At Her Service

“Bother, huh?” Kelly asked as she headed for the door.

The school principal’s face took on the supremely patient expression she was famous for as she said, “He’s only going to be alone with Emily for four hours today, my dear. What could possibly go wrong in four miserably short hours?”

“What else can go wrong?” Jeff muttered, wiping up the flood of orange juice racing across the kitchen table. He’d never seen a kid spill so much. “Spill proof cups, my ass,” he muttered darkly as he tossed the small plastic cup into the sink. He hadn’t seen this much liquid since the last time he’d been sent overseas on flood relief.

He glanced at his daughter and wondered fleetingly how Kelly kept up with the child. Hell, it must be something God gave women that He didn’t give men. Just trying to ride herd on the little girl made him feel like he’d been on a ten-mile hike with a full pack. He was worn down to the ground. And he didn’t have to worry about doing the laundry. He’d already had to change the baby’s outfit three times in the past two hours.

But that wasn’t the half of it. She’d shoved a half-chewed teething cracker into the VCR, ripped her mother’s credit-card bill in half and chewed on the sports section of the newspaper.

And it wasn’t even noon yet.

Plus, the phone kept ringing off the hook, as if he had time to worry about that. Maybe he wasn’t cut out for this, he thought and found himself thinking fondly of slopping through a swamp with a half-dozen unfriendlies hot on his tail.

Then he glanced at Emily, and his doubts melted under the beam of that smile. She kicked her legs against the slats of her high chair, crowed delightedly and finished tossing banana slices across the room like tiny Frisbees. One of them hit him square in the forehead and while Emily giggled, Jeff sighed and wondered when it was exactly he’d lost control.

The first hour or so had been great. But things had pretty much gone downhill after that. Hell, maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. He’d never felt so damn useless in his life. Any other kind of situation, Jeff would be the man to jump in and take charge. But apparently, keeping a baby entertained was just a bit out of his reach.

“Recon, huh?” a deep voice from the back door asked.

Jeff swallowed the groan choking him and straightened up. Turning to face Kevin Rogan, he wondered just who in heaven or hell he’d ticked off lately. “Your point?” he asked.

Kevin stepped into the room, taking his Smokey Bear hat off and setting it on a relatively clean spot on the counter. “Thought you Recon guys were hot stuff.” He paused and glanced around the room. Dark brown eyebrows lifted into high arches as he whistled and shook his head. “Man, you should think about calling in air support. You’re outgunned.”

Though he’d been thinking the same thing himself only a moment ago, hearing this guy say it aloud really stuck in his craw. “I suppose you could do it better.”

“Hell,” Kevin said, folding his arms across his chest, “a blind monkey with both arms tied behind its back could do better.”

“Then you’re overqualified, aren’t you?” Jeff asked as he walked across the room to his daughter and lifted her out of the chair. Emily laughed and clapped both banana-mushed hands to his cheeks. He ignored it and walked back toward the drill inspector who was so sure of himself. “You talk a good game. Let’s see what a D.I. can do, huh?” “No problem,” the other man said, and reached out for his niece. Too late, he noticed the bananas now decorating the front of his uniform blouse. Jeff smiled. He felt better already.

Kelly parked the car in the driveway, noted her brother Kevin’s car at the curb out front, then hurried to the front door. Jeff and Kevin? Alone together? With only Emily to referee?

“Big mistake, Kelly,” she muttered as she slid the key into the lock and turned it. “You never should have agreed to this. You were just asking for troub—” Her voice trailed off as she opened the door.

Stunned into silence, she stepped into what looked like the aftereffects of a hurricane. Toys, diapers, jars of baby food were scattered all across the living room. And in the middle of the floor, his head resting on the belly of a teddy bear, was Kevin, in full uniform, sound asleep, still clutching Emily’s ring of plastic keys.

A soft snore caught her attention, and she shifted her gaze to the couch. Jeff lay stretched out atop the cushions, zonked out, with a sleeping Emily tucked against his chest. His arms were wrapped around her sturdy little body and she was sucking her thumb, clearly content in her daddy’s embrace.

Smiling to herself, Kelly leaned against the arched doorjamb and just enjoyed the view. Her daughter and the man she—what? Loved?

Her heart twisted in her chest, and a soft sigh escaped her. Oh man. Lust she could handle. But love? Love was something she hadn’t really counted on.

The next week slid past, with the three of them settling into a routine that was both comforting and a little scary for Kelly. One part of her loved the normalcy of it all. Of having Jeff there to help care for Emily. Of knowing that her daughter and Jeff were forming bonds that would last a lifetime. But on the other hand …

She was beginning to depend on Jeff and she didn’t want to. Every once in a while, she caught a thoughtful gleam in his eye and Kelly knew he was still thinking about the proposal he’d made. They hadn’t talked about it again and for that, she was grateful. But sooner or later, the subject would come up. He would want this settled between them before he left in three short weeks.

