Colonel Daddy

A shriek of laughter rose up from next door, and Tom glanced that way, unaware of Kate’s spiraling thoughts. “She’s something, all right,” he said. “I look at her and try to imagine my own mother wearing that outfit.”

“And can’t?” she asked, dropping her keys into her purse and starting down the walk.

“Angelina Candello?” he asked as he followed her. “In neon? I don’t think so.”

“Angelina’s a beautiful name,” she said softly and waited for him to unlock the truck door.

“Yeah.” He held it open for her. “You would have liked her.”

“Would have?”

“She died about six years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged but she caught a glint of remembered pain shining briefly in his eyes. Then he closed the door and walked around the hood to climb in beside her. As he fired the engine and pulled away from the curb, Kate watched him, her mind racing.

Three years, she thought. Three years she’d known him and yet she really knew so little. Swallowing back the sadness welling inside her, she asked quietly, “Your father?”

“Died when I was a kid.” Tom kept his eyes on the road, “Angie raised me. What about you?”

Kate’s hands smoothed the fall of her dress across her knees and watched the ripple of material as she said, “I never knew my father. My mother died when I was fifteen.”

“So we’re both orphans.”

She shot a look at him from beneath lowered lashes. “Yes. I guess we are.”

Another long moment of silence stretched out between them until finally, when they stopped at a red light, Tom spoke. Gently he asked, “Do you realize how little we know about each other?”

“Strange, isn’t it?” Strange and sad and lonely. She’d loved him from the moment she laid eyes on him. She could map every inch of his body from memory. She’d held him inside her, found magic in his touch and was now sheltering his child within her and she didn’t even know his middle name.

“What is your middle name?” she asked abruptly, determined to start mining him for information.

He stared at her, brow furrowed in confusion. “My middle name?”

“It’s a place to start, don’t you think?” She crossed her legs, black silk stockings swishing. She linked her shaking hands around her knee.

Someone behind them honked, and Tom turned his head forward and stepped on the gas.

“Yeah, all right.” He nodded and moved into the left lane. The fingers of his left hand tapped nervously against the steering wheel. “Nice night.”

She stared at him as he steered the truck into a well-lit parking lot. When he didn’t say anything else, she commented, “You’re stalling.”

“Hmm? Why would I be stalling?”

“You don’t want to tell me your middle name.”

“That’s ridiculous.” He snorted a laugh as he pulled into a parking slot, set the brake and killed the engine.

“I think so.”

He winced. “You haven’t heard it yet.”

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Was he embarrassed? Another piece of information to add to the paltry store of things she knew about the man she loved.

Kate locked her fingers together tighter to keep from reaching out to touch him. In the dim, muted glow of the overhead lights, his face was shadowed but she still read the stubborn reluctance on his features.

“Okay,” she said softly, “now I have to hear it.”

One corner of his mouth tilted up, and that dimple of his creased his cheek. Kate’s stomach slipped and she forced air into her lungs in an effort to quiet it.

“This is top secret, Major,” he warned, giving her a mock glare.

“Sir!” she snapped, and freed one hand long enough to give him a sharp salute.

“I’m serious,” he said. “Only a handful of people know what I’m about to tell you.

“I’m honored.”

“I’m embarrassed.”

“I noticed.”

“Fine.” Frowning, he leaned in close and muttered, “Salvatore.”

Kate pulled back and looked at him. “You’re kidding.”

“Would I make that up?”

No, she supposed not. Aloud, she tried it out. “Thomas Salvatore Candello. Hmm.”

“It gets worse.”

Her eyes widened. “There’s more?”

“Thomas Salvatore Giovanni Candello.”

“Wow.”

He nodded sagely. “Now you understand the reason for secrecy.”

Actually her hormones were making her just sappy enough to find his full name sort of...romantic. But instead of saying so, she told him, “Your secret’s safe, Colonel.”

“It had better be, Major,” he said with another warning look. “Now it’s my turn. Give.”

“Give?”

“The middle name, Major. Let’s have it.” He crooked one finger at her.

“It’s not nearly as...interesting as yours.”

“Undoubtedly,” he admitted. “Still. Fair’s fair.”

