Marie Cove had an exclusive, very elite, highly rated course, and he’d arranged access through the commander of the base.

  He’d golf, too, but the outing was more of a cover than anything else. He wasn’t leaving town until he knew that Annie had made it through the danger zone following the procedure. The risk of losing the babies was small—but they were facing two aggravators: Annie’s age and the multiple pregnancy.

  “I’m planning to work tomorrow after the appointment, and Thursday,” she said, as though his announcement had been little more than a normal sharing of schedules. Liking the sense of normalcy, he went with it, told her good-night and headed down the hall.

  Before he got to the door, though, he stopped and turned.

  Quickly enough that he caught her watching him from the end of the hall. “I’m sleeping in shorts and leaving my door open,” he told her. “You wake up in the night, I’m here. We can sit out front and watch another show.”

  She nodded, but he got the sense that it was a polite response, not something she was taking seriously or would take him up on.

  “I mean it, Annie. It’s why I’m here instead of in a hotel.”

  She didn’t respond at all that time. Just stood there, looking at him, as though assessing him for threat. Or wondering how sincere he was in the offer?

  He’d blown her trust in him.

  He’d thought that fact had been driven as deep as it could get before their divorce had even been final But no. The pain from his lapse bore a bit deeper as he stood there, frustrated at the limitations on his ability to help her. In the olden days he’d have gone to bed with her, pulled her up against him and held her securely in his arms all night long.

  “We did good tonight,” he said softly. Not pleading. But closer than he’d have liked. “It’ll work just the same at two or three in the morning. The couch is there. The shows are on.”

  She didn’t come any closer, but was looking him in the eye as she nodded.

  “If I hear you up, I’m going in to turn on the television. You can join me or not.”

  Her last nod was accompanied by an easing of her features. Not quite a smile. A little more serious. But an expression that conveyed her acquiescence.

  With that, he went to bed.

  * * *

  No way Annie was getting up in the night, not even to pee. She’d hold it. Lying in the dark, she willed herself to sleep. And, instead, just kept thinking about Seth in the next room. She’d never have thought they’d be sleeping in the same house again. Not for any reason.

  Having him close...all evening...with the understanding that it was just a moment out of time...she’d just relaxed. She’d just flowed with him in her space, as she knew so well how to do.

  There’d been no questions, no recriminations, comparisons, or even longings. They’d just...been. And it had been so nice.

  So. Nice.

  Because no matter what had happened to their marriage, or how their life goals had stopped fitting, she liked him.

  Truly liked him.

  Enjoyed his personality.

  And, she knew him. She’d recognized his laugh when it had burst out of him during a scene they’d been watching. Had even known when he’d laughed. She knew what triggered him.

  And that was...nice, too.

  She had to sleep. Was planning to head into the station after the procedure—as much for the distraction as the amount of work piled up on her desk waiting for her. And she also had to be alert for the monthly meeting with the brass that was scheduled at the end of her shift on Wednesday.

  Turning over, she lay on her stomach, figuring she wouldn’t be able to do so much longer. And thought about Seth sleeping not far away. Lying in the bed she’d made for him. In the shorts he’d described. He’d always slept in the nude when she’d known him.

  But maybe that had been because of her.

  His body had been rock-hard, and a comfortable pillow at the same time. How exactly had that worked?

  She knew one thing that had worked perfectly, every time. The way his hands had moved on her. All over her. She hadn’t been with a man before or since who’d been able to turn her on as he had. She could go and go and go with him. Multiple climaxes, and still not come down. Not if he was playing with her.

  It hadn’t all been the same thing. Maybe that was what made his lovemaking different. She’d never known where or how he was going to touch to set her off. Their physical life together had never settled into a routine. He did this, she did that. She liked this, he liked that. Making love with Seth had been like a new adventure every time.

  And yet...when he’d slid home inside her... She shivered, just thinking about it, remembering so acutely how that had felt. He’d been familiar. Fitting perfectly.

  Right.

  Hers.

  A part of her.

  Exquisite.

  And now her panties were damp.

  Turning again, she tried her right side, in a fetal position, hugging a pillow to her breast and abdomen, half straddling it until the ache between her legs subsided a little.

  And she wondered what Seth had thought of her home. And what his place looked like. He’d always done his share of housework. Had picked up after himself, and had helped with dusting and vacuuming, too. And dishes.

  She’d always done the bathrooms, though. As she lay there, she couldn’t remember why that was. Did he do them now?

  Or did he have someone who came in to do his cleaning?

  At his rank, with his salary, he could certainly afford to hire it done. When she realized she was starting to feel a bit envious of any woman who got to be in his space, touching his things, she turned over again. Those types of thoughts were the result of exhaustion. Period.

