Her Secret Wish by J.M. Madden Page A

of those types that would fight and fight and fight until they finally did a one-eighty. It was like the flying thing.
    Dean had a feeling that Rachel would love to fly again, but she didn’t want to admit it until she absolutely had to, especially to herself. So there was no sense in pushing her before she was ready.
    If he had anything to say about it she would fly again.
    They settled into a quiet evening at home. Thoughts of the little girl on the bicycle and a family grieving popped up occasionally, but he would glance at Rachel fingering her earrings and things would fall back into perspective. This was what was important. He would file the details of the day into his heart and mind and be a better cop when he went back to work.
    That night they crawled into bed and he just held her for a long time. Dean didn’t consider himself a weepy kind of guy, but he definitely felt he could be emotional with her if he needed to. There was no need to pretend that he wasn’t affected by what had happened. He’d seen the glimmer of tears in her eyes as well. His kick-ass Marine had a soft spot.
    So, he held her against him, lightly rubbing his hand up the skin of her arm. He’d found that she loved to be lightly stroked this way, along her sides and across her back. It was no hardship to him; he loved touching her.
    But that, of course, led to other things. And as he loved her into the night, he wondered if she was as affected by him as he was by her.

Chapter Twelve
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    R achel didn’t see Dean for a couple of days, though they texted fairly often. He sent her jokes about the military and she sent him fat cop jokes. It was all in good fun. Then he mixed in sexy jokes about stripping her out of her BDUs and shirt to check out her lingerie and it all went to hell.
    As she headed in to work out before her shift, she wondered if he were getting ready for work as well. Their day shift hours were similar, but they lived too far apart to work out together. Maybe someday. Or maybe they needed to shift their workout times completely so that they could be together.
    Rachel set her phone aside as she headed into the rec room to the free weights. It wasn’t until about halfway through her workout that she heard a strange sound. What was that?
    Her phone giggled. Rachel wiped off her hands and snatched up her device, paging through her notifications. She looked around at the men in the room. “Okay, you jackasses, who did it?”
    As soon as she said the words Chad laughed. She should have known. “What did you do to my phone?”
    A message notification lit her screen and it giggled. Rachel fought not to smile. “You’ve been hanging out with your little girl too much. You have Minions on the brain.”
    Chad laughed. “I think you’re right.”
    Every time she received a text message a Minion giggled. John had glowered at the disruption to his workout, but even his hard mouth twitched when she got an alert.
    Rachel punched Chad in the arm. “You ass.”
    Chad grinned at her. “Darlin’, I just wanted you to smile more. Something’s got you down. That cop you’ve been seeing better be taking good care of you.”
    That kind of rocked her back on her heels. Was she down?
    Rachel looked around the workout room. It was a busy day. At least four of the guys were working out. Chad had just gotten off the treadmill from his fifty-mile run or whatever. Seemed like he ran forever, that damn blade on his left leg flashing. She wasn’t sure when he’d even messed with her phone. Oh, yeah, she’d gone to the bathroom at one point. That’s right. He’d probably snatched it up then.
    Palmer sat on the curl bench, biceps bulging as he worked the weights. Gabe Carter, the new SEAL they’d hired, worked free weights a few feet away from her. He was quiet and a little sad but definitely seemed competent and had even spotted her a couple of times.
    All of them had an ease to their expressions that she was sure hers did not. Why was she so