Colonel Daddy

She sighed heavily. “In the month I’ve been here, we’ve hardly spoken more than once or twice.”

“So?”

“So, don’t you think people will be just a little bit curious if we announce our imminent wedding?”

“And if we don’t get married, in a couple of months,” he snapped a look at her still flat abdomen, “they’ll be curious about a whole lot more than that.”

“I know.” She buried the flash of nerves that leaped into life in the pit of her stomach. “But still, we can’t go from supposed strangers to newlyweds overnight.”

He thought about it for a minute or two, then shrugged again. “Does it really matter? Is it anyone’s business?”

“Yes,” she said. “And no.”

“Huh?”

“Yes, it does matter and no, it’s not their business. But that won’t stop the gossip and you know it.”

“Military bases run on gossip. There’s no way to avoid it.”

“Maybe not, but we could slow it down a little.”

He smiled. “What have you got in mind?”

“Dating?” she suggested.

This time he laughed. “Kate, we’re a little beyond the dating stage, don’t you think?”

“Okay, sure.” She nodded and started pacing again, the sound of her heels against the linoleum tapping out a rhythm for her thoughts. “I suppose we could tell people that we’ve been seeing each other for three years.”

“A lot of each other,” he added.

“Yes, well, they don’t need to know that, now do they?”

“Kate,” Tom said, and crossed the room to her before she could stop him. “You’re making this more difficult—more complicated than it has to be.”

“I don’t see how.”

“We’ll date,” he said, and smiled down at her when she winced. “And after a whirlwind courtship, we’ll have a nice, quiet wedding a few weeks from now.”

“People will still talk.”

“It won’t matter. We’ll be married. The talk will die down.”

“Until I start showing.”

“You can’t prevent people from counting.”

“I suppose,” she said, and wished he would hold her again.

Tom reached for her, holding her tightly to him. He’d never seen Kate like this. Distracted. Worried—no, scared.

He pulled in a deep breath, enjoying the familiar, floral scent of her shampoo even as his mind told him she had a right to be scared, and if he had half a brain, he would be, too.

He’d done this before. He’d been married and made a damn mess of it. He’d had a child, too, and blown that, as well.

Oh, yeah, he was just the guy Kate needed—an already-proven failure as a husband and father.

His stomach turned over, and a fist tightened inside it.

There were two ways this could go, he told himself. One, it could all blow up in his face, hurting him, Kate and the poor unsuspecting baby stuck with him as a father—or, it could be his chance to make up for doing everything so badly the first time around.

Heaven or hell.

The lady or the tiger.

Tom closed his eyes and held her more tightly.

A pounding headache throbbing behind her eyes, Kate sat at her desk, taking deep breaths and telling herself the worst was over. She’d told him about the baby. Nobody had fainted. He hadn’t held up a rope of garlic to keep her at bay. And most important, she’d managed to keep her stomach from rebelling in the disgusting manner that was becoming all too familiar these days.

So why didn’t she feel better?

Because it wasn’t over. It was just beginning.

She was going to be a mother, God help the poor little thing nestled unknowingly inside her. And a wife. To a man who didn’t want a wife.

Kate groaned out loud, pushed both hands through her short hair and held on to her skull to keep it from exploding. Trying to distract herself, she glared at the mountain of paperwork awaiting her attention. Files and folders and stapled sheafs of papers lay across her desk in what to anyone else’s eye would look like a disorganized jumble. To Kate’s credit, she knew what every single piece of paper was, where it belonged and how to put her finger on whatever was needed at a moment’s notice.

That didn’t mean she liked it.

Thomas was wrong, she thought, stealing a quick glance at the In pile that had grown substantially in the fifteen minutes she’d been gone. The military didn’t run on gossip. It ran on paper. Piles and piles of paper.

A knock at the door delivered her and she looked up. “Yes?”

The door opened and her assistant, Staff Sergeant Eileen Dennis, poked her head in. “Excuse me, ma’am, but the other files have arrived.”

“Perfect,” Kate groaned and leaned back in her chair.

“Can I help, ma’am?” Eileen offered, stepping farther into the room and dropping at least ten more manilla folders onto an already precariously tilted stack.

