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Besides, I’ve been busy since he left on this trip. Daydreaming over tiny onesies…and poring over lists of baby names.

But he has no idea. Not yet.

Today, he helps a different soldier off the plane, not needing help himself, thankfully. And then, from across the crowd, he spots me, and his beautiful blue eyes light up bright and hot.

He makes his way across the tarmac to me and I make my way to him. We still haven’t quite figured out how to do this, being in love, being a couple, but still somehow being siblings in our own way. He scoops me up in his arms in a very brotherly, very protective way, and I wrap my arms around him tight.

“Fuck,” he growls into my ear.

“Welcome home,” I whisper back.

He twirls me there, just a little too long for a brother and sister with or without the ‘step’ part, but nobody notices, wrapped up as they are in one another, in the relief of having their soldiers home.

“You should probably put me down,” I whisper. “Before people start talking.”

He growls again, a noise offuck all of them, but he knowsI’m right. He and I agreed before he left; for this tour, we’d keep up the pretense. But now that he’s home, we’ll find somewhere new to start over.

He puts me down, eyes darting to make sure we aren’t being watched or heard. “I can’t fucking wait for it to be just the two of us.”

I bite my lip and look up at him, smiling into the sun. And then lean in to whisper, “Make that three,” and I place my hand on my belly.

His eyes snap to mine, hard and sharp. Disbelief, joy, amazement. All the emotions tumble through his beautiful eyes to me in an instant, in the way you can only understand someone so immediately because you’ve known them all your life.

“Kat, are you?” His eyes dart back and forth between mine like he isn’t sure where to look.

I nod up at him. “Found out the day after you left. I decided not to tell you on Zoom because I wanted to see your face. I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, and you’re coming with.”

He looks so overjoyed, so overwhelmed, and for the first time in my life I see tears in his beautiful eyes. Seeing him cry makes me cry, and before I know it I can’t keep the tears back at all.

He chokes back a sob, pinching the bridge of his nose, his brow cinched, and my heart breaks and swells simultaneously.

He wraps his arm around me again and we walk to the car. He bought me a big Pearl White Yukon Delani SUV before he left, with all the bells and whistles. I unlock the doors with the remote and he scans the parking lot. He opens the back door, behind the driver’s seat, and then with one big hand on each of my hips, lifts me into the back seat, so my legs dangle out toward him.

And then, with his broad shoulders and his muscles and his perfect body so chiseled and strong, sinks down to his knees with his face resting in my lap.

“I have a surprise for you, too,” he says, his deep voicevibrating against that special spot between my legs, making me think of othersurpriseswe might give each other right now.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Baby, it’s fucking fate.”

“What’s fate?” I laugh, puzzled, as he looks up into my eyes, then reaches into his pocket and brings out a small box.

“I wanted to do this the moment I got back, and with the news you just shared… Fuck… I mean,fuck, could this be a more perfect moment? We’re going to get married, babygirl. You and me.”

He snaps open the box, and rather than bursting into tears, I start to giggle uncontrollably. I grab it out of his hands and don’t wait for him to put the ring on my finger, sliding it on myself instead. He didn’t ask. There was no question. Just a statement of fact. We’re going to get married.

There’s no fight left in me. He’s fucked and loved it all out of me. “All right. I accept,” I tell him, still giggling as I turn my hand back and forth, admiring the way dime sized pink diamond glints in the light.

The tears just fall right down his tanned, wind-burnt cheeks. He presses his lips to my soft belly and wraps his arms around me. “I didn’t know I could ever be this happy, Kitty Kat.”

I pull him close, savoring the familiar sensation of his stubble on my skin now. On the soft flesh of my inner forearm, under my fingertips. “I love you,” I whisper.

“Fuck,” he whispers back. “I love you, too. More than life itself.”

Twenty-Five

Trent