Buck

Epilogue

After Kat got backfrom Costa Rica, she had gone to the doctor about her stomach. The nausea hadn’t abated, and she was feeling so run-down and tired all the time. She wondered if she’d picked up some kind of bug down there.

Since she had been so successful with the mission, her bosses were so pleased, they had offered her a position in DC, but she immediately turned it down. She wasn’t going anywhere without her husband, no matter how good the job was. Her beloved wanted to continue to operate, which tied him to San Diego. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to continue with the CIA. This last mission had taken a toll on her after forcing Buck to participate in something he didn’t want to do. It had stuck in her craw.

They took her blood and sent her home where she dealt with the symptoms. When her doctor called, he told her that everything was negative. He suggested a specialist, and she said she would call to make an appointment.

But as she was looking at her calendar, it dawned on her…she hadn’t had her period in…two months. Her heart jumped in her chest, and she immediately went out and bought several pregnancy tests. When she got home, it was torture to wait for the results. But when she finally looked, she couldn’t believe her eyes. It was positive.

To be sure, she took the other two and both of them showed the pink line. Flabbergasted, and overwhelmed for a second, she sat in the bathroom just looking at the stick.She’d immediately made an appointment with her OB/GYN to get the ball rolling. For the rest of the day, she contemplated just putting in her papers, and doing something she’d been dreaming about for some time.

When Wicked got home, she was still reeling a bit.

“Babe?”

She came toward him, and his face softened into concern. “You still feeling bad?”

“Yeah. The doctor called and told me all the tests were negative.”

He came to her and wrapped his arms around her. God, how she loved him. The thought of a little human growing in her with a mix of the two of them made her teary-eyed.

“Hey, there,” he said, kissing her softly. “It’ll be all right.”

She nodded. “I figured out what was wrong today when I was looking at my calendar.”

He went to the fridge and opened it, pulling out a ginger ale. He unscrewed the top and took a drink.

“I’m pregnant.”

He spit out the soda, spraying it everywhere. He wiped the back of his mouth, his eyes stunned for a second, then filled with excitement and wonder. “Seriously. He looked down at her stomach as if he could see inside and confirm it. You didn’t just do that to make me spew soda?”

She giggled softly. “No. I didn’t, although that was an added bonus. I sure hope that’s not a sign you’re not interested.”

“What? Babe! Are you crazy? I’m over the moon.” He set down the soda and rushed over to her, cupping his hand around her stomach. “We’re having a baby.”

“And I’m quitting the CIA.”

“Okay, you want to be a stay-at-home mom? We can swing that.” Her heart simply melted at how sweet her husband was. “We have a good amount of savings?—”

“No, not stay-at-home exactly, but something that doesn’t put me in danger anymore.”

“Like what?”

“Interior design.”

He looked at her like she’d grown three heads. “Um…why didn’t you ever mention that to me?”

She shrugged. “I was a secret agent and loved it. I didn’t really consider it until I decided to leave the CIA, but I’ve always loved it.”

“Then I support you one hundred percent.”

“I had no doubt,” she whispered, kissing him softly. “Dad.”

He got a goofy look of joy on his face and once again she got teary-eyed. Damn hormones.

When she’d been invited to Buck and Mari’s wedding, she was glad to get a chance to talk to him. The guest list was small, just the SEALs and friends. Mari looked amazing in her simple satin gown and Buck in his uniform. After the toasts, she got him onto the dance floor. He was quite good, but in her experience, SEALs excelled at so many things.

“Congratulations. I’m so glad everything worked out for you.”

“Me, too. I heard you turned down quite the job offer.”

She waved her hand. “I’m not leaving Wicked and hes not moving to DC, so that was an easy one, along with putting in my papers for the CIA.” She paused as his brows lifted in surprise. “What wasn’t so easy was finding out I’m pregnant.”

His eyes lit up. “Congratulations to you, too. That’s great Kat, but we’re going to miss you on the team.”

“About that. I wanted to apologize to you about the whole situation with Mari. I’m sorry you got caught between your duty and love. That had to have been hard for you. I regret my part in it.”

He nodded. “Thank you for that, but everything did work out for us. We’re glad you and Wicked were able to attend.”

After that, Kat had confided in Mari about her pregnancy and leaving the CIA. She said she wasn’t sure what she was going to do between enrolling in classes and her resignation for the CIA. Mari asked if she had ever thought about becoming a barista. Now, she was working for her, and they were becoming close friends.

* * *

D-Day wasn’tsure about returning to Wyoming, not sure whether Helen would be there for the wedding, but Buck had asked him, and saying no wasn’t an option. They had been side by side during the worst of times. He damn sure was going to be by his side during the best of times.

