Heart of a Hero

Seven

I’m her father.

Phoebe wondered if Wade’s words sounded as shocking to his parent as they did to her. How long was it going to take before she accepted that Wade was really alive—and in her life for good, if he had his way?

Reston Donnelly’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open. “Get out!”

“It’s true.” Wade smiled at his father’s obvious astonishment. “You’re a grandfather.”

Reston’s gaze flew back to Bridget. “That’s—you’re—she’s my granddaughter?”

Wade nodded.

“Why…?” Reston cleared his throat. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“He didn’t know,” Phoebe said hastily. She couldn’t bear the look of hurt on Reston’s face. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you—”

“Phoebe thought I was dead.” Wade cut off her attempt at apology. “She heard the first news after my unit got cut off, but she never got the correction when I was found.”

Reston’s head snapped up from his inspection of Bridget, his expression changing from hurt to horrified. “Oh, honey. If I’d known where to find you, I’d have let you know. No one knew where you’d gone after…”

“I know. I needed a fresh start.”

Reston nodded. He looked back down at the child in Phoebe’s arms. “I imagine you did.” His gaze landed on his son. “How’d you find her?”

Wade uttered a short bark of laughter. “Hounded every person she’d ever known, hoping someone could tell me where she was. I finally got lucky with one of her high-school friends.”

“Must have been the shock of your life when he showed up alive.” Reston transferred his gaze back to Phoebe.

“You could say that.” No way was she getting into that minefield. “Would you like to hold her?”

Reston nodded. “You bet.” Phoebe’s heart melted at the look in Wade’s father’s eyes. Dazed. Delighted. Tender.

Reston nodded. “Please.” He settled back in his chair as Phoebe rose and approached, laying Bridget in his arms. He cradled her in one gnarled hand, gently brushing her cheek with the other. “Oh, you’re a little beauty,” he whispered. “Bridget. Bridget Donnelly. That’s a good Irish name.” He shook his head and the light reflected the sheen of tears in his eyes. “Your grandma surely would have loved you.”

Phoebe’s chest hurt as she fought not to sob. She didn’t dare glance at Wade. She could imagine the wintry expression on his face without having to see it. But she didn’t try to correct Reston’s assumption about Bridget’s last name. There would be time for that.

Bridget started to fuss and Wade said, “Here. Let me see if I can settle her.” Phoebe did glance at him then, but he wasn’t looking at her. He lifted the baby and held her against his shoulder; it was amazing how natural the gesture looked after such a short time. Bridget quieted immediately and Wade grinned. “She’s turning into a daddy’s girl.”

Phoebe relaxed, one of those silly maternal things that happened when one’s child was well-behaved. Before Bridget, she’d never understood how parents could be so uptight. A screaming session in the middle of Wal-Mart could change your perspective pretty quickly. She dug in her bag and handed Reston a photo album into which she had slid pictures of Bridget right after her birth and at various ages since. “I brought you some pictures.”

Reston moved to the sofa and patted the seat beside him. His face was soft. “Sit down here and tell me about her.”

“I’ll join you.” Wade’s voice was quiet.

She glanced up at him, but he was looking at the album and wouldn’t meet her gaze. She knew he’d looked through the photo albums she’d kept since Bridget’s birth…but she’d never told him much about his daughter’s early days, she realized.

Remorse shot through her for about the zillionth time, and she mimicked his father’s motion, patting the cushion on the other side of her. “That would be nice. I haven’t told you that Bridget was almost born in the middle of a wedding.”

Wade froze. “What?”

She tugged on his arm and he sank down beside her, patting Bridget’s back in a distracted manner. Smiling, she opened the photo album. On the first page, she’d placed the only picture she had of herself during her pregnancy.

“This picture was taken the day Bridget was born. I went to the wedding of a coworker and the photographer snapped this shot before the service while I was standing at the guest book.” She chuckled. “It’s a good thing he got a picture of me then!”

“You went into labor at the wedding?” Wade was looking a little green around the edges.

