“This whole pregnancy bit is so new, I haven’t wrapped my head around it yet. You mind if I pick your brain about what to expect?”
“Pick away!” Alexis poured two virgin drinks, waved Swish to a counter stool and plopped onto the one next to her. “Where do you want to start? The bloating? The gas? The swollen ankles or the fact that one whiff of sizzling fajitas makes me puke?”
“Actually, I was hoping you’d clue me in to some of the legal ramifications. I know you and Cowboy adopted Maria over her natural father’s objections. I’ll have to work out a custody arrangement, too.”
“Ummm, I can see that might be an issue since you and the father aren’t married.”
“Actually, we were. Once.”
“Gabe?” Alex tried her damnedest to choke back her surprise. She didn’t quite get there. “Are you telling me Gabe’s the father?”
“Yep.”
“Where? How?”
“He was driving east on I-10. I was driving west, back to the base.”
“You mean the day after the Bash? When he was going to stop by to see us?”
“Yep,” Swish said again. “We hooked up by chance, then went our separate ways.”
“So that’s why he was so late getting here! Wait till I tell Ben.” Her eyes danced. “Are you two planning to get back together?”
“No. Well. Maybe. At least, as far as it involves the baby.” Her shoulders slumping, Swish admitted the truth. “Oh, God, Alex, I don’t know what we’re going to do. I haven’t even told Gabe I’m pregnant yet. That’s why I took leave and am heading back to Oklahoma.”
“Well...” Her hostess used the excuse of topping off their drinks to gather her thoughts. “There are several single moms and military couples in Ben’s squadron. I know they have to sign some kind of document detailing who’ll take care of their kids if they get deployed.”
“I know. A Family Care Plan.”
Air Force regulations required that all single parents and military couples with children name a nonmilitary Short-Term Care Provider who could assume care of their child in the event the parent or parents were deployed on short notice. They also had to designate a Long-Term Care Provider willing to assume full responsibility for the child if the parent or parents were deployed for an extended period of time, selected for an unaccompanied overseas tour or assigned to a ship at sea.
Swish didn’t doubt for a minute that Gabe would agree to be their child’s designated care provider. Assuming, that is, he didn’t push for full custody. The possibility had been buzzing around in the back of her mind for most of the day’s drive.
“Our situation probably isn’t all that unique but it will require some negotiation.”
“How so?”
“We got a quickie, no-contest divorce. We’ll have to go back to court to address legal custody of our baby.”
She’d done some research. The Service Member’s Relief Act protected military personnel from having to defend themselves from civil suits—including divorces and child custody hearings—while overseas and not able to defend themselves. The Uniform Deployed Parents Custody and Visitation Act passed in 2012 was a more comprehensive attempt to balance the rights of service members, the other parent and the best interests of the child involved. Her situation with Gabe fell somewhere in the middle of all that legalese.
“I’m sorry, Suze. I wish I could help. Our petition to adopt Maria sprang from a completely different set of legal circumstances. I can refer you to a really good family practice attorney, though. He’s licensed here in New Mexico, which wouldn’t help if you have to petition an Arizona court, but he’s one of the best in the field.”
“Thanks. Hopefully Gabe and I can work all this out amicably. If not, I may take you up on that referral.”
“Good enough. Now let’s talk maternity tops. I’m developing a whole new line of tanks and tees celebrating big bellies.”
“If they’re all as gorgeous as that rainbow you’re wearing, I’ll take one of each.”
“No way. You, my friend, will get a one-of-a-kind Alexis Scott design.”
* * *
The lively, bright-eyed Maria and her black-and-white cat entertained Swish at breakfast the next morning while Alex darted over to her workshop. She returned just as her guest was getting ready to leave and presented her with a stretchy, cap-sleeved royal-blue top that featured the Air Force insignia in sparkling silver and darker blue crystals. Above them, Alex had emblazoned Warrior Mom in bright, bold red.
“Best I could do on short notice. Try it on and see if it fits.”
Swish ducked into the powder room off the hall and exchanged her sun-faded 56th Fighter Wing T-shirt for glittering blue and red crystals.
