The Captain's Baby Bargain

by Merline Lovelace

  Her lids fluttered up, and she blinked a question from tear-blurred eyes.

  “That condom must’ve been a year old,” he said in disgust. “We shouldn’t have trusted it. I shouldn’t have trusted it.”

  The gruff apology spurred a quick, almost hysterical laugh. “Funny, I was thinking pretty much the same thing for most of that drive from Phoenix to Cedar Creek.”

  He kept his palm around her nape, his gaze gentle on hers. “That must’ve been one helluva long drive.”

  “I broke it up with an overnight in Albuquerque. I wanted to talk to Cowboy’s wife, Alex.”

  “Because she’s pregnant, too?” His mouth curved. “You could’ve waited and talked to any one of my sisters. Between them, they’ve racked up at least ten years of big bellies, aching backs and room-clearing farts.”

  Laughing, Suze eased out of his hold. Trust Gabe to tease her through this weepy hormonal moment. “Actually, I wanted to talk to Alex about the custodial agreements. She couldn’t offer much help, though, except to suggest we consult a good family practice attorney.”

  Gabe withdrew, slowly, almost imperceptibly. Suze sensed the wall that came down between them even before he tilted his chin and narrowed those gold-flecked hazel eyes.

  “Custodial agreements, huh? As in, how many weeks a year I’m allowed to spend with my child?”

  She should’ve been grateful for his unquestioned acceptance of the fact that the baby was his. Would have, if his tone hadn’t alerted her to rocky shoals ahead.

  “As in,” she replied with deliberate calm, “whether you’ll assume full legal responsibility for our child if I’m deployed or assigned to a remote locale.”

  He backed away. Leaned against the island again. Crossed his arms. “So you intend to stay in uniform?”

  “That’s the plan right now.”

  “I see.” His eyes went as hard as the agates they used to dig out of the creek bank. “Guess we’d better make an appointment with Shirley Stockton.”

  “Who?”

  “She and her husband moved into town from LA a few years back. He’s a supervisor at FAA. She’s a lawyer. We don’t get all that many child custody cases here in Cedar Creek, but those we do, Shirley usually handles.”

  Miserable, Suze understood all too well why the air between them had gone from sizzling to frigid in a few short sentences. For a few, unthinking moments, Gabe had equated her pregnancy with a complete change in direction for both of them. He’d assumed the baby would heal the breach of the past three years. That Suze would separate from the Air Force. That the two of them would pick up where they’d left off, and their separate, complicated lives would once again merge.

  She’d wanted that, too. For that same, unthinking moment when his mouth covered hers. God, how she’d wanted that!

  “We probably should also talk specifics,” Gabe said, interrupting her chaotic thoughts. “Like when you’re due and how we’re going to break the news to our families.”

  She grimaced. “My folks already jumped on the fact that we hooked up in Phoenix last month. They keep hoping we’ll get back together.”

  “Yeah, well, doesn’t sound as though you’ve considered that as an option.”

  The cold, dismissive comment brought her off the stool.

  “The hell I haven’t!” Tears stung her eyes again, and she cursed her out-of-whack hormones. “You think the divorce has been any easier on me than it has on you? I’ve ached for you, you idiot. I’ve missed your laugh, your homemade chili, your stupid jokes.”

  She flung up both hands, palms out and stopped him as he surged toward her.

  “I have not missed the arguments. Or feeling guilty about the hours I have to put into my job. Or the pressure you laid on me to separate from the service and spend the rest of my life here in Hicksville, Oklahoma.”

  She winced, instantly regretting her outburst. “Okay, I didn’t mean that last part.”

  Gabe slumped against the counter again, his face tight and angry. “Oh, yeah, Susie Q, you did. You couldn’t wait to shake loose of Cedar Creek.”

  “And you couldn’t wait to get back.”

  He broke the silence that followed with a curt, “So here we are.”

  “Here we are,” she echoed.

  As if sensing the resentment and unhappiness hanging as thick as a cloud in the kitchen, Doofus crowded against Gabe until he dropped a hand and scratched behind a wiry, tufted ear. Eyes closed, the hound succumbed to quivering ecstasy.