  In the fetal position on her left side now, pillow shoved aside, she thought about the procedure coming up in a matter of hours. She’d had a very serious, firm talk with herself regarding the actual test. She wasn’t to think about the physical particulars, as that would just make it bigger in her mind than was healthy. Her part was to lie where she was told, how she was told, keep her eyes closed, and wait. The parts others had in the process were outside of her control and therefore none of her business. So...she thought about Seth being there with her. Maybe holding her hand as he had for those few brief seconds in the ultrasound room.

  He’d been in his navy whites earlier that day, but would most likely be in jeans and a button-down shirt tomorrow as he was planning a golfing vacation.

  She wanted to believe his staying in town was more than that, though she fully accepted that the outing was the truth he was choosing to go with for himself.

  Underneath, though, she hoped he was staying in town so he could be around for the test results. In the event that something came up, that something had to be done, medically speaking, to tend to the fetuses, he’d be close.

  That mattered.

  No judgment. No way to even ask the right and wrong of it.

  It mattered to her that he be close for that particular revelation.

  To emphasize the point, she flopped over onto her back, pulling the extra pillow back up to shove it behind her head and shoulders. Propping her up just a tad. The position felt comfortable. Relaxing and...

  “Annie?” Seth called out softly, with a slight tap on her closed but not latched door. Did he need something?

  Or have to go for some reason?

  “Yeah?” In the tank top and panties she normally wore to bed, she pulled the covers up to her shoulders, her arms on top of them, holding them securely in place.

  The door pushed open, revealing the most gorgeous man she’d ever known, standing in her bedroom doorway. His shorts were cotton, dark, though she couldn’t distinguish an exact color in the gloom. The T-shirt loose and white—no writing or emblem on it. Just blank. Like something that might go under a dress shirt, except baggier.

  It wasn’t baggy at the shoulders. Or the upper arms, either. It hugged muscles that had grown since she’d last seen them bare. And they’d been impressively sized back then.

  He was holding a pillow and the comforter off his bed.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  “What?”

  “Come on,” he said, moving his head in a sideways nod, indicating the hallway. “You aren’t sleeping in here. I’ve been listening to you toss and turn...”

  Seriously? He could hear her covers move? What had he been doing, standing there with his ear pressed to the crack she’d left in her door?

  Why hadn’t she shut it all the way?

  So, yeah, she was used to sleeping with it open. When you lived alone, there was no reason not to. Besides, she liked to be able to hear the rest of the house at night, usually being the only one in residence to protect it.

  “You heard me tossing and turning?” She wasn’t getting up, but she wasn’t clutching the covers as tightly, either. Truth was, she wanted to go with him.

  She just wasn’t giving herself permission to move.

  “Your headboard bumps the wall when you move,” he said.

  No, it didn’t. She hadn’t heard it.

  But she pushed herself up on one elbow. And heard the light tap as a brass filial touched drywall. Not a bump, really. Just a...little tap. Something she’d grown so used to over the years she hadn’t noticed it anymore.

  But when she was listening, she recognized it.

  “Come on,” he said for a third time. “You’ll get more sleep out on the couch than lying in here. I’m going to make up a bed for you...” He turned and left.

  Had he not been in her house, she’d have been on the couch already. Because when she was most stressed or worried, the couch appeared to be less threatening than a bed that seemed to demand sleep. She had no good reason for that.

  But it was something Seth knew about her. Had remembered.

  And there he was, doing something about it. Taking action.

  Having her back.

  Without another word, she threw back her covers, pulled a pair of cotton pajama pants on, and followed him down the hall.

  Damp panties and all.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “You want the TV on or off?” Seth was already settled in the armchair, his feet propped up on the footrest in front of it, a throw pillow propping his head, when Annie joined him.

  “There’s a blanket in that...” She motioned to the trunk in front of the couch, but stopped before actually telling him where the covering was stored.

  Remembering that he generally slept without covers when he had garments on his body?

  Fluffing the pillow he’d placed up against the arm of the couch, she lay down and covered up. But not before he’d seen the more than slight swelling of her lower belly. To a stranger on the street, she’d probably just look like any other woman her age filling out a bit as she aged, but to Seth...Annie was very clearly pregnant.

  The evidence of that growing belly, more so even than the images on the ultrasound screen, slammed it all home to him.

  The embryos he and Annie had made together were really growing inside her. They weren’t just implanting, biology hanging out; they were becoming little people.

  He’d turned a small light on in the kitchen, over the stove, so he could see to make her bed and so she didn’t trip on her way out, and wished he’d thought to turn it out. Nightlights didn’t bother Annie, or him, either, but the soft glow from around the corner was just enough for him to see that her eyes were closed.

  And to notice that her lips had relaxed. She no longer had even a hint of the pinched look about her he’d seen when he’d approached her at the restaurant earlier that evening.

  But her breathing...he could see the rise and fall of the covers, too, and the rhythm was slowing. Or her breathing was deepening.

