Epilogue #2
But seeing Ghost, Truck, Beatle, and Blade pledge their lives and love to their women had made them start to rethink things. Seeing Fletch and Hollywood with their children had made them yearn, deep down, to have the same.
They might be badass soldiers who weren’t scared of anything, but they were also human.
“Maybe all hope for us isn’t lost,” Trigger said out loud. “If they found love, maybe we can too.”
His teammates didn’t respond, but no one laughed and said he was crazy either.
Commander Colt Robinson and Macie Laughlin, the morning after the weddings.
Macie opened her eyes and stiffened, trying to figure out where she was.
Recalling the night before, she immediately squeezed them closed again. She felt as if she’d been run over by a truck…exactly how she always felt after she’d had a major anxiety attack. She should be used to the feeling by now, as she’d had more than her fair share of them over the years.
She wanted nothing more than to keep her eyes shut and stay under the covers all day…but that was impossible, because she wasn’t at home. The bed she was in wasn’t hers. The chest her cheek was resting on belonged to Colonel Colt Robinson. Shit.
Feeling her fingers start to tingle once again and her heart start to race, Macie recognized the signs of anxiety rearing its ugly head.
Colt had been amazing the night before. He’d somehow realized that she was on the edge of a massive attack at her brother’s reception, and he’d taken her outside so she could get some space and air.
She’d continued to shake and feel dizzy.
She’d started hyperventilating and couldn’t catch her breath.
When being outside and away from all the guests hadn’t helped, he’d put her in his car and driven her to his house.
She hadn’t been worried. She knew who Colt was, Truck talked about him all the time. Ford trusted his commander, and he’d told her that she could too.
But she couldn’t stop thinking about what he must think of her. How weak she was. How pathetic. How he probably wanted to be anywhere and be doing anything other than babysitting her.
Part of the hell of her brand of anxiety was second-guessing everyone’s motives and whether or not they really wanted her around. She constantly had a war going on in her head that things weren’t really the way she thought they were.
But Colt had done everything right last night. He’d let her hang on to him to help her feel grounded. He’d put her in his bed and simply held her close. He’d talked about anything and everything for hours, rubbing her arms and letting her physically recover at her own pace.
She still internally questioned what he was doing and why he was helping her, but she’d put on the brave face she wore every day of her life and did her best to try to act normal. But eventually she’d fallen asleep, which was a miracle in itself.
Macie never slept well. Especially after taking a Vistaril.
Those pills were reserved for when she really, really needed them.
Normally her Lexapro tablets did the trick.
But last night, in Colt’s arms, she’d slept like a baby for the first time in a very long time.
It was a rare night that she slept more than four hours in a row.
Easing herself out of Colt’s arms as slowly and carefully as she could, Macie stood by the side of his bed, staring down at him for a long moment.
His hair was graying at the temples, making him look distinguished rather than old.
While he didn’t have a defined six pack, he wasn’t overweight by any stretch of the imagination.
Macie remembered the way his chest and stomach had felt under her hand as they lay talking the night before.
He was taller than her by a few inches, but at around six feet, he didn’t tower over her like her brother did.
His eyes were a unique shade of gray, and when she spoke, he looked her right in the eye.
He never seemed to be bored or impatient with her when she had a hard time explaining how she felt.
He was older than her by at least a decade, but at no time had Macie felt as if the difference in their ages was an issue.
Macie was drawn to Colt. She hadn’t felt the kind of chemistry she felt with him in a very long time. It excited her while scaring her to death at the same time.
They were both still dressed in the clothes they’d worn to the wedding and reception the day before. Colt hadn’t touched her inappropriately and hadn’t done anything out of line.
And that made Macie’s anxiety rear its ugly head once more. Was she not pretty enough? Did he not see her as a woman? Did he only see her as someone he had to rescue? Maybe he’d only helped her because he was Ford’s commander.
She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself, pinching her biceps to try to stop the ugly thoughts in her head.
When she felt more under control, Macie opened her eyes and looked around the room.