And Jeff wasn’t the kind of man to take no as an answer without a battle.

“There’s just no easy way out of this,” she complained aloud as she folded yet another of Emily’s freshly washed T-shirts.

From her walker, the baby gurgled something that Kelly was sure was meant as supportive. Then Emily went up on her toes, waved both arms and scooted forward half an inch on the carpeted floor.

“You’ll be walking soon, won’t you?” Kelly asked, and clutching the T-shirt in both hands, leaned back against the sofa cushions to watch her daughter. “Then it’ll be school and your first date and then before I know it, you’ll be getting married and leaving poor ol’ Mom behind.”

Emily leaned forward and gnawed on a bright pink plastic knob attached to the front of her walker.

“Yep,” Kelly went on. “Your daddy will walk you down the aisle and when the ceremony’s over, he’ll go his way and I’ll go mine.” In her mind’s eye, she saw it all. Emily, radiant in white, Jeff, still handsome and herself, alone.

“Now why do you suppose ‘alone’ suddenly feels so … lonely?” Kelly asked, and Emily continued to chew, uninterested in the conversation. “I never wanted to get married, you know. It’s not that I don’t want to marry your daddy. I just don’t want another male in my life.” Emily blew a spit bubble. “Your uncles have always been so darn bossy, and who needs that from one more guy?” Kelly scowled to herself, folded the now crumpled T-shirt and idly smoothed out the wrinkles. “Of course, Jeff really isn’t the bossy type, is he?” she mused, remembering that he hadn’t once given her grief over Emily’s day care as her brothers did on a regular basis. And after that first day of caring for Emily, hadn’t he gotten the hang of things? Hadn’t he even cooked dinner for them twice in the past week?

This was a man used to doing for himself. He wasn’t one to sit on a recliner and shout, “Bring me a beer.” She smiled to herself at the thought. Jeff wasn’t like any other man she’d ever known, and maybe that’s what had her so worried. Because of him, she was even starting to rethink her “never marry” theory. And she wasn’t at all sure she wanted that.

“First off,” Travis drawled lazily as he reached for his bottle of beer, “you’ve got to figure out just what you want.”

“That’s easy,” Jeff told him, “I want Kelly. And Emily. Haven’t I just spent the last hour telling you that?”

Travis, Deke and J.T. sprawled on the couch, chairs and floor of the hotel suite. Jeff looked at them all, each in turn and smiled to himself. Four more unlikely friends you’d never meet. But they had become more than friends over the past few years. They’d become family.

Travis, one of six kids, hailed from a small town in Texas. Deke came from old-line Boston money. J.T. was the only child of a three-star General. and Jeff, hell, the only family he’d ever had was here in this room.

The three of them looked at each other before looking back at Jeff. But Travis was the one who spoke up. “All right, then. What you’ve got to do is think of Kelly like you would any other target.” “Target?” he repeated.

“Hell, yes,” Deke broke in. “Scope the situation out, plan your assault, then go in under cover of darkness.”

“Sneak up on the enemy, er, Kelly,” J.T. added, “until you’ve got her right where you want her.” Of course, he thought. Go with your strengths. And he’d had plenty of practice for this kind of thing. After all, trying to talk Kelly into marrying him would be every bit as dangerous as slipping undetected into enemy territory.

“You’ve got three weeks left, Jeff,” Travis said in that slow-moving speech of his, “make ‘em count, boy.”

“Ooh-rah,” Deke muttered. J.T. lifted his beer in silent salute, and Jeff reached for the phone.

The telephone rang, interrupting her thoughts, and Kelly reached for it like a drowning woman grabbing at a life preserver.

“Hello?” “Hi.”

Even if she hadn’t recognized his voice, the reaction of her body to that deep, rumbling sound would have told her that it was Jeff. Good heavens. He could do this to her even over the phone lines?

“Kelly,” he was saying, and she drew her hormones back from the brink far enough to concentrate. “You think you could get one of your brothers to baby-sit tonight?”

“I suppose so,” she said. “Why? What’d you have in mind?”

“I was thinking about taking you out on a date.”

A warm flush swept over her, and her fingers curled tightly around the receiver. “A date?”

“Yeah,” Jeff said, and his voice came soft and intimate in her ear. “A date.”

“Uh …” she said, stalling for some unknown reason because she knew as well as he did that she would say yes. “Okay. What time?” “I’ll pick you up at seven.” “I’ll be ready.”

Jeff hung up the phone, then picked up his beer. Lifting it high, he waited for his friends to do likewise before saying, “Target acquired.”

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