The Marine's Baby, Maybe

by Rogenna Brewer

  Caitlin got out of the car and waited for another contraction to subside. Evelyn and Dottie started to get out, too, but she waved them back and walked to the door. She rang the doorbell and waited.

  Nora Jean answered. “What do you want?” she asked, tight-lipped.

  “Here,” Caitlin said, holding out Luke’s flag, “I want you to have this. I know how much it means to you….” The woman accepted it as her due. “I just don’t think you know how much it means to me.”

  “Oh, please,” Nora Jean said.

  “I’m sorry, I never meant to deceive you. I was trying to fill a lonely place.” Caitlin took a deep breath and waited for another contraction to pass. “I will always love him, Nora. This baby, Lucky’s baby, should bring us—” she included Dottie and Evelyn, who were hurrying toward her “—closer together as a family, not tear us apart. You still have two stepsons, and you’re about to have a step-grandbaby. You don’t have to feel alone.”

  “Your step-grandbaby,” Evelyn said, “is going to be born on your front stoop if you don’t forgive this girl right now.”

  “Come on,” Dottie said, ushering everyone toward the car, “Cait can explain genetics to you on the way to the hospital.”

  LUCKY HAD THROWN his cell phone out somewhere over the San Juan mountains. He’d spent the week exploring the scenic back roads of western Colorado from Black Canyon to Yampa Valley. He’d spent last night in Grand Junction at the Best Western.

  After a hearty breakfast Lucky made up his mind to move on.

  He’d promised himself a year of doing nothing and going nowhere, and that’s what he intended to do. Eventually he’d find out from Bruce when the baby was born and maybe he’d stop by next year on the kid’s first birthday.

  He could do this. He could be Uncle Lucky.

  Because that’s the only option she’d left him.

  But by the time he’d hit Utah he had a new plan.

  He couldn’t stop thinking ahead to next year. And going nowhere and doing nothing didn’t sound like much of an existence. There was only one way to ensure he stayed away from Cait.

  Lucky got off the highway at the next exit and pulled into the nearest gas station. The pay phone had been ripped off the wire, but he found what he was looking for in the Yellow Pages.

  Twenty minutes later he pulled into a strip mall and up to a storefront Marine Corps recruiting station. He parked his bike and headed to the Cingular Wireless next door, where he bought a new cell phone and reactivated his service. Afterward he stopped by the recruiting station for a quick chat with the recruiter. He’d been out of the service less than ninety days. There’d be no problem reactivating his military service, either.

  On the other side of the recruiting station he saw a pawnshop and a tattoo parlor. He skipped the pawnshop and sketched out a rough drawing for the tattoo artist. “Like you’re looking through the crosshairs,” he explained to the guy, who went by the name of Dice.

  “I usually advise against names. Leaves an ugly scar when you try to have it removed.” Dice snapped on latex gloves.

  “Do I look like I care?” Lucky asked, taking off his shirt.

  Dice smiled, showing off a gold tooth. “Where you want it?”

  Lucky pointed to the left of his heart.

  “So what did this Cait do to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  Lucky was putting his shirt back on when he caught a glimpse of the newspaper. “That today’s?”

  “Yeah,” Dice confirmed, ringing up the sale.

  Lucky paid the three hundred dollars for the tat and left. At least he hadn’t made it all the way to the coast before realizing what an idiot he was.

  Tomorrow was the anniversary of Luke’s death. He’d just call to make sure Cait was all right. When he couldn’t get in touch with her at home or on her cell, he started to worry.

  He’d tossed out his entire phone book with his old cell phone. So he called the few numbers he had memorized and left messages. While waiting for return calls, he stepped inside the pawnshop and looked for something that might be appropriate for a mother-to-be.

  “Can I see that?” He pointed to a blue sapphire necklace.

  The gal behind the counter pulled out the tray. The necklace was nothing special and he skipped over it to admire a diamond-studded, horseshoe-shaped ring. It was a man’s ring and not what he was looking for. Curious about the assortment of wedding bands that wound up in a pawnshop, he looked them over.

