The Marine's Baby, Maybe

by Rogenna Brewer

  Caitlin kept coming back round to that T-shirt.

  Gray with blue block lettering. Little Guy.

  And the matching daddy T-shirt. Big Guy.

  When Nora Jean came back the only thing Caitlin really wanted wasn’t added to her registry.

  LUCKY WAS STANDING ON A LADDER, hooking up a ceiling fan in Cait’s bedroom when she came home. “Where’ve you been?” he asked, trying not to sound overbearing.

  “Baby shopping,” she said, staring up at the new ceiling fan. “That looks nice.”

  She didn’t walk in with any shopping bags. “You want to flip the switch?” He’d replaced the single switch with a double, one of them a three-way that controlled the speed. “Hit it again.”

  “How’d you do that?” she asked as she cycled through the different speeds.

  “And there’s a remote on the bed,” he said, pointing.

  “Just what I need, another remote.”

  “Do you want me to set everything up for you on a universal remote?” he asked, climbing down.

  “Are you kidding? That’s way too complicated for me.”

  “Then building a new garage is the next project. You’ll want someplace to put your car come winter. I’m trying to get you a Calhoun Cycles company car so you don’t have to keep racking up mileage on that Mustang of yours.” He kept talking and waiting for her to notice the furniture in the corner. Finally, he just cocked his head toward the window.

  “You brought in a chair and an ottoman,” she said, walking over and putting her feet up.

  Nothing fancy. Just something he’d had in storage that they’d brought with them. The deep maroon leather went with her neutral—pink—color scheme.

  “I bet I have a reading lamp and a small table out in the shed to turn this into a reading nook,” Cait said.

  She didn’t get up right away. Her hand went to her stomach. “Or I could nurse the baby here,” she said, guessing his intent. She sat there daydreaming for a moment and when she turned to the left she noticed the picture at her eye level. “Is that the Point Loma lighthouse?” she asked with wonder, looking at it more closely. “That’s the exact view from the window in my old apartment. How did you get that, Calhoun?”

  With the help of Bruce and Mrs. Pèna.

  “That’s my secret,” he said.

  Bruce had downloaded the picture on his cell phone, and Lucky had taken it to Kinko’s for the reproduction and then had it framed.

  “Thank you,” she said, pushing up from the chair belly-first. He noticed she was having more trouble getting in and out of chairs these days. Her hand went to the small of her back. And her stomach was just there, between them, inviting his touch. While he was thinking about it, she reached up to brush his hair. “You’re still getting a weekly haircut, I see.”

  Their bodies were so close he didn’t have to touch her to feel Peanut’s movement. But all he could concentrate on was her fingertips at his temple. And her parted lips.

  She leaned in and at the last second veered toward his cheek. “That was really sweet what you did,” she said in a voice as soft as her kiss.

  The doorbell rang, surprising them both.

  Nobody ever rang the front doorbell.

  “I’ll get it,” she said.

  When he came out of the bedroom carrying the ladder, she was staring at the door. The doorbell rang a second time. “You need to get it,” she said, backing away.

  On full alert, he propped the ladder against the wall. Something had terrified her.

  “It’s an official military car,” she said as he reached her. “A Marine in full-dress uniform.” She clutched at his forearm. “Do you think something’s happened to Bruce?”

  The doorbell rang a third time.

  Cait had a lot of anniversaries coming up in the next few weeks and months. What would have been her first wedding anniversary. The anniversary of Luke’s deployment. The anniversary of Luke’s death.

  He realized that when the doorbell had rung, her first thought had gone to the official notification of her husband’s death. His thoughts were less ominous. He’d just spoken with Bruce today. The Marine Corps didn’t know he was here. So unless a buddy had tracked him down…

  He opened the door to find a young private standing there. He didn’t know Private Hobbs, but his name tag and car identified him as a Marine recruiter.

  This ought to be good.

  “Can I help you?” he asked in his best Sergeant Stryker tone.

