The Daddy Salute

by Maureen Child

  Kathy Tate wasn’t interested. So what? There were plenty of other women in this city. Mind racing, resolutions forming and solidifying in his brain, he snatched at the phone on his desk when it rang and answered impatiently, “Gunnery Sergeant Haley.”

  The voice on the other end of the line started talking. With every word spoken, Brian’s newly reinforced world started shaking. He couldn’t seem to draw air into his straining lungs. His thoughts spun, and his stomach lurched. The familiar sights and sounds around him seemed to evaporate, and all he could hear was the stranger on the phone shattering what was left of his once-so-comfortable life.

  Three

  “She’s getting married again.” She cringed inwardly as she said those words aloud.

  “Who?” Tina Baker asked.

  Kathy shot a long look at her friend, swallowed down the embarrassment choking her and said, “Three guesses.”

  Tina wiped oatmeal off her infant son’s cheeks and frowned thoughtfully. A moment later comprehension dawned on her features. “Your mom?”

  Sitting back in her chair, Kathy turned her coffee cup between her hands and glanced at her friend. “Yep. The queen of matrimonial nightmares is at it again.”

  “Wow.” Tina handed the baby a teething ring to slam against the tray of the high chair, then sat down opposite Kathy. “So this will make husband number five? Or six?”

  She made it sound like such a reasonable question. Thank heaven for Tina. Friends since high school, they’d always kept in touch. And no matter how humiliating Kathy found her mother’s behavior, Tina had never made a big deal out of it.

  Moving to Bayside two years ago was the best thing Kathy had ever done. At least she had one stable person in her life. Tina was madly in love with her husband and constantly trying to convince Kathy that marriage was a good thing.

  But Kathy had made up her mind years ago. With her mother, Spring, as a shining example of how not to live your life, Kathy had decided to stay single. Better to live alone than to go from one broken marriage to another.

  Not that that had ever bothered her mother.

  Oh, boy. Wasn’t the rule of families that children were supposed to embarrass parents? No doubt, across the country, middle-aged parents were going about their perfectly normal, rut-filled lives, lamenting their offspring’s loony life-styles. But not in the Tate family. No sirree.

  Nope. Here in never-never land, Kathy was the adult, and her mother was the forty-eight-year-old teenager. Not that she didn’t love her mom, but honestly, was it too much to hope for that Spring Hastings-Watts-Tate-Grimaldi-Grimaldi-Hennesey-Butler-soon-to-be would grow up? That she would settle down into the kind of everyday, ordinary mom Kathy had always wanted?

  A voice inside whispered, Yes. She’s never going to change, so just learn how to deal with it.

  “Kathy?” Tina spoke up, and Kathy shook her head to clear it.

  After taking a quick gulp of coffee, she answered, “Technically, this is marriage number six. But Mom says five. Because she married number three twice, she only counts him as one husband.”

  Tina smiled, noticed Kathy’s disgusted expression and said, “I’m sorry, hon. I know it’s not funny, but you’ve got to admit, your mom is really something.”

  “Oh, she’s something, all right.” Kathy shook her head and stood up.

  “I swear, her life is like a soap opera.”

  “Well, I wish she’d hire some new writers.”

  No matter how kind or understanding Tina was, she’d never really be able to know what it was like growing up with a mother like Spring. Kathy had had to learn early on that she was the responsible one in the household. She’d grown up fast in order to make up for her mom’s not growing up at all.

  But even as those thoughts rattled around inside her mind, Kathy felt disloyal. After all, her mom had done the best she could. At least she had stuck around, which was more than Kathy’s father had ever done.

  “So when’s the wedding?”

  Kathy started wandering around the cozy, cluttered kitchen. Her gaze drifted from the crayon artwork proudly displayed on the refrigerator to the dog bowl on the floor to the child-size fingerprints on the windows. This is what a kid’s world should be like, she told herself. And that’s why she’d never have children of her own. A bubble of emptiness rose up inside her, then settled down into the pit she usually kept it in. As much as she would love to have the kind of family Tina had, she knew it wasn’t in her cards. She refused to be a single mother. She’d seen firsthand just how difficult that was. And she would never get married, so that left kids out entirely.

