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Correct response, right? He was going to be her husband in four days.So, sure, he loved her, too.
Except he didn’t know what else he was feeling these days, mostly just putting one foot in front of the other. Marching, focused on the steps like in PT training or cadence calls in formation.
Daniel slid his hands down Mary Elise’s slick sides, bared by her bikini, leaned to kiss her so they wouldn’t have to talk anymore. Laughing, she ducked away at the last second, diving beneath him. He took chase, both knowing she wouldn’t get far, but still enjoying the ritual of their water games. Why did things have to change?
He had his application to the University of Georgia ready to hand-carry to the dean, with his father’s help—a fact that chewed his pride almost as much as leaving the Academy when he’d reached his senior year. Another administrative mess his father would have to smooth over.
Only four more days and it would all be real, marriage, different college…baby on the way.
For now he just wanted to pretend he was home for the summer. Of course his newly invented reality would still include making love to Mary Elise. He sure didn’t want to backtrack that far.
But marriage. Kid. Love. That had him cricking his tense neck to the side. Four days. He kicked through the clear waters, deeper, until there was nowhere left to go, and still he could hear her declaration of love echo in his ears. Same words he’d heard his parents say to each other.
Not that he’d seen any example of love lasting.He preferred what he and Mary Elise had and he didn’t want to mess it up.
Daniel kicked upward, snagging Mary Elise and drawing them both to the surface. “Gotcha.”
“What do you plan to do with me, Danny?”
“This.” He drew her closer, brushed her bikini-clad breasts against his bare chest, eliciting a rewarding purr. He cupped a breast—fuller, more sensitive. The pregnancy thing had definite side benefits, like the visit from the oh-so-generous Breast Fairy.
“Danny,” Mary Elise panted against his mouth.
“Pool house, or take a drive and park. Your choice, but make the decision fast.” He prayed for the pool house. Closer. Sooner.
She stiffened against him. “Danny, I’m not feeling too good. Something’s wrong…”
Daniel struggled to pull himself awake. Awake? But he was in the pool with Mary Elise.
Reality and dreams mussed. He wanted out of the pool or the dream or wherever he was before the rest of the events unfolded: Mary Elise wrapping an arm around her stomach, a drive in the car that hadn’t led to parking but instead to the emergency room.
He forced his feet to keep treading water as if that could stave off the end, keep them both from moving to the end of everything. Their baby. Them.Water churned around them, someone else in the pool, beneath, drawing near Mary Elise to take her, blasting to the surface…
Kent McRae.
* * *
Daniel bolted upright on the sofa. Dragging a hand over his face, he shook off the nightmare fog.
Mary Elise sat cross-legged on the floor beside him, hands in her lap, emerald eyes wide with worry. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, throat still too tight for talk. Swinging his boots to the floor with a thud, he braced his elbows on his knees and sucked in air, steadied his heartbeat. He kept his hands clasped between his knees rather than gathering Mary Elise hard against his chest to feel her warm and alive against him.
“I’m fine.” He tried to pull a tight smile. Tried – and failed.
“Bad dreams suck.”
Leave it to Mary Elise not to let him dodge the issue by pretending. “Yep.”
“You’ve had a lot on your plate lately, too, not just the boys, but losing your father, not even being able to make the memorial service for closure.”
Death wasn’t high on his list of topics for discussion, the word riding too hard on the heels of a time he’d thought Mary Elise might die. The doctor may have called it a routine, first trimester miscarriage. But the doctor hadn’t been the one carrying her across the yard to the car while she cried in pain.
Daniel stared at his clenched hands and remembered the weight of Mary Elise in his arms. His father had met him at the emergency room, silent but there. Odd how he’d forgotten that part over the years. “I’ll always regret that he and I didn’t have a chance to talk.”
“Life can change so fast. And when I think of how close I came to being in the car with him that day…”
Daniel’s mind raced back to the present. “What?”
