“Can you or Everly be there for the arrest? I don’t want her to think she’s all alone.”
Someone called his name, and Ian acknowledged them with a raised hand.
“One of us will be there.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You should get back in the car, keep warm. I’ll be done here in another fifteen minutes.” He lowered cold lips to hers for a gentle kiss. “When I’m done, let’s get a hotel room where Sam and Jamison are staying. We can bring Jamison to our room. He can sleep with us.”
She sobbed a laugh and nodded. “But only after you’ve been to the ER for your knee.”
He smiled. “Deal.”
Gratitude and love and relief pushed tears to her eyes. She stretched up and kissed him again. “I love you so much.”
He returned the kiss. “I love you too, baby.”
19
Six months later.
Ian pulled up to the curb at Ocean Beach in San Diego, where he knew he’d find Savannah and Jamison. It was Friday. After Savannah finished her Friday classes at University of California at San Diego, she always picked up Jamison from school and took him to the beach.
Ian climbed from the car, slipped on his sunglasses, and took a deep breath of the sea air. Every time he returned from a mission, he silently thanked Savannah for choosing such a gorgeous place to relocate. And he added a thank-you to his buddy, Hawk, a Navy SEAL, for letting them live in his town house while he was overseas. It was the only way Savannah could afford to live six blocks from one of the most beautiful beaches in California.
Ian pushed out of his shoes and pulled off his socks, then started down the beach. The sun was warm, the breeze gentle. He’d never lived in California, and he hated the taxes, but after a month here, he decided you got what you paid for. In this case, he saw the extra taxes as payment for blessed weather every damned day.
The beach was crowded today, and Ian wove among the sunbathers as he searched for the telltale polka-dot umbrella Savannah had picked up the very day they’d arrived in town.
When he found it, his heart kicked. He’d only been gone seven days on a security job for a diplomat in Haiti, but whenever he was away from her and Jamison, every day felt a week long.
Savannah and Jamison weren’t under the umbrella. He tossed his shoes on the sand beside their towels. One scan of the beach, and he spotted them at the water’s edge, where Jamison slid into the surf on the skin board Ian had bought him a couple of months ago for his birthday. Savannah stood by, watching him run, jump, slide, and swim. And she was wearing his favorite bikini.
He pulled off his shirt, cleared the pockets of his cargo shorts, and jogged to the water line. Coming up behind Savannah, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her off her feet.
She squealed. “Ian, what are you doing home?”
When he set her down, she turned in his arms, locked her arms around his neck, and pressed her body to his. He kissed her, then looked over her shoulder and spotted Jamison.
“You weren’t supposed to be back for three more days. Everything okay on the job?”
“Fine,” he told her. “The ambassador got called back to the States because of something happening in DC. When I hear I’m getting back to you sooner than I thought, my only answer is always ‘yes, sir.’”
“Welcome home.” She kissed him again, a lingering kiss that made him think of rolling her around the sheets.
“Ian! Watch me.”
He smiled past her shoulder. “Hey, buddy. Lookin’ good out there.”
As soon as Jamison headed toward the surf, Ian kissed his mother again. He slid his hands down her back over the curve of her waist and squeezed her with a growl. “If I wear him out, you think he?
??ll take a nap when we get home? I’m dying to get you alone.”
“He hasn’t taken a nap in years, but go ahead and give it your best shot.”
He kissed her one more time, then jogged into the surf and scooped Jamison up for a hug. “I missed you, kid. How’s school?”
“Good.”
“Can I give the skin board a try?”
He laughed. “Yeah.”