A Home for Christmas (23 page)

"If she's the one, this won't matter,"
his uncle said, clapping him on the shoulder.  Riley could only hope that
he was right.

"It's over!" Cam said, turning to smile
at Jenna.  "Riley didn't even see any action."

"That's a good thing, Cam," Jackie
said.

"Yeah, I know, but seeing him in action
would be cool."

"Bite your tongue, Cam Blackwell,"
Jenna said, getting up to go into the kitchen.  She was glad it was over
but her nerves were shot.

"Here," she heard her dad say from
behind her.  She turned to see him holding a snifter of brandy out to
her.  "You look like you could use this."

She took it from him, swirled the little amount
of liquid in the glass a moment, then closing her eyes, downed it in one gulp, gritting
her teeth at the burn that filled her chest.

"Thanks, Daddy," she said after a
moment.

"Hold on, baby," he told her, kissing
the side of her head.  "You've found a good man with a lot more valor
and backbone than Wade Blackwell ever thought of having.  It's not going
to be perfect, smooth sailing.  Nothing ever is.  But you hold on to
this one with all you've got."

She met her father's gaze and held it a
moment.  He'd never really said much about Wade one way or the
other.  She knew he didn't care for him, but he'd kept his feelings to
himself, letting her mother be the one who voiced her concerns and
opinions. 

"I plan on it, Daddy," she told him.
"It's just...I know that he went through a lot in the SEALs.  He has
scars from bullets and razor wire and other things that I'm afraid to ask him
about.  And him being part of the SWAT team, even on a part-time
basis...it scares me.  I want him to be around to see Cam grow up and get
married.  I want him to be around to see any kids we have together grow
up."

"Tell him.  See what his thoughts are
and then together work on a compromise."

Her mother came into the kitchen, checking on the
food.

"How long do you think it will take Riley to
get back?" Elise asked her daughter.

Jenna sighed.  "I don't know.  It
took hours last time, but that was because he was directly involved.  He
didn't really do anything this time so I have no clue how long he will have to
be there."

Elise nodded.  "Well, we have another
thirty minutes still before everything is ready, and then it can sit for a
while, too, if need be."

"Thanks, Mom, I..." she stopped when
her phone rang.  She pulled it from her pocket, seeing that it was
Riley.  "Hey," she answered and there was a ton of relief poured
into that word.

"Leaving the station now," he told
her. 

"Coming straight here?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"OK."

"Jen...I'm sorry that ruined your day,
I..."

She cut him off.  "It hasn't ruined my
day.  You're on your way back.  That's all that matters to me."

"Are you OK?" he asked, reacting to the
tone she knew he'd heard in her voice.

"I'm fine.  Just get here, Riley,"
she said, and then to his surprise, she hung up on him.

"Shit," he cursed, feeling his stomach
clench.  This was not good.

When he got to her parents' house, she was
outside and coming to him as soon as he got out of the truck.

"Baby, I'm sorry, I..." he began but
stopped when she slammed into him, leaping into his arms and sealing her lips
over his.  He held her tight, returning her kiss with equal ardor. 
They were standing in the middle of her parents' driveway in what he was sure
was a pretty conservative neighborhood and yet there he stood with Jenna held
tight in his arms, her legs wrapped around his waist and his tongue halfway
down her throat, and he decided he didn't give a damn what her parents or the
neighbors thought.  He'd been so scared that she would be angry that he
didn't care about anything now that he knew she wasn't.

"You don't have to apologize to me for doing
your job," she told him when they finally ended the kiss.  "All
you have to do is come home safe to me."

"You're not mad?"

"No.  I won't lie to you, though. 
You being part of the SWAT team terrifies me.  Not that I don't trust that
you know what you're doing.  It's just the nature of it.  I want you
to be around for the next fifty years or more."

He kissed her again.  "I told my uncle
that I was done," he told her.  "Told him the guys are
well-trained and don't need me any more.  I'm going to stick to my work at
Orion and no more SWAT ops."

"Oh, my God!  Really?"

"I don't ever want to see that scared look
on your face that you gave me when I left.  Not ever again."

"I love you so much," she cried,
kissing him.

He kissed her, hard and then put her on her feet.

"Look, I was planning to do this later, and
Cam's probably going to be pissed at me but I can't wait.  I love you so
much; I don't ever want to be without you.  You and Cam...you're
everything
to me.  I can't remember what my life was like before I met you and I
don't want to ever be without you again."  He reached into his pocket
and then to Jenna's amazement, in her mother's front yard, Riley took her hand
in his and went down on one knee before her.  "Jenna, will you marry
me?"

