by Lilian Darcy
It shook her a bit to realize that she’d been expecting exactly that—that he’d want no part of this, other than to write an obligatory check, which she didn’t even want, and she’d get the hell out of this intact with no messy entanglement. That she’d already be on the road with a clear conscience. She had intended to do the right thing, but she hadn’t expected him to do more than the minimum.
What guy wanted a kid this way? None, she had thought. Evidently she had been mistaken. At least about this man.
Messier and messier. She put a hand up and tried to rub the growing tension from her neck.
“This is too intense,” he said. “Too much too fast. You’re exhausted and you must feel like I’m pushing you. How about I show you a guest room. I can set you up with a TV for distraction, or a book, and you can get those damn boots off and relax. We have some time. I don’t want to wear you out.”
It sounded so good, to just have some space and time. She was feeling pushed and overwhelmed, all right. But the thought of staying here, of dealing with Marge, who clearly had her own hopes about this, was daunting. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Marge, it was that she didn’t want her arm twisted, however subtly, and she was certain the woman would find a way.
She was acting like a coward, a whole new view of herself, but she honestly just didn’t want to handle any more. She’d been handling enough of this major life upheaval and needed a break.
“I’ll go to the motel.”
“Like hell.” He hesitated. “All right, if you don’t think you can deal with my family, you can stay at my place. It’s livable. I’ll just come back here for the night. You’ll rest better if you’re not right on the highway directly across from a truck stop.”
It struck her that she was not only being cowardly, but she was also unreasonably discommoding Seth. He probably preferred his own bed in his own house, however torn up it might be. Either way, she wasn’t going to be perfectly comfortable in strange surroundings, so she might as well minimize the inconvenience.
“No,” she said finally. “I’ll just stay here. But I’m exhausted.”
“You look it. Come on.”
He took her to a girlish-looking room that smelled fresh, and the covers on the bed were even turned down. “Water?” he asked.
“Please.”
“Do you get the nibbles at night?”
She flushed faintly. “Sometimes now.”
He smiled. “Eating for two.”
“Not quite. But sort of.”
A chuckle escaped him. “Anything you can’t eat?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been warned away from shellfish, but nothing else.”
“Good enough.”
She was sitting on the edge of the bed working her boots loose when he returned with a tall glass of ice water and a small plate of cookies. “This okay?”
“That’s wonderful.”
He set them on the night table, then squatted. “Let me help with those things. Did you bring a bag?”
“Hell, yeah. I forgot. It’s in the car.”
“I’ll get it.” He worked the laces swiftly and tugged the boots off. “Let the dogs breathe,” he joked. “Be right back.”
She piled the pillows and leaned back, stretching her legs out, feeling almost instant relief. A few minutes later Seth was back with her duffel and placed it on a chair. “No one will bother you. The hall bath is all yours. Mom and Dad have their own. Just make yourself comfortable.”
“I already am,” she admitted.
He paused by the bed, touching her cheek lightly with his fingertips. “You’re a beautiful, brave woman, Edie. Thanks for keeping me in the loop. See you tomorrow.”
Then he slipped out.
She wanted to wash up, brush her teeth, get into something more comfortable. But she felt as if her whole body had turned to lead. Contenting herself with unbuttoning her pants, she reached for the light switch and turned it off.
Sleep claimed her almost before she dropped her arm to the mattress.
* * *
Seth went out to bid his parents good-night. “She’s asleep,” he said. “Just let her be. The woman is worn out.”
“Of course we’ll let her be,” Marge said. “Why would you think otherwise?”
“In the morning, too,” Seth said. “Please.”
Marge pursed her lips. “All I had in mind was pancakes.”
“Sure.”
Nate laughed. “I’ll keep an eye on it. But you know your mother is a good woman.”
“Of course she is. It’s just that I get the feeling Edie has been pushed too much. If you can believe it, her superior officers hinted around for her to get rid of the baby.”
Marge gasped and a frown lowered over Nate’s brow. “Just a little out of line, wouldn’t you say?”
“Completely out of line,” Seth said, agreeing with his father. “But that ought to give you some idea of what she’s dealing with along with having her career plans wrecked and her whole life turned on end. What she needs is space. I intend to give it to her.”
“But,” Marge said quietly, “you two have things to work out.”
“And we will. But not in a pressure cooker. Right now, as stupid as it sounds to say about a woman like her, I want her wrapped in cotton wool.”
At that Marge smiled. “That’s a good idea. Cotton wool it is.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Stay a few,” Nate said. “We’re having our bedtime coffee. You can’t possibly turn that down.”
Unlike many folks who claimed they couldn’t drink coffee at night, the Tates always did. That last cup seemed important, and when he was here he often joined them.
“There’s one question that hasn’t been asked,” Nate said when Seth returned with his own mug to the table. “How are you feeling about all this?”