But then, there was Helen. His body warmed with a familiar lust he’d been fighting since the moment he’d met her, followed closely by annoyance and guilt. He wasn’t quite sure why he couldn’t stop thinking about her, wanting her. It just didn’t seem to register to him in those moments that she was Buck’s sister and off-limits.

Frustrated by the entire situation, along with his unwanted attraction to Helen that made everything all the more complicated, he forcefully pushed his thoughts back to the wedding…well, more of a reception since Buck and Mari were already married. Kat, Wicked, and the guys had attended, Buck naming him as his best man. It had been a small gathering. But he was sure that their reception here wasn’t going to be small at all.

Buck’s family welcomed him with open arms, and he was back at it with Wyatt and Cole, riding the range, and helping out wherever he could. The day of the reception was crazy as all hell. They cleared one of the unused barns on the property, moving in chairs and tables from a rental place in town. Buck’s mom and Daisy decorated the rafters and tables with a traditional hoedown feel, and there was going to be some tasty BBQ.

D-Day dressed up in his cowboy best, including a black cowboy hat, and walked down to the barn, the scent of cooking meat—sausage, ribs, steak, and chicken wafted on the sweet smoke-scented air and made his mouth water. When he entered, it was packed with people—Buck’s family and friends. He and Mari were out on the dance floor kicking up their heels in a line dance. She had been embraced fully by Buck’s family, and she had embraced them, even wearing a fringed leather skirt, brown suede cowboy boots, and a brown cowgirl hat on her head.

D-Day smiled. He so loved it here.

He walked over to the table of food and drinks and got himself some punch.

“Hey there, stranger,” a woman said from behind him.

He would know that voice anywhere. He heard it in his fever dreams. He turned to find Helen standing there, looking so beautiful in a pretty yellow flowered dress that clung to her curves, the waist just outlining the flare of her hips. The memory of her body spiked his heart rate and thickened his dick. He cursed the feverish heat and undeniable hunger Helen generated whenever she was near him. Damn her fucking beautiful soul.

“Hi, yourself.” He met that direct, sultry gaze of hers that never failed to unnerve him. He felt as if she could look into his soul, ferret out all his secrets and for that reason, she scared him. It drove home to him he had to keep his real emotions for her under wraps. They had decided it was for the best.

She looked him up and down, and her gaze felt so personal, as if she found him much too intriguing to give up. “They’re determined to make a cowboy out of you yet.”

He laughed, but his chest was tight. “Yeah, I was in a boot store with Wyatt and Cole for like half a day.”

She smiled. A slow, sensual smile that affected him like a blow to the gut, and just like that he wanted to kiss her mouth, devour her, and taste every hot, sweet womanly place. “My idiot brothers always have to have the perfect boots. Cole says his boots have to speak to his soul. Whatever that means.”

“They’re not wrong,” he said, showing off the black cowboy boots with the metal at the heel and toe.

She made a soft sound and looked away, running her fingers through her permanently tousled, chin-length honey-blonde curls, combing them away from her face. She looked flushed and his dick went even harder. Taking a deep breath, she returned her attention to him, amusement dancing in her eyes. “I have to agree.”

A tall, good-looking guy came up to her and tapped her on the shoulder. “Dance?” he said. D-Day’s jaw clenched tightly.

She nodded and said, “I guess I’ll see you around.”

Yeah, around,he thought, seething as the man took her arm. He scrubbed his hand along his jaw. Helen was so under his skin, he couldn’t get her out of his mind, his erotic dreams, his life, no matter how hard he tried. She nearly devastated his senses and destroyed his restraint. Yet when he was with her, he was drawn to her warmth and genuine caring, especially when she talked about her job.

He watched them dance and grabbed something harder than punch, enjoying the burn as the whiskey ignited a fire from his throat all the way to his gut. The dance ended and D-Day was relieved until the guy pulled her against him. His temper flared at the man’s jerk move.

“Someone should rescue my sister from that asshole,” Wyatt said.

Cole came up beside him, grinning with keen male insight. “Yeah, someone.”

“You’re her brothers.”

“Rescue hellion? Not on your life. Believe me. She wouldn’t want that. Not from us.”

D-Day’s hand curled into a fist, and the muscles of his arm bunched with tension.

Watching the other man ignore Helen’s attempt to slip from his grasp again, he came up behind the guy. D-Day placed his hand where his neck met his shoulder and applied a firm pressure with his fingers.

The man broke away from her and turned. He took one look at D-Day’s face, then panned over his body and backed up. Now Helen was free?—

Before he could withdraw, she caught him around the neck and held him in place with her heated gaze.

“I think I just traded a wanna-be for a real, live gunslinger,” she murmured, tipping her head back and displacing those soft, disheveled waves to slide along her neck.