“This is fantastic, Alex. Thank you!”
The designer tapped a finger against her chin. “It’ll do for a rush job. But I’m working on more elaborate designs for each of the four military services. I should have the prototypes ready when you come back through. You’ll have to give me your honest opinion.”
“Will do,” Swish promised.
* * *
With the morning sun once again in her face, Swish hit I-40 and headed east through Tijeras Pass. Even in high summer, wind whistled through the narrow pass with enough gusto to rock the car. Once through the canyon, the Sandia Mountains fell behind her and the landscape flattened to high desert plateaus scarred by zigzagging washes. Triple-strand barbed wire defined widely scattered ranches. Angled snow fences were positioned to keep the interstate clear come winter.
She stopped to pee twice that morning. Once in Tucumcari. Again just over the Texas state line. Lunch was chicken and dumplings at the Cracker Barrel in Amarillo. She made another pit stop when she hit the Oklahoma state line. Fifty miles later, the rugged mesas of the Panhandle gave way to rolling plains that tugged at something deep inside her. This was the land that had nourished her. Nourished Gabe. Their baby’s roots went deep into the red Oklahoma soil.
She exited I-40 some thirty miles outside Oklahoma City and had to smile at the oversize water tower proclaiming Yukon as the birthplace of Garth Brooks. Gabe had saved his earnings as a pizza delivery boy for months to buy tickets for Brooks’s big concert at the Chesapeake Center in Ok-City the week Swish turned eighteen. She still had every song the country star had ever recorded in her iTunes library.
Once through Yukon, she followed a spear-straight county road nine miles south to the town of Cedar Creek. Born and bred in this sleepy, tree-shaded town, she knew its history backward and forward. Not surprising, since she’d worked one entire summer at the town’s musty records office and history center.
From prehistoric times, hunter-gatherers had camped alongside the creek lined with stunted, twisty-limbed cedars. The same creek she and Gabe used to swim in. And go skinny-dipping in. And...
Biting down on her lower lip, she blanked the memory of those hours splashing in the sun-dappled creek and let her gaze roam over broad, flat fields. The area’s primary industry had always been agriculture. Early settlers had planted huge orchards and plowed acre after acre of rich soil. Swish and almost every other kid she knew had earned spending money picking asparagus, carrots and strawberries in the spring, cantaloupe and watermelon and sweet corn in the summer, apples and pears in the fall.
Which was how Gabe had busted three ribs, she remembered with a wry smile. He’d had to show off. Demonstrate to her and his pals what a fast picker he was by reaching too far out on a limb. His subsequent tumble off his ladder had scared the dickens out of Swish. It had also made him miss most of his junior year football season and almost cost him his scholarship to OU.
And that, she acknowledged grimly as she forced yet another vivid scene out of her head, was why she’d made such infrequent visits to her parents in the past few years. Every street, every dusty storefront, even the elementary school, held too many memories.
Fighting those memories, she eased off the gas and made a slow drag down Main. The changes were
all too noticeable. A depressing number of antique and secondhand shops had moved in when the original businesses relocated to properties closer to the Walmart on the east side of town. The local bank that had passed out lollipops to every kid who came in with their parents was gone, replaced by a drive-through chain branch.
To her delight, though, Ruby’s Cafe still occupied a prime spot at the corner of Main and 3rd Street. And a hand-printed placard said the bandstand at the center of Veterans’ Memorial Park still hosted summer Saturday evening concerts.
She noticed even more changes when she turned off Main onto the street that followed twisty, turning Cedar Creek. Yards that had been dappled with weeds when she’d last visited her folks were neatly mowed, their edges trimmed. Homes that had looked a little run-down had new coats of paint. Even the junker on the corner of Cedar and 5th had undergone an amazing metamorphosis. The awful clutter on its front porch had disappeared. So had the three rusty vehicles that used to roost on cinderblocks in its drive.
She spotted a surprising number of new homes, too. Classy brick-and-river-stone facades. High-pitched roofs. Two- and three-car garages. All set on a bend of the creek previously occupied by an abandoned mill.
