She shrugged. “I’ve been thinking, and I want to talk to you about something, but not until you’redone eating.” She shook he head when he set his fork down. “No, finish. It’s all good, I promise.”
Tony looked skeptical, but he finished the meal, then together the two of them took care of the food, did the dishes, and cleaned the area. When they were done, they settled back at the table.
“Talk to me.” He didn’t hesitate in his demand to get answers from her cryptic statement earlier.
Staci drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She reached out and took one of her hands in his. “I like you Tony. I mean, like really, really like you.”
“Go on,” Tony said with a smirk.
“You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?” She laughed.
“Well, since I don’t know what this is, then yeah, I’m not.”
“Fine,” she said in a huff, but there was no heat behind it. “I’ve never done this before and I want to know if you feel the same way about me that I do you. If you do, then I want to take this relationship to the next level.” Before she had a chance to look up from the table, he scooped her up and placed her on his lap.
“Yes,” he said before he lowered his mouth to hers. It was a long time before they broke apart, and when they did, they were both breathing hard.
“As much as I want to carry you to your bed right now, I’m going to have to decline.” He saw her expression and placed a finger over her lips to stopher from speaking. “I don’t have any protection with me.”
“Oh, then in that case, I forgive you.” She giggled as they snuggled and made out more. They ended up going to her bed, except instead of making love, they cuddled and talked well into the night.
CHAPTER 19
A little overthree weeks later, Tony and Staci drove Shay to the airport in Denver so he could fly back to Pennsylvania to resume his normal life there for the next few weeks.
“How did you like your stay?” Staci asked from the back seat of Tony’s truck as they drove toward Denver.
Shay turned to look at her, shook his head, and sighed. “I know my face doesn’t display it, and sorry for my language, but holy hell, the sheer size of what Ms. Riceman has built is mind blowing. I didn’t get over to Erin’s Way, but I did stop in at Broken Wheel for a couple of days. I had heard about using horses for rehabilitation, but never, not in my wildest dreams think on the scale of what she is doing. I like it, and I can’t wait to come back and start working here.”
“Will your family be coming with you?”
“No family, where Jacobs and Ramos had a life outside of the Guard, I do not. They did their military duty one weekend a month, and one full month in the summer, unless they are called in on a special mission, while not fulfilling their military duty, they had jobs, lived their normal life. I, on the other hand, didn’t. My entire career was serving the military. If I wasn’t commanding the Guard unit, I dedicated my life to it.” He shrugged then looked over at Tony with a grin. “If the Army wanted me to have a wife…”
“They would have issued us one,” Tony finished the sentence and looked in his mirror at Staci. “That’s the joke in the military.”
“They don’t want you to be married or have a family?”
“No, but they believe that if you are married and have kids, you might be distracted by them during a critical mission.”
“Ah, is that why you never married?”
Tony shrugged. “Back when I started my military career, I didn’t really think about settling down. Sure, I played the field, not a lot, I think I had three girlfriends in ten years, but it never worked out.”
“Can I ask why not?” Staci asked, trying not to let the jealousy she felt overrule her common sense.
“Actually, it was because of my military career. Like I said, I only dated three women. The first one slept with someone else when I was on my month-long assignment. This was during my second year in the Guard. When she told me she was pregnant, I was skeptical, because I was always careful.”
“You didn’t want children?”
“I do, but not forced on me. She kept saying that we could get married, she can have a baby, and stay at home, and I could work two jobs, quit the military, and take care of her like she wanted to be pampered.”
“What was she going to do at home to help you?” Staci asked with a smirk.
“Nothing. Oh, she wanted me to give her my paycheck from one of those alleged jobs I was supposed to take. This would allow her to do whatever she wanted during the day.”
“Damn, Tony, she sounded like a gold digger. How did you find out the baby wasn’t yours?”
“I overheard a conversation with her girlfriends, she had them on speakerphone. There were four different women talking. One of them asked how I took the pregnancy news, then another one talked over her and asked where she got the positive test from. It turned out that one of them were pregnant, and the girl I was dating used it to try and trap me.”
