Joint Forces by Catherine Mann Read Free Book Online

prepped for battle. As much as Rena might prefer full-out confrontations, he knew gaining ground back into their house would call for a more covert operation.

    * * *
Rena grappled through layers of sleepy fog, blinked until her eyes adjusted to the sparse light in the narrow room that was private only because no other patient occupied the bed beside her. The antiseptic smell churned her stomach, but she welcomed the reminder of a healthy pregnancy.
    A pregnancy now out in the open.
    Her gaze skipped to J.T. sprawled in the corner chair, reading lamp on, paperback gripped in his broad hands. She couldn't make out the cover, but imagined it was whatever military-action bestseller hit the shelves recently.
    J.T. filled her eyes as completely as he filled the chair. Such a large man shouldn't be able to move so silently, yet he did. Always. Magnetically. Until her world narrowed to dark hair, muscles and slow-blinking brooding eyes.
    As tempting as it was to stare at his rugged handsomeness instead of dealing with real-life worries, she was through repeating past mistakes. She couldn't hide from the truth any longer. There wouldn't be a more private time than now for their discussion. "Hi, J.T. Good book?"
    He glanced up, studied her without speaking for four clicks of the second hand on the institutional black-and-white wall clock. Closing his book, he righted the recliner. Both boots thudded on the tile floor. "I hope I didn't disturb you with the light."
    "Not at all." She'd slept beside him in bed while he read many a night.
    Gulp.
    Where was some crushed ice and a water pitcher when a woman needed them? "How long have I been out?"
    J.T. flipped his wrist to check his watch, a gift from their daughter, complete with stopwatch and listings of multiple time zones for his flights. "Just an hour and forty minutes. Doc says to wake you up every couple of hours through the night. The nurse will check in, too."
    Which gave them twenty more uninterrupted minutes to talk in the quiet intimacy of a bedroom that wasn't packed with memories. The hospital at least made for comforting neutral ground for their discussion. Might as well confront things straight up. "I'm sorry for not telling you about the baby sooner."
    Guarded eyes almost hid nearly banked anger. He shifted, slow, silent, tucking the book in the thigh pocket of his flight suit. "Why didn't you?"
    Why?
    The truth blindsided her while her defenses were laid low from the accident. Because she'd wanted J.T.
    to come home on his own. For her. Something that, for the first time, she completely accepted would never happen.
    The last of her dreams, hope, love died. There was nothing left for her now but to strengthen her resolve to protect her children and her heart. "I was still reeling from hearing you'd been shot down and whatever happened to you in Rubistan, trying to sort through what happened to us afterward. Pretty difficult to do with so little information from your end."
    Rena's words sucker punched him. Leave it to his outspoken wife never to pull punches. She stared back at him defiantly, daring him to talk about Rubistan.
    He didn't need to think about it, much less talk it out. He'd lived it. Dealt with what happened, and wanted to move on, not bring everything up again until the top of his head blew off. He'd walked away before rather than—
    Ah, she was pushing him to walk now.
    Not gonna happen. "I'm assuming the baby was conceived after my return then. You don't look far enough along to have gotten pregnant before we split."
    Although, good God, Chris was right. She did have a slight bulge under the white sheet. How could he have missed it? She would be three months along. While carrying Chris, she'd been unable to button her pants by that stage.
    Damn. He was a bonehead not to have noticed or even considered the possibility.
    "Yes, it was that night. I missed a pill while you were gone. I was … upset. Days jumbled in my head."
    Her pain from then radiated just