  “I have a delivery for a Master Sergeant Luke Calhoun Jr. from a Master Sergeant Hobbs.”

  “He’s one of the patients on my ward,” Cait explained.

  “Yes, ma’am.” The young Marine tipped his cap. “My grandfather asked me to deliver this box to this address. To a Master Sergeant—”

  “Calhoun.” She elbowed him in the ribs. “That’s you.”

  The master sergeant accepted the box grudgingly while the young private beat a hasty retreat.

  The box was whining. And the weight shifted.

  There were two words written across the top.

  Teufel Hunden.

  Devil dog.

  “You’ve got to be kidding” was all Lucky could say.

  “Aren’t Marines ‘devil dogs’?” she asked. “Wouldn’t proper German for Devil Dogs be Teufelshunde?”

  “Not if you ask a Marine.”

  “What are you afraid of, Calhoun? Open the box.”

  He set it down on the nearby coffee table. “Have at it.”

  Cait lifted the lid. “Oh, isn’t he precious?”

  “He looks damn ugly to me.” He sized up the English bulldog puppy. “And he’s going to get even uglier.”

  “Come here, baby,” she said to the puppy.

  “BABY PRACTICE,” BRUCE SAID over the long-distance call.

  “What?” Lucky was stretched out on his rack in the FOB with his ear to his cell phone and the “baby” asleep on his chest. He petted the dog absently.

  “Puppies are baby practice. She’s giving you baby practice.”

  “Cait didn’t give me the mutt. A friend of hers did.”

  “A close friend? Someone she confides in?”

  “A crotchety old master sergeant on the hospital ward where she volunteers, from what I understand.”

  “Hmm,” Bruce said thoughtfully. “Next thing you know you’ll be going to birthing and breast-feeding classes.”

  “They have classes for breast-feeding?”

  He was in way the hell over his head.

  Hearing his baby’s heartbeat today, that was a big deal.

  Lamaze classes would have been a bigger deal. He couldn’t be there for her, for the birth, then just walk away from his son after delivery.

  He couldn’t be this guy, Uncle Lucky.

  “Her ob asked me out on a date.”

  “You’re dating Cait’s doctor?”

  “We haven’t even had a first date yet.” But at least with Jennifer he didn’t have to pretend to be anything other than what he was. The brother-in-law/donor/very confused father-to-be.

  “Anyway, she says I have to name it.”

  “What?”

  “Cait says I have to name the mutt.”

  “So, what are you going to name it?” Bruce asked.

  “That’s why I called you.”

  “Just pick a name. Something tough so you don’t feel stupid when you have to say it.”

  The puppy began to stir. “Gotta go tinkle,” Lucky said, hanging up to the sound of his brother’s laughter.

  After the dog finished his business, Lucky picked it up and carried it into the kitchen.

  When Cait looked up, “Sergeant Stryker” was all he said.

  THE NIGHT OF HIS BIG DATE arrived. They were meeting at LoDo’s for drinks. If drinks went well they’d progress to dinner. At least that’s how he thought this worked. There’d be the phone call from the friend. And she’d either tell him she had an emergency and had to leave, or she’d tell her friend
things were going well and stay.

  An awful lot riding on one drink.

  But if that first date went well, then he’d be obligated to call her for a second. A second might lead to a third. And before he knew it they’d be dating. That’s what he wanted, wasn’t it?

  Somebody who was actually available to date him.

  She was at the bar when he walked in. Her dress was black, and he almost laughed at the irony when all he could think about was Cait with nothing to wear. Cait calling herself fat. Cait so swollen from carrying his child she couldn’t get her wedding rings back on her finger.

  Cait, who couldn’t get out of a chair, while the graceful doctor uncrossed her long legs and headed toward him.

  He found them a table and ordered their drinks. The place was crowded and loud, and he didn’t know how any first-date drinks progressed to dinner here.

