The Daddy Salute

Fifteen minutes later, Kathy heard his door slam and braced herself for the sound of a brisk knock at her own door. Brian Haley apparently didn’t want to take “No, thanks” for an answer.

But his footsteps went off down the hall.

“Well,” she said aloud, and was glad there was no one to hear her, “that should teach you a little humility.” Without even thinking about it, Kathy walked across her apartment to look out the front windows.

Turning back the edge of the curtains with her fingertips, she looked down onto the residential street below. A group of kids riding their bikes in the late summer sun raced along the quiet street and disappeared, leaving echoed hoots of laughter in their wake. An ocean breeze rattled the leaves of the old poplar trees lining the sidewalks, and somewhere in the distance a lawn mower growled and dogs barked.

She stiffened when Brian hurried down the front steps and along the curving walkway. Following him with her gaze, Kathy didn’t miss his crisply ironed blue sport shirt and the tan khaki slacks. Looked like date clothes to her. “I’m glad to see rejection doesn’t keep him down for long.” She shook her head and went up on her toes to see him better. He moved quickly, like a man on a mission. “Anxious, isn’t he?” she muttered through gritted teeth.

So much for her theories about her own irresistibility. Not only wasn’t he pining from her lack of interest, he’d gone directly from flirting shamelessly with her to a date with someone else.

Unlocking the door of his black Jeep, he slid inside, fired the engine and was gone a moment or two later.

Only then did Kathy notice her grip tightened on the curtains, pressing dozens of wrinkles into the sheer fabric. She smoothed them out as best she could, then turned around to face her empty apartment.

This was a vindication, of sorts. She’d known all along that Brian Haley was what her mother would have called a womanizer. So she’d done the right thing in standing firm against his flirting and turning down his less-than-subtle invitations to get to know him better.

“I win,” she mumbled, and tried not to wonder why victory tasted so much like defeat.

Three days later Brian looked up from his computer screen as First Sergeant Jack Harris walked into the office. “You’re late,” he said.

“Shoot me,” Jack told him, and crossed the room to his own desk.

“Trust me. Today, you shouldn’t tempt me.”

“Oh, aye, aye, Gunnery Sergeant Haley, sir.”

Brian shook his head. “Shut up.”

Jack laughed shortly, flipped on his computer and glanced at his friend. “What’s the matter with you?”

Brian scrubbed his hands over his face and mumbled. “Nothing.”

“Good,” Jack said. “I need to see those finished fitness reports today.”

“Thanks for the concern,” Brian said, “but I’ll be fine.”

Jack laughed shortly, leaned back in his chair and said, “All right, let’s have it.”

“Have what?” He bit the words off.

“Could this be…” Jack said, his expression mirroring his amusement, “dare I think it…lady troubles?”

“Who said anything about a woman?” he grumbled from behind his hands.

“You didn’t have to,” Jack told him. “I recognize the signs.”

“What signs?” He dropped his hands to his desk and glared at the other man.

“Signs that a man’s been lying awake at night thinking about a woman he can’t have.”

Brian had been around in the early days of Jack’s marriage to Colonel Candello’s daughter, Donna. And he remembered vividly how on edge Jack had been then. He also recalled not having had a lot of sympathy for the man. Ironic.

Still, this situation was entirely different. Brian wasn’t married. Hell, he hadn’t even had a date with the woman slowly driving him nuts. Irritation swelled inside him, and he shot his old friend a dirty look. Pushing away from the desk, he folded his arms across his chest, glared at Jack and demanded, “Why do you automatically assume that I’m having a problem with a woman?”

Jack turned away from his work and grinned. “Maybe because I saw the way you looked at Kathy Tate…and the way she avoided looking at you.”

“Thanks for nothing.”

“No problem.” Jack was enjoying this, and it showed. “So tell me. I saw strike one for myself. Was there a strike two in the past few days?”

“Why in hell did a nice woman like Donna marry you?”

“She refused to settle for less than the best.”

“And yet she picked you.”

“You’re stalling,” Jack said, pointing a finger at him. “Afraid to admit you’ve finally found a woman you can’t charm?”

“You’re a laugh riot, Jack.” Disgusted, Brian snatched up the first of the fitness reports and made a great show of reading it over.