Kate sighed. Tempting, but no. She might be pregnant and about to marry a reluctant groom, but she was still a Marine. And she could do her job—at least until her belly was so swollen she couldn’t pull her chair in close enough to reach the desk.

She managed to stifle the groan building inside her as she scooted her chair in extra tight, just because she could.

Looking up at the younger woman standing opposite her, Kate figured Eileen Dennis to be about twenty-eight Her bright blue eyes were sharp. Her smart cap of night black hair was regulation, yet somehow managed to look feminine. Spit and polish, the creases on the woman’s uniform had creases. The staff sergeant was young, eager, dedicated and ambitious.

Everything Kate had always been herself. So why then did she suddenly feel like Grandma Moses in comparison?

“Thanks, Eileen,” she said with a shake of her head. “I can manage.”

She actually looked disappointed. “If you’re sure...”

“I am,” Kate said. “But if you can find me a cup of coffee, I’ll put you up for promotion.”

Eileen grinned at the joke. “Black, one sugar?”

“Yeah.” Just as the door started to close, though, Kate said, “No. Wait.” Caffeine. Not a good thing for growing babies. She caught Eileen’s eye. “Make that tea.”

“Tea, ma’am?” Surprise etched itself onto her features.

“Herbal.” Lord, just saying it made her want to retch. How would she ever get through the next six months without a jolt of caffeine every day?

“Yes ma’am,” Eileen said, and slowly closed the door again.

When she was alone, Kate pushed away from the desk and crossed the room to the one tiny window her office provided. Staring out at the busy base, she absently watched her fellow Marines carrying out their everyday tasks. The world was rolling right along, she thought. It didn’t seem to matter that her own personal world lay in shambles at her feet.

Her phone rang and grudgingly Kate turned toward the desk again. She snatched it up on the third ring. “Yes?”

“Colonel Candello on line one, ma’am.”

Her stomach twisted. Had he changed his mind already? Had the idea of a baby and marriage made him want to resign and catch the first sailboat to Tahiti?

A click, a hum, then Thomas’s voice. “Kate?”

“I’m here.”

A long pause. “You never agreed to dinner tonight. Let’s get this courtship started.”

So much for Tahiti.

“Tonight?” Her fingers tightened around the receiver.

“Any reason not to?”

She stared down at her desk, told herself she should work late and clear up all the files. But they’d be right there in the morning, waiting for her. “No,” she said. “I guess not.”

“Good. Seven?” he asked, and even over the phone his voice raised goosebumps on her skin. “I’ll pick you up at your place?”

She rubbed one hand over her forearm, as if she could wipe away the effect he had on her.

“You don’t know where I live,” she said. Good heavens, she was marrying a man who didn’t even know where her apartment was. This couldn’t be right, could it? Right for any of them?

“I was hoping you’d tell me.”

Kate sat down in her chair, propped her elbows on her desk and didn’t even glance at the two manilla folders that slid off, spilling papers across her floor. “Thomas—” She rested her forehead in one palm. “This is all so weird. It feels... awkward.”

“I know, honey,” he said, his voice deepening into a low rumble of sound. “But we’ll figure it all out.”

She hoped so, because at the moment, her world felt about as steady as a ball twirling on the tip of a trained seal’s snout.

“You still like Italian?” he asked.

Kate smiled, ridiculously pleased that he’d repeated the stupid little joke they traditionally used to start off their yearly week together. Even more ridiculous, his saying it now actually made her feel better. So she gave him the answer he was waiting for.

“I still like one Italian.”

“That’s a relief. You had me worried there for a minute, Kate.” His chuckle carried across the line before he said, “So, Major. Give me your address so I can start sweeping you off your feet.”

A moment later, Tom hung up. His hand still lying atop the cradled receiver, he stared blankly at the window opposite his desk. Weak winter sunshine fell through the spotty glass pane, painting a polka-dotted slash of gold across the linoleum.

All things considered, he told himself, that had gone pretty well. He flashed a look at the phone and frowned to himself. He’d managed to sound encouraging, uplifting and supportive without once letting his voice betray the sliver of panic that had torn his guts open at her news.

While he was on a roll, he snatched up the phone again and dialed his daughter’s number. After two rings, she answered.

“Hi, kiddo,” he said quickly.

“Hi, Dad, what’s up?”