“I was already in labor,” she corrected. “But I was too dumb to realize it until about halfway through the ceremony. I just thought my back hurt from being on my feet so much the day before.”

Reston guffawed. “Bet you’ll never be that dumb again.”

A silence followed his hoot of laughter. A pregnant silence, she thought, as she cast around for a response. Would she ever be pregnant again?

Wade wanted her to marry him…but she hadn’t really let herself dwell on exactly what that would mean. Would he want other children?

An involuntary quiver deep in her belly made her shiver suddenly as her thoughts immediately turned to how those children would be created. Every nerve cell in her body homed in on Wade’s large, warm body sitting so close to hers. Hastily, she shoved the photo album into Wade’s hands and leaped to her feet. “I’d like to freshen up.”

Sometimes it seems as if one thing just led to the next.

Wade could still hear the grief in Phoebe’s voice as he lay in the single bed in his childhood room that night. That phrase had been haunting him.

God, but he felt like the lowest of the low. She hadn’t said it, and he was pretty sure she hadn’t even thought about how it had sounded. But he knew that her life would never have turned out the way it had if it wasn’t for him.

If it wasn’t for you getting her pregnant, you mean.

Well, yeah, that was what he’d meant. If he’d kept his hands off her, if he’d given her the comfort that she’d really needed instead of the sex she’d thought would make her forget the pain, if he’d been less of a self-absorbed jerk afterward…. If, if, if.

No point in going any farther down that road. It was what it was. He and Phoebe had a daughter together. And they owed it to Bridget to work out their issues and give her the happy, stable home she deserved.

Which was why he had to figure out a way to get Phoebe to marry him. She had seemed so resistant to the idea. Why?

He was sure it wasn’t physical. God knew, they had enough chemistry between them to start a brush fire.

Unable to sleep, he rose and padded down the stairs in his bare feet. The little photo album Phoebe had given his father lay on the coffee table in the living room. The streetlight outside cast a few bars of light across the room and he idly picked up the scrapbook and flipped through it. Phoebe had spent more time earlier taking them through Bridget’s young life. Rolling over, sitting up, first teeth. Stuff he would have laughed at if the married guys in his unit had talked about it.

“Wade?”

Startled, he nearly dropped the album and he juggled it for a moment until he had it in his hands again. Phoebe stood on the lowest step.

“What are you doing?”

Her hair was down. Even in the darkened room, he could tell it was long. Longer than it had been a year and a half ago. He hadn’t realized it because, until now, she’d worn it scrambled up in a messy knot atop her head. It should have looked ridiculous but it was oddly charming. And even more so since he was pretty sure she hadn’t tried for that effect. For Phoebe, it was expedient to shove her hair up out of the way.

If it had been Melanie, she’d probably have worked on it for an hour in front of a mirror to achieve a like effect. Melanie. Were they ever going to talk about her? Her memory hovered between them like a helium balloon tied to a kid’s hand.

“Are you all right?” She was standing there with a concerned look on her face, clad in what resembled a men’s-style button-down shirt, although from the way it caught her at mid-thigh and fit her curves, he was pretty sure it hadn’t been designed for a man.

“I’m not sure,” he said slowly.

Before he knew what she intended, she was down the steps and across the room, placing one small, cool hand on his brow. “Do you feel sick?”

He looked at her, standing so close to him in the shadows of the small living room, her eyes wide and worried. “No,” he said. “I’m not sick.”

Immediately she began to withdraw her hand but he caught it before she could move away. “Don’t go.”

She stilled, but didn’t speak. Her gaze flew to his face again as he tugged on her hand, drawing her closer. He threaded one hand through her hair, cupping her cheek, and rubbed his thumb lightly over her lips. She swallowed. “Wade, I…” She stopped and shook her head. “I’m glad we came to visit your father.”

He smiled, letting his hand drift from her face to play with the cool, silky strands of hair. “Me, too. Bridget’s already got him wrapped around one of those little fingers. Thanks for letting him give her a bottle tonight.”