  “Okay, look. I need a little time to assimilate the fact I’m going to be a father. Why don’t we have dinner at Ruby’s tonight? Five thirty? We can talk it through then.”

  “Neutral ground? That works for me. Especially since this is sour cream chicken enchilada night.”

  Oh, God! She’d dreaded this part but knew if she didn’t tell him now, she might not find the courage to do it later.

  “While you’re assimilating this business of being a father, there’s one other bit of information you need to factor in. The day we got together in Phoenix... When I responded to that fuel spill...”

  “Yeah?”

  “My guys and I were on respirators the whole time we worked the spill.”

  “But?” he asked, suddenly wary.

  “But I felt so tired and draggy for weeks afterward, I was afraid I might have breathed in some toxic fumes.”

  He stiffened and she rushed on. “The doc ran all kinds of tests. She found no evidence of toxic infiltration in my blood or lungs. None!”

  “Did she know you were pregnant?”

  “I didn’t even know! She’s the one who told me. She also said she’s a hundred percent confident the baby’s okay but I thought should... I felt I’d better...” She lifted a hand, let it drop. “I thought you should know.”

  When he didn’t respond, she beat a hasty retreat.

  “I’ll see you at Ruby’s.”

  Chapter Six

  “Doofus! Let’s go!”

  Gabe needed to run. Hard. Fast. Slamming the dirt with everything in him.

  He’d run track in junior high. Been pretty damned good at it, too. Took home All State honors at both 800 and 1500 meters. In high school, his speed made him a local star on the football field and won him a scholarship to OU. He hadn’t racked up as many TDs in college as he had in high school, but he’d more than justified his scholarship.

  He’d fallen off his competitive pace in the years since, of course, but could pound some serious pavement when he wanted to. And right now, he wanted to.

  Although he knew he’d regret it later, Gabe didn’t bother to warm up. No stretches. No starting slow and working up to full stride. With Doofus loping joyfully beside him, he cut across the back of his property, jumped the creek at its narrowest point and hit the two-lane, little-used Farm Road that took him from town to country in less than a mile.

  The Endicotts’ cornfield was on his left, the Stuarts’ okra and sweet potato patches on the right. This late in June the sweet corn stood only waist high and the okra was just beginning to put out shoots. But Gabe’s thoughts that late June morning were about as far as they could get from calculating the economic impact of a good crop season for his constituents.

  He’d managed to hang onto his cool when Suze calmly announced she intended to remain in uniform, give birth to their child, then flit in and out of its life for the next twelve or fifteen years. Or longer, if she made senior rank, as Gabe knew she would. She could extend her career to twenty-eight or thirty years, for God’s sake!

  While he sat here, in Cedar Creek. For the next twenty-eight or thirty...or fifty...years. That last number put a hitch in his stride. He almost stumbled as he squinted through the heat waves and saw his future stretch as straight and unchanging as the road ahead.

  Doofus was sniffing at a dead crow on the side of the road but caught the sudden change in Gabe’s rhythm. He contorted into a U, unwilling to abandon the flyblown carcass but obviously wondering what his human was u
p to. When Gabe picked up his pace again, the dog unbent and happily resumed poking his nose into the rotting entrails.

  By the time they’d circled around the Prestons’ peach orchard and hit County Road 122, they were both swimming in sweat. Their route took them past a new development Gabe had worked his ass off to push through the zoning and planning committees. With five-acre lots and a sweeping view of the open fields to the south, Stony Brook Estates offered homeowners the wide-open spaces associated with country life but none of the rural inconveniences. All but two of the lots had sold, and the two-and three-hundred-thousand-dollar homes that had sprung up all had access to county and state-wide utilities. The tax revenue coming into the town from these new homes wasn’t too shabby, either.

  Another two miles brought them into older and more familiar territory. When they cut back across the creek behind Gabe’s place, Doofus chose to splash and paddle to cool down, but Gabe opted for heeling off his running shoes and turning the garden hose on himself. Thinking his human was having more fun than he was, the dog danced around Gabe until they were both drenched.

