Epilogue #3
“I love you,” Harley said.
“Love you back. Are you ready for today?”
“Yes. There’s no way they’ll turn me down,” Harley said with confidence. “I’ve been carrying the This is War line for years. If they want me to keep working there, they’ll have to pay for the privilege.”
Coach loved how passionate Harley was for her job. She loved creating the video games. But when one of her games had been altered significantly to make it unnecessarily violent, after she’d submitted the final code, she’d lost it.
They didn’t have children, a mutual decision, but Harley was more than aware of how kids were being desensitized to violence through social media and games like the ones she designed.
She’d found the nerve to tell the president of the company that if he didn’t rewrite her contract to say that she was the only person who could approve changes to the final product, and give her a hefty raise in the meantime, she’d quit and go work for his biggest competitor.
Coach knew she’d have no problem doing just that too.
It wasn’t a bluff. Harley was good. More than good.
She’d continued to learn a lot throughout her career and she was the best programmer the company had.
Bar none. She’d also gotten a lot more confident over the years.
Coach attributed that to being happy, and to having kick-ass female friends who always had each other’s backs and celebrated each other’s successes rather than tearing each other down.
Today was her meeting with her boss, and the president of the company. They’d either give her what she wanted or she was out of there.
“Are you up for some breakfast before you have to call in?” Coach asked.
Harley worked remotely, which allowed her to stay home with their cat and two dogs all day. Many times he’d come home to her sitting on the couch with a dog on either side of her, the cat draped over her shoulders, and her fingers moving with the speed of light over her keyboard.
“Of course,” she said. “Omelet with all the good shit I like?” she asked.
“As if I’d make you anything else,” Coach told her. “What did Davidson and Montesa say last night? Are they good?” He truly liked her siblings, and was always interested in what they were doing.
“Oh, yeah. Montesa is heading off to St. Thomas on vacation today. She told me to call her after my meeting to let her know how it went.”
“Her husband finally convinced his workaholic wife to go?”
Harley smiled. “Yup. Crazy, huh?”
“Absolutely. And Davidson?”
“He offered to beat up the president if he didn’t give me what I wanted,” Harley said with a laugh.
“Sounds like something he’d do.”
“Thank you for giving me everything I didn’t know I was missing in life,” Harley said as she brought up a hand and curled it around the back of Coach’s neck.
“You’re welcome, Harl. Anything you want is yours.”
“Anything?” she said with an arched brow.
Coach pressed his hips into her belly, letting her feel his erection. “Anything,” he said.
“You know what adrenaline does to me,” Harley said coyly, peering at him from beneath lowered lashes.
Coach had her up and walking toward her Highlander before she knew what was happening. She giggled and gathered up the parachute trailing behind them as they walked. “In a hurry?” she asked.
“If you want to have time to eat before your call, yeah.”
Coach was aware they had plenty of time. Even though he’d had her that morning, he knew he wouldn’t last more than a couple minutes the second he got inside her. She always did that to him. Every time they made love, it felt like coming home.
On their way to the parking lot, he held out his hand and sighed in contentment when she took it. “Love you, Harl.”
“Love you too.”
They both smiled all the way home.
Chase and Sadie, three years after the weddings.
Chase sat at his desk and looked over at his wife. Sadie was in the conference room with a potential customer. She was always the one to conduct the initial meetings with the women who came inquiring about their services.
A year ago, he’d chaptered out of the Army, and even though his friends had told him he’d be sorry, he hadn’t regretted one second of his decision.
He and Sadie had opened a branch of her famous uncle’s bodyguard services here in the Fort Hood area.
With his background in investigations, Chase was easily able to discover information on the exes of their clients.
They had a staff of four men who rotated through jobs, and Sadie did most of the paperwork in the office, especially now that she was pregnant with their first child.
Chase supervised the bodyguards and occasionally offered backup when needed.
Chase still had a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that he was going to be a father. He’d watched his sister get married and have babies, and had enjoyed being an uncle, but it was completely different knowing he’d have a son of his own soon.
Sadie patted the distraught woman on the shoulder and awkwardly stood up, her eight-months-pregnant belly preventing her from moving anywhere quickly anymore.
