The Marine's Baby

by Deb Kastner

  Nate scowled, hating the feeling he had to justify his actions to his brother. Vince glowered back at him, which didn’t help matters at all.

  “Sure. Make me look like the bad guy.”

  Nate opened his mouth, then snapped it closed again. Of all the pigheaded, irrational—

  He jumped, startled, when Jess placed her hand on his arm. When he’d started butting heads with his brother, he’d almost forgotten she was there. Guilt and humiliation flooded through him, raw and stinging. It was bad enough that Vince thought him every kind of fool without having Jess as an audience.

  “We need to go get Gracie,” she said, her voice low and even, as if she hadn’t just witnessed the juvenile scene in front of her. “Despite what he said, your father isn’t up to watching her for an extended period of time. He’s still so weak, and you know how wiggly she gets when she has to sit still too long.”

  Nate sighed, the anger draining from him. Jess was right. And more than that, she was clearly giving him a way out of his latest confrontation with Vince.

  Vince shrugged and waved his arm in what Nate thought was a condescending manner.

  “Go get your baby,” Vince snapped. “But this isn’t over between us, bro. Not even close.”

  Nate thought it the best part of valor not to respond at all, so he turned and stalked away, hearing Jess’s murmur of surprise and her quick steps after him.

  In record time, he said goodbye to his father and bundled Gracie in her car seat in the back of the Jeep, all the while not speaking to Jess at all. Wisely, Nate thought, she didn’t try to strike up any kind of conversation with him, either, but simply buckled herself in and waited. He was in no mood for small talk, and he sure didn’t want to talk about the humiliating incident between he and Vince.

  Jess didn’t speak until he had parked the Jeep in front of her cabin. Nate clutched the steering wheel as she opened the car door, but she didn’t immediately disembark as he expected. If he had been in her position, he’d be running for cover right about now, fearing an imminent explosion.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that she’d turned toward him and was quietly searching his expression, but he just stared straight ahead, knowing he was glowering. Though it was unfair, he couldn’t seem to be able to put a lid on his anger, even for Jess’s sake.

  “Are you okay?” she asked at last, her voice quivering with emotion.

  Nate pinched his lips together and said nothing, afraid if he did he would bark at her.

  “Vince was caught off guard,” she explained, hesitating, her big brown eyes widening, when Nate’s gaze snapped to hers. “Give him some time to think it through, and I’m sure he’ll see reason.”

  “Why should he? He’s right and he knows it,” Nate growled sharply, then squeezed his hands on the steering wheel, angry at himself for lashing out at Jess. None of this was her fault. She was trying to be supportive, and he knew it.

  “He’s had a lot of time to think about my coming back home,” he said, softening his tone. “All I’ve done is cause him problems since I’ve been here. This is just the icing on the cake.”

  Jess reached out and touched his shoulder, but he shrugged it off.

  “You know that’s not true,” she pleaded. “Whether Vince wants to admit it right now or not, you’ve been a great help to him—and to your father. Jason is enjoying a warm fire as we speak because of all the hard work that you’ve done.”

  Nate snorted. “Pop is going to hear about this. What is he going to think of me interfering? Morningway Lodge is his baby. His dream. And now I’ve gone and made things more complicated for him by not thinking things through.”

  “Take a deep breath, Nate,” Jessica suggested softly. “It isn’t your fault Vince didn’t get a permit. You followed the law, which was the right thing to do. Vince will realize that, too, once he’s had time to cool off. I’m sure he wasn’t trying to do anything illegal, so in the long run, this can only help him.”

  “Not if they slap a huge fine on him,” Nate grated, his forehead aching from his deepening scowl.

  “That doesn’t have to happen, now does it? I mean, all the inspector said was that he has to go get a permit to build. How is that so bad?”

  Nate shrugged. Jess was right. It wasn’t an insurmountable difficulty, just an extra hoop to jump through.

  Except…

  “I don’t know for sure, but I get the impression Vince doesn’t have a lot of working capital. Morningway Lodge was built as a ministry, not to make a lot of money.”

  “Then I’ll pay for it,” Jessica stated, nodding and smiling as she warmed to the idea. “I have some money tucked away in my savings account that we can use to get Vince his permit.”

  Nate’s gaze widened, and he surprised himself that his jaw didn’t drop. His pulse pounded in his temple. “You’d do that for Vince?”

  Her gaze widening, she shook her head. “Not for Vince. For you.”

  Nate tried to swallow around the raw lump of emotion burning in his throat.

  “I’ll do it,” he said. “But I don’t need your money. I have some savings of my own.”

  “Okay,” she agreed with a gentle smile. “I’m sure Vince will appreciate it.”

  Nate barked out a dry laugh. “I don’t know about that. But I’ll sure feel better.”

  “And now that you’re finished with the fireplace, maybe you could assist Vince in building his shed. You can’t depend on the weather in Colorado to stay nice in October, and he’ll need all the help he can get.”

  “Maybe,” Nate agreed, but his mind was already migrating to more pleasant thoughts than trying to work things out with Vince.

  Like how wise and thoughtful Jess was.

  And how beautiful.