  To dry off, Gabe stretched out in one of the loungers on the vine-shaded flagstone patio. The same stones he’d damned near broken his back hauling in and muscling into place. With Doofus already on his back, belly exposed, legs splayed, Gabe thought about the next fifty years.

  * * *

  Since Ruby’s was only a few blocks from her parents’ house, Suze walked to her dinner meeting with Gabe. The moment she opened the front door, though, she almost turned and scooted out again. The place was jammed. Not surprising, considering how popular—and inexpensive—Ruby’s specials were. Yet any hope that the café would constitute “neutral” ground evaporated when she faced a phalanx of curious stares.

  Fighting the cowardly impulse to flee, she let the door whoosh shut behind her. A quick glance confirmed the café hadn’t changed since her last visit two years ago. Hell, it hadn’t changed all that much since her high school days. Granted, the Free WiFi sign taped to the old-fashioned cash register was a surprise. So was the Taylor Swift crossover hit competing with the dinner hour chatter. But tattered, leather-topped round stools still offered seats at the chipped Formica counter and the same square tables crowded the space between the counter and the row of booths lining the far wall.

  Her throat tight, Suze remembered the times she and her friends had plopped down at the counter to stuff themselves on burgers and fries that beat the crap out of every fast-food spot within fifty miles. She remembered, too, all the occasions her family and Gabe’s had pushed two or three of those tables together to accommodate an impromptu gathering. But the most vivid memories were of the times she’d huddled with Gabe in “their” booth. The last one in the row, just before the entrance to the kitchen and restrooms.

  With the arrogant confidence of youth, they’d been so sure that the noise from the kitchen would drown out conversations that tended more and more toward X-rated as they progressed from adolescents to pre-teens to sex-hungry high schoolers. Looking back, Suze guessed those conversations had probably provided the folks around them with grins and outright guffaws.

  She almost groaned when she spotted Gabe waiting for her in their booth. Before she could join him, though, she had to run the gauntlet.

  “Suzanne! Heard you were back in town, girl. You gonna stay this time?”

  She smiled at the owner of the only bookstore in town. The polar opposite of any rational being’s image of a literary aficionado, Madelyn Winston was crude, rude to her customers and downed gin like it was water. But she’d kept Suze supplied with her favorite paperback novels all though school, many of which her mother would’ve been horrified to know she’d read.

  “I’m on leave, Madelyn. Just taking a break.”

  “Will you be here this coming weekend?”

  That came from Harry Peterman, the chubby, round-faced dentist who’d filled her cavities.

  “I think so.”

  “That’s great! We’ll add you to the parade lineup. We love to include our very own hometown hero.”

  Too late Suze remembered that Dr. Peterman had headed the Fourth of July organizing committee for the past ten or fifteen years.

  “I’m on leave,” she told him. “I didn’t bring my uniform.”

  “No problem. You can ride in the same convertible with Gabe. Everyone in town knows the two of you served in combat zones. Unless...uh...” Red flooded his chubby cheeks. “Sorry. I guess that might be a little uncomfortable for you.”

  “Just a little,” she drawled.

  “For pity’s sake, Doc. Try for some class.”

  That came from Ruby herself. Suze couldn’t begin to guess the café owner’s age. Although a new crosshatch of wrinkles seemed to appear in her leathery skin every year, she sported the same red-orange hair and hoarse cigarette croak she’d always had.

  “Hey, Ruby.”

  “Hey, Suzanne. Good to see you, girl.”

  “Thanks. You, too.”

  “Gabe’s waiting for you.” The proprietress angled her chin toward the back of the café. “He’s having the special. You?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Whadda you want to drink?”

  “Try the featured cabernet,” Madelyn advised. “It not bad for a Texas label. Not bad, at all.”

  “I’ll stick to iced tea,” Suze said with a smile...and immediately realized her mistake.

  Heads turned. Brows rose. Glances zinged from patron to patron.

  She observed the unspoken communications with a silent groan. She wasn’t a boozer. Despite several notable youthful indiscretions, she’d never racked up anything even close to Madelyn’s record of alcohol consumption. But apparently everyone from her book supplier to her dentist remembered that she enjoyed a glass of wine with dinner.

