Free Fall (Elite Force #4)(71)
Author: Catherine Mann

Jose stood, fast, sloshing hot coffee onto his finger. “Stella?”

Exhaustion stamped its mark on her face, her clothes wrinkled from sleeping in a chair. She looked like… a worried mother. “She’s awake and asking to see you. The doctor’s checking her over now.”

Thank God.

The knowledge that she was out of the woods damn near took his knees out. Annie must have known because she reached for him, giving his arm a simple squeeze.

Then it hit him. If he married Stella, he got a family along with her. And what do you know? The thought didn’t scare him. It felt… kind of right.

“Thank you.” He offered her his coffee. “I haven’t even touched this yet.”

“Thanks.” She smiled her gratitude.

Her eyes shifted from him to across the hall where her Egyptian friend stood at the nurse’s station. She patted Jose’s hand, leaving him to go to Stella.

Ten steps past the nurse’s station and a rolling cart with lunch trays, he reached Stella’s door as the doctor walked out.

“She is a lucky woman,” the doctor said in broken English before moving on to the next patient.

Right now, he felt like the lucky one.

Jose pushed open her door and God, she was beautiful. But so damn pale her freckles stood out all the more. At least the heart monitor beeped a steady reassurance, even if the bandages on her head and her leg struck a fresh bolt of fear through him.

“Stella, what the hell were you doing out there?” Shit, that wasn’t what he’d meant to say.

But she didn’t bristle. She simply rolled her eyes at him, understanding too well, probably more than he deserved. He charged across the room and kissed her forehead, taking in the warmth of her. Alive. Thank God, alive.

Her fingers stroked the back of his neck. “I was doing my job. Which included saving your ass.”

“You’re a code breaker. A data techie. That’s your job.” He angled back, looking into her glittering green eyes that reminded him of the dewy morning grass of home. “Leave that shoot-out stuff for us security dudes.”

“But I knew something was off when Brown told everyone to go west and he went the other way.” She frowned at the memory, her well-ordered brain always ready to catch a piece of a puzzle that didn’t fit. That was one of many reasons she was so damn good at her job.

“You found the mole and kept sensitive information safe. I would wholeheartedly approve if you hadn’t gotten shot in the process.” The kick to his gut was so damn sharp it was like seeing it happen all over again. “You took doing your job to a whole new level.”

Her hand slid around to caress his unshaven cheek. “My job is to love you, Jose James. That’s the only thing I care about. But you know I’ve spoken before about focusing my work life on code breaking, the desk type, out of the field.”

She was making this too easy for him, which also made it tougher because he wanted to earn her, to be worthy of this amazing woman who’d given him her entire heart.

“Loving you is the scariest damn thing I’ve ever done, Stella.” He kissed her forehead again, then her freckled nose, her mouth, quickly, carefully. “And I do, I love you… so much.”

That point had been hammered home to him in the month he’d spent without her. He’d known then that he wasn’t ready to let her go. But this last week together had been the pressure cooker that stripped everything else away—all his dumb defenses and all his half-baked notions about what he wanted for his future. The only thing that was left was his love for Stella and faith in her. Hell, if this smart, kick-ass woman saw him as a stand-up guy who could take on a family, then by God he could.

“I’m glad to hear it.” She stroked her thumb over his mouth. “I wondered if I was hallucinating when I heard you say that last night.”

No more wasting time. No more running. He was ready to take on the future, with Stella. “Let’s get married.”

She looked at her IV bag quickly, then back at him. “Did I hear you say what I think or are the pain meds messing with my head?”

“Stella, I mean every word. I want us to get married and if you’re not ready to talk about that now, I’ll wait until you’re feeling better. Hell, I’ll wait however long it takes because I’m not giving up on us again.”

“What about your concerns? You have some very real worries and while I believe in you, I don’t take those lightly.” Wary hope flickered through her eyes and he hated that she had to wonder or doubt him.

He lowered the bed rail and sat beside her, cautiously so as not to jostle her. He checked the half-empty bag of fluid and the machine blipping her vitals. Satisfied she was okay, he settled beside her. “I want to be with you. Period. I’m f**king miserable without you.”

“So romantically spoken.” She rested her head against his shoulder, toying with the chain on his dog tags until they slid free from under his T-shirt.

“But from the heart. And actually, it’s the logical, practical truth, just the way you like it.” He clasped her hand and pressed it against his chest right over his pulse pounding for her. “When I’m with you, I don’t fear the future anymore. I want it all, as long as we’re together.”

She started to answer but he needed to tell her everything. He wanted her to understand how much peace she brought him.

“Before you say anything, I’m willing to revisit the issue of kids.”

Her eyes went wide with shock, and she wasn’t blinking anything, much less Morse code. “I’m listening.”

This part was still tough for him to wrap his brain around, but it was getting easier. And he had faith now that he could be a part of a healthy relationship, with Stella. “I would just ask that we wait to have children until I’m out of the field so there would be less pressure on… our family.”

Was it wishful thinking, or did some color flood back into her cheeks? She looked so damn happy she practically glowed.

“That sounds good, really good.” Her fingers caressed along his heart, grasping a handful of his shirt. “After what I’ve been through with my mother, you won’t hear any argument from me on that part. Are you sure, though? I don’t want you to make spur-of-the-moment promises because of what happened last night.”

“It’s not spur-of-the-moment. It’s been a slow and steady build to the realization that I’m not my mother or my sister. I’ve been through the worst stress imaginable in the last month and a half, and I haven’t thought of taking a drink.” He rubbed his cheek gently against the top of her head on the uninjured side. “I’ve only thought of you and how to make you happy.”