  But he leaned in close enough to listen and did his best to hold up his end of the conversation. When the call came he was almost disappointed, knowing he had this whole first-date thing figured out. Of course, that’s what happened after thirty-two years of being single.

  He got out his own cell phone while he waited, hoping for a moment that her call was a real emergency. After all, the doctor delivered babies.

  He had no new messages.

  But he cursed under his breath when he saw the date. How could he be so stupid?

  “A friend checking in,” she admitted when she hung up.

  And he liked her all the more for her honesty.

  He was in the clear. That was his opportunity to ask her to dinner. “Jennifer,” he said, “I have go. I’m sorry. I just realized it’s Cait and Luke’s first anniversary. I don’t think she should be alone tonight.”

  “Of course not,” she agreed with a measure of real concern in her voice. “Did you need me to come with you?” she asked as he stood.

  “No,” he said. “Just promise me Cait won’t have to look for a new ob/gyn because of my stupidity.”

  LUCKY KNEW EVEN BEFORE HE walked in the door where he’d find her. On the couch, in that ratty T-shirt of Luke’s, watching her wedding DVD.

  Wedding-themed wrapping paper was strewn from one end of the house to the other. She sat on the couch amid boxes and bags and her opened wedding gifts. Petting his Devil Dog.

  She looked up when he walked in and choked back a sob.

  Her lower lip trembled.

  Tears streamed down her face.

  She pushed belly-up from the couch. He was across the room in two strides to help her.

  “What about your date?”

  “Emergency,” he said.

  She sniffed. “I hate to tell you this, Calhoun. But the girl friend call is the oldest trick in the book.”

  His focus narrowed to her mouth. “My emergency.”

  Her lips parted. “What—”

  “This,” he said against her lips, tasting the salt of her tears.

  That first tentative touch of their lips was so sweet she melted into him. He wrapped her in his arms and she wound hers around his neck.

  He’d thought about nothing else but her the entire ride home. How wrong it was to want her. And he wondered now how anything so wrong could feel so right.

  He freed her falling hair from the lose rubber band and tangled his hand in it. He deepened their kiss with a sense of urgency even he didn’t know he was feeling.

  His breath became hot. And labored.

  The baby moved and he adjusted his position as he adjusted to the idea of it. He cupped her full breast through the thin material of Luke’s worn T-shirt, his thumb finding the hardened peak of her nipple.

  He untangled himself from her hair as he became greedy for her soft flesh. He pulled at the hem of her shirt as she hurried to unbutton his.

  The blood pumped south of his brain as his hands memorized her every curve. He pushed her panties down to dip his fingers in hidden places.

  She threw her head back and called out his name.

  “Oh, Luke.”

  “CAIT!” CALHOUN POUNDED ON THE bathroom door. “Cait, please come out of there.”

  She tried to cry silently, tried to kill the pain. But her sobs kept breaking through. Oh, Luke.

  “I want to be alone right now.”

  “Cait, we need to talk about this.”

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  “Just let me in so I can see you’re all right.” It sounded like a reasonable request. But she didn’t move, not even to unlock the door.

  She sat on the edge of the tub, rocking.

  But as soon as he tested the other knob, she realized she’d forgotten to lock both doors. He opened the other one with an audible sigh of relief.

  Putting the toilet lid down, he sat. “Cait—”

  She recoiled from his touch.

  This was wrong. This was so wrong.

  She loved Luke.

  She wanted Calhoun.

  “I just wanted to have his baby,” she sobbed. “I never asked for this.”

  “I know, I know.” He pulled her into his lap and she didn’t protest. He rocked her until her sobs subsided. And she clung to him until she fell asleep.

  NIGHT AFTER NIGHT LUCKY LAY ON his rack in the FOB, staring at the ceiling, telling himself he wasn’t going to run this time. Things had changed between him and Cait.

  There was a tension they didn’t talk about. It sucked the air right out of the room whenever they shared the same space, making it hard to breathe.

