True Love Lost (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 3)) (55 page)

Desdemona started to feel nervous.

“Okay, we can have dinner on Sundays.
We’ll have to have Italian since Desdemona isn't big on meat. Does she like Italian?”

“
She loves it.”

“Great, but I’m still making
Ethan cook me meat, Baby Blackhawk has control of my brain for now. I won’t let my carnage contaminate her food.”

Desdemona just stared. It was that simple to be accepted into his family?
No questions asked?

“We’re getting a dog, and a fence like yours. Can we put a gate in so I don’t have to walk all the way around
the development to watch the game with Ethan?” he asked, opening his salad.

“We should just make it one big fence and put in a pool. Desdemona, do you like swimming,” she
inquired, knowing the woman had to be right there. The call had to be more for Desdemona’s sake, and not Callen’s. He already knew she’d support anything he wanted out of love.

“Yes,
Elizabeth I do,” she answered, finally finding her voice. The woman just ran them both over. If she believed Callen Whitefox to be a force to deal with, there was double trouble with Elizabeth and him teamed up.

“Welcome to the family
Morticia,” she said. “I told you Desdemona, spiders and flies!”

Desdemona laughed
, finally over the horror of the situation, and forcing herself to not feel off balance at how fast it was all moving. Her sanity had to be in question. It was hard to believe she just met them all.

Callen was grinning, and grateful to his sister-in-law. Her open acceptance sucked some of the terror from Desdemona’s face.
“Okay beautiful, I’ll email you later. I’m supposed to be on a re-do date and I’m pretty sure that calling another woman while on the date is a bad idea,” he said, grinning at Desdemona.

Doctor Adare wanted to tell him that calling another woman beautiful was a problem too, but she swallowed it, unwilling to ruin the moment for either of them.

“I think when you’re on a date it’s acceptable, but during sex it gets questionable.”

Blackhawk laughed in the background.

“Good to know,” he snickered. “Love you, Lyzee.”

“Love you too, Cal. Love you Desdemona,” she
added, and then disconnected the phone.

Desdemona didn’t know what to do with all this. It was shocking eno
ugh to be plowed over by Callen, but now his family too. When she heard Elizabeth tell her she loved her, she almost burst into tears. What she found with these three people was something she never thought possible. This morning she woke up without a family, and now she had one. Talk about moving at the speed of light. The scientist in her was appalled at her lack of common sense, but the woman in her was swept away with the romanticism of it all. Again, she hoped love would grow.

“I’m sorry she calls you Morticia, I can talk to her if you want,” he said, sympathetically.

There was uncontrollable laughter. “No way! Are you kidding? Elizabeth made me realize how amazing it is to be Morticia Addams.”

Callen
smiled and felt bad that he ever doubted Elizabeth. Now he owed her a big kiss for that one too. “Okay then, and spiders and flies?”

Desdemona touched his cheek. “
Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly,
” she said, quoting her new favorite quote in the world. “Morticia Addams said it, and I plan on embracing my inner Morticia Addams.”

“
I say go for it. I support you in your attempt to channel your diva of death.”

Desdemona laughed. “And you thought Elizabeth calling me Morticia was bad?”

Whitefox grinned. “Yeah well, I have to be me and just for the record if my family is too much, we can stay here and give you some space from them.” He offered it because she just seemed suddenly overwhelmed. “I love my family; I hope you can tolerate them.” His family would either make or break them, because they were going to remain the same. It was his greatest hope to incorporate Desdemona into the fray seamlessly. Part of the plan was to spend as much time around them, not only for safety but so he could learn how to do this relationship thing. He needed a role model to navigate it seamlessly; Ethan was that model.

She took a salad from him and popped the lid of the container. “No, we’ll stay there. You’re family doesn’t bother
me. It’s nice to have people around that care about you and want to just keep you safe.”

Desdemona went quiet.

When she put down her salad, he looked over at her. “What’s wrong? Did I upset you?”

“Can we eat later?” she asked, watching him carefully.

“Yeah, what do you want to do?”

Desdemona stood and went over into his lap and sat, kissing him. “I think I’d like to climb into our tent, and maybe,” she whispered in his ear what she wanted to do.

Immediately, he pushed away the container. “I hate salad anyway,” he said, scooping her up as she giggled in his arms. “I’m never taking down this tent.”

And he wasn’t.

Thursday night
             

Ethan Blackhawk sat
on the couch with his wife sitting between his legs; they were lounging, relaxing, and checking out the incoming tech reports. They now had all the victims IDs and they could start tracking their last days.

“Tomorrow we need to have the te
ch team head to the impound lot and search whatever cars are remaining that belong to the victims,” said Blackhawk.

Elizabeth wasn’t
listening; she was too busy reading the stomach contents reports that just came in from FBI West. “Ethan, I think we can safely say how they all died.”

“We know they died of Ethylene Glycol.”

“Yes, but now we know how the killer got them to consume it.” Elizabeth pointed to the information on her tablet, and waited for him to see what she saw. The wheels were starting to spin in her head.

“They all had coffee,” he
answered, thinking back to what they’d learned. “The one victim stopped in the ‘
Cup of Joe’
.”

“We also have a blonde that works there.” As much as she liked Wilma May, the fact was, they all died with coffee in their stomachs, one victim was seen there, and she worked for a man that disrespected her and every other woman he met.

