Anticipation

Liana Wade

Liana Wade went upstairs to bed with a lighter step tonight. Ben was coming home tomorrow! The last two weeks had seemed more like two years as she waited anxiously for his every phone call, terrified that something had happened to him. That he'd been caught or killed on the job.

More than a few times, Liana had thought to herself about how surreal this all seemed. That she should be worried about her husband getting hurt on the job the way so many other women worried about things like that. Only her husband didn't have your typical job. He was out there robbing someone. And, most likely, killing someone, she reminded herself.

That was a part of Ben's life that she tried to push away. Even though she'd seen the coldness in Ben's eyes--knew that he was capable of doing such a thing and had, indeed, done it many times before--Liana still found it hard to reconcile that part of her husband with the man who was so good to her. His touches and his kisses were sweet and gentle. He treated her as though she were made of porcelain, particularly since she'd become pregnant. That the man who treated her so kindly and lovingly could do what he did...

Once again, she pushed all that aside. Ben was coming home! She could hardly wait to see him, to feel his arms around her, his lips on hers. To have him sleeping beside her again, in this bed which had seemed so empty while he was gone. This was the first time they'd been apart for more than a few hours at a time since they had moved here ten months ago.

When they'd met and moved to the Glen, Ben had told her he was retiring from that life. He'd stayed true to that until the past two weeks. Liana didn't think he'd lied to her so much as he'd lied to himself. Some part of her husband would always be tied to that life. It was a part of Ben Wade, as surely as this baby was a part of him.

In her nightgown and brushing her hair, Liana looked down and ran a hand over her belly. "Your daddy's coming home," she whispered to the baby growing there. She would have sworn that she felt a slight flutter in response.