Page 30 of Be Courageous

Maternity leave would be the final nail in her coffin. Ruby would be relegated to small-time reporting—no more scandals that took her beyond Virginia Beach. Then who would she be? Just a mother, and that was a job she was totally unfit for.

The light knock at the door startled the tester out of Ruby’s hand. It clattered onto the tiled floor where it skidded toward the tub.

“You okay in there,Bella?” Tony’s baritone voice conveyed worry.

A locked door had never been a deterrent to her husband. Recovering the test strip, Ruby offered the first excuse to pop into her head. “Just doing my makeup, love. I’ll be out in a sec.”

She and Tony had eloped while on vacation in Bermuda earlier that fall. The spur-of-the-moment ceremony performed under a moon gate seemed to have turned his mother, Anna, against her. It had taken Ruby three years to marry her son, and then she’d gone and done it without Anna in attendance.

Regret did occasionally prick Ruby for not having shared that special moment more traditionally, with Tony’s family and his Navy SEAL teammates present, not to mention her older sister, Opal, and Opal’s husband, Commander James Monteague. But it had felt so right, so romantic, pledging her future to Tony under a moongate overlooking the tourmaline sea. Besides, who had time to plan an elaborate wedding?

She and Tony were finally together in every sense of the word. He knew her better than anyone. He also knew she’d just lied to him because she always put on her makeup in the car. She could sense him hovering on the other side of the door, wondering what she was keeping from him.

“Listen.” His voice coming through the crack made her hold her breath. “What do you think of us goin’ to Mama’s for Thanksgiving this year, instead of her coming down here?” His thick Philadelphia accent had faded only slightly since they’d first met. “She says her washing machine doesn’t work, and she needs me to fix it. Plus, I’m worried about her health.”

He wanted to go to Philly for Thanksgiving? A sudden benefit banished Ruby’s dismay. Her plan to interview the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania one month from now was clearly meant to be—not that Tony needed to know anything about that. In fact, if he found out, they wouldn’t be going anywhere near Philly.

Ruby met her thoughtful reflection in the mirror. “Sure, that sounds okay.”

A beat of silence answered her response. “Did you hear me right? I said, maybe we should go to Mama’s for Thanksgiving.” He enunciated each word.

“Yeah, why not?” She took one last look at the tester before hiding it under the sink in a tampon box, where Tony wouldn’t come across it.

A subtleclickof the lock had her slamming the cabinet shut and straightening guiltily as the door cracked open. Tony peered through the scant opening, his chocolate-brown eyes locking on her guilty expression.

Heat flooded her face. “I’ve told you not to do that! A woman needs her privacy.”

His gaze searched the bathroom before returning to her self-righteous glare.

Ruby’s toes curled inside of her high-heeled shoes.

He pushed the door farther open. “You’re honestly okay with having Thanksgiving at my mother’s?”

She forced herself to hold his gaze. Tony’s eyelashes were so thick and dark it looked like he wore eyeliner. The first time they’d met, she thought he looked just like Joey Tribbiani from the sitcomFriends, but Joey didn’t have Tony’s lush eyelashes.

“Yeah, I’m okay with it.” Unable to lie to his face, she leaned toward the sink to inspect her complexion.

Tony’s eyebrows pulled together. “Then you’ve forgiven Mama’s remark about your skinny hips?”

Ruby forced a negligent shrug even as the reminder stung her pride. “What’s to forgive? She was upset that she’d missed our wedding. It’s only natural that she would lash out about it.”

“But she said some pretty hurtful things.”

Anna’s exact words had been thatit was time Ruby quit her job, put some meat on her skinny hips, and start being the wife that Tony deserved.

“She wants grandbabies.” Ruby managed to face Tony, adding magnanimously, “Who can blame her?” Guilt wrung her within, as she realized she could now make Anna’s dreams come true. But she had no intention of sharing that happy news—not yet, anyway.

Her answer banished the suspicion in Tony’s eyes. He put his arms around her, pulling her closer. “Yeah, maybe we can work on that before you go to work this morning.”

His seductive voice had an immediate tingling effect on her body, but the musky sweat still dampening his T-shirt from his morning run prompted Ruby to squirm free.

“You’re going to soil my work clothes.”

“Just a kiss then.” He caught her jaw before she got away, crushing his lips to hers.

As the kiss deepened, goose bumps played tag along Ruby’s skin. By the time he lifted his head, her bones seemed to be melting, and she was contemplating staying longer. She grabbed his wrist to read his watch. “Oh, shoot, I’m late.”

“You’re always late. What’s another half hour?”

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