Soldier's Pregnancy Protocol

by Beth Cornelison

  Erin rolled Alec’s words around in her mind as she trudged down the path, stepping in the footprints Alec left in the snow. She knew sooner or later she’d have to suck it up and go back to teaching, despite her qualms and the queasy feeling in her stomach when she thought of Joey. Sharing her pain with Alec and receiving his vote of confidence shifted so much inside her. Alec’s faith in her buoyed her spirit in a way she hadn’t known in years.

  By contrast, Bradley’s version of inspiration tended toward guilt and manipulation, a thought more sobering than the chilly mountain wind.

  “We’re getting close now,” Alec said, interrupting her thoughts. “Hear that water?”

  Erin perked her ears to the swoosh of flowing water. “Yeah. Is that a waterfall?”

  “It’s a stream at the bottom of this hill. Our pickup point is about a mile past the creek.”

  She checked her watch. “We made good time then. It’s still an hour or more before dark.”

  He nodded and glanced back at her. “Yeah. You should be proud of yourself. You’ve kept up even when I pushed hard. This wasn’t easy hiking.”

  She grinned. “I may be a chicken, but I’m a fit chicken. Is that what you mean?”

  He chuckled. “You said it, not me.”

  At the bottom of the slope, they found the wide stream, splashing along its rocky bed, flowing swiftly down the mountain. In the summer, wading across the thigh-high stream with its strong current and slippery footing would be tricky, but not impossible. Now, however, patches of ice coated the boulders that jutted from the water and glistened on the creek’s banks. The sparkling ice testified to the stream’s frigid temperature.

  Alec braced his hands on his hips and cast his gaze downstream then up.

  Erin used the break to catch her breath and study the situation, as well. “How are we going to get across? The water has to be freezing. We’ll get hypothermia if we wade.”

  “Roger that.”

  Alec led her several hundred yards up the bank of the fast-flowing stream before he stopped and nodded to the rocks. “This looks doable. What do you think? Can you maneuver these gaps?”

  He was asking her what she thought? Alec’s consideration of her needs created a feeling of fullness in her chest, fluttery and sweet. She appreciated more than she could express his willingness to include her in the decision-making process, taking into account her needs, her abilities, her opinions. Bradley had always decided matters and left it to her to follow or be left behind. Erin eyed the placement of the boulders, the distance between them, and nodded. “I can do it.”

  “Okay,” Alec said, “I’ll go first and find the best path. Leave your pack. I’ll come back and get it, but I want you to have good balance.” He stepped up on the nearest rock and reached down to help her. After dropping her backpack in a patch of dry leaves, she gave him her hand. His firm grip filled her with a reassurance and warmth that radiated throughout her body.

  “Watch your footing. Take it slow. There’s ice, and the wet algae makes the rocks slippery.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Alec turned and leaped to the next boulder. She inched to the edge of the first rock and waited for him to move on before following.

  She jumped. Landed smoothly. And breathed a sigh of relief.

  As she followed him to the next flat stepping stone, she smiled to herself, remembering leapfrogging rock to rock in the creek that ran behind her house as a child. She’d had pretty good balance as a kid, but occasionally came home with wet shoes. Her mother would roll her eyes and put Erin’s shoes by the heater vent to dry.

  “Careful, that one’s loose.”

  Alec’s voice called her from her memories.

  “Okay.” She jumped to the rock in question and braced as the stone shifted. Tottering, she used the forward momentum, exaggerated by the wobbling rock, to leap for the next landing. But Alec still surveyed the best route from that stone, and as she landed, she came up short to avoid crashing into him. And her foot slipped.

  With a gasp, she grabbed a flap of Alec’s backpack to catch herself. She managed to find her balance, barely. But the sudden, unexpected tug at his back, just as he was preparing to jump to the next boulder, threw Alec off.

  He circled his arms, teetered. Erin tried to grab for him, but his foot hit a patch of ice. Her grasp on his shirttail wasn’t enough to keep him out of the water. “Alec!”

  As he stumbled into the stream, the rushing current sucked him under the swift water.