  Thank heaven she at least had Tina’s kids to pour all of her maternal feelings into.

  “Kath?” Tina’s voice prompted her. “The wedding? When is it?”

  The wedding. “Three weeks,” she said, and leaned against the counter.

  “She’s been single so long,” Tina mused, “I wonder what made her decide to get married again.”

  “Who knows?” Kathy said, throwing her hands high. It had been six years since her mom’s last divorce. Kathy had actually begun to hope that Spring was slowing down. Oh, well.

  “Where is it?”

  This time Kathy had to chuckle. Really, what else could she do with a mom like Spring. “Where else? Vegas.”

  “Well,” Tina said, and reached over to lift Michael out of his high chair, “maybe this time it will work out. Maybe this time she’s really in love.”

  Spring had sounded different when she’d called to give Kathy the news about the impending wedding. There’d actually been a little tremor in her voice. As if she was nervous. Though any woman who’d recited the wedding vows as often as Spring had surely shouldn’t have anything to be nervous about. No, it was probably just her imagination working overtime. This was simply another wedding for Spring.

  “And maybe our little résumé service will put us both on the Fortune Five Hundred list,” she said, and winced slightly. She didn’t mean to sound bitter, for heaven’s sake.

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  “Anything you say, partner,” Kathy said, then changed the subject by asking, “Have you got the new ad ready for the newspaper?”

  “Yeah, it’s in the other room. Hold the baby for a minute?”

  “Sure,” Kathy said, always eager to get a little baby hugging in. She stepped forward to pluck little Michael out of his mother’s arms. Fifteen pounds of warm, cuddly love squirmed against her, and Kathy’s heart melted. She ran her palm gently over the top of his head, smoothing down the wispy, fine, blond hair.

  Regret roared through her with a vengeance as she realized again that by denying herself marriage, she was denying herself this. A child of her own to love. And the closer she came to thirty, the harder that truth hit her. The phrase biological clock had become pretty much a cliché these days, and darned if she couldn’t hear hers ticking.

  Michael cooed and batted at her shoulders with two small-fisted hands. She caught one of them and rubbed his little fingers with her thumb. “You’re a sweetheart, you know it?” she asked, and grinned when he giggled from deep in his throat.

  Tina stepped into the kitchen and paused, watching them. “You’re good at that, Kath.”

  Kathy glanced at her. “It’s not hard to love a baby.”

  “Or a man,” Tina said.

  “Don’t start,” Kathy told her, shaking her head. Tina’s one major flaw was that she insisted on playing matchmaker.

  “There’s a guy in Ted’s office who—”

  “Stop right there,” Kathy warned her.

  “Come on, Kath. There’s no reason for you to live like a nun.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Really?” Tina laid the manila envelope she was carrying down on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “And when was the last time you actually spoke to a real, live man?”

  Think fast. “Three days ago,” she blurted.

  “Who?” Tina asked.
r />   “My neighbor.”

  “The marine?” Tina’s blue eyes widened in anticipation.

  Oh, man, she shouldn’t have started this. Perching Michael on her hip, she bounced him up and down.

  “Details, Kath. Details.”

  “He fixed my car for me,” she said with a shrug. “Then he helped me with my groceries.” And she’d managed to avoid him ever since.

  “And…”

  “There is no and,” Kathy told her, and walked across the room to hand over the baby. Then she snatched up the ad copy and tried to make her escape.

  “There could be an and,” Tina said hurriedly.

  “I don’t want any and.” She picked up her purse from the table and headed for the back door. Tina’s voice stopped her cold in the doorway.

  “You’re not your mother, Kathy.”