"Oh, God!" she gasped, when he slid the
ring onto her finger.  "Yes!" she cried.

"Yes?" he asked, smiling.

"Yes!!!" she squealed when he stood and
wrapped her up in his arms, twirling her around. 

Behind them, they heard applause break out and
Jenna heard Cam whooping and hollering like he was at a football game. 
She began laughing and held on tight to this man that she loved more than she
ever thought was possible.

The rest of the time with her family passed in a
blur.  Jenna couldn't stop looking at the ring he'd given her, his
grandmother's ring, he explained to her.  It was in a platinum setting and
featured a square-cut diamond surrounded by several smaller ones. It was
beautiful and meant all the more to her that it had belonged to his
grandmother.  When they went to his family's ranch, and Riley told his
mother that they were now engaged, Paige screamed and threw her arms around
Jenna and welcomed her into their family, then turned and announced to all her
sons that she now had her first grandchild as she embraced Cam, which caused
all the brothers to teasingly groan.

By the time they got back to Jenna's house, the
three of them were on a high that she knew would take a long time for them to
be able to come down from.  Cam was only slightly disappointed at not
getting to participate in Riley's proposal the way they'd talked about, but the
excitement over knowing that Riley would soon be his step-dad had that fading away. 

Riley built a roaring fire in the
fireplace.  Jenna surprised him by rearranging the stockings on the mantle
and adding one with his name on it that she explained she'd had made for him
last week.  After Cam opened his customary Christmas Eve present, Jenna
went to the tree and pulled out another small box and held it as she stood
before Riley, smiling at Cam as she did.

"Cam and I wanted to get you something
special.  Something that would let you know how very much you mean to
us.  We looked and looked and couldn't find anything...until we realized
what we really wanted to give to you wasn't something we could buy in a store,
and it kind of goes hand-in-hand with what you gave to me earlier," she
said, wiggling her ring finger.  She pulled the lid off the box and held
the opened box out to Riley.  He stepped forward and looked inside; it was
a key on a keychain engraved with
Welcome Home, Riley
on one side and
Love,
Jenna and Cam
on the other.  "See, ever since you came back from
the Navy, you've either stayed with your parents or at one of your brother's
places.  But Cam and I talked, and we thought that the most special thing
we could give you, was our love and the hope that you would finally feel you
belong.  So, that's what we wanted to give you: us, and a Home for
Christmas."

Riley and Jenna got married on New Year's
Eve.  It was rushed for two reasons: one, all his brothers would be able
to attend before having to go back to their respective duty stations; and two,
they didn't want to delay their lives together any longer than necessary. 
They married in a candlelight ceremony at her parents' house with roughly
thirty guests in attendance.  It was small and intimate and everything
that Jenna could ever have hoped for. 

True to his word, Riley never went on another
call with the Springfield SWAT team, but he continued to train them in his
downtime from Orion, which became less and less as Orion Securities grew. 
The jobs he handled himself for Orion were no less dangerous than the SWAT ops;
the difference was that Jenna remained blissfully unaware of all that he did on
the job, which was how she preferred it.

Jenna began phasing out her own handling of
cleaning houses, changing to being strictly the administrative side of the
business, which freed her up to spend time with Cam and Riley...and later, with
their sons, Jace and Ryan and their daughter, Sydney. 

Now, it was almost ten years after she and Riley
met.  Cam was twenty.  Jace was eight, Ryan was six and Sydney was
four.  Jace and Ryan were bouncing off the walls, ready for the main
event.  She and Sydney were following along behind the boys at a slower
pace, filing into their suite at the stadium.  The boys were chattering
away and going out on the balcony level seats to get a better view.  Jenna
spotted Riley leaving the staging area, clapping Wade on the back and giving
Cam a brief hug before leaving.

The arena was packed to overflowing.  Wade
Blackwell was still a big enough draw, but everyone had really come to see Cam
Blackwell.  Cam had taken the professional Motocross scene by storm when
he was just fifteen years old and five years later, continued to blow all the
records away.  Where Wade had been popular, Cam's popularity was off the
charts.  He had a fan base that rivaled that of big name NASCAR stars, and
the world of NASCAR had taken notice, constantly trying to entice Cam to race
stock cars.  Cam was intrigued by the thought, but kept insisting that he
was staying with Motocross.

"Cam has them eating out of his hands,"
Cam's step-mother, Mandy, said, smiling at Jenna as she walked in.

