The Marine's Baby

by Deb Kastner

“Ay-uh, ay-uh, ay-uh,” Gracie screeched when Jessica entered the kitchen. She banged her fists repeatedly on the tray in a staccato rhythm.

  The baby was seated in her high chair and facing the door. Nate sat with his back to Jessica, an infant spoon in one hand and a jar of pureed carrots in the other. He didn’t look around when she entered the kitchen, his gaze solely focused on his infant ward.

  “One more bite,” he coaxed, holding the spoon to Gracie’s tiny mouth. “Come on now, girl. Open wide and say ah.”

  “Ah, ah,” Gracie complied, giving Jessica a wide, toothless grin. She flapped her arms wildly and banged her little fists on the high chair with excited abandon. Jessica had never felt so welcome as she did from the baby’s innocent greeting.

  “Well, she’s glad to see you,” Nate commented, sounding at once amused and annoyed. Taking advantage of Gracie’s open mouth, he slipped a spoonful of carrots between her lips.

  “Ah-bbbb,” said baby Gracie.

  “Ack!” exclaimed Nate as Gracie’s enthusiastic raspberry covered his olive-green T-shirt with orange spots.

  Jessica couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled from her chest.

  “Sure, sure. Feel free to laugh.” Nate shot Jessica a faux glare across his shoulder, his features crinkled in distaste but a wry, self-deprecating grin on his lips that belied his tone.

  Jessica clapped a hand over her mouth, but not before another giggle escaped.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized, her shoulders heaving from the hopeless effort of restraining her laughter. “It’s just that you look so—”

  “Foolish?” he offered, joining his own laughter with hers.

  She was going to say cute, she realized, feeling a blush rise to her cheeks. And just how would that have sounded?

  To cover her own embarrassment, Jessica reached for the baby wipes on the table and methodically scrubbed Gracie’s face and hands before lifting the infant from the chair and into her arms.

  “Feeding this baby is way harder than it looks,” Nate observed wryly. “I’d rather face an IED.”

  “IED?” Jessica queried. Leaning in close to Gracie’s cheek, Jessica inhaled deeply. She could never quite get enough of the just-bathed lotion smell that was distinctive to babies.

  “Improvised explosive device,” Nate clarified. “A homemade bomb.”

  “You defused bombs in the marines?”

  “That was my specialty. I suspect it doesn’t translate well into civilian life, though. One thing I know for certain—my training is of absolutely no use in learning to take care of Gracie.”

  Jessica chuckled softly. “No, I don’t suppose it is. I’ll pray for you, though.”

  “I—er—just let me go change my shirt real quick,” Nate said before beelining it straight out of the kitchen. “I’ll only be a moment,” he tossed over his shoulder as he went.

  Jessica didn’t miss Nate’s discomfort at her mention of prayer, but her faith was an intricate part of who she was. God had pulled her out of the mire of her own desperation, and she couldn’t help but be vocal about her love for Christ now.

  She wondered about Nate’s faith—or lack thereof. His brother, Vince, was a committed Christian.

  None of your business, she reminded herself once again, frowning.

  Still, she didn’t mind the opportunity to regain her equilibrium that Nate’s quick exit had afforded her. She was grateful for a moment to step back and catch her breath, emotionally speaking.

  She could be in deep water here. Mentally, she acknowledged her physical attraction to Nate and recognized it for what it was, and then determined within herself to let it go.

  As long as she didn’t dwell on it, there was no harm, no foul, she told herself resolutely. There was no way she was going to submit herself to heartbreak again in this lifetime.

  Anyway, the only reason that Nate appeared so adorable to Jessica was his association with baby Gracie. Or at least that was what she was going to keep telling herself. Over and over again, if necessary.

  Jessica turned her attention to Gracie, noting that she wasn’t the only one to appear flushed—Gracie’s cheeks were a rosy red. Alarms blared in Jessica’s head and her heartbeat picked up tempo as she pressed the back side of her fingers to the baby’s warm face.

  “Nate?” she called hesitantly.

