Harlequin Special Edition November 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2

by Lilian Darcy

  Chapter Eight

  Several nights later, Seth left the house in the wee hours to take a walk. Edie slept in the king-size bed in his room, over her objections that he needed the extra space. She’d subsided when he’d explained that he was sure the room was mold-and mildew-free, something he couldn’t say with absolute certainty about the other bedrooms.

  Not exactly true, but true enough that he didn’t feel he was lying. He wanted her to have the more comfortable bed.

  He wanted his son to have the best. His son. The idea had settled into his heart in a way that still surprised him. It was a warm feeling, and wonderful sense of anticipation, and it thawed some of the places he’d had to put in ice over the years. Nor did that thawing trouble him. It made him feel surprisingly good, actually.

  Not another word about how they were going to deal with the legalities of this, but he got the sense she was trying him on for size anyway. They had done some remodeling stuff together, things he was sure wouldn’t cause her a risk, like reframing a wall with arsenic-free wood. He’d done all his sawing outside but she had followed anyway, accepting the dust mask he’d pointedly handed her.

  She didn’t mind carrying boards, she loved using the nail gun and she’d even proved adept at helping him with some of the wiring.

  Then there were their forays into cooking. Those had turned into a great deal of fun with a lot of laughter. They discovered they were messy cooks, and she had joked that she couldn’t even boil water, but they’d managed to put together some decent meals, despite an almost daily flow of casseroles from people around town, most of which filled the freezer. Of course he’d phoned Marge a time or two, but she was more than willing to advise. The only problem he had was keeping her from coming over to do it for them.

  God bless his mother, he thought. It must be killing her to stay away, but Seth had this feeling that he and Edie were at a fragile point, and he didn’t want anything knocking this slowly growing understanding off-kilter.

  Edie insisted on doing the laundry for both of them, so he did all the sweeping and vacuuming. Not that he wouldn’t have done it all if she weren’t there.

  Trying it on. That’s what it felt like, except it would be different when she went back to her job. Then he’d be the househusband, he guessed, if she decided she wanted him around.

  The thought caused him to yank himself back. He was in danger of envisioning something that might never happen. He did crack a grin, though, at the thought of greeting Edie when she came home with a kid on his hip and an apron around his waist. Damn, wouldn’t his old buddies have a field day with that?

  It was certainly a new way of thinking for him. SEALs were the ultimate in machismo. It oozed out of them and they were proud of it. A man’s world, for men only. Never mind that he’d seen more than one turn into putty at the hands of their own kids, at least temporarily.

  But he didn’t have to fit that culture anymore, and he was actually enjoying the wind-down as it occurred. Little by little he was growing comfortable in his skin in a new way, finding parts of himself he’d never really had much time for before.

  So this whole dad thing was easier on him than the mom thing was on Edie. That was as plain as the nose on his face. The only way he could figure out how to make any of this easier for her was to step in wherever she might let him and relieve her of some of the burden.

  He somehow suspected that notion was really chapping at her. She was as fiercely independent as anyone he’d ever worked with. In fact, she had her own form of machismo.

  Thinking about it that way gave him a better feel for how to navigate these shoals. Assuming, of course, that he wasn’t wrong. The woman had been through a private hell these past months and was still trying to be tough and hold the reins.

  He admired that more than he’d probably ever be able to let her know. In a way, they were both very much alike. He supposed he needed to find a way to get that similarity through. It might make the rough ground a little smoother.

  But two very strong-willed people shackled together for the sake of a baby? He couldn’t blame her for her doubts. Maybe he should be having more of his own.

  But under no circumstances was he going to pretend his son didn’t exist.

  As he approached the house, he saw that the kitchen light was on. Edie was up. Hoping nothing was wrong, he started running. His body enjoyed opening up, enjoying the exercise, but his mind wasn’t remotely happy about the possible reasons for it.

  He never locked up when he got the urge for a nighttime ramble, but with Edie sleeping upstairs, he had. He fumbled for his keys, struggling to get them into the lock in the dark—he hadn’t turned on the porch light—and finally burst into the house.

  “Edie?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  Well, she sounded all right. So he paused to close the door and slowed his pace as he went to her. She was leaning against the counter, wrapped in a blue terry-cloth robe, cradling a mug of coffee in her hands.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “Not a thing. I heard you go out and then I couldn’t get back to sleep. Do you go out at night a lot?”

  “Once in a while. I like it out there.”

  “You probably did an awful lot of things at night.”

  He couldn’t deny it. “It’s peaceful out there,” he answered, evading the question. If it had even been a question. “Everything’s so quiet except for the breeze, and when I can see through the canopy of trees, the stars are beautiful.”

  She smiled faintly. “Grab some coffee, or do you want to go back to sleep?”

  The adrenaline jolt he’d gotten from seeing the light on had eliminated any possibility of sleep.

  “Why don’t we get comfortable in the living room?” he suggested. “I can even pull out some of those rolls we bought if you’re hungry.”

