Marriage for Her Baby

by Raye Morgan

  “Of course. You’re right.”

  She flushed and turned to hide it. It was for the best, of course. As he said, they hadn’t married for love. There was no reason to hurry a physical connection. If he didn’t think the time was right, he was probably on the right track. He was obviously much more experienced in these things than she was. She could wait—wait in her cold, lonely bed. Would he ever want to share it with her?

  Maybe, someday. As he said, things may change.

  But there was a cold, hollow feeling around her heart that night.

  * * *

  Jake had been afraid he would be restless and uneasy with another person living in his house. He didn’t mean Savannah, of course. But he did mean Sara. He was used to having a buddy or two flopping in his place at various times, but having a woman who actually lived with him—no, that wasn’t in his repertoire of experiences.

  To his surprise, he adjusted very quickly. She enjoyed fixing him meals and that came as a sort of gift he hadn’t expected. She kept things picked up, which he’d never quite gotten the knack of. And she wasn’t one of the chatty types who talked your ear off. She was as quiet as he was most of the time. All in all, he enjoyed having her around.

  He watched her feeding Savannah. The joy in her face, Savannah’s happy laugh, the sunshine coming in through the breakfast room windows, all contributed to his feeling of happiness and well-being. He didn’t deserve to be this happy. He still had promises to keep.

  He’d done the right thing—hadn’t he? He thought he had. He couldn’t have left his child behind, and he needed someone to help take care of her better than he could ever do. So he’d enlisted Sara in the endeavor. Was that fair to her? Maybe not. But so far, it was working out fine.

  Still, he wasn’t totally sure he’d done the right thing. Was it right to marry Sara, to tie her up in this relationship? Would he have felt as close to any other woman he’d involved in it this way? She seemed so perfect for this role and she shared his joy in Savannah day by day in ways probably no one else could. For now, it seemed all was right with the world.

  But there was going to be a big test of that sense of calm coming up soon and he didn’t feel he ought to do anything to bring the two of them closer until then. He couldn’t completely commit to this relationship until he saw how that came out.

  When Sara realized he was going back to the jungle to take care of unfinished business, the truth would be plain for all to see. Could she handle it? Only time would tell.

  He had to go. He was going with his mates. There was a job they had to take care of. They’d left too many people behind. The bastards who had treated them so badly had to pay, and they had to make sure that could never happen again in that place. He owed it to his buddies, he owed it to himself. He owed it to the world. That hellhole in the jungle had to be purged.

  And once that was done, if he came back alive, they would see where things stood.

  * * *

  Days fell into a pattern of mundane happiness. Sara cared for Savannah, which was her greatest joy, and she took care of Jake, which was getting to be a sweeter task every time she performed some little service for him. She was beginning to understand how doing things for other people could be a precious gift—as long as it was appreciated.

  She took Savannah to put her toes in the ocean at least once a day. She took her to the playground. She took her along when she went grocery shopping in the little island market that she loved. She signed up for a “Mommy and Me” swimming class at the local Y and spent time finding just the right outfits to make Savannah the cutest baby on the island. She spent a lot of time cooking up special baby food versions of meals for her child.

  But best of all, she shared every minute she could with Jake. No one else in the world could understand how special their baby was. Only Jake. And he joined right in. It was wonderful.

  Sharing with Jill and Connor had been fun, but that had nothing on the deep, abiding joy sharing with Jake had for them both. This was what a family ought to feel like. This was as close to heaven as real life could get.

  The only problem that nagged at her was the question—how long was Jake going to deny that the two of them should be a total and complete unit as well?

  She was afraid there was an answer to that—and not one she was going to like. The truth was out there if she only let herself face it. He didn’t love her. And he didn’t want to raise her expectation that someday he might.

  She had to admit he was generous with kisses, as long as they were simple and affectionate. His hugs were warm and welcoming. But they hadn’t had a repeat of the burning encounter they’d had out at the Point that night before he asked her to marry him. Hopes were dimming that real married life was in the cards for them and she wasn’t really sure what she could do about it.

  So her nights were still empty, though she couldn’t really complain. Her days were warm enough to make up for it. And her husband was always there for her in every other way. Maybe that would be enough.

  She was getting to know his friends better all the time and she liked them more and more. Starman had a way of showing up just when she needed help to carry in groceries or start the barbecue. She knew Jake felt very close to him.

  “I’d say he’s my best friend,” Jake agreed. “We’ve been through a lot together. We’ve saved each other’s neck a few times, and we’ll probably do it a few times more.”

  That gave her a chill, but she didn’t question it.

  One day, about a month after the wedding, she was trying to dig into soil that was hard as a rock in order to prepare for planting a rosebush. Starman showed up and did it for her, giving her a large, perfectly round hole that would leave lots of room for planting mix.

  “Thank you so much,” she told him. “I was going to ask Jake to dig it for me when he got back from his morning run, but now I won’t have to bother him.”

  Starman put down the shovel and looked at her earnestly. “Sara, I just want to thank you for what you’re doing.”

  “Really?” She smiled at him. “What am I doing?”