  Chapter 9

  Erin’s breath snagged in her throat as she watched Alec sink into the icy stream. A frozen heartbeat later, he broke the surface and swiped the frigid water from his face. He let fly a curse that voiced the agonizing discomfort of the wintry stream.

  Panic squeezed her chest. “Oh, God!”

  This was her fault. Her fault. Self-recrimination echoed through her brain as she watched Alec scramble to find his footing. He dragged his pack from his back and heaved it onto the far bank. With his wet clothes plastered to him, he slogged through the water and staggered out. He dropped to his knees, then started peeling off layers of soaked clothing.

  Her stomach knotting with guilt, Erin picked her way across the rest of the rocks and rushed to his side.

  “Alec! Oh, God, Alec, I’m so sorry!” she moaned as she helped him strip off his wet shirts.

  “F-fire. Gotta build-d a f-fire.” He shivered so hard in the cold air that his teeth chattered.

  “Right. A fire.” She jumped up to find whatever dry wood she could scrounge. She dumped the sticks and stray limbs in a haphazard pile and looked at Alec’s soaked pack. Chances were slim any matches in his pack were still dry.

  She scrambled back to help him tug his wet jeans and thermal underwear down his hips. When she noticed how much trouble he had unlacing his boots, she took over the job for him. After she yanked the boots off his feet, she finished pulling the jeans down his legs. By now the skin of his legs had grown pale with bluish tones that scared the hell out of her. “Are there any matches or a lighter in my pack?”

  Shivering hard, he glanced up at her. She fully expected to find wrath and blame in his eyes, but the helplessness and obvious suffering she saw instead frightened her far more.

  “Y-yes-s-s.” His lips were white, and his face a raw-looking red.

  Her heart lurched, and bile rose in her throat. She blinked back the sting of useless, self-indulgent tears and rallied her composure, focused herself on one goal. Warming Alec. Saving his life.

  Stripping off the coat he’d given her that morning, she wrapped it around him. Once she’d pulled off his wet socks, she removed her own shoes to give him her bulky socks, as well. After chafing as much heat as she could into his fingers and cheeks, she wrapped his hands with one of her shirts and his head with another. He looked like a pitiful excuse for a mummy, but it was the best she had until she retrieved the second pack.

  “I’ll be right back.” She couldn’t be sure if the bobbing of his head was a nod of understanding or another shudder, but she didn’t linger to decide. With as much haste as she dared, Erin retraced her steps across the large rocks to the other side of the stream, grabbed up the backpack and returned. Her own hands numb with cold, she dug in the pack in search of the promised matches. In addition to the matches, she found the chemical heat packs and pulled out as many as she could find.

  Her hands shook as she cracked the plastic packets and crushed them between her hands, stirring the ingredients and starting the chemical reaction that emitted low levels of heat.

  “Here, hold this.” She pressed one pack between Alec’s hands and shoved one in each of his socks, hoping to stave of frostbite in his extremities. She prepared one of the larger heat packs for him to hold against his chest under the parka. The packs would help but weren’t nearly enough.

  Struggling not to lose her composure as Alec shivered harder and harder, she turned her attention to building a fire. A stiff mountain breeze not only made bu
ilding the fire more difficult, but also more essential. The windchill factor was a dangerous enemy for Alec.

  She finally got a small flame started and helped him scoot nearer to the inadequate heat source.

  Jerking more dry clothes from her backpack, Erin shoved the parka aside and surveyed the remnants of his wet garments.

  “These have to go. You have to get dry.” She surprised herself with the authoritative timbre of her voice. When she met his gaze again, she knew the nod this time was permission to forsake modesty. She worked quickly, ridding Alec of his briefs and undershirt and re-dressing him as best she could. His near-convulsive tremors and icy skin were all the sobering reality she needed to distract her from the gorgeous male body she revealed. Rubbed to warm. Touched as she clothed him.

  The damp wood and blustery breeze made the tiny fire flicker and dance. She doubted she could get a big enough blaze going to do him any real good. She’d have to trap what heat she could from the chemical packs and her own body to pour life back into Alec. For that, they needed shelter, protection from the wind.

