he went to pull his phone out to see who it was but realized he’d left it outside where he’d been working. He’d only come in to get water for Dahlia and him.

  He went to the front door and pulled it open, shocked to see the last person standing there he’d expected to see ever again.

  “Hi, Hugh,” Keri said.

  His jaw dropped and then closed. “Keri, what are you doing here?”

  “I hope it was okay to come here,” Keri said. “Can I come in?”

  He wanted to tell her no, but she obviously flew here and she had a box in her hand. Something that looked as if it’d been mailed, but nothing else.

  “Sure,” he said. “But why are you here?”

  She knew his address. When they divorced he’d given her that information, his rental and then when he bought the house. He only did it in case she needed to send him anything. He’d all but walked away from their condo with only his clothes but knew there was shit there she’d want to get rid of at some point and maybe send him.

  In his mind, he knew she wasn’t someone to just walk away, but in the past few months, he hadn’t thought of any of that.

  Why would he? He had everything he wanted in his life right now.

  “This package came for you a few weeks ago. I was going to forward it, but then I got thinking, I was worried about you.”

  She put the box on the coffee table and he’d just ignore it for now. That was the least of his concerns.

  “Why were you worried about me?” It didn’t seem as if she cared all that much when they were married.

  Which was wrong of him to say that. What they had was good at one point.

  “I loved you, Hugh. There is a part of me that will always love you.”

  “I thought you were seeing someone,” he said.

  Keri frowned. “How do you know?” She smiled then. “Are you asking about me?”

  “No,” he said. “Hannah must follow you on social media. She brought it up a while ago.”

  “Oh,” Keri said. “I’m not with Jack anymore.”

  “And that is why you’re here?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure why I’m here completely,” Keri said. “I just know that I miss you. I worry about you still. I think of you. I thought…I don’t know. You’re in a new place and a new job. Maybe if you’d changed positions a few years ago, we might not have had the same ending.”

  “Oh, you would have had the same ending.”

  He turned his head and saw Dahlia standing there.

  He tried not to laugh at the comparison between the two women.

  Keri was stylish in black pants. High waisted, wide leg and loose and flowing. Her top was a multi-color fitted shiny material tucked in and she had some kind of heels on her feet he was sure, but he couldn’t see with her pants covering them.

  No way she flew that way, which meant she’d checked into a hotel and changed.

  Keri came here to impress, that he knew.

  Dahlia, on the other hand, had old black cotton shorts on, a green T-shirt that had dirt on it, Crocs on her feet and gardening gloves on her hands. Her hair was pulled back and not a lick of makeup on. Not that she wore much anyway.

  She was more beautiful to him than Keri ever was.

  “Who are you?” Keri asked.

  “Keri Crosby,” he said. “Meet Dahlia Greene.”

  “I didn’t know you were seeing someone,” Keri said.

  The fact Dahlia was looking the way she was should indicate it was more than seeing someone.

  “Considering I’m carrying his child, I’d say it’s more than that, but I’ll let you two catch up,” Dahlia said and turned to leave after she grabbed a bottle of water.

  “You’re having a child?” Keri asked. Her eyes started to fill with tears. Like they always did when she realized she might not get her way.

  “I am,” he said. “You still didn’t explain why you were here. I’m not buying the whole missing me thing. Or did you really come here thinking we could start over? You have to know that would have never happened even if I wasn’t in love with someone else.”

  “No way you could love someone that fast,” Keri said. “You haven’t been here that long. You don’t move fast.”

  “Keri, I’m not the person you wanted me to be. You only saw what you wanted, not who I am. Dahlia is right. It was going to end the way it did regardless. I’m sorry you flew all this way. If you had called me I would have told you.”