  And how he didn’t know if he could ever get along without her.

  He felt closer to Jess in that one instant than he’d ever felt to another human being. His mind stuttered over the words to tell her what he was thinking, but they just wouldn’t come out of his mouth.

  What a time to get tongue-tied, when it suddenly seemed so monumentally important for her to understand how he felt, how much she meant to him.

  “Jess, I—” he started, only to stumble to a stop. The awkward silence loomed before him in the air, feeling very much like that breath-holding moment when he was about to disarm a bomb, knowing that the slightest false move would cause it to blow up in his face.

  Only this time he wasn’t working to save the lives of others. It was his own heart on the line.

  “Nate?” she asked, her voice full of concern.

  He turned as much as his large body would allow within the confines of his seat. The steering wheel bit into his side, but he didn’t really care.

  The only thing that mattered was this moment.

  This woman.

  When she reached for the door handle, Nate put out his hand to stop her. Their fingers met, and the electricity between them was palpable.

  “Jess,” he said again, but when no more words came, he simply took her in his arms. He might not be able to tell her how he felt, he thought as he drew her to him, so close that their breath intermingled, but he could certainly show her.

  With a groan that came from deep in his chest, he slanted his head and centered his mouth over hers. Her lips were soft and pliant, and without conscious thought, he deepened the kiss.

  She was so sweet and giving. He heard her murmur as she clutched her fists into the lapel of his bomber jacket, but he didn’t know what it was that she said, if it had been real words at all.

  Time ceased to have meaning. There was only Jess. Sweet, wonderful Jess. “Nate.”

  He loved the sound of his name on her lips.

  “Nate, stop.”

  It was only then that he realized she was no longer clutching at his jacket to pull him closer, but was pushing him away, her hands flat on his chest.

  His mind was still reeling with the discovery of his feelings for Jess, but he d
idn’t miss her troubled expression, nor the tears that welled up in her huge brown eyes, making their depth seem infinite.

  He sat back, giving her the space she obviously needed. “What’s wrong, honey?”

  “I’m sorry, Nate,” she choked out, scrubbing her palms across her eyes as if she were angry at her own tears, as if it was a show of weakness.

  Nate didn’t think there was anything weak about Jessica Sabin. She had a strength of character he could only hope to aspire to, and she had the kind of faith that could move mountains.

  But he had clearly upset her with his actions, and he felt like a big oaf for not realizing it sooner. If she needed more time, he would certainly give it to her. He’d only wanted to express what was in his heart, not cause her any kind of distress.

  “I’m sorry, Jess,” he apologized, his voice low and gravelly.

  “No,” she replied, so softly he could barely hear the word. She had been looking down at her hands, which were clasped in her lap, but now she gazed up at him. “I’m the one who should apologize.”

  The sorrow in her gaze took his breath away. He mentally scrambled to figure out what he had done to make her react that way.

  “What?” he asked at last, still clueless as to what he had done, and even more as to what he should say, only knowing he needed to do something to make things right between them.

  “I—I’m really sorry, Nate,” she stammered. “But things just cannot go on this way.”

  Without another word, and without giving him the opportunity to say anything—not that his cloudy mind could think of anything to say—she reached behind her for the door handle and scrambled out of the Jeep and into her cabin, slamming both the car door and the cabin door behind her as she went.

  Nate didn’t try to follow her, gathering himself up enough to realize he wouldn’t accomplish anything by pushing her too hard. But he sat for a long time in front of her cabin, his arms crooked over the steering wheel and his head on his arm.

  What was wrong?

  How could he fix it?

  Not knowing where else to turn, he began to pray.

  “Dear God, if You are there, and Jess believes You are, please help me. Please.”

  Sitting in the corner easy chair with the lights off, Jessica chastised herself as every kind of fool. And the worst thing was, the only one she’d been fooling was herself.

  How had she thought, after the first time Nate had kissed her, that they could continue on as friends? Something foundational had changed between them in that moment, and she had either failed to recognize it or, more likely, had simply shoved it to the back of her mind and refused to acknowledge it, hoping against hope it would go away on its own. Like that was going to happen.

  She was an idiot.

  And now she had hurt Nate.

  She’d seen the pain of her rejection in his eyes, and that was the very last thing she ever wanted to do. She remembered his expression when she’d made her escape, and it broke her heart.

  Of course the man was confused by her sudden emotional turnaround. She had sent him every mixed signal in the book.

  If only she was the sweet, innocent woman Nate thought her to be. If only she had half the strength Nate attributed to her.

  The memory of his voice warmed her heart even now—the way he laughed, how he tenderly shortened her name to Jess. He was the only one who called her that, and oddly enough, it was rubbing off on her. She was beginning to think of herself by that nickname.

  If only there was no past—only the present and the future.

  But all the wishing in the world would not make it so. It was what it was, and it was high time she stopped ignoring the facts.

  Why, oh, why had she not been honest with Nate from the beginning?

  It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had plenty of opportunities to tell him the truth about her past. She’d just chosen not to, despite the fact that he had opened up to her early on in their relationship, and had trusted her with the depth of his secrets.