His mind told him to pull away, but his body protested, making him realize that would leave her on the dance floor all alone, and he couldn’t embarrass her like that.

“I was just trying to?—”

“Save me,” she whispered, those hazel eyes of hers making him feel like he was drowning.

He closed his eyes. “Helen, this isn’t helping. We agreed?—”

“I know what we agreed, but I can’t stop wanting you. As soon as I see you, it’s uncontrollable.” She glided her hands along his shoulders and down to his chest in an arousing caress. If he wasn’t careful, his lust was going to overrule his common sense. Blessedly, the music stopped, and he pulled away from her, trying to ignore her tormented eyes. Now that he knew she was feeling the same way, it was unbearable.

He decided that leaving was the best course of action. He could probably catch the red eye.

He rounded the barn and headed toward the house, but suddenly, Helen was there, taking his wrist and pulling him inside the barn that housed the stud horses. She closed the door behind her, dragging him into an empty stall. The sound of horses snorting and moving restlessly in the stalls seemed like music to him.

She pressed her back to the wall and dragged him against her. “Drew, please, I want you. I can’t help myself. Please.”

He broke. Those words made him groan and lose his fucking mind, his dick swelling, snugging his jeans behind his zipper. He captured her mouth and her lips parted as she sucked in a quick breath, the onslaught of his kiss demanding, open-mouthed. Her hands went to the snap and zipper, and it was a relief when she released him, pushing his jeans down.

He shifted closer, moaning as she took his dick in her hand and jacked him, her thumb rubbing over his throbbing head. His kiss went hot, ruthless, all his aggression, dominance, and the desperate need to purge her from his mind, his dreams, his entire system took over. The part of him that made him an elite, special ops warrior. Helen brought out the violence of need in him.

She was panting against his mouth, and he was mauling her, the softness of her body driving him crazy.

He pulled up her dress, the pretty fabric looking so delicate in his hands. With one brutal tug, he ripped her underwear. She shuddered and moaned when he slipped his thumb over her hot little nub and ruthlessly stroked her. In moments, she came for him, crying into his mouth as her whole body arched, her sweet breasts against his chest.

He pulled her hips toward him, lifting her, using the wall of the stall to keep her in place. He needed to fuck her until she came again, until she screamed with the pleasure of it.

Their eyes met and held, hers filled with a dark desire, and he watched as she gasped and arched into him when he abruptly thrust into her, claiming her to the hilt.

“Drew,” she whispered. “Oh, God, Drew.” Her hands slid to his shoulders, and her fingers dug into his muscles as he pulled out and surged into her again and again, tearing a moan from the back of her throat, and he felt the contractions as she pulsed around him.

His strokes became faster, shorter, ruthlessly demanding as he pounded into her. With each thrust, he felt himself grow harder, thicker, until lust and need exploded. Lost in the rush of sensation, lost in her, he tossed his head back, a guttural growl tore from his chest, and his entire body shuddered as he came so hard and strong, he couldn’t catch his breath.

He released her, angry with himself immediately, even though he had just experienced the most explosive orgasm of his life. He felt sick. He’d never treated a woman so roughly before, not that she tried to stop him.

Still dazed from their encounter he backed away from her pulling up his jeans and fastening them. The guilt weighed on him, heavier than anything in this world. It pressed down on him, in on him.

“Drew?” She reached out, her eyes going over his face that was now as tortured as his mind and heart. He backed up, the guilt pressing harder. “Please don’t go,” she whispered. “Let’s talk.” But he couldn’t stay.

He left the barn, gathered his stuff, and got one of the hands to take him to the airport. It was obvious that he couldn’t keep his hands off her. There would be no more trips to Wyoming, and that hurt almost as much as cutting Helen out of his life. When he got home, he dropped everything, and for the first time in a long time, alone and in the dark, he broke down, his chest heaving with his pain, fresh pain and the pain still trapped there from the weakest moment in his life.

Tipping his head back, he closed his eyes tight against the pain and scalding tears. There was no outlet for the utter dejection and loss, no words for the way that loss raked through his heart.

* * *

Mari openedher eyes and saw Buck staring at her. “You’re supposed to be relaxing. I know that’s foreign to a Navy SEAL, but you’re wasting all the ambiance.”

They were at The Tranquil Pool, part of the Maravilla Natural exclusive spa experience. They had walked down an overgrown flower-filled path leading to a warm stone-edged plunge pool beside a cool stone-edged river complete with a fire pit built into the side.

He sent a splashing wave toward her, hitting her square in the face and disrupting her commune with nature. “Buck!” she said, splashing him back. He didn’t even flinch. “Maybe you should go run a few miles and climb some trees.”

“I’m no damn monkey,” he growled. “Besides, you’re giving me a damn good workout.”