“He never stopped talking to her the entire time. Did you notice that?”

He nodded. “He sounded pretty ridiculous.”

“Like someone else I know.”

“Hey! I do not sound ridiculous.”

“You’re right,” she agreed. “Just infatuated. Totally, ridiculously infatuated.”

“It would be impossible not to be,” he agreed. “She’s perfect.”

“Well, almost, maybe,” she conceded.

“She’s a lot like her mother,” he said. “Wrapping men around her little finger.”

She snorted beneath her breath. “You know darn well I never wrapped a man around any part of me.”

Silence fell between them as her retort registered.

Immediately, his thoughts turned to the cabin in the woods where he’d made love to her. She’d been wrapped around him then, her long, slim legs gripping his hips as he’d plunged into her with so little restraint he winced at the memory even as his body responded to it. “I’d have to disagree with that,” he said, aware that his voice had roughened.

Phoebe moaned softly, dropping her head so that her hair fell forward to hide her expression. “Bad choice of words.”

He put a finger beneath her chin. She might not be willing to talk about Melanie, but he’d be damned if he was going to let her ignore what was between them, too. “Not so bad. It reminds me of making love with you.” He caressed her bottom lip with his thumb again. “Do you remember what it was like between us?”

She drew her breath in sharply and her body tensed. For a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to answer him at all. But finally, she whispered, “I remember.”

He was more pleased than the two small words warranted that she’d admitted it. Sliding his arms around her, he drew her close. “Let’s make a new memory.”

She didn’t resist as he found her mouth with his. His pulse doubled its rate when he felt her small hands creep around his back. Her mouth was soft and yielding beneath his, her body equally so. Touching the closed line of her lips with his tongue, he gently traced the tender seam until she opened for him, then deepened the kiss as he gathered her closer.

He took her arms and pulled them up around his neck as he feasted on her mouth. She was so much shorter than he was that she had to stand practically on her toes, throwing her off balance and bringing her body to rest against his. Her soft belly pressed against him and his hardening shaft nestled into the cleft at her thighs, sending a surge of pleasure dancing up his spine.

Tearing his mouth from hers, he kissed a trail along the silken column of her neck, then nuzzled the collar of the nightshirt out of the way. She had only buttoned it as high as the one between her breasts, and he exposed a generous expanse of her pale flesh until the shirt drooped off one shoulder.

“Beautiful,” he breathed against her skin. He brought up a hand and cupped one breast in his palm, lightly brushing his thumb across the nipple through the thin fabric of the shirt.

She made a small sound and her head fell back.

“The baby was fussing so I—” Reston stopped halfway down the stairs with Bridget in his arms. Even in the dim light, Wade could see his father’s eyebrows rising.

Phoebe jerked upright with a startled sound, but when she tried to pull away, Wade refused to let her go. She buried her face in the front of his shirt as Wade met his father’s speculative gaze over her head.

“You do know this is how you got the first one, right?”

Wade couldn’t prevent the snort of laughter that escaped. “No, Dad,” he said. “This is absolutely, positively not it.”

It was Reston’s turn to grin while Phoebe made a quiet moan of mortification. “So,” he said. “You gettin’ married?”

“Yes,” said Wade.

“No,” said Phoebe.

If his father’s eyebrows had moved any higher they’d have merged with his hairline. “I see.” He turned and started back up the stairs with the baby, who appeared to have gone back to sleep. But just before he disappeared, he stopped and looked back, and his shadowed eyes held a sober expression that contrasted sharply with the grin of a moment ago. “That would please your mother,” he said quietly to Wade. Then he looked at Phoebe, who still hadn’t moved. He shook his head and his shoulders slumped. “Sometimes I still can’t believe she’s not here. She’d be tickled down to her toes with that baby girl.”

“Old manipulator,” Wade said quietly when he was sure his father was out of earshot.

Phoebe lifted her head from Wade’s chest, although she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. His father’s final words echoed in her ears, awakening all the guilt and remorse she felt for keeping the news of Wade’s child to herself.

