The Way Home (39 page)

The door was not locked. Whoever was out there could come in at will, so although she was apprehensive, she walked over and opened it.

And there stood Jeffery.

She raised her hands, pressed them to her heart, and stared, not certain she could believe her eyes.

But it was him. He had gained some weight. His hair was short, and his beard was gone. But it was him.

He smiled at her, and her heart rocketed into the clouds.

“How? What? I do not—”

Then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She did not care that it was wrong; she kissed him back. Not thinking about his wife. Only reacting to the loneliness, the missing him, the fear and the love she would always and forever feel for this man.

J
EFF COULDN
’
T BELIEVE
he had Rabia in his arms again. The waiting had been hell. The worry that they wouldn’t get to her in time was crippling. Then Mike had called with the news.

“They’ve got her, Jeff. She’s on her way to the States now.”

“Thank God, thank God.” Jess had teared up with joy beside him. And for the first time in a very long time, he thanked God, too. “Where will they take her?” he finally had the presence of mind to ask.

“That’s up in the air for now.”

Jess had gotten on the phone then and told Mike the way things were. “Now,
you
figure out how he’s going to get to see her,” she’d ordered like a drill sergeant.

So now here they were. In some top-secret military facility, one of several in the U.S. that only the top brass and immediate personnel knew about. Sharing a bed in an apartment that was generally reserved for the men with stars on their uniforms.

Jeff didn’t even know where the post was. Mike had sent a plane to International Falls. Between Brad and Jess, they’d managed to run interference with the press that had been camped out at the store since about two hours after the story broke. Using a couple of Brad’s buddies as decoys, Brad had driven him to the airport and put him on the plane—but not before he’d said his good-byes to Jess.

“You’re an amazing woman.”

“I know,” she’d said with a grin. “And you, my dear friend, are going to be just fine.”

He’d hugged her hard.

“You haven’t seen the last of me,” she’d promised, as more tears threatened. “No matter what, we’re family. Now . . . go to her. She must be scared half to death.”

Yes, she’d been scared and confused, he realized, as he watched Rabia sleep beside him in the bed that, in her eyes, was larger than any man and woman would ever need.

She wasn’t afraid anymore. She was thoroughly loved and blissfully sated. And now she slept in his arms, and all the missing her was behind him. She was here now. She was his now, and he was never letting her go.

He’d told her about Jess. There would be paperwork, but since he’d been declared legally dead, they weren’t even certain if they were considered married at this point. They would work it out.

Then he would be free, with Jess’s blessings, to marry her.

“Marry me?” Her onyx eyes had glittered with happy, bewildered tears as he’d brushed the hair away from her face.

“In America, we marry for love. I love you, Rabia.”

“Yes, I will marry you, Jeffery.”

Then, to his amazement, she’d fallen asleep. Just like that.
Because she felt safe and because she could finally give in to the exhaustion and let him share in the sorrow over her father’s death that she’d carried by herself for too long.

With her sleeping peacefully beside him, he, too, finally gave in to the pull of exhaustion.

W
HEN
J
EFF WOKE
up several hours later, Rabia was lying on her side, watching him.

“Hello.” He smiled into her eyes.

She found his hand, brought it to her lips, and kissed it. Then she lowered it to her abdomen, pressed it against her. “Someone else would like to say hello.”

Her expressive eyes relayed both excitement and uncertainty. And as she held his hand there, spreading her fingers wide over his, her meaning finally dawned.

“A baby?”

She nodded, still uncertain.

He felt a smile spread from his heart to his eyes. “We made a baby?”

Seeing his happiness, she smiled, too. “On the roof. Under the stars.”

It humiliated him that he cried so easily these days. He’d done enough of it in the past month to last a lifetime. But these tears didn’t bother him. These tears were born in wonder and steeped in joy.

These tears celebrated the hopeless improbability that in the midst of such suffering and terror and ugliness, something as beautiful and miraculous as life had been created.

Key West, Florida, December 20th

Y
ou know,” Ty said, surprised
when his brother, who he hadn’t seen in several weeks, walked into his office as if he did it on a daily basis, “last time you showed up, you brought bad news.”

“Hey, little bro. Nice to see you, too. How’ve I been, you ask? Why, I’m just dandy. Eva? Yep. She’s fit and fine.”