Way too much to go into over the phone, he thought. His fingers toyed with the curly telephone cord. “A change in plans. I can’t make dinner tonight”

“Your loss,” his daughter informed him. “I’m making Grandma’s lasagna.”

He smiled at the receiver. “Rain check?”

“Naturally,” she said. “Anything wrong? You sound funny.”

Funny? No, he didn’t. He sounded exactly what he was. Terrified. But he wasn’t going to say anything to Donna and her husband, First Sergeant Jack Harris, until he and Kate had had time to talk this whole thing out

“No,” he assured her. “Nothing’s wrong.” Then, because his whirlwind courtship was about to start, and she might as well start getting used to the idea, he said as casually as possible. “Actually, I have a date.”

“Intriguing,” his too-sharp daughter said. “Bachelor Colonel with a date. I haven’t even seen you look at a woman since your barbecue a few months ago.”

Just before his last trip to Japan, Tom remembered. He’d actually toyed with the idea of dating a woman he saw more than once a year. But, after dinner and a movie, he’d discovered that as nice as the woman was, she wasn’t Kate.

“Who is she?” Donna prompted. “Anyone I know?”

“Major Katherine Jennings,” he answered, and added silently, Kate. The woman I’ve been having an affair with for three years. The mother of your new little brother or sister. Oh, man.

“Nope,” Donna told him. “Don’t know her.”

You will, he thought, but said only, “I’ve gotta go, kiddo.”

“Okay, but you owe me,” she warned. “Dinner here, next week?”

“Deal.” Already moving to hang up, he said, “Say hello to Jack.”

“Okay. ‘Bye, Dad.”

He set the phone down, Donna’s last word ringing in his ears. Dad. Lord, he’d been a lousy parent the first time around. He swallowed back the knot of bitterness that always threatened to choke him when he recalled those lost years with Donna.

As teenagers he and Donna’s mother had married with the best of intentions, only to see their relationship die within a couple of years. After the divorce, he’d concentrated solely on his career, moving up in the ranks—and he’d missed so much of Donna’s childhood, he’d hardly known her when she had come to live with him when she was thirteen.

Shame simmered inside him, pushing him to his feet and demanding he move. He paced, unconsciously following the same path Kate’s heels had trod only a few minutes ago.

Pregnant

It had taken years to rebuild a relationship with Donna. Years filled with anxiety, frustration and the fear that he would never be able to overcome the “parenting” lessons he’d absorbed from his own father.

And now it would all start again. A knot of tension tightened in his gut Was it fair to saddle some poor innocent baby with him as a father?

Just like the last time he’d gotten married, the bride would be carrying his child. God. Hadn’t he learned anything in his forty-five years?

He rubbed both hands across his face viciously. A grown man, and he’d been as irresponsible as he had been at seventeen. A sad thing to note about yourself, he thought.

But instantly that night in Japan rolled back into his mind.

The two of them, locked together on that tiny balcony. Kate’s flesh beneath his hands, her legs locked around his middle, the hot, tight feel of her body embracing his. In memory, he saw her head fall back, her lips form his name as another climax tore through her. He should have stopped then. Should have pulled away long enough to make sure she was safe. But he didn’t. His greed for her had spilled through him, and he could no more have left her—even for a moment—than he could have stopped breathing on command.

So instead, with the sounds of the city far below them and the soft glow of the moon and a trillion stars above them, they’d created a life.

A life that had a right to expect a few little things like security and love from its parents.

Three

Tom pulled up in front of the small duplex, parked beneath the lamppost, set the brake and turned off the ignition. Opening the door, he pocketed the keys and slid out of his new truck.

Idly he ran one hand over the flashy red paint that looked a dingy gray in the weird glow of the yellow fog light. The day he’d bought it, just a month ago, he’d actually called Donna, to tease her about the “new baby” in his life.

A short laugh shot from his throat. New baby had suddenly taken on a completely different meaning.

He could just imagine the look on Donna’s and her husband’s faces when he announced the arrival of her little brother. Or sister.

Shaking his head, he started around the front of the car. A muffled roar of sound rolled toward him. Out of the darkness, four young boys appeared as shadows in the gloom, then sailed past him, ably surfing the asphalt on skateboards.