  She had experience with tents from her camping days with Bradley, so she snatched the tightly rolled shelter from Alec’s backpack and got to work. Despite the wind that fought her efforts, Erin managed to secure the spikes and raise the poles of the two-man dome tent in record time.

  Having surrendered the coat and many of her clothes to Alec, Erin was shivering herself by the time she helped him crawl into the shelter. Taking the parka back from Alec, she spread it on the floor for added protection from the frozen earth. She unrolled the one dry sleeping bag, stripped Alec back down to his underwear and helped him inside the bedding.

  Darkness was falling outside by the time she bared herself down to her bra and panties and scrunched into the sleeping bag beside him. After cracking the last of the emergency heat packs and stuffing them into their bedding, she zipped their cocoon all the way up and pulled the cover over their heads.

  In the dark confines of the sleeping bag, she heard Alec’s tremulous breathing, felt the tickle of his crisp body hair and the stark cold of his skin. Though her movement was restricted in the narrow sleeping bag, Erin stroked as much of Alec’s body as she could reach. Her sock-clad feet rubbed his calves. Her hands chafed his arms and back, and she cuddled as close to his lean torso as the small mound of her belly would allow.

  Finally, weak from exhaustion and sick with fear, she awkwardly draped her limbs around him. Clinging to his trembling body, she closed her eyes. In the silent darkness, she whispered a prayer, bargaining with higher powers, offering her life if Alec’s would be spared. A nauseating twist of remorse and culpability slithered through her and settled in her gut.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she whispered again and again. Finally sleep stole over her and carried her into restless dreams of bitter winds, icy water and dark regrets.

  * * *

  Light filtered in through a gap in the covers over Erin’s head, and she blinked at the bright assault on her eyes. She struggled to shake the cobwebs of sleep from her brain and orient herself in the tight, warm nest where she woke.

  Her first coherent thought was to recognize she wasn’t alone in the snug space. A large, hard body pressed her into the soft folds of bedding.

  Alec. Heart thundering, she twisted her body, shifting clumsily until she could see his face.

  A lazy grin greeted her, and ocean-blue eyes peered out from half-lowered lids.

  “Mornin’, sweetcakes,” Alec said, his craggy voice music to her ears.

  “Alec! Are you all right?” She wiggled her hands up to feel for warmth in his stubbled cheeks.

  “I’m fine. Damn fine at the moment, in fact.” The healthy, pink glow in his skin and the fire that leaped in his gaze vouched for his recovery. Still, she skimmed her hands down his shoulders, over his chest and hips reassuring herself that his skin felt warm everywhere, that he had actually pulled through in good form. Every inch of him she touched radiated heat, filled their shared sleeping bag with cozy warmth.

  She exhaled the air she’d been holding in her lungs and rolled closer to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Thank heavens. I was so scared. If anything had happened to you, I—”

  The scrape of his calloused palm against her bare back stopped her short. He stroked his wide palm down her spine, cupped her fanny and nudged her closer. Closer to his naked chest, closer to his taut muscles, closer to the hard ridge at his groin.

  Her breath snagged in her throat, and she lifted a wary, self-conscious gaze.

  His smile brightened and mischief flashed in his eyes. “What’s wrong, Erin? Never wake up in the same sleeping bag with a naked man before?”

  “You’re not naked,” she choked out inanely.

  “Near enough. And so are you.” As if to prove his point, Alec skimmed his hand slowly back up her spine, his touch sparking her sensitive nerve endings like a live wire. At her nape, he plowed his fingers through her hair to capture her head. “Can’t say that I know a more pleasant way to wake in the morning than next to the soft curves of warm woman.”

  Erin’s heart kicked her ribs, and a hot pulse shot through her body.

  Alec dipped his head and found her lips. He brushed a gentle kiss across her mouth, and a groan rumbled from his throat. “I could eat you up.”

  She chuckled. “Clearly you survived your dunk in an icy stream with no lasting ill effects.”

  “Mmm-hmm. Thanks to you.”

