Arrest (A Disarm Novel) (25 page)

“Ma’am, you do know that 911 is for emergencies only, right?” I asked, trying my best to rein in my frustration.

The woman nodded and looked down at her five-year-old daughter. “See, sweetheart? When there’s an emergency, you need to call 911 and a policeman will come to your door.”

“But he’s scary,” the little girl said, avoiding looking at me.

I tried my best not to look too intimidating even as I contemplated throwing her mother in jail for wasting my time. “Police officers are the good guys,” I told the girl with a smile then looked pointedly at her mother. “But don’t call that number again unless there is a genuine emergency. Nonemergency calls cost resources and lives.”

She gave me a look of defiance. “I wanted to teach my daughter how to call for help when—”

“Ma’am.” I held my hand up to stop her, feeling my cell phone vibrating in my pocket. “I will let this one slide with a warning. Next time, you will get a fine.”

I turned away and took a deep, cleansing breath as I walked back to the patrol car. I reached into my pocket and saw a missed phone call from Elsie. A second later, a text message from Kari popped up.

911. Get your ass to the hospital NOW!

I didn’t bother texting back. I simply got into the car and started driving, radioing the station on the way. My heart pounded wildly all the way to the hospital. Elsie wasn’t due for another ten days.

It felt like several hours passed before I finally parked at the hospital and ran inside. The nurse at the front desk saw the urgency in my face and swiftly pointed me in the right direction.

“Where is she?” I called to Kari as I ran up the hall.

She pushed away from the wall and pointed to the room behind her, her caramel-colored skin blanched. “Her water broke a few minutes ago and they said she’s at ten centimeters or something.”

“Thanks for taking care of her,” I said, squeezing her shoulder before going inside.

The room was a blur of action. Two nurses were moving about, getting things ready, while Elsie was lying on her back with the doctor standing between her legs.

“Henry!” she said in a high, tight voice. “You’re here.”

I came over to her side and grabbed her hand. “Is everything alright? Is the baby okay?”

“Your wife’s in labor,” Dr. Harmon said, sitting down on a stool and prodding at Elsie. “The baby is coming.”

Elsie grasped my hand and squeezed her eyes shut as her entire body tensed.

One of the nurses stood on the other side of the bed and petted Elsie’s thigh. “Breathe,” she said. “It’s almost time to start pushing.”

I bent down, brushing damp hair away from Elsie’s forehead. When she looked up at me with those big hazel eyes, I couldn’t help but press a hard kiss to her lips. “I’m here, Elsie,” I said, bowing my head against hers. “I’m right here with you.”

She cried out when another contraction racked her body. I held on to her, wishing it were possible to bear her pain. To see her hurting and not be able to alleviate her suffering was the most wretched feeling in the world. I would have endured any amount of this torture if it meant she wouldn’t have to.

“Okay, Elsie,” Dr. Harmon said, looking up at us. “At my count, push as hard as you can.”

For the next thirty minutes, Elsie pushed and grunted and cursed, but the baby still had not come.

“I can’t push anymore,” she said, sobbing. “I don’t think I can do this.”

I wiped her tears away, feeling the prickle in my own eyes. God, it hurt to see her like this. “You can do it, Els,” I told her, brushing her cheek over and over with the back of my fingers. “You are the bravest, most willful woman I know. If you can pull me back from the brink of disaster, then you can do anything.”

“Okay, push!”

Elsie gave a mighty push and the baby’s head emerged.

“One more,” Dr. Harmon said.

“I see her, Els,” I said, unable to take my eyes off the baby’s purple face. “Just one more push.”

With one last piercing cry, Elsie pushed and the baby’s body slipped into the waiting hands of the doctor. There was a moment’s breath of anxiety when there was nothing but silence, but then the baby began to wail and, I swear, it was the most beautiful sound in the world.

Dr. Harmon wiped the baby down with practiced ease and placed her on Elsie’s bare chest.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” Elsie said, tears streaming down her face as she clutched the baby to her breast. She looked up at me, her lips trembling as she smiled. “She’s so beautiful.”

Overwhelmed, I swooped down and kissed my wife, gratitude and love spilling over and out of my eyes. I pressed a soft kiss to my daughter’s cheek and said, “You’re both beautiful.”