“Stunned,” he said frankly. “But it’s wearing off. Now I’m trying to think of ways to take care of this. The last thing I want to do is diminish Edie in any way, but I’m not going to pretend I don’t have a son.”
Nate spoke then. “You admire that woman, don’t you?”
“If you’d seen her hauling us out, you would, too. She took risks she could have refused to take. Her rotors couldn’t have missed the rocks by more than a few inches. She’s strong, she’s brave and she’s determined. And she’s a damned fine pilot.”
“So she flies helicopters?” Marge asked. “What kind?”
“A Pave Hawk, a modified Black Hawk. She comes in to extract downed pilots, units that are in trouble, that kind of thing.”
“She gets shot at.”
“Yes, Mom, she gets shot at.”
Marge cradled her mug in both her hands and fell silent for a little while. Then she said, “I guess she wouldn’t appreciate mothering.”
“Pilots do have a bit of ego,” Seth said in an attempt at humor.
Marge answered tartly. “You mean like SEALs?”
Seth laughed. “Well, not quite as bad.”
Marge flashed a smile. “I just want to understand something, Seth. Why didn’t you have any children with Darlene? I mean, I know it couldn’t have happened with Maria, she died so soon, but Darlene made it almost two years.”
He tensed, feeling a whole lot of stuff flood back that he’d tried to bury. “Because I never knew if I’d be around to see a kid grow up. I was gone a lot, and couldn’t even guarantee to ever come home.”
“Nobody can be sure of that.”
“But not everyone opts to go to the places I went. Or take the risks I took. That was part of it, anyway.”
“And the rest?”
“We weren’t married long enough to be settled with each other. I wasn’t the only one with qualms because I wasn’t home muc
h. Can we let that go? Everything’s different now.”
It surely was, he thought as he climbed into his car and headed back to his house. Very different. He was retired, and still adjusting to having to make his own plans for each day, still adjusting to a quieter, slower pace. But he’d be around. At least for a while.
The question was whether Edie would be around.
For the first time, he stopped focusing on Edie and the immediacy of the news and started thinking about what this could really mean to him.
He wasn’t at all sure about any of it.
Chapter Four
Edie awoke in the morning feeling well rested and with a surprisingly positive thought: if she’d made the biggest mistake of her career, at least she hadn’t made it with a total jerk.
Seth might still turn out to be one, but so far he hadn’t been. A little pushy about being part of her kid’s life, but that was excusable. For the rest, he was acting far better than she had expected.
She stretched, grabbed some fresh cammies from her bag and her travel kit and headed for the bathroom. A long, hot shower sounded good. She felt absolutely cruddy from the lengthy drive yesterday, and while her career had taught her to get used to it when necessary, it wasn’t necessary now.
As she stepped into the hallway, she smelled the delicious aroma of frying bacon, and her stomach rumbled. Being hungry more often was something she was still getting used to, just like she was still getting used to needing the bathroom more frequently, and the changes in her body. Hell, the changes in her emotions, come to that. She had always thought of herself as being on a pretty steady keel, but the baby had been changing that. Until the past few months she never would have dreamed of bursting into tears over something a superior said to her.
Lots of changes and more to come.
Like maternity clothes. So far she had avoided buying them. Cammies passed on base and at work. But if she wanted to go anywhere else, they wouldn’t do.
She almost sighed. She guessed she was still trying to avoid some basic realities here.
She put her things away, picked up the plate and glass from last night and made her way to the kitchen with some uneasiness. She really didn’t trust Seth’s assurance that his mother wouldn’t pressure her. She was getting sick of pressure to do things she didn’t want to do. It was entirely different from the pressures of the career she had chosen. This was personal.
But Marge took her dishes with a warm smile and told her to take a seat. “I made blueberry syrup this morning. I’d better warn you it’s not very sweet, but Nate and I have to watch our waistlines.”
“I love blueberries.”
“Good. Pancakes and bacon.”
Edie slid onto a stool, even though in some other part of the house she could hear Nate and Seth talking. Amazing, she thought, how things had slowed down. Yesterday she had planned to come and go like a whirlwind. Now here she was waiting for breakfast and what would come next.
As she watched Marge buzz around, she thought about Seth some more. She had liked him from the outset, but she liked him better now. As near as she could tell, he was being utterly honest with her. Could she ask for more than that?
And attractive. Damn, she wished that would go away. Finding him desirable could only muddy this mess more. Who needed that? Nor was it likely that he felt the same pull toward her. She remembered how he had looked at her just before they had made love, and that expression wasn’t there now.
No, he was handling her with kid gloves. Hardly surprising. She supposed she had lobbed a grenade at him. He’d have been justified in telling her to get lost. Instead he wanted to be part of this baby’s life. God, that was only going to make things messier.
As she tried to imagine how they could manage that, what with her career, she felt a kind of despair seeping into the morning. This couldn’t work. Absolutely could not. They had different lives. How could anyone pull that together?
She had believed she had faced all the complications already, but they just seemed to be growing.
