LITMIR.BIZ

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had in nearly four years. He had hardly been able to comprehend the blue skies and sunshine overhead, and the fresh air against his skin had been almost painful.

      And so beautiful he’d actually wept as he walked down the path to medical help and a series of debriefing meetings, counseling, hand-holding, more debriefing, exercising, recovering his strength.

      And finally, after one brief phone call announcing his arrival, home.

      Home.

      The hot air surrounding him suddenly cooled, chilling his wet skin. Blake blinked again. Less painfully this time. His eyes came back to his surroundings and focused on the friendly lighting in a kitchen in River Bluff, Texas.

      And he saw Annie sitting not two feet away from him, tears streaming down her face.

      “I… TELL ME ABOUT IT, Blake. About what happened to you.” Dry-eyed now, Annie tried to reconnect with the man she’d once loved with all her heart. He sipped his wine. Acted as if he hadn’t just given her more of himself in five minutes than he’d given her during their entire marriage.

      He shrugged. “There’s not much to tell that you don’t already know. I was among a small group of American and British civilians taken captive by a rogue band of bin Laden supporters who hoped to gain his approval by offering him human bargaining tools.”

      She, and a lot of other people, knew the political part. The official explanation for innocent people losing years of their lives to terrorist factions.

      “You were in captivity for four years, Blake. What was it like?”

      “Not as bad as it could have been,” he said at last. “We were never tortured.”

      The words hinted at something that remained unsaid, and Annie shivered.

      “Holding someone against their will is torture.” She dared to push him, which was something she wouldn’t have done six years before. She’d begged once. And that had netted her nothing but a husband who was presumed dead, and a miscarriage that had nearly cost her her sanity.

      Talk to me, Blake. Her pleas were silent now. For once in your life, give me even a small bit of all that you hold so deeply inside of you.

      He stood. “I’m sorry to have kept you so long,” he said, pushing the folding chair back up to the card table. He set down his glass. “I came to talk to you about this…thing you intend to do.”

      He’d come to tell her no, and she didn’t want to hear it—not right then. Not when her feelings were so raw, her heart still breaking at the thought of her proud, loyal, private-to-the-point-of-breaking-her-heart husband locked away all alone in some cell in the Middle East, imagining their nonexistent child at her breast.

      “It’s okay.”

      His brows raised, he glanced down at her. “You’ve changed your mind?”

      “No. I just…”

      “In that case, I agree.”

      AS SOON AS HE HEARD himself say the words, Blake turned around and walked out of Annie’s kitchen. Out of her house. And her life.

      He drove for an hour, but without leaving River Bluff. Past the Cross Fox Ranch, which was the home of the Carricks, a father-andson duo who cared deeply for each other while struggling to see who each had become in the time Brady had been gone. Around town, and then out to see Luke Chisum, another of the gang of poker players who had taken him on as one of their own.

      Blake had only met Luke the month before. And he figured he’d probably never know the real man behind the happy-faced guy who sat at the table and joked with men he’d known his whole life. Luke hadn’t had an easy time of it. Still wasn’t, from what little Blake had gathered from things left unsaid at the table. Not only had Luke come home to help his mother care for his father, who’d had a stroke, but there were problems with an older brother, too.

      Blake could relate. His homecoming hadn’t been the best, either.

      The Lincoln found its way past the old bar outside of town where the Wild Bunch played their weekly poker games. It reminded Blake of his life—once filled with love and promise and friendship, and now run-down, a shambles.

      He went by Cole’s place, too. Sat at the end of the drive of the half-built dream house that his recently divorced friend and ex-brother-in-law was slowly finishing on his own. Blake thought about knocking on the door. Thought about it, but didn’t do it.

      Instead, with more doubt in his heart than anything else, he somehow found himself back outside the house Annie and her second husband had bought together. Lived in together.

      The home she’d gone back to the day she’d picked up Blake from the airport in San Antonio and driven him to the hotel where she’d booked him a room, leaving him with a bank account containing a quarter of a million dollars, keys to his deceased uncle’s car, and a hole where his heart had been.

      He climbed the steps more slowly this time around. Knocked. And knocked again.

      When she didn’t answer, he tried the door. It had been latched earlier, but hardly anyone in River Bluff locked their doors. Blake wasn’t surprised now whenAnnie’s door swung open.

      And he didn’t even think twice when he stepped inside, moving slowly through the rooms, listening for any sound that might tell him where he’d find her.

      The house gave away nothing. He took in the nearly empty living room and a bedroom-turned-office, with a desk that matched her kitchen table.

      Passed a bathroom and moved on down the hallway to another bedroom, not sure what to expect. And that’s where he found her. Sitting on the floor in the middle of the most exquisite room he’d ever seen.

      Annie might not have done a thing with the rest of her living space, but the room she’d created for the baby she hoped to have could easily have been featured in a magazine.

      She glanced up. Met his gaze. Didn’t seem all that surprised to see him there, again, uninvited.

      “We have to talk.” He’d never been much for pretty words, and this time was no different.

      Pulling her knees to her chest, Annie wrapped her arms around them and nodded.

      He’d come back to tell her that he’d misspoken earlier. That he couldn’t father her child. For all the obvious reasons. And for one she would have no way of knowing.

      Contrary to what her brother, Cole, thought, Blake didn’t fit her criteria. First and foremost, Annie was looking for a man who was emotionally stable. Strong.

      And Blake Smith was no such thing.

      SHE TRIED TO LOOK AT HIM, to face life head-on. But instead she could only stare at the rainbow mural painted on the wall opposite the hand-carved wooden crib she’d found in a little shop outside of Waco.

      “We need to decide how we’re going to go about doing this.”

      Blake’s words were so matter-of-fact, so ludicrous, when she considered that they hadn’t seen each other in two years, and before that had been separated for four. And were now, with barely a hello, discussing sharing their sperm and eggs.

      She wasn’t going to sleep with him. She couldn’t.

      “Have you changed your mind?”

      His question made her think.

      “Because if you’ve decided you don’t want a baby after all, I’d be—”

      “No!” She’d not meant to speak so sharply. “I want the baby.”

      More than anything. She was completely sure of that.

      “You just don’t want me to be the father.” He’d always been a smart man.

      And had managed to miss such key things at the same time.

      “I

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