“Aw, sweetie, it was just a nightmare. Nothing that should have you so worked up.”

She pushed away a couple of inches to meet his gaze. Her face was pale except for two splotches of pink that colored her cheeks, and her eyes were damp and glossy with tears.

Raising a hand, he ran a thumb along the bottom of one eye and then the other, wiping away the wetness as best he could.

“What’s wrong, honey?” he asked softly. “What were you dreaming about that was so bad?”

She shook her head and swallowed hard, fresh tears swelling to balance precariously on her lower lashes.

“It was you,” she said in a watery voice. “I couldn’t find you, and then when I did…” She took a hiccupping breath. “… you were dead.”

He froze at her words, an unwanted but automatic snake of trepidation wending its way down his spine. Every cop knew that the end could come at any moment. They knew it, lived with it, but didn’t let it keep them from doing their jobs.

Second only to his fear that something might happen to Jenna, though, was his fear that something might happen to him, resulting in her being left alone. Not just alone without him, but alone without someone to watch out for her and keep the bad things from touching her.

They might be divorced, which put him at a bit more of a distance than he had been before, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still keeping an eye on her. He kept his ear to the ground, had surreptitiously convinced Zack and Dylan to watch out for her, and checked up on her himself when he could.

Without letting her know, of course. If Jenna found out he was still acting like an invisible commando bodyguard where she was concerned, she’d have his biscuits in a bag hanging from her belt… or attached to the ends of one of those fluffy boas she liked to wear.

So he didn’t let her catch on. He remained at a distance, pretending he was a-okay with the divorce, and far removed from anything that had to do with her.

And whenever they bumped into each other or were forced to spend time together because of their mutual circle of friends, he played it cool, pretended she meant no more to him than any other woman he might pass on the street. He hoped he was pulling it off, because it was about as easy as sucking on a lemon and not making a face.

Still, he figured anyone, cop or not, would get the willies from being told they’d died in a dream. He only hoped her vision was the result of a vivid imagination and a spicy midnight snack, rather than any fortune-telling genes she may have inherited from the slightly wacky Langan side of her family.

“I’m fine,” he told her, running his fingers through the short, black hair at her temples. He kept stroking her face and hair until she looked at him fully and the panicked, glazed expression started to fade from her eyes. “See. Flesh and bone and very much alive.”

At that, her eyes began to water again and the petal-soft bow of her lips quivered. “I couldn’t find you, and I couldn’t find the baby, and then I did find you, and…”

He tensed at her mention of a baby. She hadn’t said anything about that before, but apparently her dream had also contained an infant. Not so surprising, considering they both had baby on the brain these days.

“I was afraid I was going to find the baby dead, too, and I just couldn’t handle that. I couldn’t lose you both,” she finished on a sob.

He grabbed her up and cradled her tight at the same time she threw herself against him. “Shh, it’s okay. Nobody’s going to die.”

“You don’t know that,” she mumbled into his neck. “You always used to say that, but you don’t know nothing’s going to happen. You can’t be sure.”

His brows crossed at her sudden assertion. They weren’t just talking about her dream now. They were talking about his job, and their failed marriage, and any number of thoughts and feelings and conversations that had passed between them over the years.

“Why are you worried about me now?” he asked softly. “We aren’t even married anymore.”

Jerking back, she fixed him with a hot, angry glare. And then she smacked him. Open hand, right across the bare chest.

“That doesn’t mean I stopped loving you, you big lug. Or that I don’t still care.”

Her eyes blazed fire, and color was coming back to her face.

“I worry about you every day, on the job and off. Why do you think it was so important to me that we start a family?” Her voice was still sharp, but now it was tinged with emotion, as well. “I want children, yes, but I also wanted a part of you growing inside of me. A little boy with dark hair, quiet intensity, and a dimple in his right cheek just like you have when you smile. A little girl with brown eyes, a sharp mind, and a stubborn streak two miles wide.”

Something clenched tight in the area of his heart.

Maybe it was everything all rolled together and thrown at him out of the blue that caused his conscience to pinch, his chest to throb, and a knot of what he thought might be regret to grow in his gut.

He opened his mouth to speak, but the words stuck in his raw, dry throat. He had to swallow and lick his lips before trying again.

“You never said you worried about me.”

Jenna rolled her eyes as though he were at the head of a class of dunces. “Of course I worried. Your job is dangerous, and it kept you away for weeks on end. Weeks when I never knew where you were or what you were doing. How could I not be concerned about you? How could I not have nightmares when you were away from me?”

“You’ve had this kind of nightmare before?” he asked, truly perplexed.

He’d never known her to have nightmares; not often, anyway, and not over anything more substantial than a scary movie they stayed up too late to watch. Then again, she was right about his undercover work taking him away from home for long stretches of time. How was he supposed to know how she slept when he wasn’t in bed beside her?

It broke his heart to think of her crying out in the middle of the night, with no one there to comfort her.

Without him there to comfort her.

Dammit, he should have been.

He should be.

He’d always had regrets about their ruined relationship. But if he’d been sorry before, he now felt like a first-class heel.

He’d thought the reason for their breakup was based mainly on her desire for children and his refusal to give them to her. On the slow detachment that the recurring quarrel had caused.

Had he missed the bigger picture? Had there been more going on beneath the surface that he’d never seen, never known was there?

How many nights had she stayed up, wondering if he was all right and fretting over his safety?

How many times had he come home from an extended undercover case and not sat down to talk to her? Not hugged her, kissed her, filled her in on what he’d been up to or asked how she’d spent the days he’d been away?

On his part, he hadn’t wanted her to know some of the specifics of what his job entailed. She didn’t need to know that he’d just spent a month living in a crack den, peddling meth or heroin or cocaine to junkies on the street. Or that he’d spent days on end picking up prostitutes in sting operations and tracking down killers.

But it probably wouldn’t have hurt for him to tell her that everything had gone fine and the bad guys they’d been after were now behind bars.

She’d married a cop, so she knew the basics of what being on the force entailed. Sharing some of the lessgory details wouldn’t have been so bad. It wouldn’t have scarred her any more than hearing about one of her students stuffing glitter up his nose or throwing up macaroni and cheese after lunch had scarred him.

Great. He’d been an idiot, and now that he’d figured that out-not his proudest moment ever-it was too late to do anything about it.

With a sigh, he ran his hand over her hair, kissed the side of her face, and then scooped her off the sofa and into his arms. Cradling her against his chest, he got to his feet and started across the room, back the way he’d come.