  Even that was preferable to the emptiness he felt when he was alone.

  Stroking Sergeant Stryker, he listened to the rumble of thunder in the distance. Life was simpler when your first order of business was your day-to-day survival. If only he could put this in the context of a military operation, he could plan his next course of action.

  “You’ve had your revenge,” he said. “She loves you. She doesn’t want me.”

  Rain followed the thunder. Then the first drops found the holes in the roof, hitting the pots he’d strategically placed around the room.

  He’d hung a tarp and moved his rack to the driest spot in the shed. He’d covered the important pieces of furniture in plastic. Until he could get the new garage built he should pick up one of those portable car ports for Cait’s Mustang. Tomorrow he’d go do that and get a tarp big enough to cover the whole roof and check out the roof of the house.

  He thought of Cait, warm and dry inside.

  He thought of Cait, wet to his touch.

  He got hard just thinking about it. He moved Stryker off his chest and put the puppy in his own bed on a folded blanket underneath the rack.

  He lay with his forearm shading his eyes from the flashes of lightning, and must have fallen asleep. He opened them again at the sound of a creak.

  His first clue that Cait had come into the shed.

  The second was her staring down at him from the foot of his bed. She was damp and shivering, but not from the cold. It was late spring and the temperature was warm outside.

  He watched as a single drop of rain landed on her T-shirt right above her nipple to join with other drops to create a sheer view of that hardened peak.

  “Say something,” she breathed.

  “What do you want me to say?”

  He didn’t move. She did, crawling over him until they were face-to-face. Her belly brushed his stomach. Her hair, his face. He felt the press of her knees to his hips where she straddled him, but other than that they weren’t touching. Yet he felt every inch of her in the electricity passing between them.

  She dipped her head to kiss him, but he didn’t meet her halfway and she stopped, uncertain. “I’m tired of fighting it,” she whispered. “Kiss me, Calhoun.”

  He made it long and slow this time. Afraid she’d slip though his fingers if he dared reach for her.

  She sat back.

  He saw confusion in her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” She bit down on her bottom lip.

  “Nothing
’s wrong.” He dropped his legs over the sides of his rack and sat up underneath her. “You just need to let me know if you’re just testing the waters. Because in about a minute I’m going to be inside you. And I’m not going to stop, even if you’re screaming his name.”

  He fit her to the length of him so she could feel his heat as his words sank in. He watched her breasts rise and fall on a shuddered breath.

  “I want you, Calhoun,” she breathed.

  He stood, taking her with him. She clung to his shoulders and he hitched her legs up around his waist. “That cot only holds three hundred pounds,” he said, “and it’s hanging over the puppy’s bed. If you still want me in the time it takes me to carry you across this driveway to your bed…then heaven help us both, you can have me.”

  “SAY IT AGAIN,” HE SAID, laying her on her bed. He held his body over hers and teased her, with his mouth so close to her lips they should have been kissing.

  Caitlin inched up to reach him. He pulled back.

  “Say it,” he commanded, pulling his shirt off over his head.

  She traced every inch of blue-green ink radiating from the Celtic cross at his collarbone.

  First with her eyes. Then with her lips.

  “I want you, Calhoun.”

  His body—with or without tattoos—was a work of art. His muscles were honed from the daily discipline and exercise required to be a Marine. And a routine he’d continued long after he’d made it.

  He was solid. And he was a real man.

  His mouth became more demanding with each successive kiss. It frightened her that she could meet that demand with a passion she thought had died with Luke.

  Calhoun wasn’t her Luke. And she didn’t want him to be anyone other than who he was.

  Was that wrong? Was she thinking clearly?

  She didn’t know. And at this moment she didn’t care.

  All she wanted was to stop the ache that had kept her awake for too many nights.

  Clothes became an obstacle that had to be removed. Once they were removed there was a bigger obstacle in the form of her bulging belly, but not one that couldn’t be overcome.

  She straddled him and he eased himself into her body, eased the ache.