All she had to do now was convince Thomas.
“I bet Jack’s reaction was more pleasant than Thomas’s.” The words were out before she realized she’d actually said them aloud. After all, Donna was his daughter. She wasn’t likely to appreciate criticism of her father. And actually, Kate wasn’t in a position to complain, anyway. Thomas had reacted precisely in character. Offering to do his duty and soldier on.
“Was he a jerk?”
Surprised, Kate looked at the dark-haired woman staring at her with eyes too much like Thomas’s. “A jerk?”
Donna shrugged and shook her head. “He’s really a nice guy,” she said, “but he has this tendency toward—” She broke off, sat up straight and squared her shoulders. “Duty, honor and all things stiff and stern.”
“He’s an honorable man,” Kate defended the very man she’d complained of only a moment before.
“Oh, I know,” Donna said with a smile at Kate’s mother bear attitude. “But sometimes, wouldn’t you just like to tell him to lighten up?”
Kate chuckled, shook her head and stood up. She couldn’t imagine Thomas being anything but what he was. Besides, she had plenty of memories of Thomas behaving anything but sternly. Although she knew darn well those particular memories shouldn’t be shared with the man’s daughter. Walking to the sink, she parted the curtains and looked out the window to the back fence where Thomas and Jack were talking quietly.
She knew Thomas enjoyed spending time with Donna and Jack. Here there were no ranks. Only family. Friendship. She wondered idly if even he realized how much he relished being a part of a family.
“So,” Donna said on a chuckle as she walked to join her. “In a few months, Dad’s going to be a daddy and a grandfather all at once. Isn’t that amazing?”
Kate winced. Amazing indeed. No wonder Thomas had been acting as though he was as old as dirt. Just the word grandfather would be enough to shake most men. And a forty-five-year-old man...no matter how virile...would no doubt be twice as susceptible.
Obviously, Kate thought, it was going to be up to her to convince him that a baby would keep him young, not send him to a retirement home. She muffled the sigh building in her chest. It wouldn’t be an easy battle. But heaven knew, Marines had been in tough campaigns before. Iwo Jima. Guadalcanal. Anzio.
The trick here, she told herself, was to think of this as The Love Battle. All or nothing. Winner take all. Everything she’d ever wanted was riding on the outcome of her battle plan. Too bad she didn’t have one yet.
“He has deeper feelings for you than he admits,” Donna said softly, and her words broke through Kate’s swirling thoughts and captured her attention completely.
Slowly she turned her head to look at the woman beside her. As much as she’d like to believe Donna, she had to say. “No, he doesn’t. Or rather, he won’t let himself.”
“He can’t help it,” Donna told her, and laid one arm companionably across Kate’s shoulders. “I saw the way he looked at you through dinner.”
So had Kate. Instantly, she saw again the fire in his eyes when he caught her looking at him. It was a wonder the tablecloth hadn’t spontaneously combusted between them. A low, burning ache settled deep in her body, and not for the first time, she regretted laying down her “no sex” rule. “Oh, he wants me,” she admitted, then caught herself. This couldn’t be an appropriate conversation.
But Donna only laughed. “Why wouldn’t he?”
“Wanting and loving are two different things,” she said, and turned her gaze again on the taller of the two men standing outside.
“I know that. But there’s a shine in his eyes that has nothing to do with lust and everything to do with caring. With love.”
Kate shook her head sadly. She wouldn’t deceive herself, no matter how tempting. Oh, he cared for her. She knew that. But it wasn’t love. Not yet, anyway.
“Look,” Donna said. “I know he blames himself for his and my mother’s marriage crumbling. But the truth of it is, they were both way too young. Only seventeen, for heaven’s sake. They’d only had their driver’s licenses for a year. There’s no way they could have made that marriage work. Either of them. They didn’t even know themselves at that age—let alone each other.”
Perfectly reasonable, Kate thought. Donna saw it. Kate saw it. Heck, anyone with half an eye could see it But Thomas saw only the failure. And it was going to be a long hard fight to help him see beyond that.
