“He shot before he aimed, I see…” Amanda deadpanned, trying without great success to keep a straight face. Lee raised one eyebrow. “You’re having altogether too much fun with this, Amanda.”

She shrugged, then gave up the fight with her facial muscles. Her eyes sparkled as she agreed with him. “You’re right, Lee. If only everyone at work could see the great Scarecrow dealing with potty training mishaps…”

Secretly amused, himself, Lee could no longer hold his serious expression when his son made his announcement: “I pee-peed in da potty, Mommy!”

Amanda’s face showed her pride as she carefully squatted next to her youngest son. “You certainly did, Sweetheart! Good job!” She glanced sideways up at her husband, grinning. “Maybe Daddy should show you how to aim, though…”

Lee again raised his eyebrow, showing one dimple as he regarded his wife. “This really amuses you, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, Sweetheart,” she answered, her expression softening as she gazed into his hazel eyes, “I’m not laughing at you, really. I’m thrilled that you want to be so involved in raising our children. It’s just that—" she stopped for a moment, her voice cracking at the memory, “—I’ve dealt with potty-training little boys before. And, well,” her eyes once again flashed her amusement, “it really is funny sometimes. After all, I’ve always thought the 'equipment' was rather…umm…comical. And little boys seem to be highly fascinated with it themselves…”

Lee’s eyebrows had both shot up at the word “comical.” And he could tell by her mischievous expression that Amanda knew exactly what she was saying when she said it.

Amanda grabbed a diaper to put on little Matthew and sat down carefully on the floor. Quite competently, she placed the diaper under his bottom and fastened the sides, all without really looking away from Lee. She continued as if she had never been interrupted, egging Lee on some more. “Well, maybe I shouldn’t limit my statement to just little boys…” She tore her gaze away from her handsome husband to locate Matthew’s pants, finding them a few feet away.

Lee took a moment to regard his wife, absently picking up the pants and tossing them to her while he tried to decide if he should pick up the gauntlet that she had just thrown his way, knowing all too well where it could, and probably would, lead. He glanced at his watch. It might just be—perfect timing, he thought, his mind made up. The trademark Stetson grin slowly formed on his face before he replied.

“Funny, but I remember a certain big girl being rather fascinated with the ‘equipment’ herself…” He picked up Matthew, bestowing a kiss on the little boy’s soft cheek, and then offered Amanda a hand up from the floor. As she shifted her weight and levered herself off the floor, he encircled her with his free arm and kissed her on her grinning lips.

“Careful, Stetson,” Amanda cautioned, her voice throaty with passion. “That’s what got us in this,” she nodded toward their son, “situation to begin with.”

“Well, it’s a little late to be worrying about that,” Lee grinned. He removed his arm from her shoulder and placed it on her rounded belly. “I can hardly get you more pregnant…”

Lee’s smile intensified as Amanda giggled. He loved his wife even more now than he had when they had gotten married almost five years ago. And unbelievable as it would have sounded to him even then, he never found her more attractive than when she was pregnant. There was just something so erotic about knowing that she was carrying his child, that there was tangible proof to the world that they loved each other.

Amanda’s heart started to race in anticipation of all that that smile promised. She was constantly surprised and gratified that he could still elicit that reaction from her, even after all this time. And, as she had found when she was pregnant with Matthew, pregnancy agreed with her libido. Well, if she were to be honest with herself (and she always tried to be honest with herself), pregnancy more than agreed with her libido. Heck, pregnancy and her libido were best friends. As unbelievable as it sounded, even to herself, she was more insatiably attracted to her very sexy husband when she was pregnant than when she wasn’t pregnant. (Which was really saying something, because her libido was extraordinarily healthy, even then.) It was a good thing, too, because Lee’s libido also went into overdrive when she was pregnant...

Amanda took a deep breath, trying to let “Mommy” mode overtake “sex-crazed pregnant woman” mode for a few moments. She knew that she had been only partially successful when her voice cracked as she said, “C’mon, Matthew, time for your nap.”

Normally a very accommodating little boy at naptime, Matthew, in what was a predictable, Murphy’s law-type situation, decided to be rebellious. “No nap!” he refused, shaking his head vehemently. “I not tired! Not go to sleep!”

Amanda’s eyes met Lee’s in exasperation. Just when they thought they were finally going to get some time alone…

“Come on, now, Matty,” Lee encouraged, “you’ll feel much better after a little nap. Then we can go outside and play.”

Matthew squirmed in his father’s arm, trying to get down. “Wanta play now! Not after nap!”