She remembered something Colt asked her the night before.
Making a split-second decision, and for once not analyzing it to death, she moved toward the table next to the bed.
She remembered Colt saying last night that he always kept a pad of paper and pen next to his bed, so he could jot down any thoughts that came to him in the middle of the night.
She ripped off the top piece of paper and wrote a quick note.
Colt. Thank you for last night. If you were honest about wanting to have lunch sometime, I’d like that. ~Macie
She scrawled her phone number under her name and left it on the small table. Then, taking a deep breath, she did what her body and mind had been telling her to do from the second she woke up. She fled.
An hour later, Colt stirred in his bed and, when he realized he was alone, quickly sat up and looked around. He couldn’t see any indication that Macie was still there, and he didn’t hear her anywhere in his house.
Feeling disappointed, he threw back the covers and strode into his bathroom. He liked Mercedes Laughlin. More than liked her. Felt a need deep down in his bones to keep her close and to do whatever he could to make her life easier.
Because it was more than obvious Macie suffered from anxiety, and he hated that.
Colt had a cousin who suffered from the same condition, and he knew he had an uphill mountain to climb.
He knew it was unlikely that she’d have gotten up the nerve to leave him a note or her number.
Oh, Colt knew he could ask Truck for his sister’s phone number, but for now, he wanted to keep things just between them.
He had a feeling Macie needed some time to process the night before and come to terms with what had happened. He’d give her some space…for now.
But he would see Macie again. He’d felt something between them, and had a feeling she’d felt it too.
Simply holding her in his arms did more for him last night than actually making love to a woman had in the past. He’d loved how she fit against him.
How soft her skin and hair was. He’d loved listening to the sound of her voice.
And he’d especially loved knowing it was his touch that soothed her and the cadence of his voice that had finally lulled her to sleep.
Macie Laughlin had touched something deep inside him. And he wanted to explore whatever it was.
He walked into his closet and changed into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
Then he moved to his door to head downstairs and fix himself some breakfast. Feeling strangely charged, even though Macie had snuck out on him, he opened his bedroom door and pulled it closed with a little too much force.
It slammed shut behind him, and Colt winced.
Shrugging, and glad he wasn’t living in an apartment anymore and his carelessness wouldn’t wake anyone else up, he headed down the stairs toward his kitchen.
Colt never realized that when the door had slammed shut, a slight breeze moved through the room, picking up the note Macie had so nervously written and blowing it to the back side of the table and off the edge.
It slid down to the floor and ended up under the bed with the multitude of dust bunnies that lived there, destined to remain unfound and unread for weeks.
Harley and Coach, two years after the weddings.
“You still want to do this?” Coach asked Harley.
“Absolutely,” she said confidently.
“Then on the count of three,” he said. “One. Two. Three!”
On the last number, he pushed them both out of the plane, and Coach smiled as he heard Harley scream in glee as they plummeted toward the ground.
She’d come a long way since that first jump they’d taken together. Him being hit in the face by a bird was truly a freak accident, and once he’d convinced her to try again, she’d decided she loved it.
Coach monitored their altitude throughout the jump and when it was time, he tapped Harley on the shoulder. She reached back and he helped guide her hand to the parachute cord. They pulled it together, and he laughed when she grunted after being jerked upward by the parachute opening.
They glided toward the ground with Coach steering. They landed without any issues right in the middle of the landing zone.
The second they were on the ground, Coach unclipped her harness from his and turned them until Harley was under him.
Her brown eyes sparkled with life as she smiled up at him.
He loved her even more than he had the day they got married.
She hadn’t changed in the least since that day.
She was still slender, still had the same shoulder-length light brown hair, but her confidence had grown tenfold.
“Like that?” Coach asked.
“Of course,” Harley said. “It was just the thing I needed to get my day started.”
“That and the orgasm, you mean,” Coach corrected with a grin.
“Oh, yeah. Maybe that too.”
Coach tickled her as best he could through the jumpsuit she was wearing. When he took pity on her and let her go, he loved how she clung to him.