Wade had made a complete recovery and surprised
Jenna and Cam both by taking a year off of the Motocross circuit to work on his
relationship with Cam.  It was because of that time spent on the local
track with Cam that Cam's career really began to take off.  He had the
love and support of his mother and step-father and finally had the full support
of his father and it made all the difference in the world.  Wade began to
see the joy in watching his son develop and when Cam raced against him in his
rookie season and beat Wade in just his fifth race out, Wade couldn't have been
prouder. 

Also to Jenna's surprise, Wade met Mandy three
years after she and Riley married and had been with her ever since.  Mandy
wasn't able to have children of her own so when she and Wade married, she not
only threw herself into being a good step-mother to Cam, but completely doted
on Jenna and Riley's children as well. 

Riley came into the suite and immediately lifted
Sydney into his arms.  She was a one hundred percent Daddy's Girl and
Jenna loved it.  She'd known from the way that Riley was with Cam that he
would be a good father and she'd been right; he was amazing with their
kids. 

"Cam is stoked," he told Jenna after
letting Sydney go sit with her brothers.

"He's about to seal up his third
championship in a row, if all goes well," she said, leaning into her
husband's side.  "I imagine he is flying high.  How was
Wade?"

"Seemed all right," Riley answered.

"He's happy for Cam, but he's feeling the
bitter sweetness of this being his last race," Mandy answered.

Wade was retiring from full-time competition
after this race.  At thirty-nine, he wasn't able to come back from minor
aches and pains as fast as the younger guys and after missing most of the
season with back issues, he finally decided it was time to stop.

At the end of the race, Cam was awarded with his
Championship trophy which he shared with his dad.  It was, as Mandy had
said, a bittersweet moment.  The whole family joined Cam on the track for
championship photos.  Physically, Cam and Wade were the exact same
size.  They had the same coloring, the same build.  They even sounded
alike when they talked.  Wade still wore his hair a bit long and on the
shaggy side.  Cam, on the other hand, still, ten years later, wore his
dark hair short and neat and military-style, just like his step-dad.  It
was a matter that Jenna took great pride in.  Cam was unique in the
Motocross world, where most of the riders wore their hair similar to
Wade's.  Cam remained clean-cut and clean-shaven and ever mindful of his
role as a role model, not only to his little brothers, but to little kids
everywhere.

One month later...

"Why are we going out this morning?"
Jenna groaned when Riley dragged her out of bed at the crack of dawn.

"I need to grab a couple things in
town.  The kids are still at your folks' place."

She fell back in bed, grabbing his shirt to drag
him down with her.

"All the more reason for us to stay in bed,
Sailor."

He smiled and kissed her deep, then got up and
pulled her to her feet. 

"Get dressed, babe, time's a-wastin'."

"Riley!  It's...oh, Lord, five o'clock
in the morning," she groaned.

"Just come on.  You don't have to get
all dolled up.  Just bundle up and let's go.  It's cold
outside."

She groaned.  "Fine.  But you owe
me, Sailor.  Big time."

"Yeah, yeah, I hear ya.  Let's
go!"

Jenna dressed in her warm Uggs boots, jeans and a
thick sweater and scarf, not bothering with make-up, pulling her hair back in a
ponytail.  Bleary eyed, she followed Riley to the garage and climbed in
the truck.  She was half asleep on the drive and groaned even more when he
turned into the Wal-Mart parking lot.

"Geez, Riley, what do you need here that
couldn't wait?  On today of all days?" she asked, dragging her feet
when he opened her door and helped her out.

When they got to just inside the crosswalk, he
stopped her and turned to her, a huge smile on his face.

"What?" she asked.

"Baby...don't you remember?  Ten years
ago today, we stood right here and I asked you to go to breakfast with
me."

Jenna's eyes widened.  It was Black
Friday.  And they were standing pretty much right at the spot they had ten
years ago.

"I can't believe it didn't dawn on me what
today was," she gasped.

He smiled and lifted her right hand, sliding a
ring onto the ring finger of her right hand.  She glanced down and saw
that it was an elaborately designed mother's ring, with six stones.  Two
larger ones that were his and her birthstones, and four smaller ones representing
all the kids. 

"I love you, Jenna, and I'm so glad you got
your purse stolen that day."

She smiled, stood on her toes and pulled him down
to first kiss the scar on his cheek that he'd gotten when he recovered her
purse, and then kissed his lips, ignoring the cars that began honking because
they were blocking the lane.

"I love you, too, Riley."

The End.