Carefully holding back a sigh, Amanda called on all the patience she had gained first by raising her two older boys virtually alone, then by biding her time waiting for Lee to realize (and admit) his feelings for her. Which was really a lot of patience when it came right down to it… “Matty, sweetheart, Mommy and Daddy need to rest, too, so you really need to take a nap right now.” Noticing the defiant pout beginning to form on the two-and-a-half-year-old’s lips, she quickly added in her most persuasive voice, “When you wake up, you can have a treat. Remember? I baked cookies yesterday…”

Lee’s lips twitched as he tried not to grin at the avaricious expression on his son’s face. For a two-year-old, he certainly did have a good grasp of the situation. Even better than Lee had first supposed, it turned out, as the greedy look transformed itself into a calculating one.

“Matty go sleep, get five cookies?” the little boy asked slyly, holding up his hand with all five fingers splayed, then giving a full-on, dimple-laden smile.

Amanda couldn’t stop the grin that overtook her exasperation. He was too smart for his own good, her little one. And too much like his daddy. He knew exactly how to get what he wanted from his mother. But he wasn’t getting it this time. Five was just way too many. She wondered when this obsession with the number five would pass. A friend of theirs had a five-year-old whom Matty adored, and he had quickly latched onto the concept of “five” (and it didn’t hurt, she suspected, that it was the easiest number to produce with his fingers).

“No,” she answered, “Matty will not get five cookies. Matty may have two cookies.” She held up her two fingers. She was not even surprised when he made the connection.

“Matty two, get two cookies?” the little boy grinned at his cleverness, and both of his parents smiled.

“Yes, sweetheart,” Amanda confirmed, though she heard Lee mutter under his breath about that logical conclusion not continuing into his adolescent years.

“Okay, I take a nap.”

His parents sighed in relief. Amanda then turned to Lee. “Can you put him in bed? I need to use the restroom.”

Lee nodded, giving her an intimate smile at this little reminder of her pregnancy. “Sure, I can do that.”

Amanda watched her husband settle Matthew more comfortably in his arms and turn toward the nursery, then went into the bathroom. She really loved being pregnant, she mused, but sometimes it had its inconvenient side.

As she was washing her hands, she felt a current of air as the door opened, and was not surprised to feel Lee’s arms circle her expanding waist. He propped his head on her shoulder and looked at the two of them in the mirror. “Our boys and this little one are lucky to have you for a mom,” he whispered huskily into her ear, stroking her stomach.

Still standing with her hands in the running water, Amanda melted back into Lee’s body. Her arms dropped so that her wrists were resting on the edge of the sink, and Lee reached past her to shut off the faucet. They gazed into each others’ eyes in the mirror for an unknown length of time, each caught by the love and desire to be found there. Finally, Lee turned Amanda around to face him.

As he reached up to gently stroke her cheek, he added, “I’m lucky to have you for a wife, a partner, a best friend, the love of my life…” He broke off, bringing his mouth gently to hers in a smoldering kiss.

The water from Amanda’s hands only felt cold for a second as it penetrated Lee’s shirt. Then it warmed as it conducted the heat from those hands to the burning skin of his back.

“Lee…” she murmured into his mouth, feeling herself leaning in to his embrace. “Oh, Lee, I love you…” Just as her legs were about to buckle under the onslaught of his kiss, he slid his right arm down her side, past her hip, to her knees, and scooped her up in his arms. She pulled away from his mouth to protest. “Lee, I’m too heavy—“

His eyes softened as he tenderly disagreed, “You could be carrying quadruplets and you wouldn’t be too heavy, my Amanda.”

There was no defense she could muster against that possessive “my” that Lee used with her name when they were alone, and he knew it. She smiled and sighed, relaxing into his arms as he carried her into their bedroom.

He walked to the bed, but did not put her down immediately. Instead, he just looked at her, his amazing, beautiful, loving Amanda. How had he gotten so lucky? What had he done to deserve someone like her? He certainly had been no saint. Yes, he’d saved people’s lives, had saved the country more than once from the schemes of some unscrupulous people, but could even those feats merit her in his life? No, he thought, he couldn’t have done, could never do, anything wonderful enough to deserve having Amanda in his life. She was the best thing ever to happen to him. Whether it was God, chance, fate, or karma, he thanked whatever or whoever was responsible for her presence and her love for him. And she not only brought her presence, but that of her mother, her sons (their sons, he mentally corrected himself) Philip and Jamie, their son Matthew, and this newest child into his life. None of this amazing life that he had would be possible without her. At that moment, he loved Amanda more than he had ever loved her before. He held her even more tightly to him, cherishing her with all the love he had in him.