He met her at the door to the conference room and put his arm under her elbow to help balance her as she waddled to the leather chair in the corner of his office.
She’d long since stopped sitting at her desk, as it was uncomfortable for her.
“Is she okay?” Chase asked.
Sadie nodded. “She will be.”
“I guess we’ve got a new client then?”
Sadie smiled. “Yup. She has two kids and is scared her ex is gonna try to snatch them and take them back to Kuwait, where he’s from.”
“Roger is between jobs right now. I’ll get him on it. You have the ex’s information for me so I can start researching?”
“Yup.”
Chase leaned down and kissed the tip of his wife’s nose. “Relax for a bit while I get her home and check out the security at her place. You’ll be all right for a while?”
She shook her head at him in exasperation. “Yeah, Chase. I think I’ll be fine here by myself for ten minutes until Rayne stops by and collects me for lunch.”
Chase didn’t even care Sadie had realized three months ago that anytime he couldn’t be with her, he’d arranged for one of their friends or his sister to be by her side. The last thing he wanted was her going into premature labor or getting hurt when he wasn’t there to help her.
He wasn’t going to tell her that her uncle was also keeping tabs on her with an invisible app he’d installed on her phone.
“Nothing’s going to happen,” she said softly, running her hand over her belly. “We’ve made it this far, we’re fine.”
The worst day in Chase’s life was the day a year and a half ago when Sadie had miscarried their child. He had only been ten weeks old, and it hammered home how fragile life was…and how precious.
“Of course you are. Call me if you need anything,” Chase ordered as he stood and began to gather the things he needed to assess their new client’s safety at her home.
“Hand me my laptop?” Sadie asked.
He did.
“And my cell?”
Chase happily retrieved that from the edge of his desk.
“Can you get me a bottle of water before you go too?”
With a smile, Chase walked over to the small fridge in the corner of the office and pulled out a water for her. He also grabbed a serving of string cheese, and a piece of chocolate cake left over from the night before that he’d brought into the office, just in case.
Sadie smiled up at him as he handed her everything.
“Anything else?” he asked, having no problem fetching things for her.
“No, I’m good now. Thanks.”
Without a word, Chase pulled the small ottoman over and picked up her feet and placed them on it. He made sure the blanket on the back of the chair was within reach and he scooted the small table next to her chair so she could reach it better.
“You’re too good to me,” Sadie said.
“Never,” Chase vowed, then kissed her one more time before standing and heading out. He stopped in the doorway and looked back at her. “I’ll spend the rest of my days doing any and everything to make your life, and that of our son, perfect.” Then he blew her a kiss and left.
Truck and Mary, five years after the weddings.
“Are you ready?” Truck asked his wife.
Mary didn’t take her eyes away from the doorway as she nodded her head eagerly.
They were in Banbasa, India, a little over two hundred miles east of Delhi. Before meeting with the adoption agency, they’d never heard of the small town, much less the orphanage named The Good Shepherd.
At first, Mary had been opposed to having any children, or even pets. She was deathly afraid the cancer would return. But after a year had passed and she’d gotten the all-clear from her doctors, then two years, then three, she began to make comments in passing about children and how cute they were.
Truck had finally sat her down and point blank asked her if she wanted kids.
She’d cried but admitted that she hadn’t thought she did.
After her awful upbringing and experiences, she was afraid that she wouldn’t know how to be a good mother.
But after spending a lot of time with her friends’ children, she realized how much she wanted to have a family.
They’d had several conversations with her doctor, and while he said her having kids wasn’t impossible, there were risks. They’d decided to adopt.
“Do you think they’ll like us?” Mary asked fretfully.
“Eventually, yes,” Truck said, and took her hand in his as they waited for the employees to bring their children into the room.
“But I also think it’ll take a while. You know they’ve had a hard life so far.
As good as this orphanage is, it’s still not like a home.
There are people who look after the children here, but we were warned that they might be standoffish. They won’t understand what’s going on.”
“We sent that photo album with our pictures,” Mary said, looking up at Truck with big eyes. “Maybe they’ll recognize us.”