The Marine's Baby

by Deb Kastner

  What if Nate couldn’t handle all the information she’d piled on him? What if it was too much?

  Over and over she thought about asking him outright what was bothering him, but she wasn’t sure she really wanted to hear the answer.

  “Do you want to stay for lunch?” she asked him when he pulled the Jeep up in front of her cabin. “Nothing fancy, but I have some cold cuts for sandwiches.”

  Nate looked at her for a long time, almost as if she had spoken to him in a foreign language and he hadn’t understood what she was saying to him.

  What’s wrong? she wanted to scream.

  But of course, she didn’t. She just sat frozen in her seat, staring back at him and wringing her hands together in her lap.

  She wasn’t even consciously aware of her stressed movement, but Nate clearly noticed. He leaned across the seat and laid his large hand over both of hers, stilling them.

  “Maybe another time,” he said gruffly, and tried to smile.

  She thought her own answering grin wasn’t any more convincing.

  Again, Nate noticed. He brushed the rough pad of his thumb across her cheek, then pushed the corner of her mouth upward.

  “It’s going to be fine, beautiful Jess,” he murmured. “It will all be okay.”

  Jessica wasn’t sure of that. She wasn’t even certain to what Nate might be referring. But she shrugged and nodded anyway. “I know.”

  He smiled again, this time soft and genuine. “To morrow, then?”

  She started to nod again, and then cocked her head to one side. “What’s tomorrow?”

  “You’re going with me to tell Vince about the permit.” He paused and screwed his lips into a wry pout. “You will go with me to tell Vince about the permit, won’t you, honey?”

  How could she resist him when he looked at her that way, his golden eyes glowing with warmth?

  “Yes,” she replied, knowing that was the only answer Nate would accept, and the only answer she wanted to give. “Yes, of course.”

  Nate couldn’t seem to brush off the uneasy feeling that was hovering over him like a little black rain cloud. He tried to tell himself it was just that he had to confront his brother—again—with who knew what kind of a result waiting for him.

  But that wasn’t it.

  Ever since Jess had told him the story of her past, he had been haunted by her words.

  Because of what I’ve been through, my faith is strong.

  And it was. With all the horrible tragedy the woman had experienced, she was a walking, breathing testament to God’s existence and love.

  Nate still didn’t understand how that could be. He’d thought about it day and night. He’d gone to church and felt like the worst of all hypocrites, his own unbelief pointing its finger at him in accusation.

  He’d thought maybe if he gave himself some time, he could sort it all out in his mind. He’d excused himself from having lunch with Jess, knowing she would see right through any kind of façade he hoped to establish. And then he’d spent a restless night tossing and turning, despite the fact that Gracie had peaceably slept the whole night through.

  He was no closer to an answer now than he’d been twenty-four hours earlier, though he was a good deal more weary. And Jess was no doubt waiting for him to pick her up this morning so they could go tell Vince the good news about the permit.

  Jess. He ought to be focusing on her.

  Now that he knew the whole story of her past, he understood the oddity of her hot-and-cold moments. He got why she unconsciously sent him mixed signals.

  And he knew, now more than ever, that he wanted—needed—to be the man in her future, the one who didn’t leave her when the going got tough.

  Gracie needed her as well—to be the soft, feminine influence every little girl needed in her life. Jess offered Gracie something he never could give.

  But Nate knew that in order to have the chance to be those things to Jess, he needed to speak the words that lingered quietly in his heart. It wasn’t going to be enough just to show her. She needed to hear the sentiment from his own lips.

  As always, he broke into a sweat just thinking about trying to put his emotions into words. What could he say that Jess would believe?

  He was still pondering the dilemma when he picked Jess up from her cabin and they dropped Gracie off at the day care center.

  Not surprisingly, Jess was acting a little withdrawn this morning. He couldn’t blame her. In this instance, he had been the one who’d been sending mixed signals, and he knew it.

  “Well, I guess it’s now or never,” he commented as he pulled the Jeep in front of the main lodge, breaking into the uncomfortable silence that had hovered over them for the entire ride over from the day care.

  She stared at him for a moment, then smiled shakily. “Are you ready?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” he replied with a clipped nod. “Let’s do it.”

  Nate took her hand as they entered the lodge and walked up to the guest services counter. He half expected her to pull away, and was glad when she didn’t. He needed her support more than she could possibly realize.

  He rang the bell on the desk and waited, his muscles tensing as if ready to spring into a quick getaway.

  His marine training, he thought. Anticipating disaster was second nature to him now, and from where he stood, he felt as if he was facing a minefield.

  The sensation increased when Vince came out of the office, his expression going from polite reserve to anger the moment he saw that it was Nate standing on the other side of the desk.

  “What do you want?” Vince snapped without preamble, his brow lowering over his eyes.

  “We’re here with good news,” Jess exclaimed, giving Nate’s hand a tug, as if to remind him it was time for him to step up and take control of the conversation.

  “Yeah? And what would that be?” Vince asked, crossing his arms over his chest in a combination of a protective and distancing manner.

  Nate leaned his forearm on the counter, closing the space between himself and Vince.