Their laughter hung in the air for a long minute after they were gone, and Tom stared after them. Skateboarding. In the dark. Fearlessly pitting themselves against drivers who would have a hard time spotting them in their blue jeans and sweatshirts.

A cold chill swept over him. The kids couldn’t have been more than ten, tops. When his child was ten, Tom would be fifty-five. Nearly sixty. He groaned tightly. How in the hell would he be able to keep up with the kid?

Shaking his head at the thought, he turned to stare at the small, neat apartments in front of him. A singlestory, craftsman-style duplex, ‘Kate had told him hers was the one on the right. Tom shifted his gaze to the square of lamplight making the blue drapes across a wide front window glow with a nearly serene light. He tried to imagine her there, inside.

He should have come by sooner. Called her. He’d wanted to. But she was right. This did feel awkward. Sure, they’d known each other for three years. But they’d only spent three weeks of that time together.

In the month she’d been on base, Tom had hardly seen her. He’d deliberately kept his distance, wanting to give her time to settle in. To get used to the idea of their being in such close quarters for the first time.

But it had taken every ounce of his self-control to keep from calling her, talking to her. Honestly, he’d wanted to give her time to decide if she even wanted to continue the affair that had come to mean so much to him over the past three years.

Now, it seemed the choice had been made for her.

Dragging in a deep breath of sea-flavored air, he started for the front door. Along the way, he noted the neat flower border that lined the narrow, curved walk. Tiny statues of squirrels, chipmunks and rabbits dotted one half of the thumbnail-sized front lawn, and he smiled, wondering if Kate had set them out or if they belonged to her neighbor.

How little he knew about her, the person, he mused. Oh, he knew that rubbing the back of her knee lightly would make her purr in pleasure. But he didn’t know the simple things. For instance, what was her favorite color?

What the hell kind of relationship was this?

Two front doors met him. The door on the left, painted a bright blue, also sported a wild-looking wreath made of dried flowers and boasting a stuffed canary on its straw ribbon. He glanced at it and it opened.

A small, older woman in skintight pink pants topped by a neon yellow sweatshirt stepped out onto her porch. She looked up at him, smiled and instantly lifted one hand to unnecessarily smooth her chic, silver hair. “Well,” she said, her tone openly interested. “Hello. I heard you walk up, thought you were one of the girls. But you’re most definitely not, so just exactly who are you?”

“Tom Candello, ma’am,” he said, and couldn’t help noticing when she winced slightly at the “ma’am.”

She recovered quickly though and, stepping toward him, she held out her right hand. “Evie Bozeman,” she said, giving him a wide smile. “You’re here to see Kate, then?”

“That’s right,” he said, and snapped a quick look at the still-closed door on the right.

“And are you a Marine, too?” she practically cooed at him.

“Yes ma’am, I’m a colonel.”

“Ooh, fascinating,” she murmured, then her gaze swept him up and down. “A shame you didn’t wear your uniform. I do so love a man in uniform.”

“I don’t usually wear it off base,” he told her and silently counted his lucky stars that he hadn’t worn it tonight, especially.

“As I said, a shame. Ah, well, jeans are nice, too.” She inhaled sharply, beamed a smile at him and tightened her grip on his hand. “I’m delighted Kate has a date. I’ve told her and told her, she’s too young to just sit at home all the time.”

Too young, Tom thought with an inward groan. At thirty-two, she was too young for lots of things. Including him. As he’d told her often over the past three years.

“You take me, for example.” Evie was talking again, tugging him toward Kate’s door. “Why, I’m almost never home. Tonight’s different, of course. The girls are coming over for a game of cards. We invited Kate to join us, but she said she had plans.” She actually batted her eyelashes at him. “And she certainly wasn’t lying.”

There was a gleam in Evie Bozeman’s eyes that had Tom wanting to call out the troops for backup.

From out on the street, a car horn sounded and Evie looked past him, thank heaven, squinted a bit, then grinned and waved. “The girls are here,” she told him, and tugged him around again to face the walkway.

Tom glanced over his shoulder at Kate’s unadorned door and wondered where the hell she was. Then it occurred to him that she might be watching all of this and thoroughly enjoying it instead of coming out to rescue him. As soon as that thought registered, though, he reminded himself that he was a colonel in the Marine Corps. He shouldn’t have to be rescued from a woman who had to be at least sixty-five.