“Sorry,” Ty said, feeling like an ass. “Been a long day.” It had been a long freaking month. He missed Jess. He missed the life they had planned to have. He felt sorry for himself. But that wasn’t anything his brother was going to find out.

He rocked back in his desk chair as outside his office window, a small cargo plane taxied down the apron toward the runway, heat shimmering off the concrete under the hot Florida sun. “Folks OK?”

“Talked to ’em last night. They’re doing great. Worried about you, though. What’s this about not coming home for Christmas?”

He regarded Mike thoughtfully. “Until the past two years,
you hadn’t been home for Christmas or birthdays or—wait—you hadn’t been home at all. For eight long years. I’m not allowed to miss one Christmas?”

“I’m the black sheep. I’m supposed to be a jerk. You’re the good son.”

Ty knew perfectly well why Mike had disappeared for eight years, and it wasn’t because he was a jerk. His brother was the best man he knew. But Mike had been in a bad place back then—which, most likely, was the reason he recognized exactly where Ty was right now.

“So how’s business?” Mike sprawled in a chair across from Ty’s desk and made a big show of checking out the whiteboards and the full schedule inked in with erasable marker.

“Banner year.” Ty still wondered why his brother had shown up but figured it had little to do with Christmas, which was less than a week away. “What do you want, Mike?”

Mike propped a boot heel on the corner of Ty’s desk, linked his hands over his belt, and regarded him with a wise-ass smile. “I think I might let you worm it out of me.”

For the first time, Ty laughed. “Sorry. Not playing.”

“Oh, you’re going to want to play this game.”

The Cheshire Cat smile was getting irritating. “I’m not coming to work for you, if that’s what this is about.”

“Nah. I knew that was a pipe dream.”

More of that ridiculous toothpaste-ad smile.

“You look really stupid, you know that?”

This time, Mike laughed. “And you’re going to
feel
really stupid if you don’t get your head out of your ass and ask me why I’m smiling.”

“OK, fine. Why are you smiling?”

“The reason rhymes with guess—which is kind of ironic, since you’re going to have to guess to find out.”

Ty tilted his head and glared at his brother through narrowed eyes. “You are so close to getting punched.”

“OK. So you need another clue. It also rhymes with mess—which is the condition of your head since you left Minnesota.”

Ty clenched his jaw. “I don’t want to talk about her.”

Mike dropped his foot and leaned forward. “OK, fine. Then I’ll talk. You listen until I’m your favorite brother again.”

D
ECEMBER
21,
THE
first day of winter, had blown in with a vengeance in Minnesota. Dressed in old jeans, a turtleneck, and a heavy flannel shirt, Jess hugged her arms around herself and looked out the apartment window as snow drifted down in huge, heavy flakes. The wind was supposed to come up later tonight, and the storm threatened to dump eight to twelve inches across the borderland by morning to add to the five or six already on the ground.

Even though it was barely five
P.M.
, in less than fifteen minutes, dusk would give way to dark. This storm was on track to match another winter storm almost two years ago, when Ty had blown in with his friends, saved two lives, and changed her life forever.

“What do you think, Bear? Should we go out for a quick walk before it gets any deeper?”

On cue, the dog started dancing in excitement at the word
walk
. She laughed and headed for the closet to get her coat and boots. Her phone rang, stopping her and, quite honestly, saving her from thinking morosely about how different this Christmas season would have been if she and Ty had gotten married at Thanksgiving as they’d planned.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jess.”

“J.R. Hey.” Warmth flooded her chest, banishing her melancholy mood. “How are you?”

“I’m well.”

She and J.R. had talked often since he’d reunited with Rabia last week. Jess couldn’t be happier for them, although she couldn’t help but worry about his health. He still had some healing to do, both physically and emotionally. But she had to believe he was in a good place now. A place where he would continue to seek the help he needed.

“And Rabia?” She was so excited about the baby.

“She’s fine, too.”

While she would love to meet Rabia, she understood that now wasn’t the time. She didn’t want to make Rabia uncomfortable.

“So what’s happening?” she asked cheerfully, as Bear bounced by the door like a puppy—all eighty pounds of him.

“A lot. Too much to talk about. So I’m taking a breather. And I started thinking about you. About how lucky I am to have you in my life. I wanted to call and let you know that.”

Tears pooled in her eyes. “I feel the same way. And I’m so glad you’re happy.”

“Have you called Ty yet?”

He asked each time they talked. “No,” she confessed.

“Ah, Jess.”