“He loves you, Kate. I know he does. He just hasn’t realized it yet.”
Kate wished that were true. But she was afraid that Thomas’s daughter, well meaning though she was, was too caught up in the glow of her own pregnancy and obvious happiness. She was seeing love and rainbows where they simply didn’t exist.
That wasn’t love shining in Thomas’s eyes. It was honor.
He was going to marry her for the baby’s sake. A strong, honorable man committed to doing his duty. Thomas was taking her and their baby on as he would any other burden he deemed his responsibility. Loving him as much as she did, it was heartbreaking to realize that she had now become a duty.
Thomas wanted her body. She wanted his love.
Could she one day make him see that what he felt for her was more than desire? Or was she sentencing them both to a lonely marriage where the only thing they truly shared was a love for their child?
“You love him, don’t you?” Donna whispered.
Shadows from outside seemed to creep into the brightly lit kitchen and wrap themselves around her heart. It seemed it was the night for sharing secrets.
“Heaven help me, I do,” Kate answered softly.
Seven
The drive back to her duplex was a quiet one.
Kate tried to think of something to say. But she kept coming up empty. Mainly because she couldn’t think of a tactful way to ask why he hadn’t mentioned his daughter’s pregnancy. Was he trying to exclude her from his family? If so, this marriage of convenience was going to be doomed from the get-go.
She laced her fingers together in her lap and clenched and unclenched her grip as her mind raced far faster than the flashy truck she was seated in. So much had changed already, and there was so much more to come.
She’d vowed to somehow win Thomas’s love, but would she be able to if he was so intent on keeping a distance between them that he wouldn’t even talk about his coming grandchild?
Still, she thought, as the truck slowed down, the best way to engage in any campaign was with a strong attack. Winning this Love Battle shouldn’t be any different.
When he stopped for a red light just a few blocks from her home, Kate threw caution to the winds and blurted, “Why didn’t you tell me Donna’s pregnant, too?
He turned his head to look at her. In the strange glow of streetlamps and taillights, his expression tightened, relaxed and finally slipped into a mask of something she’d never seen on his features before. Embarrassment.
“Thomas?”
“The truth?” he asked.
She almost smiled. Almost. “If you don’t mind.”
His grip on the steering wheel tightened until his knuckles gleamed ivory against his olive skin. “This isn’t easy to admit,” he told her, wringing the wheel like he would a wet towel. “I...forgot.”
Kate blinked. Whatever she’d been expecting, this wasn’t it. “You’re kidding.”
“Wish I was,” he said, and added quickly, “please don’t tell Donna. First she’d be hurt, then she’d kill me.” Shaking his head, he shifted his gaze back to the stream of traffic pouring across Pacific Coast Highway. “I don’t see her much now that she’s gotten married. And when I do, well, she’s not showing yet...” His voice trailed off and he shrugged help-lessly. “I don’t know, Kate. I just...forgot. Then, too,” he continued, shooting her a quick look, “with our news, I’ve been a little preoccupied.”
She smiled slightly. True. Both of them had had plenty to think about in the past week or so. But she had a feeling there was m
ore to his “forgetting” than he was saying.
“Easier not to think about it?” she asked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The signal changed, and the cars in the row beside them moved into their left turns.
“A grandfather at forty-five isn’t so terrible,” she said, and she knew by the way he flinched that she’d hit the nail on the head.
He snorted a choked laugh. “It sure makes me keep a closer eye on the gray in my hair.”
Her gaze drifted to the streaks of silver at his temple. She curled her fingers into her palms to keep from reaching up to touch them. “I’ve always thought that touch of gray very distinguished.”
“Yeah?” He turned his head and stared at her, his dark gaze meeting hers. He raised both eyebrows, and a slow smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, deepening the dimple they both knew she was a sucker for.
“Yeah,” she admitted.