—

Later, after I cut the umbilical cord and she was cleaned up, they handed the baby to me bundled up in a hat and blanket. I cradled her tiny body in my arms, feeling like I was holding the most fragile thing in the world. I studied her scrunched-up little face, noticing she had Elsie’s delicate nose and heart-shaped lips.

“You’re going to be a beauty, just like your mom,” I whispered to her.

Then she opened her eyes and looked up at me. In that instant, I decided that her blue gaze was my favorite feature of all.

“I’ve got you, kid,” I told her, marveling as she wrapped a frail little hand around my finger. “These hands will take care of you. As your dad, it’s my job to hold you up high so that your dreams stretch out as far as the eye can see. It’s my job to hold your hand and try to lead you in the right direction, to cover you and protect you from pain. But most of all, these hands of mine are here to help you up and dust you off whenever you fall.”

I gazed down at the innocent being in my arms and felt like the luckiest son of a bitch in the world.

When next I looked up, I found Elsie watching me from the bed.

“I can’t believe we made something so perfect,” I whispered.

“You’re going to be a great dad.” She bit her lower lip and a tear slid down her cheek. “These damn hormones are making me cry at every little thing.”

I clutched our daughter to my chest, covering her ears. “No swearing in front of the baby,” I teased.

Elsie wiped at her cheek and laughed. “So, what do you think of the name Hannah?”

I sat beside her on the bed and we searched our daughter’s perfect little face for her identity. “Does she look like a Hannah?”

The baby chose that very moment to start crying.

“I guess not,” Elsie said, taking the baby and, using her newfound motherly instincts, holding her to her breast like the lactation nurse had instructed. After the baby successfully latched, Elsie turned to me and asked, “What about you? Do you have a name you like?”

“I do,” I said, my eyes fixed on our child. “How about Lucy?”

“Lucy,” Elsie said, saying it a few more times. “It’s cute. What does it mean?”

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from our daughter’s face even if I tried. “Light. It means bringer of light.”

—

I stood in the doorway, leaning against the jamb as I watched Elsie sitting on the rocker, humming a soft tune to the soft bundle in her arms. I stepped inside the nursery to join them in their quiet, serene world.

Elsie rose to her feet and took Lucy to her crib, laying her on her back and tucking the blanket beneath her. My eyes traveled up and came to rest on the mural on the wall, now complete with a brighter moon and diamond-shaped stars in the sky. It was by pure luck I had managed to finish the mural in time, only a day before Lucy was born. Otherwise I might have never finished it at all.

“Let’s hope she’ll stay asleep for a few hours,” Elsie whispered as she led me out of the room, closing the door behind us.

“I can get up with her next. I don’t have to be at work until six.”

We made our way down the hallway, doing a strange little hopping dance to avoid the creaky parts of the floor. “Thank God your mom comes in tomorrow,” she said.

Elsie’s parents had wanted to fly out as soon as Lucy was born but had conceded to my mom’s request that she come first. I think they recognized Mom’s heartfelt attempt at fixing things between us. Even if she and I never mended our relationship, I hoped that, at the very least, she would make an effort to be close to her grandchild.

Once inside our bedroom, Elsie and I shrugged out of our robes and slipped under the covers. I curled around her, trying to tamp down the familiar stirrings of arousal that only Elsie could incite. The doctor had said we had to refrain from sex for six weeks. That meant forty-two days of lying by Elsie every night and not being intimate with her. It didn’t seem possible.

She lifted my hand up to her lips and kissed the fleshy part of my palm.

“What was that for?”

She smiled against my skin. “For being a gentleman and not pushing for sex.”

“Believe me, I want to,” I said, pressing into her backside to let her know just how much. “But I can wait.”

“Honestly, it’s a bit of a relief. I feel like a microwaved mess these days.”

I pushed up onto my elbow and cupped her cheek, turning her face to me. “I don’t know if you know this, but even on your worst day, you are still the most beautiful woman I know.”

Her tired eyes were filled with doubt. “But my body has changed . . .”

“Of course it has,” I said gently, nuzzling her neck. “You carried our child inside you for nine months. You nurtured an entire human being with your body.” I lifted the hem of her nursing top and with my finger traced along the reddish lines on her stomach.