“It’s Marie,” she said. “Katherine Marie.”

He looked at her for the space of several heartbeats, then smiled softly. “It’s beautiful.”

Something inside her trembled.

“You’re beautiful,” he added, and leaned toward her again. “Lord, I’ve missed you, Kate.”

“Thomas...,” she said on a sigh and wasn’t sure if she’d meant it as an invitation or a warning. His eyes flashed and in their depths she read his hunger. His desire. She recognized it effortlessly because she was sure the same emotions were glittering in her own eyes. It happened every time he got within three feet of her.

But this wasn’t supposed to happen tonight. Their first real chance to talk since she’d arrived in California, heaven knew they had plenty to talk about. All afternoon she’d reminded herself that this was a night for conversation—not for picking up where they left off in Japan.

Steeling herself with that thought, she unsnapped her seat belt, opened the truck door and swiveled to climb out.

“Kate?”

She turned to look at him. With a helpless shrug she said, “If you start kissing me now, Thomas, we’ll never get anything settled.”

He pulled in a deep breath, held it, then exhaled in a rush. Nodding briskly, he muttered, “You’re right. First things first.”

When they met at the back of the truck and he took her arm to escort her into the restaurant, though, he paused, waiting until she looked up at him. “But you have to know how much I want you, Kate.”

She shivered beneath his touch and the fiery sparks in his eyes. “Believe me, Thomas,” she assured him. “I know.”

The Pasta Pot was small, and the crowd friendly. A veritable jungle of flowers and ivy spilled out of baskets hanging from the wide oak beams overhead. Candles dotted every table and the flickering flames looked like fireflies in the atmospheric gloom.

On a weeknight, there was no wait for a table, and Tom walked behind Kate and the hostess to a corner booth in the back. Once their orders had been taken by a waitress who attended them promptly, Tom turned his full attention on Kate.

“It’s pretty,” she said, glancing around the room as the muted strains of Beethoven floated to them from the overhead speakers.

“Food’s good, too,” he said.

Her gaze slid to his. “This is so weird.”

“Yeah,” he agreed and reached across the gleaming oak table to lay one hand over hers. “But we’ll work it out.”

At that, something inside her seemed to burst. She started talking, and the words poured from her like water from an upended bucket

“I can’t believe this is happening,” she started with a shake of her head. “How can we do this? How can we get married? We hardly know each other.”

“We knew each other well enough to make a baby,” he pointed out.

“A baby.” She propped her elbows on the table and cradled her head in her hands. “Ohmigod. How can I be a mother?” she muttered, more to herself than to him. “I can’t cook, I don’t sew,” she threw him a wild look. “I can’t even bake cookies, for Pete’s sake! Shouldn’t a mother know how to bake cookies? Isn’t that a requirement?”

“I don’t think so,” he said and tried to smile. “As far as I know, you don’t have to be able to chop wood, stoke a fire or slaughter your own meat anymore, either.”

She groaned and shook her head. “You don’t understand, Thomas. I don’t even keep plants. They always die. No matter what I do,” she went on, now tangling her fingers together and squeezing. “Too little water, too much water, no fertilizer, too much fertilizer, sunlight, shade...doesn’t matter. I kill ’em all.”

“Kate...” He smiled. “It’s not the same thing.”

“An indiscriminate plant killer, Thomas.” She met his gaze, and he saw with heartstopping clarity the sheen of tears beginning to well in her eyes. “I’ve been blacklisted in every garden nursery from here to Guam. So I ask you,” she added as she blinked those tears back, “is this the kind of person who should be a mother?”

He slid closer to her on the maroon leather booth seat and pulled her into his arms for a quick hug. Something inside him tightened painfully, then relaxed again with an almost painful release. “You’ll be great” he said confidently.

“How can you know that?”

“Because you care so damn much,” he whispered. “That’s all the baby will need. Heck, that’s all the three of us will need to make this work, Kate. Caring.” He ran one finger along her cheek gently. “If we care enough, everything else will take care of itself.” Tom repeated that last phrase to himself silently and hoped to God he was right. “Trust me, Kate.”

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