“You want babies?”
Her words came to him like an echo from inside a dark tunnel. At first he thought he’d imagined it, then he wasn’t quite sure he’d heard correctly.
Turning back around, he found her standing right where he’d left her, looking at him expectantly. She hadn’t slipped back into Grace’s apartment, and she apparently had asked him a question.
The most important question.
“Yeah,” he said, feeling a hitch in his chest that threatened to work its way up his throat. “I want babies. But not just any babies. I only want babies with you.”
Finally, he knew he’d said the right thing. Jenna’s eyes filled with tears, her lips quivered, and she launched herself against him before he could brace himself for the impact. He stumbled back a step, but caught her and anchored them both as his arms came up to wrap around her waist.
A ball of warmth burst low in his belly and spread out into every cell of his being. He hadn’t fucked up, after all; at least not permanently.
She’d listened to him, believed him, and-thank You, Jesus-forgiven him. The only time he could remember feeling this good or being this happy was on his wedding day.
He didn’t think he should mention it yet, but he intended to get her down the aisle again as soon as possible. And if she wanted to get started immediately on the baby-making part, he was ready, willing, and more than able.
After a few minutes of simply standing there, holding each other close, Jenna lifted her face from his neck and fixed him with narrow, serious eyes. “Never, ever do that again!” she told him in a watery voice, then gave his side a pinch for good measure.
“Ow.” He squirmed away from her lethal claws, then asked, “Never do what again?”
“Put me through something like that,” she nearly shrieked. “The silent treatment, the divorce, the not knowing what the heck you want and putting me through the wringer. Never, ever, ever-”
She came at him again with those two dangerous fingertips, and he jumped quickly to one side before she could make contact.
“I won’t,” he assured her. “I promise.”
With a slightly less homicidal demeanor, she snuggled up to him again, and he was more than happy to snuggle back.
“You were so sure when you left, so certain you were making the right decision. What changed your mind?” she asked, leaning into the circle of his arms at her back.
He thought about it for a moment, then replied slowly, “I think I finally… opened my eyes. After being with you again, then leaving you again… God, that is something I never want to repeat, let me tell you. I don’t think my heart could take it.” He shook his head, then made himself get back on track. “Anyway, I started to notice that a lot of the guys on the force have wives and families. They don’t shut themselves away from their loved ones or walk around petrified something will happen to them.”
She lifted a brow and annoyance started to seep back into her gaze. “Isn’t that what I’ve been trying to tell you all along?”
He made a face. “That would be the part where I admit to being a little dense.”
Her expression darkened even more. “A little?”
And then she pinched him. Again.
“Ow.” He rubbed at the poor, abused spot on his side, then said, “You’d better take it easy. If you keep battering me like that, I might not be in any shape to knock you up tonight.”
Her lips twitched with the urge to grin, but she held back, intent on holding his feet to the fire a while longer.
“Who says I want you to knock me up tonight?” she replied smartly, tipping her head in that come-hither way she had that used to drive him crazy-in all the very best ways.
“You’ve only been angling for kids for two or three years now,” he reminded her. “I figured you’d want to get started. And I, for one, am looking forward to some pretty amazing makeup sex.” He waggled his brows for emphasis.
She chuckled. “I’m okay with the makeup sex, but I think we should go a little more slowly with the rest. I want to be sure this is going to work out and that you’re not going to change your mind again.” She growled the last and aimed her curled fingers at his ribcage.
He sucked in his gut to avoid more potential bruising. “I won’t, I swear.”
Seeming to accept his word, she said, “And then I’d like to get remarried before we start having kids.”
“This from the woman who drugged me and tied me to the bed in an attempt to get pregnant?” he asked, brows lifted in doubt.
Her mouth twitched guiltily. “That’s when I thought I was going to be alone for the rest of my life and didn’t want to spend it childless. Now that I know you’re going to be there…”
She made the pinchy motion again and he rolled his eyes, grabbing her wrist and laying her palm flat on his chest so she couldn’t use it against him.
“I’m not in as much of a hurry. We have time.”
It wasn’t what he’d expected-part of him had expected her to jump his bones right there in the apartment complex hallway-but it sounded good to him.
With a grin, he leaned in to kiss her. Slowly at first, then deeper, until she was pressed to him like cellophane and his arms were bound around her so tightly, he was afraid he might break something.
When they pulled apart a long, long while later, he touched his forehead to hers and whispered, “So what do you say we go home-your place or mine, I don’t care-and at least get started on that makeup sex?”
She stepped into him again, arms around his neck, and gave a little hop, wrapping her legs around his waist. She trusted him to catch her, like so many times in the past. Which he did, by curving his hands under her butt.
“I say yes. I may even let you tie me to the headboard this time,” she teased just above his ear before giving it a tiny love-nip and then moving downward.
Her naughtily whispered words and her mouth on the side of his throat sent his cock jutting upwards, straining against the fly of his jeans. He was trying to hold on to his control here, but she’d be lucky if he didn’t toss her down right there in the hallway and strip her bare.
Between voracious, soul-stealing kisses, he managed to grate out, “Shouldn’t you tell your friends we’re leaving?”
She gave a half-hearted nod and he steered her none-too-steadily over to Grace’s door.
Jenna tapped, then yelled out, “Everything’s fine.”
Kiss.
“We’re leaving.”
Lick.
“I’ll call you later.”
Suuuck.
While his legs could still carry him, he headed for the elevator at the end of the hall. From her heightened position in his arms, she reached down to punch the button with her thumb, then turned back to him. Their gazes met and he saw his love for her reflected in those mossy-green depths.
“I love you,” he murmured, wanting to say it again and again so she knew the words were true.
Releasing her hold on his neck, she ran her hands through his short hair and whispered, “I love you, too. And we’re going to make it work this time.”
“Yes, we are,” he agreed with a knowing grin. “Yes, we are.”
Bind Off
It worked!
It worked, it worked, it worked!
Charlotte did a little jig, discoing around the antique spinning wheel as though it were her partner on the dance floor.
The wheel wasn’t defective. The yarn hadn’t failed in its true love mission.
Oh, glory! Oh, joy!
Slightly out of breath from her exertions, she slowed her steps and took a seat on the stool of the spinning wheel.
She’d lugged the giant piece of equipment back down from the attic… left it in her bedroom for a day or two to give her creaking bones a rest… then dragged it the rest of the way to the living room. Her intention had been to ready some new fibers and spin a new skein of yarn for her niece in hopes of undoing whatever bad mojo the first skein had brought about.