  He gave her another fifteen minutes. Closed his own eyes, but didn’t fight it when they popped open again almost immediately. He allowed his gaze to peruse the room he’d been in for most of the evening. Thinking about how much her arrangement and decor had in common with his. How far the couch was positioned away from the entertainment center along the longest wall. The style of the entertainment center. He’d been awarded the one they’d had in the divorce.

  She’d purchased one noticeably similar to it...

  Her breathing still hadn’t settled.

  “I’m awake if you want to talk.”

  She didn’t respond. He looked about some more. Tried again to close his eyes. With a few more seconds of success.

  “Thank you for being here.” Her words were soft, sleepy-sounding. As though she was drifting off again? He hoped so.

  For both their sakes.

  “You’re welcome.” His response was just as soft, a low buzz to send her off to sleep.

  “I mean it, Seth. Seriously. For so many years I lived with this sense that I didn’t have to do anything alone. Knowing instinctively that you’d always be at my back. When I lost that... I didn’t think I’d ever know that feeling again. But tonight...you knew I wasn’t sleeping. No one else would ever have known that.”

  He disagreed with her. The banging of her headboard on the wall—though maybe it was more of a slight tap that he’d have missed if he hadn’t been listening...

  Or wouldn’t have known the movement meant that she was awake rather than just jostling in her sleep. Annie didn’t jostle. Once she went to sleep, she didn’t move.

  He could think about her sleep habits. Or he could face head-on the pseudo jab she’d just sent in his direction.

  One he deserved.

  “I’m sorry, Annie.” More so than she’d ever know. And that sorrow seemed to be increasing by the day.

  “I didn’t mean that as criticism, Seth. I’m truly thankful you’re here. Deeply thankful. That’s what I was trying to tell you. You being here tonight...it matters. A lot. That’s all.”

  Jutting out his chin—maybe so it didn’t tremble—he nodded. Folded his hands over his stomach and closed his eyes again.

  Then he said, “I never meant for you to do it alone.” His eyes were open again, focused on the drawn curtains across from him, making out a faint glow of the house light outside her front door. “I came back the next morning, expecting for us to work things out together, to figure things out together, and you were gone.”

  When she sat up, turned to face him, the covers dropping to her waist, he wished he’d kept his mouth shut.

  He’d just wanted her to know that while he hadn’t been able to be married to her, he’d still planned to help her in every way he could.

  “I figured we’d...continue on as husband and wife until you were out of school at least...” Though hearing the words then, he didn’t see how he’d have thought that would have worked. “It’s not that I didn’t want you to be a cop. I just knew the marriage wasn’t going to work when you became one. But even then... I figured we’d at least be friends...”

  Forever.

  Because they’d been...them.

  “Seriously?” Her jaw dropped and he saw the widening of her eyes even in the gloom. “How exactly was that going to work, Seth? I was just going to trot along happily if you took up with someone else? Someone who, like you, had a career that wasn’t on the front line?”

  She didn’t spew anger. Or spew at all.

  But she came closer than she ever had before. She’d been so calm the night after she’d come home from the months-long deployment to face what they both knew had been building during their computer chats while she was gone.

  And the next morning, when he’d figured they’d both get their emotions out and then be able to figure out a plan for the future, he’d come home to find her...moved out.

  “I wasn’t taking up with someone else.”

  “You went to her that night.”

  She’d called. He’d answered. She’d hung up without saying a word...

  “I heard her voice in the background, talking to Coco?”

  The dog. He’d forgotten there’d been one. Could hardly remember the woman’s name. But he knew one thing.

  “I stopped by her place, thinking I’d talk things over with her, maybe get some perspective, but when she made it clear that she thought the way was clear for the two of us... I left.”

  Silence met his pronouncement, while he sat there reeling with the knowledge that Annie had known he’d left her to run to another woman.

  Didn’t seem to matter at all that he hadn’t had sex once he’d gotten there. He’d already been unfaithful to her just by going.

  The pain she had to have felt hit him with a force he could barely withstand. With only one small comfort to offset it.

  “I’m assuming Brian was there to help you move out.” She’d cleaned so much out in such little time that she had to have had help. Brian, a petty officer to her lower recruit ranking, seemed like the obvious choice. She’d been mentioning her superior more and more in their chats, as she tried to help Seth see how important law enforcement work had become to her—particularly in her ability to interrogate and get the truth out of key players. It was her manner, she’d told him Brian had kept saying, an innate knack she had to get people to trust her, and to work within that trust, rather than abusing it, while getting them to confess...

  Or some such thing.

  “Brian was deployed again right after we got back,” she said. “We’ve been in touch on and off over the years, but I haven’t seen him since we disembarked in San Diego...”

  “You told me you kissed him.” And a part of him died every single time he remembered that horrible computer chat—the fact that he could see her and not touch her.

  Couldn’t kiss her himself.

  “I told you he tried to kiss me and I backed away from it,” she said.