“Tomorrow we need to head to ‘
Cup of Joe’
and talk to the owner to find out more about Wilma May. I’ll talk to her boss and get her work schedule. You stay far away from him.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Okay, Cowboy.
Then I need to meet with Christina. I know that Ethylene Glycol is in antifreeze but I want a list of everything else that it comes in, just so we can start looking at all the possibilities.”

“I have to send Callen an email. The tech team found nothing out of place there, and he needs to head back. I need him here to help me double team Carly Kester.
“

“Well if Callen isn't back, you
’re not going alone. She’s a shark just looking for some juicy native flesh to sink her teeth into for a man-meal.”

“I can’t bring you, Elizabeth. I don’t think she’ll buy
the veggie juice was an accident, and the minute she sees you she’ll clam up.”

Elizabeth snorted. “What
Baby Blackhawk?” she spoke to her belly. “Baby says it was an accident and that she can kiss his momma’s…” Her husband covered her mouth before she could finish.

“I’ll ground the baby if he’s cursing in utero.”

She laughed and bit his hand. “Baby wants a name
, Daddy.”

Blackhawk sighed. “I know it’s just so hard. I know we agreed we’d use the names of our family, but we have Charlie, for your dad, Timothy for granddad, Wyler for my father, and then we tossed in Callen and Gabe. If we have to teach our son five names and then Blackhawk by kindergarten this poor kid is going to have to learn to write his name at two.”

“Well, do you want to see my choice?” she asked, looking up at him, as she leaned against his body.

“Yes,” he answered and watched as she opened a file that had baby ultrasounds, names and anything that she researched for the baby.

Elizabeth showed him.

“I
say go with that one since my choice is very similar, but with one difference,” he said, typing it out and waiting for her opinion on his selection.

“I like
this one too,” she patted his leg. “I think we may have our name.” She knew where Ethan was heading with it.

“I
agree that we need a nickname,” he said, kissing her neck, as he protectively placed his hands over her belly. “I love you, Elizabeth,” he whispered in her ear. “I’m sorry about today.”

Elizabeth looked up at him confused.

“Today when you were telling me how you felt, and I assumed it had anything to do with my father and the history of his infidelities.”

“Oh.” She’d genuinely forgotten about that, and usually did whenever they were alone together.
Elizabeth was secure as a couple when women weren’t staring at her husband like he was a snack.

“I want you to be able to come to me and tell me how you feel and not have to worry I’m going to accuse you of something.”

Elizabeth remained silent on the topic.

“Want to talk about it?” he asked gently, holding her hand in his.

Elizabeth shrugged. “I told you, I feel fat and wobbly and when women hit on you it makes me feel insecure, because I’m obviously not what I was,” she said, waving her hand down her body, holding back the tears. It was a touchy subject for her. “It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me.”

“You're right, you’re not the same
.” Blackhawk felt her tense. “Elizabeth, you’re so much more. You were just my wife before.”

Elizabeth looked at him, and he got up from behind her and knelt before her.

“You were just a wife and now you’re the mother of my son, and that elevates you to a status that no other woman can ever hope to achieve. I loved you endlessly before, but now I find that there is more love for the woman that is giving me such a treasure. We made a life together and that’s staggering.”

“I try to not let it bother me,” she said sniffling, and then rubbed her hand over their child. “But I just don’t feel like me right now.”

Blackhawk kissed her on the lips. “You won’t be pregnant forever,” he promised. “Then you’ll be the original you but still have the advantage of being the mother of my child. I’m in awe, in love, and hopelessly smitten with the bad ass wife I married.”

“Okay, Ethan,” she said, feeling a little better. “I can’t wait until these hormones are
gone.”

“Want to go upstairs, and roll around in bed
with me? Despite you thinking you're fat and wobbly, I can’t seem to keep my hands off you, so I think it has to be you that makes me crazy.”

“Are you kidding? Absolutely, Mr. Blackhawk,” she stood and reached
down to help pull him to his feet. “And, I’m crazy, stupid in love with you.”

“Mrs. Blackhawk, I think I’m supposed to be taking care of you and helping you stand, not you pulling me up
.” He swung her up in his arms.

“Mr. Blackhawk, I’ll always take
care of you and have your back. When will you get used to it?” she said, kissing her husband and running her hands through his hair until it made him wild, and he deepened the kiss.

“You can take care of me upstairs, and get the trashy lingerie out again,” he whispered and then
ravaged her mouth like a starving man.

When she pulled away her heart was pounding and she made a mental note to ask Desdemona where to get a year’s supply of sexy stripper panties.

They were her new favorite thing.

Friday Morning

Whitefox woke up with a crick in his neck. They both opted to finish up the camping date by sleeping inside the tent. The good thing about that was the tent sex that they had randomly through the night, the bad thing about it was the hard floor didn’t make sleeping all that comfortable. Yet, Desdemona made it the whole night without complaining at all.

Rolling over to cuddle with her, he found her space empty and her pillow cold. His heart began to pound in his chest, at the idea that she ran for the hills to escape him. Whitefox pulled on his jeans, and quickly unzipped the tent to hunt her down. Then he smelled the scent of coffee, and he was pretty sure she wouldn’t make him coffee and then run.

Looking around, he noticed her jacket and boots were gone, and he went to the door, to see if the Denali was too. If she took off, he was going to be angry, mad, and incredibly hurt. Promises were very serious, and you didn’t break them.