That had to be Gabe’s doing. All of this! As she knew all too well, her ex-husband had an extremely low tolerance for clutter. His years in the military had only exacerbated his type A personality. From all appearances, it looked as though Cedar Creek’s determined young mayor had demolished the crumbling mill and opened all those pretty lots with their sloping views of the creek to a new wave of settlers. She guessed they probably were probably spillover from the sprawling, ever-expanding Federation Aviation Administration’s training center less than fifteen miles away. Looking at the manicured lawns and elegant facades, she’d bet her next paycheck that Gabe intended to turn their once sleepy farm town into one of OKC’s more desirable bedroom communities.
She would’ve won her bet, as her parents confirmed a mere half hour after they’d joyously welcomed their only chick back to her childhood home. He dad was older and grayer but still trim and energetic. Her spritely, gregarious mother now sported glowing turquoise tips at the ends of her silvery bob.
Swish’s open-mouthed astonishment at the bright color delighted her mom. Almost as much as when they took up their favorite positions on the front porch and her daughter bit into a raisin-pecan-oatmeal cookie with an ecstatic sigh.
“Iced tea. Fresh-baked cookies. I’m home.”
As easily, as naturally as that, she slipped back into her Cedar Creek skin. She was a daughter, a neighbor, a friend to so many who still lived here. Luke AFB, the fuel spill, her Prime BEEF Team all belonged to another world, another person. As they had so many times, she and her mom shared the porch swing. Her dad sat in the ratty, high-backed wicker fan chair that Mary Elizabeth Kingfisher Jackson had been threatening to get rid of for the past ten years.
“What’s with all these new houses?” Swish asked. “Where’s everyone coming from?”
“I don’t know,” her number-cruncher dad said. “And I don’t care. You wouldn’t believe it, Suze. With all the newcomers, we could ask two or even three times what we would’ve asked a few years ago for this property.”
She planted a foot on the floor and stopped the swing’s gentle motion. “Are you guys thinking of selling?”
“Probably not for a few years yet. But we’re feeling our age more with each passing day. If the value of the house keeps rising due to Gabe’s clever outreach pro—ow!”
Wincing, he yanked his ankle out reach of his wife’s sharp-pointed mule. He couldn’t miss her warning scowl, however. “Sorry, Suzanne. When you called to tell us you were coming home, your mom made me swear I wouldn’t mention Gabe.”
“It’s okay.” She took a sip and let the sugary-sweet tea give her courage. “As a matter of fact, Gabe and I sort of...uh...reconnected last month.”
Hope sprang into her parents’ eyes. So obvious. So painful that she almost blurted out that she was pregnant. She couldn’t, though. Not until she’d told Gabe.
“Whooo-wheee!” Hooting, her dad slapped his thigh. “Are you two are getting back together?”
“Oh, baby!” Her eyes filming with tears, Mary shot an arm around her daughter’s shoulders and hugged her joyfully. “You don’t know how long and hard we’ve prayed for this. You and Gabe belong together. You always have.”
Acutely uncomfortable, she explained as gently as she could. “We’re not back together, Mom. We just spent a few hours together last month.”
“But you came home. All the way from Arizona just to see him again. Those hours had to mean something.”
Oh, they did! Much more than she could share at this particular moment. She dodged their hopes with a bright smile.
“I came home to see you and Gabe. Right now, though, I’m more interested in our chances of getting dad to fire up that new grill I saw on the back patio without singeing his eyebrows off.”
The oblique reference to a long-ago family camping trip had her mom laughing and her dad huffing indignantly.
* * *
Hours later she drifted toward an exhausted slumber in her old bedroom. The same daisy-splashed comforter draped her bed. The same ancient iMac sat on her desk. And the same posters decorated the walls.
God, how she’d crushed on Linkin Park. Looking back, she realized the rock band had showcased her induction into the bewildering mysteries of adolescence. Menstruation. Weird sensations low in her belly every time Gabe walked her home from school. The startled glance he aimed at her chest that hot spring day they skipped World History to skinny-dip in Cedar Creek.