  She meant well, but that didn’t change the facts. “No, but I am her daughter.” Glancing over her shoulder at her friend, Kathy added, “We live what we learn, Tina. And I’d be just as bad at marriage as my mother is. I won’t do that. Not to me and certainly not to some poor, unsuspecting baby.”

  Then she slipped out the door before Tina could continue the old argument.

  Brian listened to the dial tone for a few long seconds, then held the receiver away from his ear and stared at it as though he half expected it to blow up in his hand.

  “Brian?”

  He blinked and shot a quick glance at Jack.

  “Bad news?” the man asked.

  “Bad?” He didn’t know if he’d say bad. Maybe catastrophic. Horrifying. But bad? He checked his wrist watch. He only had two hours. Nice of them to wait until the last minute to call.

  “Hey, man,” Jack said, watching him. “What’s goin’ on?”

  “I, uh…” Carefully, gently, Brian set the receiver down in its cradle. “I have to go.”

  “Go? Go where?”

  “The airport.”

  “Airport?” Jack sounded as confused as Brian felt. But that couldn’t be. No one on earth could possibly be as confused as Brian Haley was at that particular moment.

  “Why?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” he said. Later. As in, when he was actually able to repeat the words he’d just heard over the phone. Right now he could hardly force himself to think them, let alone say them out loud.

  “Jack, I gotta go.” He looked at his watch again. Another minute gone. He felt his life ticking away. The world as he’d known it was about to come to an abrupt end, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  “Damn it, Brian…”

  He shook his head and spared his friend a quick glance. “Trust me on this. I have to go.” He pushed away from his desk, glanced at the unfinished reports and said, “I’ll take care of those tomorrow.”

  “They’re due today,” Jack told him. Brian looked at him, and some of his desperation must have shown on his face because his friend took one look at him and offered, “Leave ’em. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thanks,” he muttered, and started for the door. He snatched his hat off the coatrack, then settled it firmly on his head.

  “Hey!” Jack called out, and Brian stopped. “Is everything all right?”

  Rubbing one hand across his face, Brian swallowed heavily and muttered, “Hell, no.”

  “Call if you need help.”

  Help? Hell, he was going to need all the help he could get. But it went against the grain to ask for it. He was a marine, for pity’s sake. Tough, strong, dependable. He’d stood fast in battle and lived all over the world. It was his job to protect and defend the United States of America against all of her enemies.

  How in the hell could he yell help?

  He nodded at Jack, muttered, “Thanks,” and left. He ran down the hall, stopping only long enough to help a corporal pick up the files Brian had knocked out of his arms. Then he was out the main door into the California sunshine.

  Mentally he heard a clock ticking. Softly at first, then louder as the seconds passed. Time was running out. He had just enough time to get home, change his uniform and make it to the airport.

  Then all he had to do was wait. Wait for the stranger from Child Services in South Carolina, who would soon be flying in to deliver into Brian’s care the thirteen-month-old daughter he hadn’t even known existed.

  Ooh-rah.

  Four

  At the airport Brian stalked through the sliding glass doors and spared a quick glance at the life-size, bronze statue of John Wayne as he passed it. It had to be his imagination, but he could have sworn he heard the big man laugh at him.

  But then, hell, who wouldn’t?

  Hunching his shoulders, Brian hurried past The Duke, cast a quick look at the arrivals screen, then made for gate 36. His footsteps echoed hollowly against the tile, and as fast as that tapping sounded, it wasn’t as fast as the pounding of his heart.

  Good God. A baby? Him?

  He ran one hand across his face and tried to gather the thoughts that had been scattered since receiving that brief phone call.

  He could still hear the social worker’s voice ringing in his ear. You recall having a relationship with Mariah Sutton?

  Mariah Sutton. Sure, he remembered her. A couple of years ago. In South Carolina. Pretty, warm, fun. Mariah and he had had a mutually satisfying relationship that had lasted a total of six weeks.