Looking down the path her life was about to follow, it didn’t take a fortune-teller to predict heartbreak. Then again, if she didn’t marry him, that was a given.

She knew she was going to say yes, even before she opened her mouth. She’d rather live with Wade, knowing he didn’t love her the way she craved, than live without him. She’d thought he was dead and gone forever and it had felt as if half of her had died, too. She was going to take him any way she could get him, regardless of the pain she knew lay in wait.

“All right,” she said quietly.

“What?” Wade looked puzzled. He was still staring at the doorway where his father had been a moment ago.

“All right, I’ll marry you.”

That got his attention. Wade’s gaze shot to hers again and his gray eyes focused on her with a blazing intensity that made her cringe inwardly. “My father catching us kissing made you change your mind?”

She shrugged. “I just—I know Bridget deserves a family. An intact family,” she amended. He’d been right. A child was a good reason to get married. Every child deserved a set of parents.

And grandparents. I will never forgive myself for depriving her of knowing her paternal grandmother. If it was for a day, or a month, or even years and years, I should have thought about how they would feel.

Wade was looking down at her and his eyes still felt like two lasers examining her soul.

God, had she really just agreed to marry this man? This man whom she’d loved since she’d been a child on the playground? She had reasons, she reminded herself. Bridget needed a father; she deserved a stable childhood with two parents. Raising a family on a teacher’s salary could be done, but it wouldn’t be easy. With Wade’s help, they’d be able to give their daughter the things Phoebe wanted for her: music or dance lessons, sports opportunities, all the myriad activities that children of the modern world pursued.

Phoebe, on the other hand, only needed one reason to marry Wade: love. She’d loved him for what seemed like forever. And then he’d died and she’d had to accept it, though it had felt as if her heart had been permanently shattered.

And then…then she’d found out he hadn’t died at all.

Her stupid heart had bounced back a lot faster than her head. She was still having trouble believing that all this was real. But her heart was having no trouble at all loving Wade with even more intensity than she had when she was seventeen years old and he’d belonged to her sister.

“Good,” Wade finally said, startling Phoebe out of whatever internal argument she was having with herself. The expressions fleeting across her face ranged from tenderness to the deepest sadness he’d ever seen. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what she was thinking about. “When?”

“I don’t know!” She looked startled again. “Do we have to decide tonight?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Before you change your mind.” He snapped his finger. “I know. We could stop in Vegas on the way home.”

Phoebe’s expression was horrified; he almost laughed out loud. “I am not getting married in a quickie wedding chapel in the gambling capital of the world! Besides, what would we do with Bridget?”

He shrugged. “Take her with us?”

“No,” she said. “Absolutely, positively no way. We go back to New York and apply for a license like normal people, wait until we get it, and do this right. I have no intention of telling Bridget we got married in Las Vegas on the spur of the moment.”

“Or our other children.” He tried to make it sound innocent; he couldn’t resist teasing her.

“Our other—” She stopped and narrowed her eyes. “You said that just to rattle me,” she accused.

He grinned. “Did it work?”

A wry smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “I guess it did.”

He was still embracing her, still deeply aware of the pounding of his pulse, of her soft curves and the way her hips cradled him. Holding her gaze, he put both hands on her hips and pulled her more firmly against him. Then he shifted his hips slightly, pressing himself so snugly against her that he nearly groaned aloud. “I want you,” he said quietly.

She closed her eyes. “Not here.” Her voice was so soft he could barely hear her.

“No.” He pressed a short, hard kiss to her full pink lips. “Not here. But soon.”

Eight

They were off the plane in New York and heading away from the airport. Bridget had just fallen asleep in her car seat when Wade said, “Thank you for letting me bring Bridget out to meet Dad. He adored her.”

He glanced over to see Phoebe smiling a little uncertainly. “You don’t have to thank me.” The smile faded. “I should have gotten in touch with you as soon as I found out I was pregnant.”

Unspoken between them was the knowledge that his mother had never known she had a grandchild on the way, or a granddaughter.