  “You’re really helping us out here. You marrying Jake is going to make all the difference. I know it had to do with the kid and everything, but now he’ll be able to relax about that. He’s just whacko about that kid.”

  “Oh, I know. We both are.”

  “Sure. She’s a great kid. But the point is, now that you’re someone he can trust to take care of her, he’s starting to think straight again. So I just wanted to thank you for that.”

  He turned to go but she stopped him.

  “Wait, Starman. I’m not sure I understand. What was Jake worried about?”

  “Who would take care of the kid.” He stepped back closer and spoke confidentially. “He was saying he couldn’t leave little Savannah alone while we went on missions. But now he’s got you to take care of that. He was turning us down, telling us he had new responsibilities and such. We told him we couldn’t imagine going without him. And we got him back in gear.” He winked at her. “He told me the other day that he’ll be coming along.” He grinned. “So all is right with the world. Because of you.”

  He gave her a crisp salute and headed out. She stood staring after him, trying to make sense of what he’d said and very much afraid she understood it only too well.

  * * *

  That night was the first night she heard Jake cry out in the dark. It wasn’t a scream exactly. More of an angry yell. It sounded like swearing, only she couldn’t make out the words. When she went in and woke him, he seemed angry about it, and in the morning, he didn’t want to talk about what had happened. The whole thing left her more worried than she’d been since the day they’d decided to get married. How could she help him if he wouldn’t let her in?

  CHAPTER TEN

  WAS JAKE PREPARING to go on a mission to Southeast Asia? Was he planning to attack the prison camp where he and his friends were once held? It made Sara sick to think of, but she was afraid he was a
ctually doing exactly that.

  What were the chances that he would come back alive? How could he even contemplate doing something so dangerous? Leaving behind Savannah—leaving behind the life they’d begun to build together? It was unthinkable.

  She didn’t care what the other men did. If they felt they had to go back to the prison camp, maybe to get revenge for the way those guards had hurt them, fine. Let them go. But they didn’t have wives and children to think of. Jake did. How could she convince him that this was just wrong?

  He’d grown up, as he always said, uncivilized. And this wild sort of living had been his existence for much too long. So maybe he didn’t understand that there was a point where a man had to give up the excitement of revenge and fighting.

  It was one thing to be a military man, trained and protected by a system. It was another to go off into the jungle with a bunch of guys you palled around with and hope to get the chance to succeed at destroying a prison camp on your own. It was crazy. That much she understood. But did he?

  He’d never told her all about what had happened in that Pacific jungle when he was an Army Ranger. She’d seen his naked back up close and personal, studied the scars, even traced one with her finger the day before when they were at the beach and he was lying on his stomach in the sand. Savannah was playing with sand toys and Sara was watching her but paying just as much attention to the man beside her.

  “What happened?” she asked him at the time. “Who did this?”

  He turned to her. “You don’t really want to know,” he said dismissively. “It’s not a pretty story.” Looking beyond her, he said, “Hey, look at Savannah. She pulled herself up beside the beach chair. That girl is going to take off walking any day now.”

  Sara swelled with pride for her baby like she always did. “Oh, she’s too young for that,” she said.

  “Are you kidding? Look at her. She wants to run!”

  “You should have seen the twins. They were both running at ten months.” She laughed. “I was told I was fifteen months before I would trust my legs to carry me. I took my time.” She smiled at him. “How about you?”

  He shrugged with a sort of studied disinterest. “I didn’t have much of a mother. Nobody ever told me stuff like that about my baby days.”

  Her smile faded and she looked away. “No baby book, huh?” she noted.

  He shook his head and she realized he’d turned the conversation away from those scars on his back once again. But now she had to know. It was time he filled her in on the background.

  * * *

  That night she was determined to get to the bottom of it all.

  “All right,” she said after the sun had gone down and Savannah had fallen asleep for the night. “Savannah is down, we’ve had dinner and cleaned up, there’s nothing either of us want to watch on TV—it’s time for you to open up and tell me a few things I need to know.” She pinned him with her steady gaze. “You are going to talk.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He couldn’t help but smile at her, she looked so cute and serious. “What do you want me to talk about?”

  “Tell me about what you were doing in the Pacific area for the last couple of years. I know you were an Army Ranger and that you spent some time in a prison camp in the jungle, and I know you’ve been discharged recently. But what was it you did back then? And why do you have those scars on your back?”

  He looked away for a moment, then made a face. “Okay. I guess it is time.” He sank down onto the couch and she sat at the other end. “You’re right about me being an Army Ranger. We had a special mission in our unit. We rescued people.”

  “From what?” she asked in all innocence.

  He took a deep breath, searching her face before he told her. “From being kidnapped and tortured by the bad guys.”

  “Oh.” She recoiled. Maybe she really didn’t want to know all the details.

  “I’ve been working rescue operations for years. I got pretty damn good at it, too. I rarely got hurt or caught or in any sort of trouble. Until this last time.”

  “You mean, after you knew Kelly?”