  “Yep?” he replied from just behind her.

  She whirled around, her gaze reaching only to the middle of Nate’s well-built chest. His height unnerved her all the more. She tilted her head up to make eye contact with him.

  “Do you have a thermometer?” she queried, patting Gracie gently on the back to reassure herself as much as the baby.

  “I think I do,” Nate said, and then frowned. “Why? Is Gracie sick?”

  Jessica shook her head and tried to smile reassuringly. “She feels a little warm, but I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Should I call the doctor?”

  “No,” she assured him, keeping her voice calm and level. “Babies often run mild fevers when they are teething. That’s probably all it is.”

  One corner of Nate’s mouth tipped up in a half grin and he shook his hand in mock pain. “She’s teething, all right. For a little nipper with bare gums, she sure can pack a punch. And I noticed she’s been drooling a lot more these past couple of days.”

  “Sounds normal,” Jessica agreed, fighting the stinging lump of emotion growing in her throat. Her own baby, Elizabeth, had only just cut her first two bottom teeth when—

  “Here we go,” Nate said, fishing a digital thermometer out of the diaper bag. “How do you keep this thing in her mouth?”

  Jessica chuckled despite herself. “That would be an interesting trick. I’d like to see you try.”

  She winked. “Actually, we’re going to put it under her arm.”

  With that, Jessica sat in the chair Nate had abandoned and gently placed the thermometer under the baby’s shoulder. Gracie squirmed and verbally protested at being held so snugly, but Jessica held her tight and kept her amused by babbling baby talk at her, repeating whatever random sounds Gracie made.

  “I’m glad that’s you and not me,” Nate said, sitting down next to Jessica and running a palm over Gracie’s downy hair. “She’s already mad enough at me as it is, for trying to slip her some carrots.”

  “Fruit is much sweeter and tastier than vegetables,” Jessica agreed, smiling at Nate. “As a baby or as an adult.”

  Nate laughed. “Don’t let Gracie hear you say that, or I’ll never be able to feed her anything more than peaches and bananas.”

  “It’ll get easier,” Jessica assured him. “It just takes time and patience.”

  “And a lot of T-shirts.”

  Jessica chuckled. Nate had changed one olive-colored T-shirt for another. She wondered if the marine had any other color in his wardrobe.

  The thermometer beeped and, unconsciously holding her breath, Jessica peered at the results. Nate leaned forward to look with her.

  “Ninety-nine-point-four,” Jessica read aloud. “Just remember, when you take a baby’s temperature under her arm, you need to add a degree, so that makes it one-hundred-point-four.”

  “Then she does have a fever,” Nate said in alarm, his brow furrowed.

  “Only a mild one. She’s probably teething, as I mentioned earlier. But you should keep an eye on her, just in case.”

  “I will,” Nate vowed.

  “Which, as it happens, brings me to the reason I stopped by in the first place.” Nate arched an eyebrow as Jessica slid Gracie from her arms to his.

  “I was under the impression you were going to make use of the day care while you were out job hunting. I started to worry when you never showed.”

  “Oh, that.” Nate shrugged and kissed a wiggling Gracie on the forehead before lowering her into the playpen in the corner of the kitchen, where it was visible not only in the kitchen, but from the living room, as well. “Yes, well, I’ve had a change of heart.”


  “How is that?” Jessica was surprised at how her emotions plummeted at Nate’s words. She told herself repeatedly that it was none of her business what Nate did with Gracie. While that was probably true, she still cared—maybe too much.

  “I decided not to look for a job right away,” Nate explained. “I put away most of the money I made when I was in the marines, so I have enough to live off—for now, anyway. I’m not sure if I’m going to be staying around long enough to make it worthwhile for me to pursue anything permanent.”

  “I see,” Jessica said, though she didn’t. And she wasn’t about to analyze the way her heart dropped at Nate’s indication that he wouldn’t be around for long.

  “Becoming Gracie’s guardian is a big adjustment for me. I’m like any parent with an infant, I guess, only I didn’t have nine months to prepare for her arrival, so I’m working on a curve.”