“This is no laughing matter,” Jack said soberly and Brian shot him a look in time to see the smile on the man’s face. “There’s a pool, you know.”

“A pool?”

“Yep.” Jack rocked easily in his chair, folded his hands atop his chest and studied the water-marked ceiling. “And the pot’s getting bigger every day.”

“You guys are betting on me striking out with Kathy?” Brian threw a glance at the open doorway and the hall beyond. How many of his “friends” were in on this, anyway? And how, he wondered, sliding a suspicious look at Jack, had they found out about Kathy?

Jack chuckled gleefully. “There’s not a marine on base who wouldn’t like to see you strike out completely for once.”

“Surrounded by friends and supporters.”

“Hey, anybody with the kind of luck you have with females is bound to inspire a little…”

“Envy?” Brian provided, one eyebrow arching high on his forehead.

“I was thinking more along the lines of enmity.”

“And you felt it was your responsibility to tell everybody about my next-door neighbor.”

“After what I saw the other day,” Jack said on a laugh, “you bet.”

“What happened to semper fi?” Brian asked, throwing his hands up in the air. “Marines sticking together? Always faithful?”

“In battle, sure. In this kind of situation, it’s every man for himself.”

Brian laughed and shook his head. Typical.

“So, what’s happening anyway?”

“Nothing,” he said on a snort of derision. “That’s the problem.” Dinner with Dana had been a disaster. As soon as he’d arrived, she’d poured him a drink, told him dinner wouldn’t be ready for another hour and suggested several ways to pass the time until then.

Bound and determined to prove to himself—if no one else—that nothing in his life had changed, Brian had given her suggestions his best shot. But in the middle of what should have been a delicious kiss, he found himself imagining that the woman in his arms was shorter, a little plumper, with softly waving brown hair and eyes wide and deep enough to lose himself in.

In short, even Dana’s charms couldn’t keep his mind from straying to Kathy. Which irritated the hell out of him…and Dana, when he suddenly announced that he’d made a mistake and couldn’t stay. With the slam of her door still ringing in his ears, Brian had driven straight back to the base. It was a sad thing indeed to have to admit that work sounded like a better idea than dinner with Dana.

Jack laughed and Brian realized he’d never noticed what an evil chuckle his friend had.

“What’s so damn funny?” he demanded.

“It’s always entertaining to watch the mighty take a fall.”

“A fall?”

“This could be better than I’d hoped,” Jack said, amazement in his eyes. “This could work into love, Gunnery Sergeant. You may have finally met your match.”

Love?

“I think marriage has warped what was left of your mind, Jack. I hardly know this woman…” Then, to make his point, he admitted the most humiliating fact of all. “She won’t even go out with me.”

“This just gets better and better,” Jack chortled.

“Thanks for your support,” Brian snapped and jumped to his feet. His uniform boots beat a heavy tattoo against the linoleum floor as he paced back and forth. Then he stopped in front of Jack’s desk, shoved his hands into his pockets and said, “I’m not in love, and I sure as hell don’t plan to be.”

“None of us do,” Jack pointed out.

“Yeah? Well, some of us,” Brian told him, slapping himself on the chest, “have a little more self-control than others.”

“Oh, yeah. I can see that.”

Brian scowled at him. “Is there a reason why we have to share an office?”

“Probably.”

“It’s not good enough, whatever it is.”

“Hell, Brian,” Jack said on another suspiciously evil laugh, “you’ll live through this. We all do.”

“Quit lumping me in with you and your kind.”

“My kind?”

“You know, married marines. Formerly happy men, now dragging wife and family from base to base…packing dishes and furniture and worrying about schools and doctors and God knows what else.”

Jack shifted uneasily in his chair and deliberately looked away from the picture of Donna and their daughter, Angela, that had a prominent spot on his desk. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure I do,” Brian snapped. “Heck, there’s some kind of marriage epidemic sweeping the base. More marines have been picked off here lately than at Iwo Jima!”

Jack stood up slowly, planted both hands on his desk and leaned in. “I wasn’t ‘picked off,’ Brian.”

