Dean’s features instantly relaxed and he laughed. “You haven’t met his wife yet.”
What did that mean?
He went brows up. “Is she tough or something?”
Carter smiled. “Both.”
“Yeah, wait until you meet Mel,” RJ said. “She’s big and tough and full of tattoos.”
He went brows up again. That was not the description he’d expected.
Carter snorted. “Don’t listen to him.”
“Yeah,” Dex chimed in. “She’s not big.”
“Exactly. Mel’s a bit shorter than me,” Carter said, warmth seeping into his tone and expression. “My petite, tatted, redheaded spitfire owns the tattoo parlor next to the bakery.”
Dante nodded as his memory sparked. “Oh, right. I think Hunter said his fiancée works there.”
Apparently, it was where the two had met.
“Yeah.” Carter smirked. “Christa inked him into submission, just like Mel did to me.”
Dex snorted. “No. You submitted to Melwellbefore she inked you.”
“Wait…inked? Carter, you have a tattoo?” Dante asked, disbelief rushing through him like a busted faucet. “The guy we used to have to double-team to drag to the infirmary for mandatory vaccinations?”
Despite the guy’s affable demeanor, he was one tough mother. It had taken a bunch of them to hold him down for injections.
“Yep.” Carter grinned. “See?”
He lifted his shirt to reveal a tattoo of a heart with a key unlocking it, and on that key was Mel’s name and a hummingbird at the end. The entire tattoo covered the left side of his chest.
“Damn, Carter, that’s big. You must really love her to let her stick you with the slew of needles it had to take to ink that,” Dante said.
“I do. Absolutely.” The guy’s gaze was full of so much warmth and adoration, Dante’s chest tightened.
Even though he and Sheri had grown to love one another, he wondered if they would’ve felt it as deeply as Carter…had they been granted more years together.
A pang of guilt ripped through his tight chest and settled in his gut. He tried not to think of Sheri too much because it forced him to face some hard truths. Being honest sucked and the truth was if Sheri hadn’t gotten pregnant, Dante probably wouldn’t have proposed.
The guilt over admitting that truth ate at him constantly.
They’d been friends. Good friends with some great benefits, but neither had wanted anything serious. Sheri had told him that on their first date. It was the main reason they had a second one and got on so great together. The military and his brothers were Dante’s life, his focus. And Sheri had been in law school, determined to become a prosecutor.
But then a broken condom had changed everything. He couldn’t imagine his life without Noah, and he liked to think the change was for the better because they had been happy.
Was it because they were living apart mostly?
When Dante had caught some long missions, he left Sheri alone, sometimes for months. She hadn’t seemed to mind. And when Sheri had moved to Phoenix, she seemed happier. She even transferred her credits and enrolled in law school there.
He often wondered if she would’ve ever moved back in with him.
Didn’t matter now. He mourned the loss of his wife. Not so much for himself now, although he missed his friend a lot, but for Noah and the fact his son would never get to know his mother and what a wonderful person Sheri was.
“You think this is big? You should see the tattoo Christa inked on Hunter,” Carter said, pulling Dante’s mind back to the present.
He blinked and refocused on the conversation.
