Nashville SEAL: SEAL Brotherhood: Nashville SEALs by Sharon Hamilton Page B

wasn’t fair you had to go through all that alone.”
    She inhaled deep and then spewed it out. “I’m not lying, it was hard. Nearly broke my father’s heart, too, when I told him I wasn’t going to see you and make any claims. He thought you’d want to know. I think that’s probably why I’m here tonight. Whatever happens, Jameson, I’m glad I had her. She is the love of my life. She doesn’t have to be a part of yours. That’s not why I’m here. I just wanted you to know.”
    She stood up to go.
    “Wait. You’ve just come here and tell me this? Now you want to leave?”
    “Of course. I never came to rekindle anything we really didn’t have in the first place, Jameson.”
    “We spent a wonderful week together, Lizzie. It was special for me.” He walked over to her and pulled her into his arms. “Lizzie, I was crazy about you. Do you know I wrote songs about you?”
    She accepted his embrace, but didn’t intensify it. “I’ve wondered about that. Anyway, thanks for being such a good sport.”
    “Good sport? Are you kidding? I’m a father.”
    “But not if you don’t want to be.”
    “Not a question of what I want. I am a father.” He pulled back, placing his fingers under her chin and lifting her lips to his, and whispered to her softly, “thank you. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.” Their lips touched, and as they rubbed against each other, he remembered the spark that had become that beautiful bonfire between them.
    “My folks were wonderful. They loved her, right up until the day they died. They were killed in a car accident two years ago. It’s taken me this long to adjust, get my affairs in order, and then I knew I had to face this. I wasn’t sure I’d be strong enough to see you disappointed or angry with me.”
    “How could I ever be disappointed, Lizzie? Just not possible.”
    He would have made moves on her, perhaps try to encourage her to stay, but he didn’t want to manipulate her. She’d already suffered with the consequences of his poor decisions earlier. He certainly didn’t trust himself now. But he knew he didn’t want her to walk out of his life again.
    “Stay. Stay with me tonight, Lizzie. No sex. I’m not asking that. Just let me hold you? Please?”
    In the awkward silence, after he’d asked her for the third time, she agreed.
    She left her underwear on, and he left his red, white, and blue boxers on. He slipped under the covers in the darkness, and she came to him, fitting perfectly in his arms. He kissed her forehead and felt the tears flow down onto his shoulder when she lay her head against him. His thigh touched hers in a natural movement she didn’t pull away from. Unforced, his arms encircling her, holding her shaking body, he was at peace with the world, and suddenly grounded like he’d never been before.
    It had been a day of firsts and was continuing to be so. Everything about today had been unexpected. And now he was a father.
    Would he be able to stretch his heart to include her, as well as the woman in his arms who had borne him that child? He knew his life would never be the same.

Chapter 8
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    S he woke up alone in a strange-smelling bed, knowing it wasn’t hers. And then she remembered. Morning sunlight streaked through the window to her right. The chair in the corner was in shadows, and someone was sitting there in a pair of red, white, and blue boxers, bare chested.
    Jameson.
    She didn’t move a muscle, just let the view of him wash over her, felt her heartbeat faster. He was in repose, with one leg crossed over his other knee, left hand playing an imaginary keyboard on the arm of the overstuffed chair, his right bent at the elbow, long fingers moving slowly back and forth across his lips, his eyes calculating, searching something he saw or something inside him. She wasn’t sure he could tell she’d opened her eyes, but she deliciously stole the seconds watching him in the early morning light.
    She hoped he was thinking about her, but