  “I imagine it’s a big change for you from being a single man in the military.” Jessica paused thoughtfully and then asked the question that was plaguing her. “If you aren’t planning to stay at Morningway Lodge, then where will you go?”

  Nate snorted. “Anywhere but here.”

  Jessica wanted to question Nate further about his negative feelings toward the lodge, but she wasn’t sure he’d be keen on her poking her nose into his business any more than she already had.

  She sighed. “I love it here. It’s so quiet and peaceful compared to the ruckus of a big city. You can see and hear God all around you.”

  Nate stared at Jess, his gaze wide. She spoke so freely about God, as if she was intimately acquainted with Him. It was the way his mother had always spoken of the Almighty, Nate remembered, a feeling of nostalgia washing over him.

  But Nate wondered at such naiveté, such sweet and innocent belief as these women shared.

  He’d seen the ravages of war firsthand. He knew better than to believe in fairy tales.

  He nearly blurted out that he wasn’t looking for God, but caught himself before he said the words out loud and couldn’t take them back.

  There was no sense being rude, especially since her faith was clearly very dear to her. He retreated to his usual mode of dealing with issues he didn’t really want to address—he clammed up.

  Jess didn’t appear to notice his sudden silence, and continued thoughtfully.

  “Growing up, I lived in Los Angeles. Far too much noise and pollution for me. I’d rather have the clear, beautiful Rocky Mountains any day of the week, thank you very much.”

  “Is your family still in California?”

  She hesitated and her smile faltered, then dropped. Her gaze became distant for a moment, as if she had traveled in her mind to some other time or place; but at length she nodded.

  Nate had the impression he’d just intruded where he was not wanted. There was much Jess was not telling him, but he would not presume to pry based on their very short acquaintance. He didn’t care for others disrespecting his privacy, and he wasn’t going to disrupt her.

  He thought the best thing to do would be to change the subject. Baby Gracie’s soft babbling had turned to crying, so he reached into the playpen and plucked her into his arms. She quieted at his touch, but her eyelids were heavy and drooping.

  “Gracie needs a nap,” he commented, bouncing the little girl on his shoulder to soothe her as he crooned. “Don’t you, sweetie pie?”

  “Looks like,” Jess agreed.

  “She won’t go down unless I rock her,” Nate said, nodding his head toward the small living room, where an old wooden rocking chair stood in one corner.

  “May I?” Jess asked softly.

  “Be my guest.” Nate handed Gracie off to Jess, who seated herself in the rocker and began to hum a quiet lullaby.

  Even after a week with the baby, Nate still wasn’t comfortable when Gracie was fussy. He marveled at how quickly Gracie settled down in Jess’s arms. The woman was a natural with children.

  He leaned his shoulder on the door frame separating the kitchen from the living area and folded his arms across his chest. There was something just right in the way Jess held the baby, he observed; even Gracie instinctively reacted to it.

  Nate smiled at the pretty picture Jess and the baby made. Like a little family, almost. Ezra would have been glad to see it, he thought with a mixture of joyfulness and sorrow.

  “You’ll be a wonderful mother to your own child someday,” he murmured.

  It was the highest compliment Nate could think to give her, so he was stunned at her reaction.

  She turned eight shades of rose before her face bled to a deathly white.

  “Are you okay?” he asked when she shot to her feet, swaying precariously. Her grip on Gracie was firm, but he could see that she was shaking.

  “I—I’m sorry,” she stammered, thrusting the baby at him. “I have to go. Now.”

  With Gracie wiggling and kicking in his arms, Nate watched helplessly as Jess bolted out the front door and up the path leading away from his cabin. She was running—literally running—away.

  He shook his head, bemused. What had he said that had set her off that way? And more to the point, he thought perplexedly, how was he going to fix it?

  Jessica’s cabin was only a few doors down from Nate’s, though it was a steady, uphill climb. She walked—nearly ran—the distance in half the time it usually would have taken her.