  He nodded. “We managed to negotiate a couple of good situations in the Philippines. Then we were sent to a trouble spot in Southeast Asia. A pair of missionaries had been captured by rebels. No one knew where they’d been taken. We spent weeks tracking down their location. We were undercover, pretending to be hippies looking to commune with nature and do drugs.”

  “What?” She had a hard time seeing him that way.

  He threw a half smile her way. “We were pretending, Sara. Trying to blend into the countryside. We made friends with the more primitive people of the area and finally we got a fix on the location we were looking for. It was in the jungle and we executed a beautiful textbook-ready operation. But when we finally got to the site where the missionaries were being held...”

  He hesitated, then shrugged and went ahead and told her the truth. “We found nothing but bodies. They were already dead. And left as bait for us.” He sighed. “At that point, we were so upset when we saw what had been done to those good people—a man and a woman whose only goal was to help others—we got careless and screwed up and ended up getting captured by the militia of the local strong man who didn’t like foreigners coming in. He immediately threw us into his prison camp and tried to get ransom for us.”

  “Wow.” She could hardly breathe. He was sitting here so calmly, telling her things that should only be in movies. No real human beings should have to go through these things. Her heart broke for them all.

  “They held us for a few months. They didn’t feed us much, but most of the time, they weren’t exactly cruel. Just not very nice. But the first time a few of us tried to escape—me and Starman, among them—they caught us and then the really ugly stuff began.”

  “Is that when you got those scars on your back?” she asked him, wincing as she thought of it.

  “Yeah. Starman has the same. They thrashed us the old-fashioned way. They wanted to make sure we didn’t do that again.”

  She shook her head. She didn’t want to think about it. It made her sick. “But you did do it again, didn’t you?”

  He grinned. “Of course we did. That’s how stubborn we are. We bided our time and saw another chance and escaped. This time we made it to a city and got help.” He moved as though his back was bothering him. “But the punishment lives on,” he murmured softly.

  “They do look...horrible. Those scars, I mean. I’m surprised you lived through that.” She felt nauseous thinking about it.

  “I’m kind of surprised, too. And actually, Punky, a friend of ours, didn’t. His back got infected and he died.”

  He said it so simply, as though it was a common thing. Could have happened to anyone. She had to catch her breath to speak. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah. Well, that’s the breaks. Other guys were there, guys who didn’t get away. People we had to leave behind.” He grimaced. “They need to be rescued,” he said softly.

  She bit her lip. She didn’t want to hear that.

  “See, that’s what I have to get you to understand,” he said, looking at her with his luminous eyes. “That’s what we do. We rescue people.”

  She stared at him. “But you’re not in the service any longer.”

  He nodded. “I took a discharge. I thought I wanted to move on.” He shook his head. “But the faces haunt me, Sara. All those people. They need to be helped. Somebody’s got to save them.”

  Emotion welled in her chest. “Not you.”

  He turned away and didn’t say a word. She moved closer to him on the couch.

  “Your friends are planning a trip back there, aren’t they?” she said.

  He nodded, still looking away.

  “Are you going with them?” she asked in a strangled voice.

  He winced and ran fingers through his thick hair. “Wow. Listen, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.” He looked at her. “I won’t be gone long.”

  Her heart
seemed to stop. What was he talking about? He couldn’t predict the future. If he went, he might be gone forever. That was impossible. It couldn’t happen. She felt a sense of hysteria rising in her throat.

  “You know very well you might get killed. Just when Savannah has her father back, you want to take him away again? Are you crazy?”

  His face was tortured. “Look, I love Savannah. She’s my life. But there are other things in my life, other responsibilities. There’s old business that has to be cleared up.”

  She felt a sense of despair. What could she do to prove to him how wrong this was? “Then take us with you,” she demanded.

  “What?” He stared at her. “Now you’re the one who’s sounding crazy.”

  “We’re a family unit. We go where you go. If you need to go so badly, take us with you.” She glared at him, daring him to answer.

  He shook his head slowly. “You don’t have a clue what you’re asking. The place where we’re going is hell on earth. I wouldn’t let you or Savannah within a hundred miles of the place. It can’t happen.”

  “If it’s really so bad, you shouldn’t go, either!” she cried.

  He stared at her, hard. “I have to go. It’s my responsibility. I owe too many people to turn back now.”

  His tone was final and she knew going on with this train of thought was only going to make them both too angry to be rational. She took a deep breath and forced back all the things she wanted to say.

  “When are you going?” she said as calmly as she could.

  “Monday.” He glanced at her and then away. “We’ll fly out of Seattle to the Philippines and go down from there.”

  Her heart was breaking. “How long will you be gone?”

  “Not too long. Two weeks at the most.”

  “Or forever.”

  He turned to look at her. “Sara...” Reaching out, he grabbed her hand and held it tightly, as though he might be able to convince her by touch.

  “What makes you think you can succeed?” she asked him fiercely. She pulled his hand up to press it to her cheek, looking at him with all her agony plain to see in her eyes. “Why can’t you just notify the authorities in that place? Why can’t someone in an official capacity take care of it?”