He got breakfast on the table and went back for the coffee, pouring half-and-half in Vicki’s and leaving his black. When he turned toward the table again, he found a small gift bag sitting beside his plate. “What’s that?”
Shit.
Had he forgotten an anniversary or something?
Vicki smiled, an excited sparkle in her eyes. “Open it and see.”
He handed Vicki her coffee, took a sip of his own, and sat. “Is it a new cam?”
Vicki laughed as if he’d said something stupid. “No. You don’t trust me to buy you climbing gear, remember?”
“Oh. Right.” He took the bag, reached inside, and searched through the tissue paper, his hand closing around something small and oblong that was made of hard plastic.
He drew it out—and stared.
Heart thudding, he met Vicki’s gaze, saw the joy in her eyes. “This is… Are you?”
She nodded. “I’m pregnant.”
A pang of tenderness filled his chest. She’d had such a rough time with Caden, twenty-six hours of labor ending with an emergency C-section. Eric wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d refused even to consider having another baby and demanded he get a vasectomy.
“But … how?”
She laughed. “You know how. You were there.”
That’s not what he’d meant. “It took so long with Caden, and you only went off the pill last month. I thought it would take six months, maybe a year.”
“I guess we’ve gotten better at making babies because we nailed it on the first try.”
“Well, that takes some of the fun out of it.” Eric meant that as a joke, but the moment his words were out, he saw that Vicki hadn’t taken it that way.
Good job, dumb shit. Any other stupid things you’d like to say?
“That was just a stupid joke.” He reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “How are you feeling?”
She’d had terrible morning sickness with Caden.
“Fine so far.” Her smile returned, but there was a hint of vulnerability in those brown eyes now. “Are you happy?”
“God, yes! I’m elated, stunned. I’m so excited that I’m acting like an idiot.” Eric got out of his chair and knelt before her, taking her hands in his, and kissing them. “I love you, Vicki. Because of you, I’m the happiest man on earth. Never doubt that.”
Behind him on the counter, his pager went off.
He got to his feet, crossed the room, scrolled through the message, not liking what he read, but not surprised either.
“What is it?” Vicki asked.
“Another red flag warning.” They’d had red flag warnings every day for the past ten days thanks to this endless dry, hot, windy weather.
The mountains that surrounded Scarlet were in prime condition to burn.
Marc Hunter toweledhis hair dry, wrapped the towel around his waist, and stepped out of the bathroom into the bedroom. He headed to the walk-in closet he shared with Sophie and tossed a navy-blue Denver Police Department polo and a pair of dark green tactical cargo pants onto the nearby chair.
Today, he and Julian Darcangelo were heading up to Scarlet Springs, a weird little mountain town known for its good beer, to take part in a joint training exercise with the US Marshals Service and other law enforcement agencies. The exercise was intended to foster interagency cooperation or some shit, but Marc had signed on as a way to escape the heat and spend a day in the mountains with friends.
He and Darcangelo had known each other for eight years now, both of them employed by the DPD—Darcangelo as head of vice and Marc as SWAT captain. Okay, so that’s not how they’d met. Marc had been an escaped convict at the time, and Darcangelo had hunted his ass down and brought him in.
It had been the start of a beautiful friendship.