“Sure you were…hell, Donna’s a sharpshooter! You never even saw it coming.” He lifted one hand to stop Jack from interrupting. “I like Donna, and Angela’s the prettiest baby I ever saw, but, man…you were taken out by a sniper and didn’t even know it until after the vows were read.”

“Back off, Brian.”

“No, you back off.” Nose to nose now, the two men squared off. “You’re not sucking me down into the hole you jumped into. I like my life,” Brian went on, his voice getting louder with every word. “I like packing a duffel and taking off. I like being deployed all over the world. I like living in furnished apartments. I like answering to no one but me.”

When Brian finished, he took a deep breath and listened to the sudden silence in the small room. Jack’s features were stiff, but after a few seconds ticked away, he seemed to relax a bit. Finally he spoke up. “Who’re you trying to convince here? Me? Or you?”

“I don’t need convincing,” Brian muttered, turning for his desk and the pile of weapons reports that awaited him. “I just needed reminding. So thanks.”

“Anytime, gunny,” Jack muttered, sitting down and getting back to work. “Anytime at all.”

Case closed, Brian thought and felt sanity pour back into his soul. No more moaning around like some lovesick kid. He was a marine, for pity’s sake. In charge of enough weapons to start World War III. And damn it, it was time he started acting like it again.

He had more names and numbers in his address book than any man he’d ever known. He’d just call a few and get back into the game. He must have been nuts spending the past four weeks daydreaming about a woman who couldn’t see him for dust.

Kathy Tate wasn’t interested. So what? There were plenty of other women in this city. Mind racing, resolutions forming and solidifying in his brain, he snatched at the phone on his desk when it rang and answered impatiently, “Gunnery Sergeant Haley.”

The voice on the other end of the line started talking. With every word spoken, Brian’s newly reinforced world started shaking. He couldn’t seem to draw air into his straining lungs. His thoughts spun, and his stomach lurched. The familiar sights and sounds around him seemed to evaporate, and all he could hear was the stranger on the phone shattering what was left of his once-so-comfortable life.

Three

“She’s getting married again.” She cringed inwardly as she said those words aloud.

“Who?” Tina Baker asked.

Kathy shot a long look at her friend, swallowed down the embarrassment choking her and said, “Three guesses.”

Tina wiped oatmeal off her infant son’s cheeks and frowned thoughtfully. A moment later comprehension dawned on her features. “Your mom?”

Sitting back in her chair, Kathy turned her coffee cup between her hands and glanced at her friend. “Yep. The queen of matrimonial nightmares is at it again.”

“Wow.” Tina handed the baby a teething ring to slam against the tray of the high chair, then sat down opposite Kathy. “So this will make husband number five? Or six?”

She made it sound like such a reasonable question. Thank heaven for Tina. Friends since high school, they’d always kept in touch. And no matter how humiliating Kathy found her mother’s behavior, Tina had never made a big deal out of it.

Moving to Bayside two years ago was the best thing Kathy had ever done. At least she had one stable person in her life. Tina was madly in love with her husband and constantly trying to convince Kathy that marriage was a good thing.

But Kathy had made up her mind years ago. With her mother, Spring, as a shining example of how not to live your life, Kathy had decided to stay single. Better to live alone than to go from one broken marriage to another.

Not that that had ever bothered her mother.

Oh, boy. Wasn’t the rule of families that children were supposed to embarrass parents? No doubt, across the country, middle-aged parents were going about their perfectly normal, rut-filled lives, lamenting their offspring’s loony life-styles. But not in the Tate family. No sirree.

Nope. Here in never-never land, Kathy was the adult, and her mother was the forty-eight-year-old teenager. Not that she didn’t love her mom, but honestly, was it too much to hope for that Spring Hastings-Watts-Tate-Grimaldi-Grimaldi-Hennesey-Butler-soon-to-be would grow up? That she would settle down into the kind of everyday, ordinary mom Kathy had always wanted?

A voice inside whispered, Yes. She’s never going to change, so just learn how to deal with it.

“Kathy?” Tina spoke up, and Kathy shook her head to clear it.

After taking a quick gulp of coffee, she answered, “Technically, this is marriage number six. But Mom says five. Because she married number three twice, she only counts him as one husband.”

Tina smiled, noticed Kathy’s disgusted expression and said, “I’m sorry, hon. I know it’s not funny, but you’ve got to admit, your mom is really something.”