Whoa! She could still see his surprise. Still hear the indignation. When the hell did you get boobs, Susie Q?
The past swamped her, and she gave up thinking of herself as Swish. To everyone here, she was Suzanne, the obnoxiously inquisitive kid who’d delved into those dusty archives at the Cedar Creek records office. Suze, the baton-twirling majorette who’d pranced ten paces ahead of her high school band in every hometown parade and state competition. Susie Q, the eager bride who’d married the only man she’d ever loved.
And USAF Lieutenant Suzanne Hall, she tacked on with a small pang. So thrilled with her construction engineering degree from OU. So eager to raise her hand and be sworn in as a second lieutenant. So freakin’ proud of her shiny gold bars. And so damned eager to shake off Oklahoma’s red dust.
Scrunching her eyes shut, she blocked the colorful reminders of her past that surrounded her. She might be stretched out in the same bed she’d dreamed in for so many years, but she was not the same hopelessly idealistic teen who’d believed in happily-ever-after. She’d come home for one reason and one reason only.
She would call Gabe first thing in the morning and arrange a meeting. She’d have to give him time to get over the shock. God knew she was still dealing with it. Once he’d recovered, they would calmly, rationally work out a child custody agreement. One that recognized the rights and desires of both parents. Then they’d go their separate ways.
Again.
Fighting a stupid rush of tears, Suze dragged the sheet up over her head.
Chapter Five
Suzanne Jackson Hall was back in town.
Gabe heard about it when he dropped into Ruby’s for the Thursday evening meatloaf special. Three different people couldn’t wait to let him know they’d spotted his ex-wife cruising Main in a berry-red T-bird earlier that afternoon.
He got another confirmation of the news when he stopped to fill up Ole Blue up at Jerry Dixon’s Gas ‘N’ Go on his way home. While Jerry ran his credit card, he oh-so-casually let it drop that when his wife, Janice, had gone out to water her hydrangeas, she’d waved to Suze and her folks from across the street.
So Gabe wasn’t surprised when his mother and two of his three sisters called that evening to report additional sightings. None of them could cite the reason for the visit, however, although Gabe suspected someone woul
d nose it out before much longer.
To his surprise, he even heard from Alicia Johnson. The petite, perpetually upbeat Realtor had handled their breakup surprisingly well. She admitted that she’d pretty much given up on him deciding to take their relationship to the next level. But she’d also let him know she was still available if he changed his mind. For a while, anyway.
Actually, her easy acceptance of the split had dinged Gabe’s pride a little. At least until he heard through the grapevine that Alicia had attended some black-tie charity function in Oklahoma City on the arm of oil-and-gas magnate Dave Forrester while Gabe was out in California.
Tonight’s call, she informed him, sprang from the fact that she still cared about him. Enough to want to be sure he’d heard about his ex. “I know how small towns are,” she said with one of her rippling laughs. “You’ve probably already received a half-dozen reports that Suze is home. But just in case...?”
“I got the word.”
“Okay, then.” A pause. “Tell her hello from me when you see her.”
Yeah, sure. Like that was gonna happen.
Gabe never claimed to be the sharpest pencil in the box, especially when it came to understanding the female psyche. Growing up with three sisters had hammered home the unshakable conviction that men and women really did inhabit different emotional planets.
But even he understood why Suze and Alicia had never developed a shred of rapport. A sixth grade Sadie Hawkins dance shortly after Alicia and her folks had moved to Cedar Creek had ignited the initial feud with Gabe caught squarely in the middle.
Then there was the infamous band-room incident in junior high. No one, Gabe included, knew who said what to whom. Neither of the principals involved would discuss it. But Suze quit band and never went back. In his heart of hearts, Gabe suspected the dustup might’ve had something to do with the fact that she was tone deaf and couldn’t play the trumpet worth squat. Even her mother had gently suggested she wasn’t a good fit for the church’s youth orchestra. Thankfully, Gabe had managed to avoid getting caught in the middle of that one.
The Captain's Baby Bargain Page 6