The driver of the car behind them honked as the light turned green. Thomas turned back to the road ahead, shifted the truck into first gear and stepped on the gas. “Y’know, Kate,” he said as he steered the truck into a left turn bay at her street, “by marrying me, you’re going to become a grandmother at the ripe old age of thirty-two.”
She swayed with the truck as it turned, and felt her thoughts spin wildly, too. She hadn’t considered that. A grandmother and a mother all in the space of a few months time. For a woman who’d lived most of her life alone, thinking she wanted and needed no one, it was a heady thought.
He pulled the truck up in front of her house and shut off the engine. Unsnapping his seat belt, he shifted on the bench seat to look at her. Left arm draped across the steering wheel, his right arm snaked along the back of the seat, almost but not touching her shoulders. Kate fought the urge to lean into him, reminding herself that she was the one who had set the guidelines here. She was the one who had insisted on no more sex until they knew each other bitter. And though a hug could hardly be called intimate, one touch from Thomas would be enough to ignite a bonfire inside her bright enough and hot enough to melt the strongest resolves.
“So, Grandma,” he said softly, “you and Donna seemed to hit it off.”
“I like her.”
“Good.” His gaze shifted past her briefly and a frown flitted across his face. “Your sentry’s on duty.”
“Huh?” Kate turned toward the duplex in time to see Evie’s front drapes swing closed. Obviously her neighbor had been keeping an eye out for her return. “She must think I need protecting,” Kate said with a gentle laugh.
“From me?” Thomas’s voice rambled through the close confines of the truck cab and seemed to settle at the base of her spine.
She shivered slightly and felt the weight of his arm slip around her shoulders. There was no protecting her from Thomas’s charms. That little war had been lost three years ago.
“Kate,” he whispered as he pulled her closer, “let me come inside.” He bent his head to kiss her nape and sent a stampede of goose bumps racing along her back. “Just for a cup of coffee.”
“Thomas...” Be strong, she told herself with small hope of success.
“One quick cup and I’m gone,” he told her, and shifted his attentions to her earlobe.
She groaned quietly as a too-familiar coil of desire tightened within her. Her fists opened and closed on her lap. Her breath quickened. Her heartbeat stuttered heavily. Blindly staring straight ahead, Kate absently noticed that the windshield was beginning to fog over. Clouds of steam pushed across the glass, blanketing them in a world that was too dangerously private.
“Ah, Kate,” he muttered thickly. “I want you so much I can hardly breathe.”
Strangely enough, those were the very words she’d needed to hear in order to strengthen her slipping willpower. He wanted her. Not love, want.
“Thomas,” she said, her voice loud in the stillness. “We can’t do this.”
“Hmm?” He planted another kiss just beneath her jawline, and she determinedly ignored the rush of sensation that fluttered in the pit of her stomach in response.
Stiffly, she scooted out of his grasp and edged toward the door.
“Kate?” He reached for her, but she eluded his questing hand.
“I said we can’t do this, Thomas.”
He shoved one hand across the top of his head and leaned back against the seat. Staring at her, he drew in a long, shaky breath. “You’re serious about this celibacy thing, then?”
Every instinct she possessed screamed at her to reach for him, wrap her arms around him and never let go. She fought down that urge in the name of her future. She wanted it all. Not just his lust. His love.
And to get that, she’d have to be strong enough for both of them. “This isn’t easy for me, either. But we agreed.”
Nodding sharply, he said, “I know.”
Catching hold of the door handle, she yanked on it, and the heavy door swung wide, letting in a swish of cold ocean air that cleared the windows yet did nothing to cool the fire still raging within her.
“Thomas,” she said softly, “I wish—”
“Yeah,” he broke in and reached for her hand, giving it a quick, hard squeeze. “Me, too. G’night, Kate.”
She nodded, stepped out of the truck and closed the door again. As she hurried up the pansy-lined walk to her front door, she felt Thomas’s gaze boring into her back. The intensity of that stare made her knees shake.