She chuckled softly. “That tickles,” she said, trying to pull her shirt back over her stomach. “Stop touching my battle scars.”

“No. These are badges of honor.” I bent down and kissed each jagged line. “You’re a freaking superhero as far as I’m concerned,” I said, gazing at her in adoration.

“I love you, Henry,” she said, lifting her head and pressing her lips to mine. “And I love this little family we’ve made.”

I grasped her hair and brought her closer, opening our mouths and deepening the kiss. “I love you, Elsie,” I said against her lips, feeling like the luckiest man in the entire world. So much had changed since that day last year, when Elsie had cut my hair for the police academy. We weren’t the same two, wide-eyed newlyweds anymore, but even as we transformed and became different people, at the end of it all, Elsie and I moved mountains to stay together.

And in that quiet moment, when I held her close and we drifted off to an exhausted but blissful sleep, I knew we’d finally arrived at our happily ever after.

Turn the page for a preview of June Gray’s next Disarm novel

SURRENDER

Coming soon from Berkley Books

Seven years ago . . .

“I don’t think that kind of love—the kind you read in romance novels—actually exists.”

Jason Sherman, my boyfriend, fixed me with a skeptical stare. “You don’t?”

“You do?”

“I’ve seen it. It exists,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument. “Three words: Henry and Elsie. Those two are so in love with each other but are too dumb to figure it out.”

“You said they weren’t even dating.”

“No. I should knock their heads together to give them a clue. Everyone else knows but them.” Jason slid his arm under my neck and gathered me close. “Anyway, that’s the kind of love I was talking about. Sometimes you just love someone without even knowing.”

I studied his handsome face, jaw scruffy from not having shaved for a few days. I liked him, more than anyone I’d ever known in my life, but did I love him the way his sister felt about his best friend?

Was the fact that I was questioning my feelings a sign that I already did?

“Do you, um, want that with me?” I asked, afraid to meet his eyes.

Jason touched my chin and tipped my head up. “I want everything with you.”

“What if I can’t give you love like that?” I asked. “My parents’ marriage was pretty fucked up. I don’t know if I even know how to be a good girlfriend.”

“You’re doing fine so far.”

“Fine?”

He laughed, the sound rumbling in his chest. “You’re a great girlfriend, Julie Keaton,” he said, cupping my face and kissing me tenderly. “And that is why I was talking about the kind of love that burns so bright it lights you up from the inside—because that’s how I feel about you.”

A lump caught in my throat and it took a few minutes to figure out how to breathe around it. “What if I can’t love you like you love me?”

“Stop questioning yourself, Jules,” Jason said, kissing my forehead. “It will happen naturally.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll try.”

I settled onto his chest, my muscles finally starting to unwind. Talk of love and of the future had always unnerved me. I could lay all the blame on my parents for the way I was with men, but deep down I knew that my actions were my own. The fact that I was inept at love and relationships was my own doing, but maybe, just maybe, I’d finally found the right person to trust with my heart.

“Will you write me romantic war letters while you’re deployed?” I asked after some time, toying with the trail of hair below his navel.

“Email is faster,” he said with a grin. “And I’ll call whenever I can.”

I slid my hand down and took hold of his already swollen shaft, pressing my lips to his Adam’s apple. “Will you dream about me?”

He groaned, his hips arching up to my hand. “Every fucking night.” Then he flipped over and crouched above me, his eyes raking my naked body. “I’ll remember you just like this.”

“Unshowered and smelly from hours of sex?”

He dipped his head and pressed his face to my chest, nuzzling my breast with his bristly cheek as he inhaled deeply. “You smell perfect—like sex and sweat and me.”

“Jason,” I said, grabbing what I could of his short hair and lifting his face to mine. “I do care about you a lot. You know that, right?”

His eyes pierced mine, so blue and bright. “Then show me.”

I gripped his shaft and guided him to my entrance, taking all of him into me, loving him the only way I knew how. I gasped as he withdrew then slid all the way back home, opening my legs to allow him farther inside.

“I love you, Julie. When I get back, I’m going to take you back to Oklahoma City with me.”

I stilled, my legs wrapped around his back. “You will?”

“Just try and stop me,” he ground out before thrusting back into me. “Nothing’s going to keep me from you anymore.”