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Ella: I just can’t wait for you to be home to touch me yourself.
Jesse: Waiting to see you is unbearable . . . Can't wait to get home to you too.
Jesse: Want to hold you and look into my son’s eyes and see all the good there is in this world through him . . . and you, of course. You’re both everything to me. My heartbeat.
Ella: Well, now I’m going to cry. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing you say that. Just come home safe. We need you. Okay?
Jesse: Don’t ever get tired of it.
Jesse: I guess I’ll go clean myself off and get in that shower now.
Jesse: Will you go to bed?
Ella: I’ll try to get a few hours before Remi wakes up hungry again. I just miss you. Wish you were sleeping next to me. But your work is important, and I know I have to share you.
Jesse: I’ll be back home soon enough, counting down the minutes until I see you. Get some sleep, I’m sure you’re feeling well relaxed now.
Ella: You have that effect on me.
Ella: Sleep well, too, babe. I love you.
Jesse: My everything . . . I love you too.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ELLA
“Do you have any clue when they’ll be back?” I took a sip of my coffee, freshly brewed by Savanna, and peered at her husband, Griffin. He was at the table next to us, flipping through a newspaper. How old school? Kind of cute, though.
Griffin set the paper down and smirked. “They leave me out of the details, because it makes me a little—”
“Nuts,” Savanna cut him off. “He can’t handle knowing his team is out on an op without him.”
Griffin lifted his chin and grunted at her. She flicked her wrist, then leaned back in her chair and set her hand on her pregnant belly.
“You could’ve kept operating. Baby isn’t due for two months. Totally your fault.”
“I’m not leaving you while you’re that—”
“If you say big, I will knock you out,” Savanna teased, and I chuckled at their adorable back-and-forth that would probably result in sex in the back room of her café the second I left.
There were currently no customers in the little café she ran, so we were able to get away with being ourselves. As they continued their teasing conversation, I tuned them out and let my thoughts drift.
Seeing the two of them together . . . I was happy Savanna was given a second chance at love. She never thought it’d happen after losing Marcus, and she resisted the idea of it for a long time. But then Griffin came along, a member of Falcon Falls Security, and swept her off her feet.
I knew Marcus would be happy she was in good hands. As fate would have it, Griffin and Marcus’s paths had once crossed during their military days, too, and Savanna swore Marcus had somehow guided Griffin her way.
And, well, A.J., who Marcus used to tease about believing in Old Man Shaw’s ghost . . . well . . . A.J. swore he’d talked on more than one occasion with Marcus’s spirit. Not ghost. No unfinished business for that man. He was on the other side. The bright, happy side.
I smiled at Savanna as she winked at her husband, then checked my watch. My mom was babysitting Remi for another few hours so I could come into Birmingham and visit Savanna, and I had some new designs I wanted to work on when I went back home. It was days like these, when I wasn’t teaching, I had to fill my schedule to capacity to avoid playing the “what if” game while Jesse was operating. My nerves would get to me, fear of the danger he could face would choke me up.
“So, remember the thing I said I wanted to show you?” Savanna’s question pulled my focus back her way.
She stood, walked around behind her counter, then came back with a stack of papers. “I finally wrote a book using the old-fashioned typewriter Griffin gave me. I was wondering if you’d read a few pages?” She settled back in the seat across from me, and I eagerly reached for her book.
I smirked. “You’re kidding, right? Just a few pages? I want the whole thing.” The top page said: Untitled. By Savanna Andrews. “What’s it about?”
Griffin piped up, “A cocky asshole billionaire, of course.”
