Page 111 of Rescuing Mary

“That’s okay…we were just sitting around talking anyway…come in.”

Truck winked at Mary when Emily’s back was turned and she rolled her eyes at him.

They walked into the house, and Truck marveled once more at the view from the living room. There were floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked miles of Texas’s rolling hills. He had to admit that he’d been bummed when he remembered Fletch’s old house. The team had a ton of great memories there, not to mention Fletch’s great neighbors, but he didn’t blame his teammate for wanting to start anew.

There may have been a lot of good memories in his old house, but there were also a lot of bad ones too. Scary ones. And Fletch had told him that he didn’t want his baby anywhere near whatever bad vibes might still be lingering around the old place.

He was surprised to see Fish and Bryn there. Smiling, Truck went over to the couple.

“Fish! I didn’t know you were going to be here!”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Well, we almost did miss it,” Bryn corrected. “We had tickets for last weekend, but when you got hurt we had to cancel them, and it was almost impossible to get another flight. There aren’t any direct flights from Spokane to here, so we had to fly to Denver, then Dallas, then we had to rent a car to drive down here.”

Truck smiled. He liked Bryn. He knew her Asperger’s made it hard for her to understand the right things to say and do socially, but to him she was refreshing. He never had to worry about where he stood with her. She’d tell him straight out. “Well, I’m glad you made it anyway. How long are you staying?”

“Probably only another couple of days. Bryn needs to get back. She’s giving a presentation at the local library on preppers.”

“Really?” Truck asked, raising an eyebrow in surprise. She’d gotten in trouble a while back because she’d gone out to meet who she’d thought was a prepper, but in reality was a mentally unbalanced domestic terrorist. Truck hadn’t been able to assist in saving her because he was marrying Mary, but he’d heard all the details after the fact.

“Really,” Bryn confirmed. “Most preppers are misunderstood. They aren’t bad people. A little paranoid, but what they do is fascinating, and the general population can learn a lot about sustainable living and being prepared from them.”

“We’ll let you say hi to the others,” Fish said with a smile.

Truck nodded and steered him and Mary farther into the room. He saw that they were definitely the last ones to make it to the party. Rayne and Ghost were standing near one of the windows holding plates and talking to Chase and Sadie. Harley and Coach were sitting on one of the couches. Hollywood was standing behind Kassie, who was in a large, comfortable-looking leather chair, holding little Kate. Beatle and Casey were in the attached kitchen, and Blade and Wendy were being entertained by Annie.

But when Annie saw Truck and Mary enter, she popped up and ran over to them. “You’re finally here!” she yelled enthusiastically.

“So we are,” Truck said with a smile.

Mary greeted Annie with sign language. The little girl responded in kind, and they smiled at each other before Mary gave her a big hug.

“Are you hungry? We have a ton of food. Mommy didn’t make it though. She’s been too tired. My brother’s keeping her up late and Daddy says it’s a good thing there’s takeout, otherwise we’d starve.”

Truck tried to hide his smile behind his hand, but knew he’d failed when Emily said, “Thanks for spilling all the Fletcher secrets, baby.”

Everyone chuckled at that. Truck settled into the corner of the couch and pulled Mary down next to him. Conversation started up again, and he got an update on what was going on at work. He laughed when Ghost told him Trigger and the other Delta Force team were more than happy to take up the slack with missions while he was out of commission. None of the men on the other team were married or seriously dating. Truck remembered when he and the others were the same. They lived for missions and hadn’t given settling down a second thought.

Looking around, Truck couldn’t imagine ever going back to that life. He might have forgotten the last three years for a while, but nothing felt better than seeing the families he and his friends were making. And having Macie back in his own life was like icing on a big chocolate cake.

He listened to the general chitchat going on around him and closed his eyes in contentment and let the relaxed and happy vibe settle into his gut.

“You okay?” Mary whispered.

“More than,” Truck told her, opening his eyes and looking into hers. “I’m happy. Being with you makes me happy. But also, being here with our friends, seeing how content and settled everyone is, makes me happy.”

She smiled up at him and Truck felt his dick twitch. Yeah, he had a feeling he’d never get tired of making love to his wife.

“Everyone settled and comfortable?” Fletch asked in a loud voice, addressing the room in general.

When everyone agreed, and after Beatle and Casey left the kitchen to join them, Fletch took his son from Emily’s arms and held him close to his chest as he spoke. “Thank you all for coming today, and a belated thank you for being there for us when Em went into the hospital. Knowing you all were there meant the world to us both.”

Everyone nodded, and Truck tightened his arm around Mary and kissed the side of her head.

“I know everyone’s been wondering what we’ve named this little bean.” He looked down at his son with a gentle smile. Emily went to his side and Fletch put his arm around her shoulders. Annie snuggled up against her mother, and the family of four stood in front of their best friends for a long moment.

Then Fletch cleared his throat and continued, “We had quite a few family conversations about names. Annie, of course, refused to participate in any kind of discussion that included female names.” He stared down at his little girl with mock disapproval, and she giggled. “But we had quite a few male names to weed through and narrow down.”