Sea of Dreams (The American Heroes Series Book 2) (46 page)

“Hi, baby,” he whispered.

Blakesley could see the tears in his eyes.  She put her arms around him, hugging him tightly and kissing him sweetly as Crosby still hung on to his neck, joyfully strangling him. Blakesley’s impression of him last night had been brief, dark and exhausting also, so to see him in the light of early afternoon looking healthy and whole did her in. She buried her face in his chest and sobbed softly. Beck managed to pry Crosby off his neck and put her down so he could put both arms around his wife.

“Everything is okay,” he murmured, feeling her big belly against his torso. “I’m home. Everything is okay now.”

Blakesley nodded, wiping at her face and trying to get a hold of herself so the girls wouldn’t be frightened by her tears.  As she struggled to collect herself, Beck looked at the little girls surrounding him.

“Hey,” he suddenly pointed to Cadee and Charlotte. “Why aren’t you in school?”

“Mom said we didn’t have to go today since we got to sleep so late last night,” Cadee informed him. “She said we could stay home and see you.”

Beck grinned. “She did, did she?” he looked at Blakesley, now wiping the last of the tears from her eyes. “You have a pretty cool mom. That was nice of her.”

“Beck!” Crosby grabbed one of his big hands. “See the baby? He’s gotten big!”

Beck put his free hand on Blakesley’s big belly. “He sure has,” he said with pleasure.  Then he looked confused.  “Wait a minute - do we know it’s a ‘he’?”

Blakesley had hoped to tell him under more private circumstances, but she couldn’t hold back. Besides, the girls already knew and they wouldn’t be able to keep the secret.

“Yes,” she nodded, watching his expression. “It’s a boy. “

Beck stared at her a moment before wrapping her up in his big arms, unable to speak for a moment.  He was overwhelmed with emotion.   The tears returned and he shoved his face into the side of her head, smelling her hair, kissing her gently.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Blakesley put her hands on his cheeks, returning his sweet and gentle kisses. “I didn’t have anything to do with it,” she joked. “Maybe God just knew we needed some balance in this family.”

He smiled, wiping at his eyes and putting his hand on her firm belly again. “I’m just speechless,” he said softly, picking Charlotte up when she tried to jump up on him. “Does anyone else know?”

“My dad,” Blakesley said, looking rather fearful to tell him the truth. “And… well, your parents know.  Lizzie spilled the beans. Gina knows. So do Richard and Sophia.”

Beck laughed softly. “So everyone knew but me.”

“That’s about the gist of it. Are you mad?”

He shook his head and kissed her cheek. “Of course not,” he said, suddenly looking around. “Speaking of Lizzie, where is she?”

“School,” Blakesley said.  “She wanted to go today.  I told her you’d pick her up from school.”

Beck nodded. “Thank you, I will,” he replied. “But for now, can a guy get something to eat around here?”

Blakesley grinned and had him sit down on one of the bar stools.  Beck sat and ended up with Crosby and Charlotte in his lap, as usual.  Cadee stood next to him, leaning against him, and he kept an arm around her.  It seemed that all of his girls wanted to be with him and around him.  He soaked it up, glad to be home, as he watched his wife go about making him something to eat.

Blakesley made him a chicken salad sandwich and pasta salad for lunch, pulling the little girls off of him so he could eat it.  Crosby and Charlotte ran to the back door and let Alfie in, and the dog ran through the house with the girls chasing him, barking happily. Beck grinned at the joyful chaos as he wolfed down his lunch.

“God, I missed this,” he breathed, kissing his wife with chicken-flavored lips. “I missed you so much. I still can’t believe I’m home.”

Blakesley was watching him with a rather dreamy-eyed expression until he said that. Then she got teary.

“Was it awful?” she asked softly. “Richard told me what you did to save those men. Beck, I swear, if I’d been anywhere near you, I would have slapped you silly for risking yourself like that. But on the other hand, it makes me so proud of you I can’t even verbalize it.  I can’t believe you did that.”

He shrugged modestly, taking another big bite. “About half of the S.E.A.L.’s that were being held captive were wounded,” he said quietly. “I had to do something to get them out of there or they would have died.”

“But offering yourself up as a hostage in their place?” Blakesley still wasn’t quite over his self-sacrifice. “You took a terrible risk.”

