Hell, I told her I loved her, and I’ve gotten nothing but radio silence on that. I keep telling myself it’s okay though. She doesn’t have to say it back for it to mean anything. I know she cares about me. I know she loves me, even if she can’t form the words.
I’ll wait for her to say it back, and I won’t push. But she’ll hear it from me every damn day until the end of my life, if I have any say over it. She’s spent the first part of her life feeling unloved and neglected. I never want her to feel that way with me. I never want her to have even the smallest doubt about how I feel, and I will make sure she knows it. I never wanted to hide our relationship. She’s not a dirty secret I was trying to hide. Sure, I’m older than her, and she’s friends with my daughter. But she was legal before anything happened between us, and I’ve never been sorry for one second.
If it were up to me, I’d shout it to the world, but I was trying to respect the privacy she asked for. She never asked me for anything else, so I thought I could give her that. But in reality, it’s just wedged a space between us. The only reason I can see her taking off is that she knows I’d make a big display of being back home and in her arms. There’s nothing I want more than to have her with me, and that’s all I was trying to get back to. She’s running because she’s scared. I know it in my bones.
Well, that’s over and done. The hiding is happening no more. Life is short, and I got all the proof I needed when I thought I’d never see her again when I was out in the fucking jungle. I’m going to get her and drag her ass back to our home no matter what she says. I know what’s inside her damn heart. Because it’s the same thing in mine. And I won’t have her belittle what I feel for her or what we share by sticking it in a corner.
When I make it around to the back of the building, I see there’s an exit. I grab the handle and it turns, making me feel both relieved and pissed. How could she be so careless?
I walk in and close the door behind me, locking it. I look around. I see some of the supplies she ordered. I walk down a hallway, I see the room the glow was coming from.
My heart breaks at the sight. Alice is cuddled up on an air mattress in the corner of the room with a little lamp on the floor beside her. God, why would she subject herself to this? Doesn’t she know she deserves to sleep on a bed of silk? She deserves to be treated like a queen, not to be homeless and in desperate need of a safe place to sleep.
Tears sting my eyes, and I angrily push them away.
No. Not my woman.
I stomp over to where she is and scoop her up in my arms. She jerks away and lets out a tiny shout as I stride to the front and out the door.
“Major—”
“No. Don’t you dare say a word to me until we are home,” I growl as I carry her out to my car. “Our goddamn home.”
Chapter 2
Alice
“Why does nobody want me?”
Thomas misses a beat in his step but keeps moving toward the front door of the house. I don’t know why I say it out loud. Maybe it’s all the silence eating at me. The car ride felt long without either one of us talking. I still don’t know how he drove with me in his lap.
I know why I said it out loud, because I want him to tell me it’s a lie. But he keeps quiet while moving toward the house. I feel myself start to get sick.
I hold on to him tighter, and the nausea fades a little as I breathe him in. I feel calm for the first time since he left for his mission. But it only lasts for a moment because then I remember there might be another mission soon. And another after that. I could still lose him. I’m letting myself sink even more into him knowing that he could be taken from me so easily. Just a phone call and he’d be gone. Forever.
I was so confused when he’d gone on a mission to begin with, because Maggie said he never did. A small voice in the back of my head wonders if it was me who pushed him to go. Maybe he needed to get away from me for a while. It was something my dad did to get away from my mom and me—always working late, always asking me to leave him alone because he had work to do, when he was really doing other things. Like going to bars or playing games on his computer. He did it so much I stopped asking questions. I stopped trying to get his attention.
I hear the front door open, and I dig my fingers into Thomas, my nausea coming back full force. I bury my face into his neck, not caring that I’m being a coward about seeing Maggie. Maybe she’ll be so excited about the two of us being back home, that she’ll ignore the fact that we’re together.
“Fuck, I missed you holding on to me. You have no idea.” His voice sounds almost choked as he says it.
“I have to tell you something before we see Maggie,” I rush to say, remembering that she knows I’m pregnant. If she see me with her dad like this, I’m guessing she will know who the father is.
“She went home,” he says.
I pull back to look at Thomas, really getting a good look at him now that we are in the hallway. The light shines down on both of us. I reach up to touch a small cut that’s on his eyebrow. I know it wasn’t there before he left. I know every part of this man’s body.
“You’re okay with her and Eli?”
“I want her to be happy. Just like I know she’ll want me to be happy, too,” he tells me as he swings open the door to his room and carries me in. He sits me on the bed and walks over to the chair in the corner of the room, pulling it closer.
I knew he’d be okay with Maggie and Eli. I had a feeling he knew something was going on between them from the start but didn’t say anything.
He puts the chair next to the bed, but not close enough for me to reach out and touch him. I hate the distance. I want to go back to being in his arms. The nausea grows, and I know what will come. This baby has all the control, and he seems to like his father’s smell. Why they call it morning sickness I have no freaking clue. I’m sick all day.
He sits down in the chair and leans forward with his hands on his knees. I can see him gripping them tight, the white starting to show in his knuckles. His face is hard, something I’m not used to. He’s always so sweet and soft with me. I both hate and love it. He thinks I’m breakable, and it’s true. Look at me now. It’s pathetic. I can’t go a day without crying or feeling like I might snap.
“Are you mad at me?” I half whisper, hating the idea. I don’t recall him ever being upset. Even when he’d push for us to come out as a couple, he never seemed angry, only disappointed.
His face softens a little, the lines around his eyes showing. If it weren’t for the lines and his gray hair, I don’t think people would notice much of an age difference between us. But maybe I’m wrong. Everyone always says I look younger than I am.
“No, sweet one, I’m trying to keep from touching you.” I scoot a little more toward the edge of the bed, my body moving on its own. It’s always been that way with him. My body and heart. My brain is the only one that seems to get in the way of us.