CHAPTER25
Sig
“You just had to go and ruin it didn’t you?” I asked with a sigh. “You couldn’t wait even a few hours to talk her into it.”
Rafe just shrugged as he sat staring at the fire. Colby was still inside the tent and we hadn’t heard anything from her in over an hour. “She’ll get over it.” That’s all the justification he needed. He was right, she would. In turn he would be emboldened to be more controlling.
Arsen shook his head, but he chuckled. “She’s going to make you suffer for that before she forgives you. Hope it was worth it.”
Rafe didn’t even have the decency to look the least bit ashamed. “I don’t know what came over me. It just…pissed me off. It doesn’t belong in her.”
“A birth control implant? Its presence is enough to offend you?” I asked in amazement.
“I… Yeah.” He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I’ve been thinking about this. The more I think, the more I realize I want a life with her. Us, to have a life with her. That thing is just another obstacle to that.”
“We all want that, Rafe,” Arsen agreed.
“Thinking of not having kids with her… It sort of made me snap.”
“She’s right, though. This isn’t exactly the best place for her to be pregnant,” I pointed out.
“There are midwives here,” he replied.
“And if she needs more?” Arsen asked. “If we’re attacked while she’s round and barely mobile?”
“Then we’ll say fuck the mission, give the money back to the shit stains who hired us, and take her home. We’ll find a new home, or take one if we have to. I’m not giving her up. I want kids. With her. If that means we’re done with this life, then so be it.”
We sat in stunned silence, Rafe was speechless at the words that he’d spoken, as we were. Hope took a stranglehold on my heart. It wasn’t something we’d been looking for, but when Colby had come into our lives so had all these feelings. “I want that, too,” I admitted.
We had never considered leaving this life, prior to Colby. I’d never thought of retirement or anything in the future really. Just finish the mission and get on another. Now, all of this, without her, just felt empty.
“Same,” Arsen said with a sigh. He glanced over his shoulder at the tent. “Think she’ll stay mad long?”
“Oh yeah,” I said with a laugh. “This crazy asshole just came at her with a knife. And used it. The next few hours, or days, promise to be entertaining.”
Rafe’s lips twisted into a grin at the insult.
Arsen shook his head again. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” I responded. Rafe was the only one who didn’t care if she was pissed off. Arsen and I preferred her smiling at us to slinging curses our way.
She was fast asleep when we crawled into bed with her. We weren’t standing watch as diligently. Rafe hadn’t come across anyone on his way out or back into our base camp. The mountains stood, silent sentries guarding our location, keeping us from being discovered. It meant we got to relax a little and get more sleep than we were used to.
I checked Colby’s wounds, the cut on her collarbone was healing nicely. She didn’t stir as we arranged ourselves around her.
* * *
The next morning,I awoke as she did. The other two were still asleep. “Morning,” I tried.
Her look was as baleful and grumpy as Ayad’s. Rafe’s camel was the grumpiest being I’d ever met—he even overshadowed his master—and I never thought I’d see anyone else who could skewer you with a single look, until now.
She dressed and shoved her way out of the tent, ignoring me as I followed after her. She puttered around the camp, giving herself a quick scrub, off in the corner, preparing more of the meat she’d made last night as I stoked the fire. The entire time, she was silent.
“Am I in trouble, too?” I finally asked.
She turned her head slowly and gave me a look of utter disbelief. “Yeah, Sig. You are.”
Despite the venom in her tone, I was glad she was speaking to me. “To be fair-”