  “I spent most of the week in Boulder,” he began briskly.

  To Nate’s surprise, Vince’s expression turned to that of wary concern. “Where’s Gracie? Did something happen? Is she okay?”

  “Gracie is fine,” Nate assured him. “We dropped her off at the day care before we came up here.”

  “Oh. I see,” said Vince, who visibly relaxed for just a split second before drawing himself back up to his full height. “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I’ve been to see the county inspector.”

  Nate held up his hand when Vince would have interrupted. “I know it may look like I’m messing with your business, Vince, but that’s not how it is.”

  “How is it, then?” Vince asked acerbically, refusing to back down from his hostile stance.

  “Look,” Nate said, blowing out a breath to steady a surge of anger and doing his best to placate his unreasonable older brother. Getting mad wouldn’t help his case any. “This whole building permit fiasco was my fault, so I thought it was only right that I be the one to clear it up.”

  He dug into his pocket and laid the signed permit in front of Vince. “It’s a done deal. You—we,” he amended when Jess nudged him, “can get that shed built now, before we get socked with a bad winter storm. Oh—and as of right now, the lodge is officially in the ‘no fine’ zone.”

  Vince studied the paper for a moment, his expression unreadable. Finally, he looked up, locking his gaze with Nate’s.

  “We?”

  Again, Jess nudged Nate with her elbow.

  He got it, already.

  “Yes, we,” Nate answered, his gaze flitting to wink at Jess before settling back on Vince. “Two heads are better than one, and all that. I figured since I plan on staying around for a while, I might as well be doing something useful.”

  Jess gasped and dropped Nate’s hand. He turned to find her staring up at him, wide-eyed.

  His shrug wa
s meant for both Jess and Vince. “It’s no big deal.”

  But it was a big deal, and all three of them knew it. There was a tense moment of silence while each of them were lost in their own thoughts.

  Unable to take the strain of the sudden quiet, Nate thrust his right hand forward, toward Vince.

  His brother just looked at Nate’s extended hand for a moment without moving. Then, just as Nate was about to pull away, Vince suddenly put his hand forward and shook with Nate.

  “Thanks for the permit,” Vince said, pocketing the piece of paper.

  “And the shed?” Nate prodded. “Do you want my help with it?”

  Vince shrugged as if it didn’t matter one way or the other, but Nate saw a sparkle of something in Vince’s blue eyes that he hadn’t seen before.

  Acceptance?

  “Do what you want, Nate,” Vince said. “I’ll be out here in the morning to work on the shed. With or without you.”

  It was as close to a peace offering as Nate knew he was going to get from his bullheaded brother, and he couldn’t help but smile—first at Vince, whose frown never wavered, and then at Jess, who beamed back at him, showing without words that she knew he’d just won this battle, and that she was celebrating the victory with him.

  Nate turned back to Vince.

  “Done,” he said, keeping his voice a clipped, businesslike monotone that belied the elation pounding in his chest. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then.”

  “Whatever,” Vince said grudgingly, and Nate just laughed.

  “That went well,” Jessica commented shyly. They’d been sitting in the Jeep for five minutes now, and Nate had yet to say a word, much less make any kind of effort to turn the key in the ignition to take them back to the day care to pick up Gracie.

  He looked at her as if he was surprised she’d spoken to him.

  “It did, didn’t it?” he said, bemused. “What do you know?”

  “I told you Vince would act rationally once he’d had time to think things over.”

  Nate flashed her a twisted grin.

  “And now that you’ve solved his problem for him, I would hope that things will be better between the two of you.”

  “Do you think?” He chuckled. “Don’t forget that I was the one who created the problem in the first place. I’m sure Vince won’t.”

  “It’s a start,” she insisted, patting her knees for emphasis. “A good start.”

  “I don’t know, Jess. I’ve spent all these years resenting Vince, but lately I’ve realized that the real problem is with me.”

  “No, it’s not,” she denied instantly, then paused thoughtfully. She wasn’t doing Nate any kind of favor by blurting out her opinion before she’d listened to what he had to say. “I’m sorry, Nate. Go on.”

  “I don’t know. I’m struggling, but I’m not sure why.” He paused, squeezing his fists against the steering wheel. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.” She was both curious and hopeful as to what he would say.

  “The other day, when you told me about Russ and Elizabeth, you explained how God got you through the bad times.”

  “Yes, that’s true. He carries me through the bad times and rejoices with me in the good. I’m not saying faith in God erased my pain, or made it somehow magically easy for me. It’s not. I struggle every day.”

  “You do?” he asked, sounding genuinely perplexed. “I wouldn’t have guessed that. I mean, I know you have your problems, but you seem so joyful.”

  “I’m only human.”

  Nate nodded. “I know. It’s just that you have such a sense of peace about you. I want that. I’ve been trying to do the right things with my life, for Gracie’s sake as much as my own, but nothing I do seems to help. No matter how hard I try, I just don’t perceive the world the way you do, with your faith.”

  “Maybe you’re trying too hard,” she suggested softly, reaching out to stroke his biceps.

  “What else can I do?”