Mari looked at her husband and was suddenly thirsty. She wanted to lick the water droplets off his beautiful body. God bless the military for sculpting her husband into a gorgeous, muscular specimen. “Stop looking at me like that or the only thing I’m going to be communing with is your delicious body.” Mari smiled.

“First, we had to bathe in the river and then meditate to immerse ourselves in the sounds of nature. Now, we’ve got an hour of sitting in this herbal bath. I’m just not cut out for…ah…immersing. Unless it’s the ocean, I’m swimming toward bad guys, and at the end I get to rock and roll with my M4.”

“Okay, I get it, my warrior love. But I wanted you to experience what my family’s hotel is all about.”

“It’s beautiful here,” he said, grudgingly. “I’m sorry if I’m messing with your aura.”

“You always mess with my aura,” she murmured, and his mouth kicked up in a knowing smile as a pretty blue butterfly settled on his shoulder. She shook her head. Her big, bad warrior and a delicate butterfly. He noticed it but didn’t displace it and her heart just melted for him.

She closed her eyes and said, “Maybe if I scrounge around, I can find a ball for you.”

Before she realized he’d even moved he was on her. “I can find a couple of balls for you, right now.”

She smirked. “Big, brass ones, if I’m not mistaken.”

“You are good with comebacks when you’re relaxed and immersed,” he said, kissing her neck.

She sat up in the water. “I don’t want you to be unhappy. We can leave if you want.”

“No, that’s not fair to you. Can we cuddle and mix our auras or is that forbidden?”

She chuckled. “No, it’s not forbidden.” They spent the rest of the time holding each other in the bath.

Back at the hotel, she had her shower, and Buck, surprisingly, had fallen asleep on the big king bed. Her parents had comped her a room, all amenities, so that they could have a proper honeymoon.

She grabbed up her tablet, went onto the balcony to read, and fell asleep, too. She woke up when Buck settled in behind her and pulled her to him.

“So, we’re really relaxed,” he said. She nodded.

“Tell me something that no one knows,” she said, “and I’ll tell you something no one knows.”

He sighed. “I was deathly afraid of horses when I was five years old,” he said. His voice was subdued and wary like he expected her to laugh at him. She turned around to look at his face. She could tell it wasn’t something that had been easy for him to admit, and it was tied up in his whole persona. She knew something about that, and she didn’t find it at all funny.

“Tell me why,” she asked.

“I had an uncle?—”

“Colton.” His mom had told her about her brother-in-law, and everything she’d said about him made her think of Buck.

He smiled, gratified that she had been listening to his family talk. “Yeah. He was the best,” Buck said, his voice strained. “A great cowboy, fearless, tough, and strong. I looked up to him and my dad with pride, wanting to be just like them.”

“I know he died,” she said, lacing her fingers through his.

He nodded. “He got kicked in the head by a horse. It was awful. He died right on the spot. I was traumatized, and I didn’t want to go near horses again, or cattle.”

Easing a breath past the aching fullness in her chest, she gave him a little hug. “What changed your mind?”

“My grandfather. He was ruthless. Figured the adage: ‘if you get thrown, get up, dust yourself off, and go again.’ would work for me.”

“Obviously, you overcame it.”

“Because I didn’t want to fail my family.”

She swallowed hard, her eyes filling with tears.

He cuddled her close. “Shoot, darlin’, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

A sob escaped, and she gripped his back and hid her face against his neck, fighting for composure. “That’s my secret, too. I twisted myself into a pretzel to be anything and everything for my family to succeed and get ahead. It seemed that my dad only noticed me when I was successful. I was terrified of failure. But you taught me to be myself, loved me for me, and that gave me the courage to break away from that circular, destructive behavior. I’m so grateful for that, Sam.”

“I’m grateful for you, Mari. You taught me something, too.”

“What?”

“That vulnerability isn’t a weakness. The old Sam would have never been able to tell you about my fear of horses. That seemed so diminishing to me back then, but now, I see that getting in touch with my emotions keeps me more grounded and in the moment. It’s the living part.”

Cradling her head against him, Buck held her tight. His hand tangled in her hair as he cupped her head, bringing her mouth to his as he kissed her softly.

After several minutes, he shifted. “Are you getting restless again? And if you are, might you be looking for some action?”

He nodded. “Well, this cowboy wants to take you for a ride. How about that?”

She gave him a wry smile. “Hmm, let’s make you a real cowboy. I think I can beat those eight seconds,” she said, pushing open his robe, finding him hard and aroused.

He chuckled, then gasped as her mouth closed over him. She was going to give him the ride of his life, now, and forever as their hearts and souls had the courage to embrace the love they had for each other, a never-ending give-and-take stream.