SEALed With a Kiss: Even a Hero Needs Help Sometimes... (41 page)

Pickett felt better having worked everything out in her head. At least, she
would
feel better if only she knew how to ease the pain of her heart.

She didn't know what else to do, so she added some fresh soil, and planted the pansies.

Lucy, stretched out in the grass beside the wagon, suddenly woke and sat up, ears at alert. Scrambling to her feet, she woke Patterson, who raised his head and uttered a woof of agreement. Hobo Joe, who had not been asleep, since he considered himself on duty any time Jax was absent, slowly turned to face the driveway, the white tip of his tail swinging with dignified restraint.

Jax and Tyler would be here in a minute or two. Though it was possibly as much as a mile away, the dogs had picked up the sound of Jax's car. How quickly their canine ears had learned to isolate his car from all the other traffic sounds.

Pickett slipped the last of the pansies into place in the large urn and began adding fresh potting soil around them. She tamped them in then added water from the hose. The dogs barked in welcome as the Cherokee crunched the gravel and seashells of the driveway.

"Whatcha doing, Pickett?" Tyler came flying to where Pickett knelt as soon as he was released from his car seat, while his father retrieved parcels from the cargo hatch. He flung himself into Pickett's arms, almost tipping her over.

"Easy, Tyler," called Jax, "you know I've told you we have to be gentle with Pickett." He ambled over to assist Pickett to her feet, then as she rose, pulled her closer. A tiny, tender smile lit his crystal gray eyes with their thick short lashes and played around the corners of his lips.

"Hi, honey." Jax dropped a kiss on her upturned lips. "I'm home."

He didn't mean that the way it sounded, Pickett cautioned herself, though her good sense warred with the tiny spurt of joy at his soft words.

Whenever Jax was around she battled futile hope. An outsider seeing him announce his homecoming and kiss her in the blue and gold of a perfect autumn day would believe they were a perfect family, when the truth was that they would never be a family at all.

Pickett pushed the thought away. She had made her decision at the outset to be happy no matter how short their time together, and by golly, she would be.

She wrestled the corners of her mouth into a smile that welcomed, she hoped, then pointed with a pink-gloved hand to the large bag he carried. "It looks like the shopping trip was successful."

Jax slanted her a glance filled with sardonic humor. "I'm alive, he's alive."

Pickett chuckled. "That bad, huh?"

"We did manage to get some jeans and a jacket, before we'd had all we could take, so he won't have to wear your sweatshirt if it's cool tonight. But I swear, if I let go of him for a minute, he'd disappear to the toy section. He said he'd never been in a Wal-Mart."

"Maybe he hasn't. The clothes he's been wearing didn't come from a discount store, I can tell you that." That made Pickett think of something that had been bothering her.

"Jax, does Tyler ever talk about his mother to you? It worries me that he hardly talks about his mother or his life in Raleigh at all."

"Why? He looks happy." Jax pointed to Tyler running around the yard chasing and being chased by dogs.

Now wasn't the moment to try to explain her concerns about all the upheavals in Tyler's short life. Pickett began picking up the emptied flats and her trowels, and piling them on the wagon. Jax set his packages down on the steps and came back to help her.

"Pickett." Tyler came running up surrounded by panting dogs. "Is it time to go to the fireworks at the pier, yet?"

"No, darling. We won't do that until it's dark. That won't be for a long time."

"But we're going today, right?"

"Tonight." Pickett could tell Tyler still wasn't satisfied. "First we have to eat lunch. And then I have to go in to work for a while, and then I'll come back and we'll have supper, and then it will be dark and we'll go. How's that?"

"Can't we go before then?"

"I can't make it get dark, sweetie, and the fireworks won't happen until it's nighttime."

They watched Tyler race away again. Jax put a companionable arm around Pickett. "He's only asked me that about five hundred times."

Pulling off her gardening gloves, she twined her arm around Jax's waist. "He's probably going to ask five hundred more times, so brace yourself."

She'
s
the one.
The words from the dream reverberated again as they had all morning. While Jax didn't believe in ghosts, he'd felt Corey's presence too many times to doubt that in some way Corey still existed, if only as part of his subconscious. But last night, even though he knew it was a dream, Corey seemed so real. And this morning the joy of reuniting at last with someone he'd missed for so long remained. Best not to question the
hows
and
whys.
Jax had seen and talked with him. It was enough.