Determinedly he tried to pull his hand free, but Evie held on in a grip that told him she’d done this before.

“Now, don’t run off, Tom,” she said, waving one arm in a wide arc, to hurry her friends along the flower-lined walk. “I want you to meet the girls.”

Surrendering to the inevitable, he followed her gaze to the four women hurtling up the walkway. Each one well into her sixties, they wore jeans or the same kind of tights Evie was wearing. Sweatshirts, T-shirts and running shoes completed the ensembles, and Tom had to admit they looked nothing at all like what he would expect from a bridge club.

“Girls,” Evie announced proudly, “this is Tom.” She paused for effect, then added, “He’s a Marine. A colonel.”

Tom shifted uneasily as four pairs of interested eyes turned on him.

“Where’d you find him, Evie?”

“My, what a looker!”

“Whose is he?”

“Can we keep him?”

This last from a tiny woman with carrot red hair and an eager glint in her eye.

Tom met that look and took an instinctive step backward. Where were all of the nice grandmotherly type women he’d known when he was a kid?

From behind him a door opened and he almost groaned in relief when he heard Kate say, “Tom?”

Taking advantage of Evie’s surprise, Tom pulled his hand free and made a quick move for the blond woman standing in the open doorway. He didn’t remember ever being so glad to see her as he was at this minute. The porch light glimmered on the lightest blond streaks in her hair, making the short, curledunder cut shimmer like silver and gold threads. The dress she wore was enough to destroy a lesser man, and the light, flowery scent he always associated with her enveloped him.

She smiled up at him as she closed and locked her front door behind her and his heart hammered against his chest. Yep, he told himself. Worse than a teenager.

An audible sigh of disappointment came from “the girls.”

“Hello, Kate,” Evie said brightly. “I was just introducing Tom to my friends.”

“So I see,” she said, and fought down a ripple of excitement that shook through her when Tom’s arm brushed against her. She didn’t even want to think about the look she’d seen in his eyes a moment ago.

“Going someplace nice, are you?” Evie asked, her gaze fastening on Kate’s dark blue, brushed-wool dress.

“I don’t know,” Kate said, shooting a look at Tom. “Are we?”

He rubbed one hand across the back of his neck. “I was thinking about the Pasta Pot.”

“Good choice,” Evie told him, then began to herd her friends toward her front door. “Have a nice night. And Kate? Maybe you can join us for cards next week?”

“I’d like that,” Kate said, smiling at the woman who’d become a friend in the past month.

“I didn’t know you played bridge,” Tom muttered.

Before she could correct him, her neighbor did it for her.

“Bridge!” Evie exclaimed on a laugh. “That’s for old women. We play poker, honey, down and dirty.”

“Poker?” Tom repeated, and Kate dipped her head to hide a smile.

“Five-card stud. Wimps and wusses need not apply.” She sailed into her apartment with a wave and a high-pitched “Toodle-oo!”

After a long moment of stunned silence, Tom muttered, “Now there goes a completely terrifying woman.”

The tension she’d felt all afternoon shattered, Kate looked up at him and laughed. “Wonderful, isn’t she?”

“Interesting,” he said, then confessed, “For a minute there, when ‘the girls’ arrived, I knew just what it felt like to be a nicely browned Thanksgiving turkey when dozens of hungry eyes are locked on it.”

Kate looked him up and down quickly, covertly and couldn’t really blame Evie and the others. He looked good enough to eat. Black hair with just a dusting of gray at the temples. A red knit shirt that stretched tight across his muscled chest and broad shoulders was tucked into the narrow waistband of a pair of jeans that hugged his long, truly great legs. No wonder Evie and her friends had briefly captured him. It wasn’t every day a gorgeous man wandered up that walk.

Something inside her quivered, like a guitar string plucked and left to vibrate. Kate swallowed hard and strived for a calm, easy tone in her voice as she said, “When I first moved in, Evie made me dinner every night for a week. Said I shouldn’t have to bother with anything other than unpacking because moving was such a bitch.”

He chuckled, and the sound brought back memories of black nights, starlit skies and soft music. She could almost feel his warm breath on her neck. Almost taste the champagne they’d used to toast each other their last night together. The night they’d made a baby.