Amanda, who knew her husband very well, had a good idea of the thoughts going through his head, and so she remained quiet. Not that she necessarily agreed with his sentiments about her worth (for though her concept of self-worth had drastically improved since the days before meeting him, it could never be that high), but she harbored very similar thoughts about him. She had for a very long time. She had been one of the first people to see him for what he was worth as a person. Billy and Francine had beaten her to it, but the depth of her understanding of that worth was much greater than theirs. She had seen the possibilities there that even Lee had not known existed inside himself. And oh, how he had fulfilled those possibilities…and surpassed them. As she felt his arms tighten about her, she looked deeply into his eyes, trying to communicate all of her feelings to him. She loved him more now than she ever had before, and she gave her head an incredulous little shake at the thought that tomorrow, and the day after that, and the thousands of days they had left after that, she’d love him even more.

Finally, the intensity of the mood seemed to increase just a little too much, so Lee broke it with a grin and set Amanda down on the bed. In his sexiest voice, he asked, “So, do I get a treat if I go to bed?”

Amanda shrugged, and then gave him an ingenuous smile. “Sure. There are plenty of chocolate chip cookies lef—“ She gasped as he interrupted her pert answer with a tickle, and followed the gasp with a screech as he found a particularly sensitive spot.

Grinning so that both dimples showed, Lee playfully “shushed” her. “You’ll disturb Matthew!”

She slapped his arm. “Then don’t tickle me!”

He gave her a mock salute. “Yes, Ma’am. What do you suggest I do instead, Ma’am?”

Playing along, she frowned thoughtfully. “Well, Mr. Stetson, what I suggest you do is—" she grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him toward her so that he landed next to her on the bed, then finished her sentence, “—kiss me.”

“Yes, Ma’am!” He snugged his lips to hers, marveling anew at how they could be soft and yielding one minute, and hard and demanding the next. He didn’t know which was more exciting, to be the possessor or the possessed, but she seemed to be the aggressive one right now, so he let her take control.

Amanda felt Lee give in to her demanding kiss. The only thing keeping her from smiling in triumph right now was the fact that her lips were attached to his. She had never said so in so many words, but being the one in charge was very arousing for her. At least in situations like this. At work, she was normally content to let Lee take charge; she was the “good cop” to his “bad cop,” she was the calm to his storm.

However, she was also acutely aware that her husband was a dangerous man, and a small part of her found it intensely exciting to be in control of him. Even if it was “just pretend.” Actually, especially if it was “just pretend,” for she also had a great respect and admiration for Lee, as a person and as an agent, and she had no real desire to be anything but his equal. It was one of her greatest points of pride that he also had respect and admiration for her—something that neither one of them would have thought possible just eight or nine years before. So it was with her brown eyes sparkling that she pulled away from the kiss and sat up on the bed, then pushed him onto his back, placing his arms above his head and ordering him not to move.

Lee’s eyebrows arched, looking adorably cute with his roguish grin. Amanda started unbuttoning his shirt very slowly, following every button with a kiss to each newly-revealed portion of his chest. When she got to the last one, she pushed it open and ran her hands over his chest. She had always appreciated his smooth, hard musculature. She pulled his shirt upward, and he arched his back to help. When she got to his shoulders, he started to pull his head up, but she stopped him. Gently, sensuously, she lifted his head with one hand and pulled the shirt out from under him. She leaned down and matched her lips to his, kissing softly, nibbling at the edges. He leaned forward, trying to get more pressure, but she pulled back, shaking her head. “Uh-uh, not yet, Mr. Stetson.” Still supporting his head with one hand, she pulled the sleeves off his upraised arms with the other.

After tossing the shirt to the floor, she lowered his head to the bed and leaned down, tracing his jaw line from chin to neck with her lips. Lee moaned. She crossed his neck, trailing more kisses, and then followed his jaw line on the other side to his chin. Once there, she moved toward his lips, and finally gave Lee the kiss he’d been waiting for. As they lost themselves in the kiss, suddenly a faint cry could be heard.

“Mo-o-ommy!” There was the sound of a few sobs, then—“Da-a-addy!”

Amanda dropped her forehead to Lee’s, simultaneously giving a long-suffering sigh. She heard a similar expiration from him.

As she pulled back to look in Lee’s eyes, she couldn’t help but notice the amusement dancing in them. “It really isn’t funny, you know,” she reminded him in frustration.

“I know,” Lee replied, in full agreement as he managed to groaningly lever himself off the bed. “I was just thinking. With everyone else’s perfect timing, I’m amazed that we’ve managed to get pregnant twice!”