“Oh, she’s something, all right.” Kathy shook her head and stood up.

“I swear, her life is like a soap opera.”

“Well, I wish she’d hire some new writers.”

No matter how kind or understanding Tina was, she’d never really be able to know what it was like growing up with a mother like Spring. Kathy had had to learn early on that she was the responsible one in the household. She’d grown up fast in order to make up for her mom’s not growing up at all.

But even as those thoughts rattled around inside her mind, Kathy felt disloyal. After all, her mom had done the best she could. At least she had stuck around, which was more than Kathy’s father had ever done.

“So when’s the wedding?”

Kathy started wandering around the cozy, cluttered kitchen. Her gaze drifted from the crayon artwork proudly displayed on the refrigerator to the dog bowl on the floor to the child-size fingerprints on the windows. This is what a kid’s world should be like, she told herself. And that’s why she’d never have children of her own. A bubble of emptiness rose up inside her, then settled down into the pit she usually kept it in. As much as she would love to have the kind of family Tina had, she knew it wasn’t in her cards. She refused to be a single mother. She’d seen firsthand just how difficult that was. And she would never get married, so that left kids out entirely.

Thank heaven she at least had Tina’s kids to pour all of her maternal feelings into.

“Kath?” Tina’s voice prompted her. “The wedding? When is it?”

The wedding. “Three weeks,” she said, and leaned against the counter.

“She’s been single so long,” Tina mused, “I wonder what made her decide to get married again.”

“Who knows?” Kathy said, throwing her hands high. It had been six years since her mom’s last divorce. Kathy had actually begun to hope that Spring was slowing down. Oh, well.

“Where is it?”

This time Kathy had to chuckle. Really, what else could she do with a mom like Spring. “Where else? Vegas.”

“Well,” Tina said, and reached over to lift Michael out of his high chair, “maybe this time it will work out. Maybe this time she’s really in love.”

Spring had sounded different when she’d called to give Kathy the news about the impending wedding. There’d actually been a little tremor in her voice. As if she was nervous. Though any woman who’d recited the wedding vows as often as Spring had surely shouldn’t have anything to be nervous about. No, it was probably just her imagination working overtime. This was simply another wedding for Spring.

“And maybe our little résumé service will put us both on the Fortune Five Hundred list,” she said, and winced slightly. She didn’t mean to sound bitter, for heaven’s sake.

“Stranger things have happened.”

“Anything you say, partner,” Kathy said, then changed the subject by asking, “Have you got the new ad ready for the newspaper?”

“Yeah, it’s in the other room. Hold the baby for a minute?”

“Sure,” Kathy said, always eager to get a little baby hugging in. She stepped forward to pluck little Michael out of his mother’s arms. Fifteen pounds of warm, cuddly love squirmed against her, and Kathy’s heart melted. She ran her palm gently over the top of his head, smoothing down the wispy, fine, blond hair.

Regret roared through her with a vengeance as she realized again that by denying herself marriage, she was denying herself this. A child of her own to love. And the closer she came to thirty, the harder that truth hit her. The phrase biological clock had become pretty much a cliché these days, and darned if she couldn’t hear hers ticking.

Michael cooed and batted at her shoulders with two small-fisted hands. She caught one of them and rubbed his little fingers with her thumb. “You’re a sweetheart, you know it?” she asked, and grinned when he giggled from deep in his throat.

Tina stepped into the kitchen and paused, watching them. “You’re good at that, Kath.”

Kathy glanced at her. “It’s not hard to love a baby.”

“Or a man,” Tina said.

“Don’t start,” Kathy told her, shaking her head. Tina’s one major flaw was that she insisted on playing matchmaker.

“There’s a guy in Ted’s office who—”

“Stop right there,” Kathy warned her.

“Come on, Kath. There’s no reason for you to live like a nun.”

“I don’t.”

“Really?” Tina laid the manila envelope she was carrying down on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “And when was the last time you actually spoke to a real, live man?”

Think fast. “Three days ago,” she blurted.

“Who?” Tina asked.

“My neighbor.”

“The marine?” Tina’s blue eyes widened in anticipation.