As soon as she was safely inside, he fired up the truck and drove away. The echo of the throbbing engine pulsed after him for a long minute and matched the thudding beat of her heart.
Two weeks later Tom stood at a makeshift altar in his backyard, listening to the base chaplain repeating the sacred vows of matrimony that had been handed down for generations. A cool ocean breeze dusted over the small crowd of guests. He felt the stares boring into his back and tried not to twitch. The collar of Thomas’s dress blue uniform suddenly felt about three inches tighter than it had a minute ago.
Maybe the knowledge that he’d made these promises before and had failed to keep them was what had him strung so tightly that he thought his spine might snap. But then, maybe it was simply looking at the woman beside him.
Slanting a glance at Kate, he was amazed again at how calm she seemed. How centered. How blasted beautiful.
Instantly his mind flashed to the moment when Kate had walked down the narrow path leading from his house to the big maple tree where he and the preacher stood waiting.
Breathtaking in a high-collared, pale blue, knee-length dress, she headed straight toward him, her gaze locked with his. Her blond hair was pulled back at the sides and she wore a wreath of roses and baby’s breath that matched her bouquet. Winter sunshine played on the silver and gold streaks in her hair and shimmered with a jewel-like light. The small, round bouquet shook slightly in her tight grip, but Tom had a feeling only he had noticed.
Once she had taken her place beside him, though, her trembling stopped and she’d answered the base chaplain in a strong, clear voice.
She was taking a real chance on him, Tom told himself, and his admiration for her swelled to monumental proportions.
“Colonel?” the chaplain prodded.
“Hmm?”
A muffled titter of laughter rose up behind him.
“The proper response here,” the preacher said with an understanding smile, “is I do.”
Great. He’d blown his one big line.
Kate looked up at him, and he read the sudden question in her eyes. Good Lord. Did she really believe he would back out on her now? Here?
To erase that question from her or anyone else’s mind, he apologized in a loud, deep voice. “Sorry, Chaplain. I was momentarily distracted by the bride’s beauty.”
Several females in the audience sighed appreciatively.
Kate’s gaze dropped, but he thought he detected a glimmer of a smile.
“A completely understandable reaction, Colonel,” the cha
plain said.
“Would you mind repeating the question?” Tom requested.
As the minister’s words rolled out over the crowd, Tom listened carefully to the vows and the inherent pledge lying within. Silently he swore to do everything he could to make this marriage work. To be a friend to Kate and a good father to his child.
Aloud, he said only, “I do,” and the deed was done.
A smattering of applause from the twenty or so people attending the backyard ceremony rose up like a hum of bees and settled back down again.
“I now pronounce you man and wife,” the minister proclaimed with a flourish. “You may kiss the bride, Colonel.”
The bride.
He was a husband again. Soon to be a father again.
And this time, by God...he’d do it right.
Tom turned and looked down into Kate’s deep blue eyes. If a sheen of water dimmed the color slightly, he supposed a woman had a right to get a little misty on her wedding day.
He smiled at her and was rewarded with an answering curve of her lips.
Married. To a woman whom he respected, liked and admired. How bad could it be? And to top it off, she lit up his insides like a Fourth of July fireworks display.
“Well, Colonel?” the chaplain prodded. “Are you going to kiss her or should we call in the troops for support?”
Laughter rippled out all around them, yanking Tom from his thoughts and bringing him back to the moment at hand. Slowly he grinned. “Thanks, Padre,” he said. “I think I can handle this mission on my own.”
He bent his head toward her and was inwardly pleased when she went up on her toes to meet him halfway. Lord, he’d missed holding her, kissing her. It already felt as though it had been years since the last time they’d made love.
Tom meant to give her a brief, chaste, traditional, end-of-wedding kiss, but something happened when his mouth touched hers. Heat blistered the air. His blood sizzled in his veins and his heartbeat jumped into overdrive as it pounded erratically inside his chest. A deep longing hit him with the force of a shotgun blast, and he lost himself in her. As he’d wanted to for weeks.
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