  “Just tea,” she reiterated. “Wouldn’t be cool for the mayor’s ex to get hauled into court for a DUI.”

  Keeping her smile plastered on, she skirted the tables and headed for the back of the café. When the occupant of the second booth jumped out and blocked her forward progress, she had no clue who he was. With a mumbled “’Scuse me,” she tried to go around him.

  “Suzanne! My God! Haven’t seen you since high school.”

  “I’m sorry, I...”

  “Dave Forrester. We sat next to each other in Advanced Physics.”

  “Dave? Good Lord, I wouldn’t have...”

  “Recognized me?” he finished on a laugh when she faltered. “I’m not surprised. I’ve put on a few pounds since then.”

  More than a few, she thought in amazement, although he carried the weight well. He’d been a skinny, freckle-faced runt in high school. His freckles were now almost lost in a deep butternut-tan attractively accented by sun-bleached blond hair and white squint lines at the corners of his eyes. Belatedly, Suze remembered Gabe telling her that Forrester was now a big honcho in the oil and gas business. Judging by his surprisingly rugged outdoor appearance, the executive must still spend a good part of his time in the field. She gave him points for that.

  “I heard you head your own company now, Dave.”

  “I do. Don’t want to brag, but we made the Fortune 500 list last year.”

  “Good for you,” Suze said, meaning it.

  They’d been friends in high school, feeding off each other’s passion for math and physics. Although Suze had sensed that her lab mate wanted to share more than a bench clamp and stringed cylinder, she’d been careful to signal neither interest nor encouragement. Only later did she learn that Gabe had underscored her effort with a direct and extremely blunt warning to Forrester to back the hell off.

  She wasn’t surprised that subliminal male rivalry had spilled over into a competitive race for mayor of Cedar Creek. And, she discovered a moment later, an apparent competition for the same woman.

  Moving aside, Dave gestured to his dinner companion. “You remember Alicia, don’t you?”

  Damn! Crap! Sonova-frea
kin’-bitch.

  Steeling herself, Suze pivoted to face her pixieish, violet-eyed nemesis. “Hey, Alicia.”

  “Hey, Suzanne.” The smile was Colgate Ultra–bright. “I asked Gabe to tell you hello from me when he and I talked last night.”

  “Oh, darn. He must’ve forgotten to give me the message.”

  The saccharine sweet reply shaved a few kilowatts off Prissy Missy’s smile, but she never stayed dim for long. Her lips pursed into a dimpled pout that belied the bright glint in her eyes.

  “I’ll have to let him know what I think about that next time I see him.”

  “You do that.” Hoping to hell there was no steam coming out of her ears, Suze nodded to Forrester. “Good to see you, Dave.”

  “You, too. Hey, listen. Last time I talked to Gabe, we were on opposite sides of the negotiating table ’bout cleanup at one of our wells. He let drop that you just worked a major spill at your base out in Arizona. If you’ve got time while you’re home, I’d surely like to talk those pesky environmental issues with you.” He fished in his hip pocket and extracted a heavily embossed business card from his wallet. “Give me a call. Maybe we can have lunch sometime.”

  “Maybe.”

  She tucked the card in her jeans pocket and was stopped twice more on her way to the back booth. Once by a friend of her father’s, once by one of the servers who happened to be the grandson of her seventh grade math teacher, Very Scary Mrs. Lee.

  “Gram is so proud of you,” Tyler gushed. “She brags all the time about how you were her star pupil.”

  Suze blinked. That was news to her. Sharp featured and even sharper tongued, Very Scary had been relentless in her determination to pound advanced algebra into her students’ heads. Everyone in her class had lived in dread of being called on to provide the answer to a homework problem.

  “You should’ve seen Gram’s face when she told me about that article,” her teacher’s eager grandson was saying. “The one in the Daily Oklahoman about you getting a Bronze Star medal. She said it’s, like, a big deal.”

  “Well...”

  “She’s in the Gray Cedars Nursing Home now. If you have time while you’re here, I know she’d love a visit.”