I shrugged. I could pretty much get jam anywhere. It was a talent of mine. “You didn’t complain when I put jam on your—”

Con crushed his lips to mine, silencing my next words.

“All right, all right. Enough with that shit, you two.” I pulled away from the kiss at the familiar voice. I jumped to my feet, knocking Con back on his ass.

He grumbled, but didn’t stop me as I waddled across the room. “Trey!” I looked back at Con, who was pushing up to his feet. “You didn’t tell me he was home!”

Trey reached out to hug me, but I held up my sticky hands. “I don’t want to get your uniform all messy. It looks so perfect.” He hauled me against his chest anyway.

“None of that, now, little mama. I’ll have it all back to rights in no time. And that sure won’t stop me from hugging you.”

Trey was devastating in his uniform—the gray-blue jacket with all those shiny brass buttons and black braid. In his final year at West Point, he rarely made it back to New Orleans. I loved that he hadn’t even bothered to change before coming to see us.

“You just travel in that uniform to get perks on the plane,” Con laughed.

“And how is that a bad thing?” Trey asked. “Plus, the ladies go wild for a man in uniform.”

Trey finally released me, and I stepped back to study him. Con stopped behind me and wrapped an arm around my belly.

We both said the same thing to him, “You look good.”

Trey grinned at me. “So do you.” He glanced at Con. “You did good, man. Real good.”

I rested a hand on my belly, atop Con’s, and the diamond on my ring finger sparkled in the light.

It was Joy’s ring. The one that Andre had given her when he pledged to love her for the rest of his life. The one that had been stolen off her finger the night they’d been killed. Someone had pawned it at Chains about a year after Archer died and the foundation was dissolved. Lord had recognized it from the list of stolen items and returned it to Con.

According to Con, it was an undisputable sign that it was time for him to make an honest woman out of me. I hadn’t argued with him—I’d just said yes. Just like I hadn’t argued with him when he’d leased out the apartment above Voodoo and moved us into Joy and Andre’s house in the Garden District shortly after he’d proposed. The house had sat empty for years, because Con had felt it was the kind of home that deserved a family. And now we were finally giving it one.

Trey grinned when he saw the multitude of brown paper sacks on the prep table. “You expand the program more than I’d heard?”

I could feel Con shaking his head behind me. “Not quite that big. Vanessa just gets—”

“Carried away,” Trey finished for him.

I beamed, not caring that everyone knew about my penchant for going overboard.

“But we have expanded more,” I said. “We’re doing mixed martial arts in addition to boxing. We’re up to forty boys and twelve girls.” I was proud of what we were doing here. I’d taken over the administrative side of the gym and turned it into a real nonprofit organization, and applied for grants from several agencies. The gym had been expanded and now operated in an official partnership with the Boys and Girls Club. We put on joint summer camps for underprivileged kids and continued to run after-school and weekend programs. We had a staff of three, in addition to Con, Lord, Reggie, and me. We’d also expanded the sack supper program to provide for all of the kids at the Boys and Girls Club and their siblings at home. Finally, over the last four years, we’d helped obtain scholarships for more than twenty-five kids to go to college. These might not have been accomplishments on the scale of what I could have achieved by being at the helm of the L.R. Bennett Foundation, but they were immensely satisfying accomplishments all the same. I knew, without a doubt, we were making a difference. Just seeing Trey in his uniform hammered that point home.

“Go get changed, man. We can use your help in the gym,” Con said and then paused, adding, “Unless you need to get home to your ma.”

“Nah, she’s at work for a few more hours. I came to help.”

“Good deal.”

Trey flashed another brilliant smile and left the room.

Con turned me in his arms. “Damn women are all the same.”

“What?” I asked, confused.

“Dazzled by a man in uniform,” he said.

“Never got to see you in yours.” I ran my hand up Con’s chest. “Does it still fit?”

Con rolled his eyes and leaned down. “Of course it still fits. But the only way I’m wearing it is if we get to play conquering soldier, innocent maiden.”

This time, I rolled my eyes. I looked down at my belly. “Some innocent maiden I’d be.”

Con’s lips brushed mine. “Just roll with it, princess. Tonight.”

“It’s a deal.” And like all of the deals I’d made with this beautiful, tattooed, and complicated man over the years, it turned out to be a whole lot more than I’d bargained for—in all the best ways possible.

the end