All from one stupid mistake in the middle of a war zone. All from creating one life purely by accident. She was glad of the baby now in so many ways, even as she struggled with all the changes it would mean. Now she had thrown Seth into the equation. Rightfully, he would want some things.
Could she give them?
The realization struck her that she didn’t even understand the kind of life these people were living, not anymore. It had been too long, too many years of being in service, with all that entailed. She hadn’t been part of anything approaching a real family since her grandmother had died. She didn’t understand how they worked. Didn’t understand how to make one. Maybe just leaving would be the best thing.
But the baby stopped her. Maybe she didn’t know how to do it, but these people obviously did. Maybe she could learn something, a different way of living and thinking. For the sake of the baby, she should probably give it a shot.
They ate breakfast at the dining table in the kitchen. Seth told a few jokes. Marge reminisced a little about her daughters. Nate had a few more stories about being sheriff. All safe, all comfortable. Edie even managed to summon a few amusing stories of her own, although when she thought about it, she began to wonder if she hadn’t been too damn serious for too damn long. The few things that occurred to her didn’t seem fit for mixed company.
Black humor went with the job, and while Seth and Nate might get it, she seriously doubted Marge would. She looked at Seth’s mother, feeling a little amazed at how protected the woman seemed to be. Yet maybe there were ways she hadn’t been protected at all. Just from what she had said yesterday, there had certainly been sorrows and worries in her life.
The common fate of humanity, it seemed.
After breakfast, Seth suggested they go over to his place. “You might as well see what I’m up to these days.”
Renovating a house sounded like an alien world to her. She was only too happy to go with him, to escape the family setting to something much less daunting. To get away from a situation that was making her feel her lacking as a person.
Seth’s house wasn’t that far away, but definitely in an older part of town. Two stories with dormers, it clearly needed a coat of exterior paint, but otherwise it looked fine.
“Why did you get a house?” she asked.
“Something to do. And since I’m probably going to be staying around here...well, I’m a little too old to move in with my parents, don’t you think?”
The wry question almost made her laugh. “You seem to be very close to them.”
He pulled into the short driveway, which faced a detached garage. “I am now.” He switched the SUV into Park but didn’t immediately turn off the engine. “I think,” he said, “I can identify a little with how you felt coming here yesterday.”
“You can?”
“I showed up unannounced to tell Marge I was her long lost son. I sweated it a bit.”
“I know I would.”
“The funny thing was, I didn’t even have to say it. She took one look at me and knew. She said I looked exactly like my dad.”
“You look a lot like him,” Edie agreed. “But I can see your mother in you, too.”
“Before you go, she’ll probably pull out some pictures of him and me at the same age. She gets a kick out of the resemblance.”
Edie hesitated. “I gather it caused a storm, though.”
“Big-time.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Dad was furious that she’d never told him, that she’d kept me a secret for all those years. He moved out for a while. I felt like hell for causing that.”
“But they worked it out.”
“Obviously. Dad mentioned once that he’d had to do some serious thinking about the kind of husband he was, too. They’ve been closer ever since.
And now I’ve got a whopping big family with sisters, their husbands, nieces and nephews. A couple of the girls still live in town. Maybe you’ll meet them.”
“Maybe.” She wasn’t committing to a single thing yet.
“Do you have any family?”
“No.” She realized her answer sounded too abrupt, and really, she didn’t want to be difficult, at least not yet. That might come later. “My mother overdosed when I was little and I was raised by my grandmother. There was nobody else.”
“So you never knew your father?”
“No.” Now she felt as if she’d been stripped naked. He’d probably assume she had come looking for him because she had never known her own father. Well, maybe that was part of it, but only a small part. “In my case, nobody knew who the father was.”
“Ouch.” He drummed his fingers again, thinking, then dropped it. “Let’s go inside. You can tell me how awful my color choices are.”
“As if I would know.”
She was grateful he had let it go and was willing to lighten the moment. Dealing with the child they had created, deciding how to handle the kid’s future, did not mean she had to expose her entire life to him.
He didn’t insist on helping her out of his car, for which she was grateful. Those courtesies were a thing of the past, if they’d ever existed in her life. She was an officer, an equal, and she expected to be treated that way. Gender didn’t enter into it.
The porch creaked a little under their feet and when he unlocked the front door, it squealed a bit. “I keep meaning to oil those hinges.”
“Well, you’ll hear anyone come in.”
He laughed. “Around here that’s not as big a deal as some places we’ve been.”
She looked around, surprised by the tidiness. She had been expecting much worse. The mere idea of remodeling a house had led her to expect total chaos and dust. Instead she saw spacious rooms with beautiful wood floors, lots of sunlight and some freshly painted walls.
“I told you it wasn’t too bad. I was thrilled when I stripped away old carpet and linoleum and found oak floors. But I’ve been working one room at a time, mostly, to keep it under control. First the living room, then my bedroom and my bath.”