  By the time she entered the emotional haven of her own small cabin, her chest was heaving and she was gasping for air. Her heart was racing so quickly she could hear it pounding in her ears, but it wasn’t only—or even mostly—the physical exertion causing the excruciating pain in her chest.

  She was embarrassed and shamed by her actions with Nate, running out on him as she had, without a single word of explanation.

  It was just that Nate’s off-the-cuff comment had hit her right between the eyes. He couldn’t possibly have known what he was saying, and he had most certainly meant his observation as a compliment.

  Jessica hadn’t been prepared for the maelstrom of emotions that barraged her when she once again held baby Gracie in her arms. The scene had somehow transformed into something pseudo-intimate—domestic—between the three of them.

  Nate. Jessica. Gracie.

  A home and a family had once been the greatest desire of Jessica’s heart. But she’d already gone that route, and with devastating results. If she was now alone in the world, it was because she wanted it that way.

  As much as she loved being around the baby—or more accurately because she loved being around the baby—it would be better for all concerned if she altogether avoided Gracie and her handsome marine guardian.

  If she was not careful, her heart would be shattered again, perhaps this time beyond repair.

  No, Jessica thought, not even consciously aware she was clenching her fists. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let it happen again.

  Chapter Four

  After Nate put Gracie down for a nap, he slung a dish towel over his shoulder and filled the kitchen sink with hot, soapy water.

  That was another thing about caring for an infant—the amount of dishes and laundry increased exponentially with the addition of just that one tiny baby girl. He had always had simple needs. This was way out of his realm of experience.

  Nate set to work scrubbing out baby bottles and bowls of caked-on baby cereal, but his mind was quick to wander back to earlier that afternoon, and the bizarre way Jess had acted.

  What was with the woman, anyway?

  Nate had noticed her odd behavior from the first time they’d met—the on-again, off-again, hot/cold way Jess acted whenever she was around him. Or perhaps more to the point, when she was around Gracie.

  The worst part, though, and the thing, if he was being honest with himself, that stymied Nate the most, wasn’t Jessica’s unfathomable actions at all. He might not yet understand it, but he could explain it away fairly simply. There must be a reasonable, rational explanation for whatever it was that was botheri
ng her, and eventually, he would figure out what that reason was.

  But at the moment, he was dwelling on something else entirely—that flash of time frozen in his mind when the three of them were together in the living room. Jessica’s presence had formed it into a homey, domestic atmosphere unlike anything Nate had ever experienced before.

  Well, maybe that description was pushing it. His cabin was no more than bachelor’s quarters littered with a brand-new smattering of baby items. Not exactly what anyone would describe as homey.

  But it wasn’t so much how the situation had looked. It was how it had felt.

  And Nate really liked that feeling.

  He realized he was daydreaming and snorted at his own silly behavior.

  What was he thinking?

  He used the dish towel to scrub his face and force his mind back to the present. His cheeks carried a week’s growth of beard on them—because, for the first time in ten years, he could go without shaving.

  He shook his head. He’d been alone for far too long to be conjuring up fantasy families in his mind, where none existed in reality.

  Still, the idea of a family wasn’t completely without merit.

  Tamyra, Nate remembered, had rounded out Ezra, taken the rough edges off the heretofore certified bachelor. After the wedding, Ezra had been the happiest Nate had ever seen him. And then baby Gracie had come along and added exponentially to their love. She had, Nate realized, completed the picture.

  He recalled being a little envious of his best friend. True love made life worth living, Ezra had told him a dozen times. But Nate’d had his work and his wanderlust, and that had been enough.

  At the time.

  Now everything was different. Not just in his circumstances, either. His heart felt as altered as the difference between a Colorado blizzard and a California summer. His priorities had shifted from thinking only of himself to having someone else as the center of his existence.

  He had a baby to consider now—a little girl who deserved to be raised in a family with both a father and a mother.

  Someone like Jess, he realized. A woman who was sweet and caring and who knew how to care for an infant; who would love Gracie the way Nate loved Gracie.