“You should have,” he agreed.

Even from the driver’s side, not looking right at her, he could tell that Phoebe’s body went stiff. The temperature in the car dropped about ten degrees. If he’d been looking to pick a fight, he’d have been satisfied with the first volley. But…

“But I understand why you didn’t. And maybe it wouldn’t have mattered,” he said, and with the words, the hard knot of anger that had hidden deep inside him finally uncoiled. “My mother’s body was giving out. After she had the first stroke, I learned a lot more about strokes, what causes them, what kind of progress stroke patients make, what therapies are used…. It’s probably a blessing for both her and my dad that she didn’t live for years with minimal function.”

“How can you say that? Don’t you think your dad would rather have had her alive in any condition—”

“I’m sure he thinks he would have. But while I was recuperating I saw a lot of victims of head injury and soldiers who’d had strokes after other catastrophic injuries. And I know my mother never would have wanted to live like that.” He paused. “There’s no dignity in some kinds of living. I wouldn’t have liked that for either of them.”

She nodded and her silky hair slid over the back of his hand. It felt like cool silk and his one-track mind instantly shot ahead to the night looming before them. The night when they would put Bridget to bed and then it would just be the two of them. Alone.

The next few hours crawled by. They arrived back at Phoebe’s house and unpacked the car, then had a late dinner. They’d lost three hours on the trip east but it was still only eight o’clock when Bridget went down for the night.

Wade followed Phoebe into the room as she laid the baby in her crib, and they looked down at her together.

“She’s incredible,” he said softly.

Phoebe smiled. “She is, isn’t she?”

He put his arm around her shoulders and led her from the room. Phoebe tugged the door nearly shut as they entered the hallway. When she turned back to him, she met his eyes with a wry smile and blew out a breath. “I’m nervous,” she said with a laugh.

He smiled. “You don’t have to be.” He took her hand and led her into the bedroom and across to the big bed in which she slept. Setting his hands on her shoulders, he drew her to him and slid his arms around her, simply holding her, absorbing the amazing sensation of having Phoebe in his arms. She slipped her arms around his waist and snuggled close.

It was a sweet, sweet moment. Wade felt his heart swell with emotion. I love you.

He nearly said it aloud. Might have, except that he was a coward. Plain and simple, a coward.

The night they’d danced, he thought Phoebe had indicated she could care for him. But was it long-term? Sure, she’d made love with him—after her sister’s funeral when no one in their right mind could say her judgment was sound. And she’d clearly been overwhelmed to see him again after she’d thought he was dead. But he was the father of her child. And they’d been friends since their own childhood. She didn’t have to love him to be thrilled that he was alive.

She got so quiet every time Melanie’s name came up that he could barely stand it. Did she blame him? God knew, she wouldn’t be wrong. He should never have let Mel leave alone that night.

So he didn’t speak aloud. Her very silence suggested that her heart wasn’t entirely in this relationship and that made him nervous as hell. She might never forgive him for Melanie’s death but there was no way he was going to let her shove him out of her life. He loved her, even if he could never tell her.

Tonight, he would show her.

He stopped beside the bed and took her into his arms. After a moment, she lifted her face to him and his heart leaped as he lowered his mouth to hers. Whatever else was between them, there was no arguing with the chemistry they created together. He kissed her for a long, long time, using his lips and tongue to show her how he felt, simply made love to her mouth until they both were breathing hard and his blood was pounding through his veins.

When he lifted the hem of her T-shirt, she raised her arms and let him pull it over her head. She shook her head as he tossed the shirt aside and her hair fell around her shoulders, emphasizing the lacy white bra she wore.

“You’re beautiful.” He reached around her and dispensed with the bra, and wanted to howl at the moon when the full, firm mounds of her breasts, capped by rosy nipples, were revealed. He cupped them in his hands and smoothed his thumbs over the taut tips as she lifted her hands to the buttons of his shirt.

She managed to get about half the buttons undone before she threw her head back with a half laugh and said, “I can’t concentrate.”