"Danny, think. I told you I love you. And I know you love me, too, even if you can't push the words out. I hear you, anyway. I only asked for space." She knocked on his forehead. "Hello? Why does it have to be all or nothing, black or white with you?"
"Seems pretty clear cut to me. Yeah, you're right." He said the damn words, ridiculous to hide from them, anyway. "I love you, too. So either you want to marry me or you don't."
The words burned his throat, but they were out there like a big purple polka-dot elephant between them they'd been trying to ignore all morning.
"It's not as simple as a ring and love, or everything would have worked out eleven years ago. Why are you just assuming that if my timetable doesn't fit yours I must not want you at all? Maybe I want to take the next two months and go ice fishing."
"Do you?"
"No. Maybe. I don't know. And that's my whole point. You're pushing too hard, too fast for me right now. I'm not like you, feet-first jumping in. All I'm asking is that we table this discussion, and then take it slow once we get back to it again. Okay?">But marriage. Kid. Love. That had him cricking his tense neck to the side.
Four days. He kicked through the clear waters, deeper, until there was nowhere left to go, and still he could hear her declaration of love echo in his ears. Same words he'd heard his parents say to each other.
Damned if he'd seen any example of love lasting.
He preferred what he and Mary Elise had and he didn't want to screw it up. Crap. He was acting like a whiny kid rather than an adult. Get it together, Baker.
Daniel kicked upward, snagging Mary Elise and drawing them both to the surface. "Gotcha."
"What do you plan to do with me, Danny?"
"This." He drew her closer, brushed her bikini-clad br**sts against his bare chest, eliciting a rewarding purr. He cupped a breast—fuller, more sensitive. The pregnancy thing had definite side benefits, like the visit from the oh-so-generous Breast Fairy.
"Danny," Mary Elise panted against his mouth.
"Pool house, or take a drive and park. Your choice, but make the decision fast. "He prayed for the pool house. Closer. Sooner.
She stiffened against him. "Danny, I'm not feeling too good. Something's wrong…"
Daniel struggled to pull himself awake. Awake? But he was in the pool with Mary Elise.
Reality and dreams mussed. He wanted out of the pool or the dream or wherever the hell he was before the rest of the events unfolded: Mary Elise wrapping an arm around her stomach, a drive in the car that hadn't led to parking but instead to the emergency room.
He forced his feet to keep treading water as if that could stave off the end, keep them both from moving to the end of everything. Their baby. Them.
Water churned around them, someone else in the pool, beneath, drawing near Mary Elise to take her, blasting to the surface…
Kent McRae.
Daniel bolted upright on the sofa.
Dragging a hand over his face, he shook off the nightmare fog.
Mary Elise sat cross-legged on the floor beside him, hands in her lap, emerald eyes wide with worry. "Are you okay?"
He nodded, throat still too tight for talk. Swinging his boots to the floor with a thud, he braced his elbows on his knees and sucked in air, steadied his heartbeat. He kept his hands clasped between his knees rather than gathering Mary Elise hard against his chest to feel her warm and alive against him. "I'm fine."
"Bad dreams suck."
Leave it to Mary Elise not to let him dodge the issue by pretending. "Yep."
"You've had a lot on your plate lately, too, not just the boys, but losing your father, not even being able to make the memorial service for closure."
Death wasn't high on his list of topics for discussion, the word riding too hard on the heels of a time he'd thought Mary Elise might die. The doctor may have called it a routine, first trimester miscarriage. But the doctor hadn't been the one carrying her across the yard to the car while she cried in pain.
Daniel stared at his clenched hands and remembered the weight of Mary Elise in his arms. His father had met him at the emergency room, silent but there. Odd how he'd forgotten that part over the years. "I'll always regret that he and I didn't have a chance to talk."
"Life can change so fast. And when I think of how close I came to being in the car with him that day…"