Jax tightened his arm around Pickett, feeling the strength in the slender shoulders, feeling how she adjusted her stance to snuggle in closer. Strong, resilient, adaptable, able to see the humor in most situations, patient. And sexy? His body tightened with need at the thought. If ever there was a woman who could be
the one,
it was Pickett.

Suddenly, between one heartbeat and the next, he knew. He trusted her with his life and with Tyler's life. He wanted what they had together and he wanted it forever.

He had no idea how she felt. She wanted him in her bed, and it was clear she had affection for him. But, heck, she treated everyone with affection. She hadn't hinted that she wanted anything permanent, and most women would have by now.

Jax's cell phone beeped and he undipped it from his belt with his free hand while keeping his arm around Pickett. He glanced at the caller ID.

"Hey, Mancini. What's up?"

"Lauren's lawyer just called me. She's rejected your new proposal that she keep Tyler only when you're deployed for long periods. She wants Tyler to live with her, permanently."

It should have been bad news. Instead, relief washed through Jax like a cool breeze clearing a stuffy room. Thank God. Until this feeling of relief flooded over him, Jax hadn't known how much he did not want Tyler to live with his grandmother. Tyler was a different child—the child he should be—around Pickett and he loved Pickett as much Jax did. Nope, he wanted Pickett for Tyler, and for himself.

"No way," Jax said to Mancini. "No more visiting. Anytime I can be with Tyler, he's going to be with me."

Jax's eyes narrowed as a Pender County sheriff's car turned into the drive. A woman emerged from the patrol car, her torso rendered shapeless by body armor under the tan uniform. She carried the sheaf of papers in her left hand— to keep her right hand free to go for her gun, he noted with absent approval.

"I called to give you a head's up," Mancini was saying. "Lauren is going to let you tell it to the judge. She's suing to get custody of Tyler. You'll receive the complaint and summons shortly."

"Looks like it's already happened," Jax told Mancini. "The sheriff's deputy is here with the papers now. I'll call you back."

"Okay, Mancini. How bad is this?" The house was quiet. Pickett had gone to the base to see a client who had an emergency. She was going to drop Tyler off at his playgroup at the church, and pick him up on her way back.

"Bad. She's alleging that you can't be a good custodial parent because of the demands of your job. She also alleges that you have had very little interest in Tyler before now, and that you don't know the child well, or understand his needs."

The irony of the situation killed him. It wasn't true that he hadn't cared about Tyler before, but some of her arguments were the reasons he'd thought she should have custody in the first place. If it hadn't been for Commander Kohn, he'd have turned Tyler over to Lauren, and let lawyers handle the paperwork. Now he'd be damned if that was going to happen.

"I'm not going to give Tyler up. How do we fight this?"

"The court is going to look at the best interests of the child, not what you or Lauren want. She doesn't work. She can offer him a stable home, a home he's always known. Even without child support, she can supply him material advantages." Mancini's deep voice measured the seriousness of his words. "She's not asking for termination of parental rights so she doesn't have to prove you're an unfit parent, just that she'll be a better custodian. You'll still have the same visitation rights as before. And something else. She's dropped the stipulation about living allowance."

"Hell, Mancini, what are you trying to say? You sound like you're arguing her case."

"I'm going to give it to you straight, good buddy. As long as you're a SEAL, in constant danger and with crazy hours, frequently forced to leave Tyler in someone else's care, she's probably going to win. And even if you're awarded custody—" a snowball's chance in hell, Mancini's tone said—"the judge may make it contingent on resigning your commission."

"So my choices are give up Tyler or give up the SEALs? Hell no, to both."

"Well, there's only one other possibility," Mancini offered with a skeptical laugh. "You don't, by any chance, know someone you want to marry, do you?"

Jax's heart suddenly felt too big for his chest. "As matter of fact, I do."

Mancini gasped on a sudden upsurge of hope. "If you were married you'd be giving Tyler everything Lauren can give him, plus a father. Is this for real?"

"Yeah, I've been thinking of asking Pickett to marry me. The woman we've been staying with."

"Then I'd say do it. Marry her as soon as you can."