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,” he told his brother.
Cooper didn’t say a word as he began wheeling Ace from his room, then moved a door down and pushed Ace inside. Dakota looked over from where she sat up in her bed, her eyes bloodshot.
“You’re okay?” she asked, a tear falling. “I should kick your ass for making me worry about you so much.”
“I’m sorry,” Ace said, thinking he might be saying that to her quite often. He didn’t know how he’d gotten lucky enough to have her, but now that he did, he vowed he wasn’t going to ever let her go again.
“It looks like the bad guys did all the ass kicking already,” she said, another tear falling.
Cooper pushed him to her bed, and Ace reached for her, not feeling better until her beautiful fingers rested in the palm of his hand.
“You can do it again when I’m back to full health,” he assured her.
She smiled at him, and it was more vibrant than the rays of the sun. He didn’t need painkillers; he just needed her.
“He’s gone, Dakota. There’s no more danger,” he assured her.
“And you were a fool to go after him in your condition,” she told him.
“I know,” he agreed. “I promise not to do anything like that again.”
“You can’t promise that in your line of work,” she told him. “And I would never ask you to change.”
“You don’t have to. I’m telling Bill I quit as soon as I see him,” Ace promised.
“Don’t do that for me,” she insisted.
“I’m doing it for me, for you, and for our child,” he told her as he reached down and rubbed her flat stomach. “I want to be with my family.”
She didn’t try to stop her tears from falling as she looked at him with what appeared to be hope.
“I wouldn’t want anyone to ask me to change who I am, so I certainly wouldn’t ask it of anyone else, especially someone I love,” she said quietly.
The warmth in Ace’s heart was overflowing as she admitted her feelings to him. He might have been shot at, stabbed, and kicked around, but none of that mattered anymore. Because it had all ended well, and now he was home—right where he belonged.
“I think I’m going to become a full-time flight instructor,” he said with a chuckle.
“Oh, really?” she said, a grin on her lips. “Your only student better be me. I know what you do in those planes.”
Ace wanted so badly to kiss her, but he couldn’t lean forward.
“Come down here, closer,” he told her.
Dakota instantly lowered the bed, and he laid his head next to hers and carefully took her lips with his.
“I adore you, Dakota Forbes, and you will be my one and only the rest of my life. You don’t have to worry about that,” he said.
“I might hold you to that, Ace Armstrong,” she said.
“Good. You can do so every single day that you’re my wife.”
She smiled at him again before grabbing his face and kissing him with a bit more steam this time. They didn’t stop until Cooper cleared his throat.
Ace turned and looked at his brother. “Help me up into this bed and then get out,” he said.
Cooper rolled his eyes. “I think that should be the last thing on your mind,” Cooper said.
“I just want to hold my future wife,” Ace said.