  There was a platinum band in Cait’s size. Lucky read the Latin inscription—Semper Fi.

  Always Faithful was the Marine Corps motto.

  His cell phone rang and he put the wedding band aside. “Hello?”

  “Where the hell are you?” Big Luke demanded.

  “Utah.”

  “Get your ass home. Cait went into labor this morning.”

  Lucky’s heart beat against his chest. Or maybe that was just the throb of his new tattoo. “She okay?” he asked, stepping outside.

  “She’s fine.”

  “She ask for me?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think if she doesn’t want me there I shouldn’t be there,” he said, stopping himself from bolting for his bike.

  “What do you want?” his father asked.

  His old man couldn’t see him shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter what I want.”

  “No, it sure the hell doesn’t. So get over yourself. And do right by your son. Just because it hurts that Cait doesn’t want you there doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be there.” His father’s voice softened as he added, “Sometimes the hard thing is the right thing.”

  LUCKY WAS PULLED OVER by the Utah Highway Patrol on I-15 North. If the guy hadn’t been on a motorcycle, well, Lucky would have seriously considered outrunning him.

  “Driver’s license and registration, please.”

  “Look, my wife is in labor,” he lied for the sake of expediency.

  “Like I haven’t heard that one before.”

  “I’m just trying to catch the first flight out of Salt Lake to Denver so I can be there.”

  “Do you know why I pulled you over, sir?”

  Speeding. “You’re not ex-military….Never been to Iraq…You’re not going to give me a break, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t think so.” He handed over his license.

  “Eighty in a fifty-five. Weaving in and out of traffic. Speeding. Careless driving…Your wife’s going to thank me for pulling you over.”

  “That would be my ex-wife. Thanks,” Lucky said, accepting the ticket.

  The officer tipped his hat, got back on his bike and tailed Lucky all the way to Salt Lake City International Airport. Lucky didn’t dare exceed the posted speed limit of fifty-five.

  “Sir, you can’t park there.” The officer pulled in right behind him.

  “Watch me.”

  “Sir, I’m going to have your vehicle towed.”

  “I figured that from the sign.” No Parking, Tow Away Zone. “Look, the key is in the ignition. The title is under the seat.” He stepped back, got it out and signed it. “It’s yours. Do whatever the hell you want with it,” Lucky said, walking away from his first custom bike. After this he was probably going to lose his license, anyway.

  “CAIT?” CALHOUN KNOCKED on the partially open door.

  She tensed with the next contraction, then relaxed against the pillow. “What took you so long?”

  “Ladies, can you excuse us?” he asked the other women in the room. Dottie put away her knitting and Nora Jean abandoned her book. His mother was the last to leave them alone.

  He closed the door and stood there with his hands in his pockets, looking around. It was supposed to look like a bedroom, but it looked like what it was—a labor and delivery room.

  She dropped her feet over the side of the bed.

  “Don’t get up,” he said, rushing to her side.

  “I’m supposed to move around.” But she did
n’t get up.

  He pulled up a chair and sat down. Bowing his head over her belly, he held her at the waist. “I can’t be this baby’s uncle, Cait, because I need to be his father. Whether you want me or not, Cait, I’m Peanut’s dad.”

  “Look at me,” she said, brushing her fingers through his hair. “I want you to see the exact moment I fell in love with you.”

  He raised his head to look at her. If he hadn’t been a hardened Marine all those years, she’d say the wonder in his eyes looked suspiciously like tears.

  “Lucky…I love you,” she said.

  He pushed to his feet and leaned in to kiss her.

  She pulled back. “You’re supposed to say you love me, too.”

  He continued to lean in until his lips were pressed against hers. “I love you, too, Cait.”

  He pulled back with the next contraction.

  “I’m not a screamer,” she said, “but I’m twenty hours into this labor and don’t think the epidural is working. Ahhh…!” She clutched at his leather jacket and they breathed through the contraction together.