He shrugged again, pulling her off the stool and hugging her against his body with one arm while he ate with the other.  The way he felt right now, he didn’t ever want to let her go. He just wanted to feel her, smell her, and touch her.

“Speaking of risks,” he didn’t want to talk about himself at the moment. “What’s this I hear about thirty million dollars?”

Blakesley was cuddled up against him, her face very close to his.  She watched him eat. “I did what had to be done,” she said softly. “I wasn’t going to let you stay there a moment longer than necessary. I had to do something.”

He sighed faintly. “But it really wasn’t your call,” he was trying to be gentle. “The Navy had things in-hand and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been a captive too much longer. Why didn’t you just wait it out?”

She looked sad and horrified. “Wait it out?” she repeated. “Beck, I wasn’t going to wait anything out.  The Navy was just sitting on their ass so I had to do something. I couldn’t let you rot away in that place.”

She was getting upset and he kissed her to quiet her.  “Let me tell you something,” he whispered, kissing her angry face again. “I sincerely, deeply and wholly appreciate what you did.  I understand where you’re coming from.  But please know that I wasn’t being treated poorly and I wasn’t in imminent danger.   The general treated me kind of like a guest and I think he was close to letting me go. He knew I had a family to come home to.”

She was still pouty but easing quickly. “I didn’t know that,” she murmured.  “No one knew that.  I just wasn’t going to sit around while nobody did anything to help you.”

He just hugged her, not wanting to create a big scene. He’d said his peace and there wasn’t much more he could add. “So you paid thirty million dollars?” he shook his head at her, baffled. “Baby, I didn’t even know you had thirty million dollars.”

She shrugged, putting her cheek against his. “You could have,” she murmured. “But you never look at our bank records. You never look at anything that’s financial relating to me or the house or anything else.  You just leave that all up to me.  Did you even know that half of that money was yours? I had it written in to the prenup.”

He stopped chewing and looked at her. “No, I didn’t know,” he said, almost agitated. “I didn’t want to know. I trust you and I didn’t want to inspect every piece of paper you put in front of me like I didn’t trust you to do the right thing for both of us.”

“But you took it to a lawyer,” she said softly.

“Yes, I did, but I didn’t read it. That’s why I paid him; to read it for me to make sure it was all in order.”

She kissed his cheek because she could see he was getting upset.  Money always made him upset. “It was the money I received for the sale of the janitorial company,” she said quietly. “I told you that I had invested most of it.  The thirty million wasn’t all I had but it was close. I still kept the interest it had earned over the past couple of years, which amounts to a couple of  hundred thousand dollars, plus I sold the homestead to the State of California.”

He looked surprised. “You did? When?”

She toyed with the dimple in his chin. “The day after I began liquidating everything,” she said softly. “I called the state and told them I’d take their offer of two point four million for the property.   It’s already in the works.  So we’re not completely destitute. I just don’t have millions of dollars sitting in the bank anymore. It’s not a big deal.”

He was beginning to look sick again. “I can’t believe…,” he paused and took a breath. “Baby, I just can’t believe you would do that.”

“And why not?” she wanted to know. “Beck, I would have sold my soul to get you back. Don’t you get it? The money doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. You do. You’re the most important thing in the world to me.”

She was starting to tear up again so he kissed her cheek and hugged her to comfort her.  He hadn’t seen her in four months and he didn’t want their first day together to be full of tears. He just didn’t know what to say about the money anymore; it was done and over with. He wasn’t sure he could say anything more.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, finishing his sandwich. “We’ve got over three hundred thousand sitting in the bank from the sale of my condo, so we’ll do just fine. Plus, I make a decent salary, around sixty-eight hundred dollars a month.  Add hazard pay and it’s another couple of thousand.  We’ll get along fine.”

“I was thinking that I should maybe get a job.”

“You don’t need to get a job.”

She sniffled, wiping at her nose. “But there’s the Art Bar,” she said. “I signed a lease on that. Before all of this happened, I was making plans for getting it up and running, but that’s going to cost about thirty thousand dollars for everything I want to do.  I’m thinking… thinking that maybe I should just let the Art Bar go for now.  It’s just not the right time.”