  “I seem to be always hungry.” She turned, freshening her coffee, then headed for the living room.

  Taking that as a yes, he found the package of cheese Danish and sliced some up onto plates for them. Juggling two plates and his own cup of coffee, he joined her.

  She thanked him when he put one plate on the end table beside her. Then he retreated to his own chair, facing her.

  “Any idea why you couldn’t get back to sleep?” he asked, noting that she once again rested her hand over her stomach. He’d realized some time ago that that seemed to be instinctive in pregnant women, but he wondered if it was a physical cue to the direction of her thoughts. They’d kind of put things on hold since after her hospital visit, and he had no idea what she was thinking about the huge questions facing them. Nor did he feel inclined to press her. She’d talk when she was ready.

  If his job had taught him one thing, it was that there were times when patience was essential.

  She ate a few bites of pastry, then licked her fingers and let her head fall back.

  “You have a life and family here,” she remarked.

  Instantly, his focus on her tightened. He waited, letting her lead.

  “You must want to stay here,” she said.

  Ah. “Well, this is the first time I’ve stayed here longer than my leave. I haven’t exactly put down deep roots. Sometimes I wonder if I can.”

  Her blue eyes settled on him. “Really? With all this family, I would have thought it would be easy.”

  “I’m basically a gypsy,” he admitted with a shrug. “Too many years of not knowing where my boots would be next week or next month. Always on the move. Probably about the same for you.”

  “I always had a base.”

  “So did I. Not the same thing.”

  “I guess not.” She closed her eyes briefly then looked at him again. “The future’s all cloudy right now. But I keep worrying anyway, probably about a lot of things that aren’t in my control.
I can’t resign. The air force is all I know. Flying helicopters is all I know, and anyway, I love it. But even without helos, what would I do? I’m not sure I’d like anything else anywhere near as much. So any way I stack it up, I’m likely to raise a rootless baby.” She hesitated. “I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

  “Who can be? But the love moves with you, right?”

  “That’s the theory.” She gave a long sigh. “But that’s not the sum anyway, and I keep gnawing the same problems over and over and getting nowhere, really. Maybe I’m just worrying too damn much.”

  “Maybe. I can’t say. I’m in a better position than you. I’ve retired. I can do whatever I damn well please now, and whatever we decide is best for our son. You have a whole lot of other things to deal with.”

  “Does it bother you?” she asked suddenly. “Don’t you miss it? All that action and adrenaline?”

  “Sometimes,” he admitted. “And there was an undeniable sense of purpose to it that I’ve been missing, but my body wasn’t up to it anymore. I didn’t want to be the weak link. And I didn’t want a desk job. That would drive me nuts.”

  “So the decision wasn’t easy?”

  “Hell no. Took me a couple of years to settle on it. I know I’d promised Maria that I’d take a hike at twenty years, but once she was gone...” He shrugged a shoulder. “It wasn’t easy. But it was right.”

  “I’ve been living alone a long time. I’m still not sure how I’d adapt to sharing space all the time.”

  He waited, tension growing in him as he wondered where she was heading.

  “But this time with you has been easy. You’re not difficult to get along with, usually.”

  “My training,” he answered simply. “I worked with a team, often in very close quarters. You learn not to step on other people’s toes pretty quickly.”

  “I guess.”

  “You have the same skills.”

  “I’m not sure about that. When I was off duty, I had the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters. Have I been driving you nuts?”

  “Not a bit. Not one little bit. Of course, I suspect most of you is still packed in your duffel. Where are you going with this?”

  She eyed him and sighed. “Marriage. You hold it out like it’s a perfect answer. Maybe it is, or at least as perfect as one can be in this situation, but it remains, I don’t know if I can live with another person. And what if we chafe each other with time? How do we deal with that?”

  “By behaving like adults. Like colleagues. Look, I’ve been married. I was sure as hell head over heels in love with Maria, and when she died I didn’t want to live. They even took me off active operations for a while until they were positive I wouldn’t do something stupid.”

  Her entire face seemed to droop. “I’m so sorry, Seth.”

  “Thanks.” He shrugged away the melancholy that tried to rise in him. “Anyway, I had a point to that. I was crazy in love with that woman, but that didn’t mean it was always easy. No relationship, whatever kind, is always easy. The question is whether you deal with the problems or throw your hands up, or do something one of you will regret. The question is, can we be reasonable adults?”

  One corner of her mouth quirked up. “I’ve never met anyone who is reasonable all the time, no matter how adult.”

  “True,” he admitted. “I’m not saying we’ll never have a spat. That’s human nature. It’s what we do about it, it’s the places we choose not to go when we have one, that matter.”

  She ate another mouthful of Danish, took another sip of coffee, then leaned back a little, holding her mug in both hands, staring up at the ceiling. Thinking. He let her be.

