God, she had the most beautiful green eyes. They just fixed on a man as if all his worth was held in whether they would blink yes or no.
“I figured out what to do about our grandmothers. I thought maybe we could do two ceremonies, one here and one in Texas. That would work, wouldn’t it? I mean, half my family would come to both, so you never know about my grandmother, she might end up coming to both, too. But that way it’s not an ultimatum, which it’s better not to give my grandma. And—”
Vi put her burned hand over his lips.
He caught himself and slowly sighed, sighed, sighed, trying to sigh out all his need to argue, convince, push, persuade, and just wait. Let her think. Let her answer.
“When are the bluebonnets?” Vi asked. “April?”
He nodded.
“Ten months from now?”
He double-checked on his fingers. “Nine.”
“I’ll tell you what: if I haven’t killed you by January, it’s a yes.”
His heart leaped. All the blood in his body just seemed to rush to his wounds and heal them. He tightened his hold on her wrist, one of the few parts of her body where he could hold her tightly right now. “Do you mean actually kill me or just try to kill me? Because I’m pretty hard to kill.”
She started to laugh a little, and it was the way she did it, her eyes shimmering with happiness, that went straight to his heart. “I think your ability to survive me, and stick it out, and keep coming back for more is one of the things I want to make sure you can keep doing long-term. So if I only try to kill you and you survive it, it’s still a yes.”
She was laughing at him. And laughter leapt in him, too. That glorious aliveness that he’d felt from the first moment he saw her. “Damn, I wish I could hug you. Can I tell my grandma?”
She laughed again, as if laughing was easy now, even with a bullet wound through her torso, and a broken hand, and burns, even with terrorists to fight. “Can I meet your grandma?”
He beamed. She wanted to meet his family! “Of course. You’re going to love her. Almost as much as you love me.”
He peeked at her hopefully.
She held up her splinted hand and brought the index and thumb so close together paper couldn’t pass through them. “You mean this much?”
He frowned at her.
She widened her thumb and forefinger a millimeter. “This much?”
“Violette Lenoir.”
She held up both hands, about ten inches apart. “This much?”
He took her wrist and stretched one arm as far out as it could go without pulling on her wound. The other was limited by the bed.
“I don’t know,” she said judiciously. “Seems a bit much for a man whose real name I don’t even know.”
“Oh, shit.” He’d forgotten about that. He clapped his hand to his face. “My name’s going to be on the marriage certificate. Isn’t that enough?”
“Or even know for sure what he does for a living.” She gave him an assessing glance, and her eyes glinted with mischief. “Rangers, maybe? Delta Force?”
Chase gave her a puzzled look. “Are those soccer teams or something?”
“Probably Delta Force,” she decided, her eyes full of mirth. “Those guys are the best, right?”
“They’re what?”
“Almost as good as the British SAS or the 2e REP commandos.”
Chase narrowed his eyes at her, fulminating.
But he didn’t really care, because she looked so alive and happy now that she was teasing him, and all that zing was back, but with this underlying solidity, this sense of hey, we’re going to really try to make this work. She’s in it to win it with me, too.
And when Vi was in something to win it, he was pretty sure she didn’t lose very often.
She grinned now, so full of herself to have provoked him. “Do you even remember you have a small trident tattooed high up on your left shoulder? Are special ops supposed to have identifying tattoos?”
No, but he’d been nineteen and bursting with pride, and so far none of his commanding officers had insisted he have it lasered off.
“You were looking at my naked body?” He clapped his hands to cover his nipples, horrified.
And she giggled so hard. Giggled like a girl, a young girl, who only ever knew happiness.
I love you so damn much, Vi. You don’t get it yet. We’re lying here, wounded from a terrorist attack, and we can be this happy, just because it’s the two of us.
He drew a deep, deep breath and let it out in an exaggerated sigh of defeat. He glanced around to make sure Elias and Brandon hadn’t come back. He leaned in close to her ear and ow, that pulled at his wound, but he couldn’t risk saying this out loud. “It’s…Chester,” he whispered.
“Chester?” she said out loud, with that erotic precision and rolled R of hers.
“Shhh.” He waved his hands frantically.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“For God’s sake, you people don’t know anything about names here in France, do you? I’d better name our kids.”
“It does sound a little…presidential, maybe, for you.”
“We’ll consider it our safe word. If you ever say it out loud, I will instantly stop making love to you and go out for a run or something to rid myself of the horror.”