Oh, man, she shouldn’t have started this. Perching Michael on her hip, she bounced him up and down.

“Details, Kath. Details.”

“He fixed my car for me,” she said with a shrug. “Then he helped me with my groceries.” And she’d managed to avoid him ever since.

“And…”

“There is no and,” Kathy told her, and walked across the room to hand over the baby. Then she snatched up the ad copy and tried to make her escape.

“There could be an and,” Tina said hurriedly.

“I don’t want any and.” She picked up her purse from the table and headed for the back door. Tina’s voice stopped her cold in the doorway.

“You’re not your mother, Kathy.”

She meant well, but that didn’t change the facts. “No, but I am her daughter.” Glancing over her shoulder at her friend, Kathy added, “We live what we learn, Tina. And I’d be just as bad at marriage as my mother is. I won’t do that. Not to me and certainly not to some poor, unsuspecting baby.”

Then she slipped out the door before Tina could continue the old argument.

Brian listened to the dial tone for a few long seconds, then held the receiver away from his ear and stared at it as though he half expected it to blow up in his hand.

“Brian?”

He blinked and shot a quick glance at Jack.

“Bad news?” the man asked.

“Bad?” He didn’t know if he’d say bad. Maybe catastrophic. Horrifying. But bad? He checked his wrist watch. He only had two hours. Nice of them to wait until the last minute to call.

“Hey, man,” Jack said, watching him. “What’s goin’ on?”

“I, uh…” Carefully, gently, Brian set the receiver down in its cradle. “I have to go.”

“Go? Go where?”

“The airport.”

“Airport?” Jack sounded as confused as Brian felt. But that couldn’t be. No one on earth could possibly be as confused as Brian Haley was at that particular moment.

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you later,” he said. Later. As in, when he was actually able to repeat the words he’d just heard over the phone. Right now he could hardly force himself to think them, let alone say them out loud.

“Jack, I gotta go.” He looked at his watch again. Another minute gone. He felt his life ticking away. The world as he’d known it was about to come to an abrupt end, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

“Damn it, Brian…”

He shook his head and spared his friend a quick glance. “Trust me on this. I have to go.” He pushed away from his desk, glanced at the unfinished reports and said, “I’ll take care of those tomorrow.”

“They’re due today,” Jack told him. Brian looked at him, and some of his desperation must have shown on his face because his friend took one look at him and offered, “Leave ’em. I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks,” he muttered, and started for the door. He snatched his hat off the coatrack, then settled it firmly on his head.

“Hey!” Jack called out, and Brian stopped. “Is everything all right?”

Rubbing one hand across his face, Brian swallowed heavily and muttered, “Hell, no.”

“Call if you need help.”

Help? Hell, he was going to need all the help he could get. But it went against the grain to ask for it. He was a marine, for pity’s sake. Tough, strong, dependable. He’d stood fast in battle and lived all over the world. It was his job to protect and defend the United States of America against all of her enemies.

How in the hell could he yell help?

He nodded at Jack, muttered, “Thanks,” and left. He ran down the hall, stopping only long enough to help a corporal pick up the files Brian had knocked out of his arms. Then he was out the main door into the California sunshine.

Mentally he heard a clock ticking. Softly at first, then louder as the seconds passed. Time was running out. He had just enough time to get home, change his uniform and make it to the airport.

Then all he had to do was wait. Wait for the stranger from Child Services in South Carolina, who would soon be flying in to deliver into Brian’s care the thirteen-month-old daughter he hadn’t even known existed.

Ooh-rah.

Four

At the airport Brian stalked through the sliding glass doors and spared a quick glance at the life-size, bronze statue of John Wayne as he passed it. It had to be his imagination, but he could have sworn he heard the big man laugh at him.

But then, hell, who wouldn’t?

Hunching his shoulders, Brian hurried past The Duke, cast a quick look at the arrivals screen, then made for gate 36. His footsteps echoed hollowly against the tile, and as fast as that tapping sounded, it wasn’t as fast as the pounding of his heart.

Good God. A baby? Him?

He ran one hand across his face and tried to gather the thoughts that had been scattered since receiving that brief phone call.

He could still hear the social worker’s voice ringing in his ear. You recall having a relationship with Mariah Sutton?