  A fresh slice of guilt doused the fluttery desire puddling in her belly. “I know. I’m sorry. I lost my balance and just grabbed for the first thing I could—”

  He placed a finger on her lips to silence her. “I meant I owe you for getting me warm and keeping me alive after I went in the water.”

  Dubious of his praise, she studied his forgiving expression. “But it was my fault that you—”

  “It was an accident. Stop blaming yourself.” He rubbed her bottom lip with his finger, and the tender caress made her head spin and her limbs weak. “What matters is when I needed your help, you were grace under pressure and did everything exactly right. I know you were scared, but you kept your head and took care of me. You were magnificent.”

  Speechless, she stared into his eyes, and the tears she’d held at bay last night prickled her sinuses.

  “You know what I think?” he asked, his voice a silky caress.

  She shook her head, her throat too tight with emotion to talk.

  “I think you’re going to make a terrific mother.”

  His compliment stunned her, shook her. Rocked her to the roots of everything she’d believed about herself in the days since she learned of Joey Finley’s death.

  Her tears surged to her eyes in a wave. “Really?” she squeaked.

  He kissed her leaky eyes and pulled her closer. “Yes, really. I don’t waste my breath saying things I don’t mean.”

  Alec’s faith in her soothed her raw soul but stirred a different sort of ache deep in her bones—a longing for someone like him to share her life with, raise her child with, grow old with. She swallowed past the lump in her throat and tugged up the corner of her mouth. “That means a lot to me.”

  “I thought you needed to know. Things happen sometimes that are out of our control. Tragic things. But you proved yesterday that you’ve got what it takes to rise to the occasion when needed. That’s what real courage is. And you’ve got it in spades, lady.” The low, growling conviction of his tone burrowed to her heart as much as his words.

  She opened her mouth to respond, but no sound came. Had anyone ever shown such faith in her, been so kind or encouraging? Not since her parents had died.

  Before she could collect her thoughts, Alec closed the distance between them and caught her mouth with a soft kiss. The touch of his lips sent fresh sparks of desire shimmying through her. She slid her arms around his neck and responded with zeal, eager to show him with her kiss what she couldn’t find the words to say. She suckled and
drew on his bottom lip, teased his tongue with hers, and hummed her satisfaction when he deepened the kiss.

  When he paused long enough for them to gasp for air, Alec locked a penetrating gaze on her. “Only two things are keeping me from making love to you right now,” he rasped.

  “What things?” She shook with the need and hunger for Alec’s kiss. She wanted his hands on her skin and his body joined with hers.

  “I need to know I won’t hurt your baby.” The sincerity and selflessness of his concern tripped through her and made her insides melt.

  She pressed her forehead to his and smiled. “No. You won’t hurt the baby.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “I’m sure. What’s the other thing?”

  “I need to know I won’t hurt you.”

  “Me? How could it hurt me?”

  His set his jaw in the hard, grim manner that made the muscle in his cheek jump. “You don’t strike me as the kind of woman who can give her body away without giving her heart.”

  “Oh.”

  “I don’t do relationships, Erin,” he said as his fingers trailed along the curve of her throat, over her shoulder, and down her back.

  Delicious trills of anticipation followed in the wake of his touch. Her body quaked and hummed.

  “I can’t afford to become involved with a woman. Emotions and personal commitments are dangerous for me.” His hand strummed back up her spine, and she could barely think, much less make sense of what he was saying.

  “But if you understand this,” he murmured, his tone thick and seductive, “if you are willing to settle for mutually satisfying sex—” he unhooked her bra and brushed a whispery kiss on the tip of her nose “—between two consenting adults, then I can show you a good time.”

  She shivered with pleasure and expectation. “I have—” she jolted when his fingers slipped under the cup of her bra “—no doubt you can.”

  He nipped her chin, traced the line of her jaw with his tongue. “Is that a yes?”

  When his hand closed around her bared breast and his thumb teased the tightened peak, her head grew muzzy, and she couldn’t think. He tweaked her nipple, and lightning shot through her blood. She curled her fingers into the taut muscles of his shoulders and fought for a breath. “Don’t stop.”