  But according to the social worker he’d spoken to nearly two hours ago, the memory of their affair was still alive and well and living in the person of one Maegan Sutton-Haley, thirteen months old.

  Brian shook his head as his back teeth ground together. He dodged an elderly woman pushing a black suitcase in front of her like a battering ram, then joined the line of people waiting to pass through the security gate.

  Mariah’d given the lady his name, but hadn’t bothered to tell him about his daughter. What the hell was that about? Why hadn’t she told him? He rubbed one hand along the back of his neck and moved forward another inch or two. What would he have done if she had told him? he wondered. Honestly, he didn’t know. He’d like to think he’d have done the right thing, whatever that was these days. But how could he be sure? He couldn’t. Now he’d never know what might have been.

  But was that really important at the moment? No. What mattered now was the simple fact that Mariah Sutton had died in a car accident, naming him father and guardian of their little girl.

  Damn it, he’d never wanted kids.

  Even as that thought entered his mind, another chased right behind it. If you didn’t want kids, you shouldn’t have been so careless, huh?

  “Afternoon, Sergeant,” the man at the security portal said as Brian moved up to take his turn.

  He nodded and stepped through.

  Naturally the damn thing beeped.

  Brian glanced down at his uniform, guessing rightly that the medals on his left shirtfront pocket had set off the alarms. He looked at the security officer. “Want me to take them off?”

  The old man smiled and shook his head. “Just step over here a moment.”

  Brian left the line and held still while the officer ran a hand-held security wand up and down his body. When it came across the medals, it beeped just like its mother ship had. He shrugged apologetically. “Sorry.”

  “No problem, marine,” the man said, then waved him on. “We’re used to dealing with the military. You have a good day.”

  Not much chance of that, Brian thought. “Thanks,” he muttered, and hurried on to meet his fate.

  Milling around at the back of the crowd, waiting for the plane to unload, Brian studied the happy, excited faces surrounding him. Apparently he was the only person there who wished he was anywhere else. His heart pounded frantically. Stomach churning, he tried reminding himself that he was a marine for Pete’s sake, but it wasn’t helping.

  Good Lord. A daughter.

  What was he supposed to do with a little girl? A baby?

  Briefly he told himself he should have pai
d closer attention when his older sisters had started producing grandchildren for his doting mother. But anytime one of those kids had shown up, Brian had beaten a hasty retreat.

  This must be some kind of karmic joke.

  One of the airline personnel opened the door for the soon-to-be-appearing passengers, and Brian felt his throat close up. Impossible to be covered in a cold sweat and feel completely dried out, but there you go. Actually, he thought, trying to be objective about this, he felt just the way he had the first time someone had shot at him.

  The first few people straggled up the gangway, juggling bags way too big to be considered carry-ons by anyone. A few happy squeals sounded from the crowd, and as people slowly met their friends and families and drifted off, Brian stood alone. Waiting.

  Then she was there.

  A woman came toward him, older, a bit gray, with kind eyes and a tired droop to her posture. Over one shoulder she carried a Winnie the Pooh bag and on her right hip was perched a baby girl.

  His baby girl.

  Maegan Haley.

  God help them both.

  “Gunnery Sergeant Haley?” the woman asked as she stopped in front of him and swung the bag to the floor.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, unconsciously shifting stance to attention. His gaze flickered to the baby, who stared at him through eyes so much like his own he felt an invisible fist crash into his belly. Well, whatever else had happened, Mariah hadn’t lied.

  His daughter.

  The woman saw his reaction and gave him a soft smile. “I’m Mrs. Norbert, and this…is Maegan.”

  “Uh, huh.”

  “If you wouldn’t mind showing me some identification?”

  She looked as though she was having second thoughts about handing over the baby. He didn’t blame her. Still he showed her all the ID he had and she appeared to be satisfied.

  “So,” she said, “everything seems to be in order.”

  Real good, Haley, he told himself. Impress the woman with your articulate style.