God, I loved him. Every screwed up, quirky thing about him got to me in the best way possible. “You do understand you’re being romantic right now?” I told him.
“I’m not sure the world can handle my flavor of romantic. Let’s hope it doesn’t increase my body count.”
He wasn’t exaggerating all that much. His flavor of romantic was possessive to the point of violence. God help any man that stood too close to me while Heath was watching.
It was definitely a rough edge of his that I had to work hard on softening.
Which was hypocritical of me. I had a jealous streak where he was concerned that was a whacked out mile long. He got as much female attention as I did male, and I hated it.
I never had to do anything about it, though. Heath was about as flirtatious as an angry rattlesnake. If some poor woman was crazy enough to approach him, he never hesitated to set them straight.
I fucking loved that.
I secretly got a kick out of watching him shoot these poor girls down. He was rather brutal about it, and the more aggressive they were, the more mean he was when he let them have it.
“I’ve got no patience for that shit,” he told me once, right after a smoking hot blonde had approached him while he was ordering popcorn at the movies. “None. What the hell was wrong with that twit?”
He was mean and magnificent and completely oblivious to every woman on the planet but me, and I adored every inch of him.
When I was about six months pregnant, he went off the radar for longer than usual.
Long enough that Iris and I were starting to get nervous. We usually heard something from him.
Even the other agents didn’t have any word for us.
When he came home, at last, I couldn’t help it, I cried like a baby.
I told myself it was the hormones, but he had a hard time keeping his composure, as well.
He came to me first thing when he got to the house, taking me in his arms, face buried in my neck, one big hand rubbing my belly.
He was gasping, fighting for air.
“I didn’t think I’d make it back to you this time. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
That broke me. God, did it hurt. The helplessness was excruciating.
He dropped to his knees, face nuzzling into my belly.
I stroked his hair and tried to comfort him, tried my best to put on a brave face, because this time I could see he needed that from me.
It was long time before he let me go, and when he did, he went straight to Iris.
He wrapped her in those huge arms of his, nearly making her disappear.
She stood stiffly, though it was only because she knew him. He was affectionate with her, and she was an extremely affectionate girl, but she knew better than to touch him back.
“It’s okay,” he murmured to her. “You can hug me back.”
She did, slowly, tentatively, her eyes going straight to me, big fat tears in them and huge helpings of gratitude, like I’d just granted her a long wished for gift.
Later that night in bed I got a look at his body.
“Oh, darling, what have you done to yourself?” I asked him softly.
He’d been shot again. Twice, in the gut. The wounds were still fresh, but from the placement, I assumed that at one point they’d been nearly fatal.
“What I had to, to make it back home to you.”
Iris had her baby soon after that. It was a boy that she named Alasdair Cameron after his father.
We called him Cameron, or Cam for short.
And a few short months later, I had my own.
Heath made it home just in time to be there for the birth of our son. We named him Gerard, after my father, who, God willing, he’d someday get to meet.
Fatherhood was good for Heath, I saw right away. It softened some of his rougher edges.
And he was a good father. What he lacked in practice, he made up for in effort. It more than balanced out.
Heath doted on both of the babies, as did Rafael, Gustave, and even Mason.
With all of that adult attention, Cameron and Gerard lacked for nothing.
When little Cam was just a few months old, Iris and Heath had to leave for a long stretch.
It was time for the trial of the century.
It was excruciating for Iris, as it would be for any new mother, to leave her baby for so long, but she knew I’d care for Dair Jr. like he was my own, and so it eased some of that great burden for her.
We watched the trial on TV. It was intense, watching a determined Iris take down one of the most powerful politicians in the country.
Her grandmother wasn’t the VP anymore by that time, but it was a technicality. The woman still had pull in Washington.
I knew this because I was glued to the television twenty-four/seven, and all anyone did was talk about her.
Iris didn’t get to come back to see us for the duration of the trial, not even for a visit. It was just too dangerous for her, and for us.
Even Heath only came back once, right as the proceedings were coming to a close.
It was a bittersweet reunion, because he’d been gone for months and could only stay for one night.
That goodbye was one of the worst of them all.
He cupped my head in both hands, making me look at him, straight into his eyes. “Listen,” he urged in his soft, gravelly way.
I couldn’t hold back tears. Something horrible was going to happen on this trip. I just knew it. Something that would break me. I could see it in every line of his tense face.