  Yet she had remained silent. And look where that had gotten her.

  All this time she’d been telling herself that she was protecting herself from heartbreak, and now she faced the truth.

  No more excuses. She cared for Nate—and Gracie—very deeply. And that raised the stakes to intimidating odds.

  How could she now bring her past into casual conversation? Dinner was lovely, and by the way, I’ve been married before.

  No. That would never work.

  What she needed to do, she realized, was to confront the whole situation head-on and tell him everything she’d been hiding. She couldn’t go on living a lie.

  She had to revisit her past, and take Nate along for the ride.

  Yes. That was what she would do. She would talk to him.

  But not now.

  Nate was up to his ears with the situation with Vince. Jessica thought it was best to give him time to work that out before she sprang anything new on him. He was in enough emotional turmoil without her adding dry kindling to the flame.

  She wrapped a blanket around her legs and curled into the chair. She was no longer in denial, but she would put Nate’s needs before her own.

  It wouldn’t be easy. She knew the next time she saw him, the weight of her decision would likely cause her to blurt it all out to him. And that was the last thing he needed right now.

  Perhaps the best thing, for the time being, was not to see Nate at all.

  Chapter Twelve

  Nate had never been so frustrated in all his life. He was angry at himself for pushing Jess too far, too fast. In his rush to make his feelings known to her, he had trampled all over hers. He had clipped the wrong wire on the bomb and it had exploded.

  He should have known better.

  What concerned him most, however, was not the sad state of his own heart. It was Jess.

  She was avoiding him.

  At first, it had only been a suspicion on his part. He’d brought Gracie to the day care so he could go to Boulder to pursue getting the permit for Vince, and Jess had been nowhere to be found, even though her SUV was parked in the lot.

  But what had started out as mere conjecture was now, in Nate’s mind, an unavoidable fact. Not only was Jess not visible at the day care, but in the following week, she hadn’t once called or come over.

  And that wasn’t like her.

  No more shared dinners. No more quiet evenings. Nate was going out of his mind.

  He could have sought her out, visited her cabin in the evening like he used to do. But if Jess was avoiding him—and she clearly was—it was for a reason. He hadn’t a clue what that reason might be, but he sensed the right thing to do was give her the time and space she had asked for in her actions, if not with words.

  But after an entire week of not seeing her pretty face, it was killing him to stay away. He didn’t know how much more of this forced isolation he could take. It was sheer torture.

  And because it was Saturday, he had nothing to do except think about it. Even caring for baby Gracie’s needs didn’t do more than mildly distract him.

  It was still early morning, Nate realized when he glanced at his watch. How was he possibly going to make it through a whole, long empty weekend?

  With Gracie fed and changed and now playing quietly in her playpen, Nate found himself pacing back and forth from the kitchen to the living room and back, feeling caged in by his own tiny cabin.

  On his tenth trip from the kitchen to the front door, he finally decided he couldn’t stand to be cooped up inside for another moment. He was so wound up mentally, and his muscles were so tense and tight, that he couldn’t think straight.

  “How about you and I go for a run, baby girl?” he asked Gracie, sweeping her into his arms and tossing her into the air. Her laughter echoed in the small cabin.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  It only took him a minute to bundle Gracie up and prop her in the backpack. He was getting better at this baby stuff, he real
ized as he took off down the mountain path nearest to his cabin.

  Now, if he could only adjust his learning curve with Jess. He knew it was pointless to beat himself up about it, but he felt as if he’d somehow failed in nearly every relationship in his life. He’d failed God. He’d failed his father, and then Vince.

  And somehow, he’d failed Jess.

  He’d been running down a little-used path, mulling over the situation with Jess, when she suddenly materialized in front of him.

  At first he didn’t believe his own eyes when she burst over a hill, her thick blond ponytail swinging behind her. Had he finally lost his mind completely, conjuring her up from some messed-up part of his brain?

  But as she approached and slowed before him, he knew he wasn’t dreaming.

  She had obviously been running hard. Her face was flushed from exertion and she pinched at a stitch in her side as she struggled to slow down her labored breathing. Sweat poured from her brow, and wisps of hair that had escaped her ponytail framed her face. She looked like someone had sent her through a tumble cycle in a clothes dryer.

  And Nate thought he’d never seen her look as beautiful as she did at this moment. Relief rushed through him at finally having the opportunity to see her face-to-face, just to be able to talk to her.

  “Jess,” he exclaimed, not able to keep the enthusiasm he was feeling from his voice. “I wondered when I would see you.”

  Jess’s face showed a combination of shock and panic. Her eyes were wide, and her nostrils flared. She reminded Nate of a cornered wild animal, and he thought she might bolt at any moment.

  He couldn’t let that happen.

  His meeting with her in the woods like this was nothing short of divine intervention. Had God been listening to the prayers he’d uttered only with his heart?

  “Did you get the permit?” she asked politely. Nate thought she sounded almost as if she were speaking to a stranger, not a man with whom she’d shared so much of her life, a man with whom she’d shared kisses.

  “It took the better part of a week, but yeah, I did finally get it. I’m glad Vince was tied up in Denver or this never would have worked.”