  Jessica looked at Nate for a long moment, seeing him through new eyes. Here was a man who had worked hard for every single thing he had ever received in his life. He was a self-made man in the very best sense of all of those words.

  So it just made sense that he would approach God the same way he approached everything else in his life. By putting Gracie ahead of himself. By asking himself what he could do. By measuring himself up to some impossible standard he’d created in his own mind.

  “I think maybe you’re approaching the idea of faith in God all wrong,” she suggested tentatively, not wanting to inadvertently hurt his feelings.

  “I am? How?”

  “Being in a relationship with God isn’t what you do. It’s who you are.”

  Nate blanched a sickly white color. “I’m in trouble, then.”

  Jessica was taken aback. Nate had always exuded self-confidence. It was one of the things she admired most about him. And now he was demeaning himself with surprising fervency.

  “Why do you say that?”

  He shook his head, a wild look in his eyes, as if he was being pursued by something, as if he was the prey in some crazy hunt.

  Jessica squeezed his arm. “What is it? Talk to me, hon.”

  “You know me better than anyone, Jess. When I should have been turning to God, I shunned Him. And now that I suddenly see how foolish I’ve been, and how much I want Gracie to grow up in the very faith I despised as a youth, you want me to believe God will just turn a blind eye and accept me the way I am?”

  He didn’t sound as if he believed it could be possible, and Jessica knew exactly how he felt. The circumstances were different, but at the heart of it all, not too long ago, she had been in the same place, spiritually speaking, that Nate was in now.

  “God accepts you for who you are,” she explained quietly, praying for the right words to make Nate understand. “But it’s not because He blinds himself to your faults. He knows everything, Nate, and He loves you anyway.”

  He stared at her, unspeaking.

  “The Scriptures say that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

  His mouth compressed into a tight line and his face became even more grim.

  “But how can He…” His question drifted off into silence.

  “I know that’s a lot to wrap your mind around,” she continued. “But it’s true.”

  Nate reached for the ignition and gunned the Jeep into motion. Jessica thought to say more, but she could see she had overwhelmed him with what she’d already said. She drew her hand away from his arm and clasped her hands together in her lap, praying silently for God to reach Nate with His love, the way He had in her heart and life.

  As Nate maneuvered down the road, he kept his gaze facing forward. Jessica watched him out of her peripheral vision, noting the stony expression on his face. With the way he was reacting, she maybe ought to have been worried about him, but her soul was oddly at peace.

  God was clearly at work in Nate’s heart, and she was thankful for both Nate’s sake and for baby Gracie’s. When all was said and done, Jessica had faith that God would prevail, even with tough, stubborn, single-minded Nathan Morningway.

  God had reached her stone-cold heart when she didn’t think anyone or anything could. She was so thankful that God was greater than their sins, even stubbornness and disbelief.

  There was no doubt about it. Nate might be fighting it, but his heart was softening.

  And when that final barrier had been broken, Jessica thought she might just lose her heart to Nate, once and for all.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nate’s mind was a million miles away as he tried to wrap his thoughts around what Jess had said to him. It all appeared so monumentally complicated in his mind, but Jess made it sound simple and uncomplicated. Somehow she streamlined it in his mind in a way he hadn’t thought of before.

  What it boiled down to, Nate realized with a start, was faith.

  Even after all his time with Jess, faith wasn’t an easy con
cept for Nate to grasp. Yet in a way he could not begin to explain, he felt it—God’s presence—as the truth of the Scriptures made the slow migration from his head to his heart.

  “What is that?” Jess asked, pointing over the ridge in the direction Nate was driving. “Look at all the smoke. Is something burning?”

  “Probably just a barrel of trash,” he answered, still in a hazy state of mind. Then he glanced to where she was pointing and pressed down hard on the accelerator. The Jeep leaped forward in time with Nate’s heart.

  This was no burning barrel of trash. The smoke billowing out over the top of the tree line was too thick and too black to be an organized burn. His gut clenched as he realized he was driving right into it.

  The day care.

  Gracie was there, along with at least a dozen other small children and two teachers.

  “Nate?” Jess questioned uncertainly.

  Nate flashed a quick, encouraging glance at her, most of his concentration on maneuvering the Jeep across the washboarded dirt road at the highest speed he dared. He hoped the shock and panic registering on Jess’s expression didn’t reflect his own gaze.

  “The day care!” Jess exclaimed. “Oh, God help us. Nate, hurry!”

  Responding to the horror in her tone, Nate gunned the engine, clasping the wheel tightly with both hands as the Jeep fishtailed around a curve. In moments, they had crested the ridge and could see into the valley where the day care was located.

  At his first glimpse of the flames and smoke pouring from the burning building, the knifing pain in his belly stabbed into his chest and throat. As he drove nearer, the black, ugly clouds of smoke billowing from the front windows seemed to be blocking out the sunlight. Flames surged from the windows on the east side of the building.

  The day care, like all of the other buildings on the Morningway retreat grounds, was built to resemble a rustic, old-fashioned log cabin. Nate wondered, fighting down panic, how fast a structure such as this one would burn to the ground.