He looked at her. “You will not let it go,” he insisted. “That’s your dream, baby. You’re not going to give it up.  You do what you want to do for that and we’ll find a way to pay for it.  I don’t want you to worry about that, okay? Please?”

In lieu of an answer, she simply wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him, just glad to feel him alive and well in her arms.  It was difficult not to get emotional but she fought it, telling herself that there was no need.  He was home and he was safe.

Beck finished his lunch and Blakesley put the dishes in the dishwasher as he made his way back to the bedroom to take a shower before picking Lizzie up from school. Crosby and Charlotte saw that he was up and moving so they ran after him, into the bedroom, and the dog followed.  Alfie jumped up on the bed and Beck scolded the dog, who contritely climbed off, but Beck had a feeling that dog was used to getting up on the bed.  He seemed very comfortable up there.

Beck coerced the little girls into leaving the bedroom so he could strip down and take a shower, and they eventually cooperated.  He took his time cleaning up, soaking in the hot shower and taking the time to scrub himself down good.  It was good to be in his own shower again.  He eventually turned the water off and dried off, taking the time to shave off about a week’s worth of growth.  Clean shaven, he looked at himself in the mirror, thinking he needed a haircut.  He could hear the little girls banging on the bathroom door so with a towel wrapped around his waist, he opened it.

The girls screamed with delight when he threw open the door and growled like a bear. They scattered like frightened rabbits as Beck went into the bedroom, grinning, noticing his wife was lying down on the bed.  He eyed her as he went to the dresser to pull out his clothes.

“Why are you lying down?” he asked.

She motioned him to come over to her and he obeyed, tee shirt and briefs in hand.  She patted the bed beside her.

“Sit down,” she said.

He did, looking at her curiously. Blakesley took one of his big hands, unbuttoned her shirt, and put it on her bare belly.  She watched his face, with its relaxed expression, until his eyebrows suddenly drew together.  His eyes narrowed at her.

“What was that?” he demanded. “Your stomach got hard all of a sudden.”

She smiled. “It’s called a Braxton Hicks contraction.”

He looked panicked. “A contraction?”

She patted his hand. “It’s not like that,” she said.  “They’re basically false contractions. It doesn’t mean I’m in labor.  It’s just the body preparing itself for the birth. It’s common.”

He didn’t look convinced.  He set his underwear down and put both hands on her belly, feeling another weaker contraction a few moments later.

“Baby, that can’t be normal,” he looked rather frightened. “Do they hurt?”

She shook her head. “Not really,” she said. “Sometimes they’re uncomfortable, but they don’t really hurt. Not like real labor, anyway.”

He still wasn’t convinced. “Does the doctor know?”

“Of course he does. This has been going on for the past month.”

“I don’t like it.”

She laughed softly. “They’re harmless,” she said. “But I wanted you to know I’ve been having them just in case you see me take a pause some day because I’m having them.  I’m at 36 weeks now, so we don’t have much time left before Colt is born.”

Beck bent over and kissed her belly, laying his cheek on it affectionately. “A boy,” he muttered. “I can hardly believe it. I’m actually going to have a boy.”

“Excited?”

He grinned brightly. “Do you seriously have to ask that? I feel like I’m on top of the world right now.  Life just gets better and better with you.”

She met his grin, stroking his hand sweetly and he kissed her fingers.   She watched him as he went back to lavishing attention on her belly.

“So now what?” she asked softly.

“I’m going to get Lizzie. Do you want to come?”

“No,” she replied. “I’m going to stay here and rest until these contractions go away. Besides, I’m sure she’d like to have some alone time with you. She hasn’t really seen you yet.”

He nodded, kissing her belly one last time before getting off the bed, closing the bedroom door, and getting dressed.  Blakesley watched him, his magnificent body clad in casual jeans and a pull-over shirt.  He looked spectacular and her heart, as always, fluttered at the sight of him.   He sat on the bed as he pulled on his shoes.

“I may get a haircut on my way back,” he told her.  “I feel shaggy.”

She laughed softly. “Baby, your hair is barely a half inch long.”

“It needs a trim.”

“Okay,” she wasn’t going to argue with him. “Do what you have to do.”

Shoes on, he lay across the bed and kissed her. “I will,” he took a moment just to look at her, stroking her blond hair, reacquainting himself with her beautiful face. “I’ll miss you while I’m gone. I won’t be long.”