My baby.
He couldn’t stop the spread of joy.
“I thought you deserved to know.”
The fire tonight hadn’t just put her life at risk. It had put their baby’s life at risk, too.
“Looks like you’re going to be a father,” she whispered, and she stepped back from him.
He didn’t know what to say. In that heavy silence, her lips trembled and she gave a little nod. Then she was walking away, heading into the guest room. Of course, Sydney knew where his guest room was. She’d been in his condo many times over the past two years, and the place always felt better, brighter, when she was there.
“Looks like you’re going to be a father.” Her words rang in his ears.
In that instant, he thought of his own father—the way the guy hadn’t been able to get away from him fast enough. His father had ditched him and hadn’t looked back.
He’d ditched Slade, too. Gunner’s grandfather had taken him in. Had raised them both, in that house with the threadbare carpet and the sagging roof. His grandfather had taught them to fish, hunt and hike.
They hadn’t had much money. No fancy clothes or cars.
But...
Grandfather took care of me. Loved me.
Gunner sucked in a deep breath and wondered about his own child. The child that was so small now, barely more than a dream, growing inside Sydney.
Girl? Boy? Would she have Sydney’s smile? His eyes?
“Looks like you’re going to be a father.”
His hands were clenched into fists. He would be a father, but he would not be like his old man. He would not abandon his child.
Never.
* * *
SYDNEY’S EYES FLEW open as the last of the nightmare ripped through her mind. “Gunner!” His name tore from her, even though she was more asleep than awake. But she could still see the nightmare. The flames coming for her, trapping her.
And the baby.
Gunner burst into the room, flipping on the lights. He had a gun in his hand and his body was tight with tension. “Sydney?” He searched the room, looking for a threat.
But there was no threat here.
Only a fading nightmare.
She sucked in a deep breath. What was happening to her? “Sorry. Bad dream.” He’d been in the dream. He’d died trying to get her out of that fire. She’d watched him burn.
Then she’d been alone with the flames.
Her hands fisted around the covers.
Gunner took a steadying breath of his own, then carefully put the gun down on the nightstand. “Want to talk about it?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine now.”
He stared at her, then gave a slow nod. “Aren’t you always?”
Sydney wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean.
“I’m...sorry, for earlier,” he said gruffly.
Her head tilted back. “You mean when you got all quiet and looked like you might run from the room?”
His eyes widened. “I didn’t.”
Okay, he hadn’t fled. His face had just gotten even harder, even darker.
“You know...my father abandoned me and Slade.”
Yes, she knew.
“My mother died when I was two, so it was just me and my grandfather for a long time. I used to...used to see the other kids with their dads, and I was so damn jealous.”
She held her body perfectly still. Gunner didn’t talk about his past much. Neither did Slade. Slade had just told her once that his childhood had been a waste, that he’d never go back to a life like that.
She hadn’t pushed him for more. If his past was painful—if Gunner’s past was painful—then she didn’t want to be the one stirring up old wounds.
“Gunner, you don’t have to tell me—”
“Yes, I do. You’re having my baby. You deserve to know everything about me.” He came toward the bed, hesitated, then sat down beside her, immediately taking up so much space and making her feel hyperaware of him.
What else was new, though? She always seemed to be hyperaware of him.
“Until I was ten, I kept hoping that one day he’d come back. That he’d realize he wanted me and Slade. That he would try to make us into a family.”
Her heart ached because she could only imagine the pain he’d felt then.
“But at ten, on my birthday, when another year passed and there was no letter, no phone call, I knew it wasn’t happening. He didn’t care about me. He never would.”
She reached for his hand and twined her fingers through his. “That’s his loss.”
“That’s what my grandfather said.” The ghost of a smile lifted his lips. “But when you’re ten and your father can’t be bothered to find out if you’re alive or dead, it can still make you feel worthless.”
“You’re not—”
His fingers pulled from hers and then pressed over the covers that shielded her stomach. “I don’t ever want this baby to feel the way I did.”
She had to blink away tears. “She won’t.” She? He?
“I don’t want to be like him.”
“You aren’t.” He had to see that.
“I want to be there, in this baby’s life.”
Why hadn’t she told him sooner? This man before her, the man whose fingers were trembling as he stroked her stomach, he wasn’t a man who’d run from fatherhood. He was a man who seemed to want it almost desperately.
“I don’t want the baby to feel... I don’t want the baby to be like me.”
He was breaking her heart. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled Gunner down onto the bed with her. She just...held him. “This baby is wanted. Loved already.”
He held her tighter.
She hadn’t expected this from Gunner. He’d—
He kissed her. She shouldn’t kiss him back, not with everything that was going on between them, but she did.
Because she still wanted him.
The nightmare memory of his death was too strong in her mind.
So her lips parted beneath his. She tasted him as he tasted her. The kiss wasn’t rough or wild, but sensual and heavy with need.
As if he were savoring her.
Her body shifted restlessly against his. She’d thought about him so many nights in the past few weeks. Every night. Wanted, and been afraid that she’d never have him close like this again.
It had just taken the little matter of fire and near death to get them together again.
He kept kissing her. He held her carefully, as if he were worried that she’d break.
She was the one to push down the boxers that he wore. She was the one to stroke his body.