  When she let go, he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a platinum wedding band. He slipped it on her finger next to her engagement ring. “You know you’re supposed to ask me first,” she gasped.

  “Marry me, Cait.”

  She looked down at her hand. “I’ll always love him. And sometimes I don’t know where my life with him ended and where my life with you began, but—” she looked into his eyes “—I promise you this, I will always love you, too.”

  “Is that a yes?” he asked.

  She wiped away tears. “I’m not a crier.”

  “I have news for you, Cait. You’re a crier.”

  “And a screamer.” She clutched his shoulder. “I think it’s time to get the doctor in here…nowwwwwww!”

  IT’S A LITTLE DRIBBLER!

  CHANCE LANE CALHOUN

  June 21, 2008 0102 Hours

  height: 22 inches

  weight: 7 pounds 7 ounces

  FATHER LUKE CHANCE CALHOUN JUNIOR MOTHER CAITLIN EILEEN EVERETT CALHOUN

  Epilogue

  Eighteen months later…

  BETWEEN THE RESERVE DRILLS—yes, he’d reenlisted—and the business trips, he was gone more often than Caitlin would have liked. But that only made the homecomings sweeter.

  “Which one is daddy?” Caitlin asked.

  Her son pointed his chubby baby finger right at Lucky. “Daddy,” Chance whined, contorting his chubby little body.

  Lucky, his seabag slung over his shoulder, headed straight for them with a red rose in his hand. “Hey, little guy,” he said, taking the baby from her.

  “Hey, big guy.” They exchanged a kiss for her rose.

  As good as he looked in that uniform or in his business suit, she liked him best in his coveralls with grease under his nails. Because that’s when he was home, with her and the baby, working on his bikes.

  “I have something for you.” He patted his pocket.

  “I have something for you, too,” she said suggestively.

  “Don’t you want to know what it is?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sizable check.

  “Another tattoo with my name? Or a ring from a pawnshop?” she teased. She loved the pawnshop ring. And his reason for buying it.

  Every ring had a story to tell, including her engagement ring. She hated the tattoo—a shot through the heart with her name on it. She didn’t like being reminded that she’d hurt him. But she did like being reminded that he loved her in a very permanent way.

  In any case, she’d live with it because she loved him.

  “The Utah Highway patrol contracted for twelve of my custom bikes.”

  “Still thinking of expanding the company?” With Big Luke going into semiretirement after his third divorce and his second remission from cancer, Lucky had taken over the family business.

  Chance rested his sleepy head against his daddy’s broad shoulder. Lucky looked down at his son, then her.

  “More like expanding the family. Calhoun and Sons has a nice ring to it.”

  “And what about daughters?”

  He waggled his eyebrows. “Tell me again how lucky I am.”

  Dear Reader;

  There is no bugle call more emotive or powerful than “Taps.” It’s played at the end of the day as a call to rest and in 1891 it became standard at military funerals. The idea for The Marine’s Baby, Maybe came to me at a military funeral, but pieces of this story have been with me all my life…

  My mother was a young newlywed and pregnant with me when my father died. Many years later my aunt’s husband died unexpectedly and I overheard her asking my mom how she’d managed to get through it all those years ago.

  She credited her dad, my grandfather, and quoted him as saying, “This is the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do. But you’ll get through this, I promise.” And those lines became the premise for the story.

  If you enjoyed Caitlin and Lucky’s story, please consider leaving a a review.

  Thank you,

  Rogenna

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank my fellow veterans and active duty military for their service. Any mistakes I have made or liberties I’ve taken to tell this story are my own.

  About the Author

  Rogenna Brewer is a US Navy veteran and bestselling author of contemporary romance with strong military characters. Her first published novel featured a female Navy SEAL long before that was even possible and she continues to lure new readers with her sweet ‘n’ salty style.

  She is a member of RWA’s prestigious Honor Roll.

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