  It wasn’t easy, considering the things that were roiling in him. The longer he was with her, the harder he knew any so-called marriage of convenience was going to be. He wanted her with every cell in his being, and for all his talk about how enduring relationships were built on other things, he knew damn well what a strain it was going to be for him to be constantly around Edie without ever making love to her.

  He’d already tried it on for size, and desire was hammering at him more than he wanted to admit. Her scent, the sound of her voice, the sight of her smile, all of it carried him back to that one night, a huge reminder of a conflagration that he suspected might just have barely begun.

  To live with her for years and never pursue the promise of that? He’d be a fool not to admit he’d be signing on for a tour in hell, at least in that regard. But he’d spent much of the past twenty years frequently visiting hell, and he supposed he could do it for another twenty, if that’s how she wanted it. Because he was going to have a son.

  That child loomed huge in his perspective. No sacrifice too great. A son. Beginning, middle and end to any and all arguments.

  “I can do this by myself,” she said.

  He felt his stomach sink, but didn’t argue. Her independence was at her very core, and that was one thing he would not argue with. “You can,” he agreed, much as it pained him.

  “But given the way I live...” She sighed. “If I had a routine job it would be different. If I wasn’t looking at another eight or ten years of being bounced around like a ping-pong ball, I could do it.”

  He remained silent, letting her work it through, glad that she was talking more about it. At least he knew where she was on the field of play. Somewhat, anyway.

  “Hell,” she said, “I could do it anyway. I know I could. But I’m not sure it would be good for...our son. Not with only one parent.”

  He spoke carefully. “If there was no choice, I have no doubt you’d do an excellent job. But there’s a choice now. A number of them, actually. Everything from leaving the boy with me when you have to be away, to us getting it together on a permanent basis.”

  “You did kind of open a can of worms with that,” she said. He was relieved that she sounded wry, not angry.

  Then her eyelids started to droop. He waited until he was sure she had dozed off, then rose, carefully removing the mug from her hands.

  Damn, he thought as he walked softly into the kitchen, this woman was taking him on a whirlwind ride into utterly unknown territory. Both of his wives had been fascinating women to him, but Edie was in a class by herself when it came to complexity. And she really wanted a fully detailed mission plan, which, like all mission plans, was impossible. The unexpected always happened.

  He returned to the living room to watch her sleep. She was so damn beautiful. He liked to look at her, and he liked her, just that simple. And she was carrying his child.

  He smiled to himself. A better bomb couldn’t have dropped into his life.

  * * *

  “Are you sure you aren’t just looking for a new sense of purpose?”

  Edie challenged him with the question over breakfast.

  “If I am, I’ve already found it. Too late.”

  “Oh. Well, what if the baby didn’t exist? What if it was just me?”

  He put down his utensils and looked at her. “If it were just you, I’d have already carried you upstairs to my bed and done all the things with you I couldn’t do that morning in Afghanistan. If it were just you, I’d be making love to you right now. I want you every bit as much as I did then, and even more now that I’m getting to know you.”

  Then he stood up and walked out.

  Wow, she thought. Just wow. “That’s no marriage of convenience,” she called after him.

  “Depends on the ground rules,” he called back. Then she heard the front door close behind him.

  She slapped her palm on the table, angry with herself, then put her face in her hands. Was she losing her mind? Why had she brought that up? It was ridiculous given that there was no way to change the facts.

  No, she’d brought it up because she was beginning to realize she wanted him around, all right, but not
just for the sake of the baby. Their son. She wanted more than that.

  And apparently he was willing to give it to her, at least the sex part. But what about the rest? God, this was so messy sometimes she couldn’t believe it.

  Then a thought hit her so hard she almost felt punched. Nobody went into something like this, for whatever reason, knowing how it would all turn out. Nobody. She ought to know that. You could plan a mission down to the last detail and the unexpected still happened.

  When it came to having a child, when it came to marriage, everyone was flying on hope. It was impossible to predict, impossible to tie up into neat little packages and be sure that absolutely nothing would happen to change anything.

  Every time she climbed into the cockpit, she was being the ultimate optimist. Absolutely certain she wouldn’t have a mechanical failure, or that if she did she could deal with it. Absolutely certain she wouldn’t crash. Absolutely certain she’d evade gunfire and RPGs and all the rest of it. Absolutely certain she could come down on the lip of a mountain cliff and not bang her rotors into rocks.

  But none of that was an absolute certainty, and on many of her missions, the odds hadn’t been good at all.

  But she forged ahead optimistically. Being cautious and careful insofar as she could, but taking huge risks at the same time in the confidence that she would handle them.

  Was this so damn different?

  Was all this constant worrying simply another way of trying not to face the future? Like playing with puzzle pieces to try to figure out the picture without putting them together because then she’d have to see it, like it or not?

  All her training hammered on preparedness. The air force devised every possible problem it could so its pilots would be prepared to deal with them, but even so the impossible and unexpected happened. She’d buried a few friends because of that. Cascade failures. RPGs. Miscalculations. Whole bunches of things could escape your control, so you just didn’t think about them.