Page 124 of Strangers She Knows

As Max said, “I hardly feel like a grown-up. I’ve got this kid, and I don’t know the right way to parent.”

Me, too, sweetheart. Me, too.

“But we are going on our honeymoon!”

Most definitely.

Three weeks after we left Isla Paraíso, Luna returned home with a package addressed to Rae. Rae opened it and cried.

Ruby’s journal was inside, and told of operations in the Philippines and Japan, dangerous operations that Ruby survived through guile, cleverness and luck. She had saved many US troops with the intelligence she provided.

We—the Di Luca family—remember and honor Ruby Morgade.

54

Washington’s PacificCoast

Yearning SandsResort

October of This Year

Kellen came out of the bathroom in her nightgown. She looked at Max, naked and sprawled on the bed pillows, doing his sexy beckoning smile. “Close your eyes and put out your hand,” she told him.

Max grinned—he obviously thought she had been swept away by his sexiness and they were galloping off on some fabulous bedtime adventure—and stuck out his hand.

She dropped the small plastic piece into his palm.

He opened his eyes, glanced at it, and dropped it on the sheets. “What is that?”

“Something I just peed on.”

He scowled at the plastic strip. “Peed on? But…” He wasn’t a stupid man. He knew what she was saying. “But…we never had unprotected sex.”

She started to speak, sighed and shook her head in disgust.

He admitted, “Once.”

She made the exasperated face at him.

“Only once!” he insisted.

“How many times does it take?”

His voice rose. “You’re pregnant?”

“Shh!” Rae was right down the corridor, and yes, sometimes she still had nightmares. “So it would appear.”

“Pregnant?” He kept getting louder. “You’re going to have a baby? We’re going to have a baby?”

Kellen gave up. “That’s what pregnant means.”

He stood on the bed, bounced on the mattress and crowed, “I am the most potent man in the world.”

She leaned against the wall, put her hand on her belly, and laughed at him. “You are such a tool.”

“A big, hard, long, potent tool!” Undeterred, he kept jumping.

“Is this as good as your very own F-100 to fix up?”

---