The Daddy Salute

by Maureen Child

  She couldn’t look at him. If she did, he would see the pain still shimmering in her eyes. “I’ve got some things to do,” she said lamely, and unlocked her door. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

  “Kathy—”

  “Later, all right?” God, she had to get away from him. Had to think. Had to stop the pain that continued to ebb and flow inside her. She gave him one long, last look, then she stepped into the apartment and closed the door behind her.

  Damn it, Brian thought, no. Not later. Now. Going back into his own apartment long enough to pick up the baby, he crossed the hall and knocked at her door.

  “Go away, Brian,” she said, her voice muffled and strangely thick sounding.

  “I’m not going away, Kathy,” he said. “I’m going to stand right here knocking until you open the door and talk to me.”

  She opened it a moment later and looked up at him. Her mouth worked furiously, as if she was holding back tears. Instantly he knew she was still hurt by what she’d thought she’d seen. “Kathy,” he said, and slipped inside before she could bar his entry, “I know what that looked like, but it was perfectly innocent. You know that now.”

  “Yes,” she said quietly, looking from him to Maegan and back again. Then she sniffed and lifted her chin. “I know that now.”

  “So tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “I told you I needed some time alone.”

  “Time alone isn’t going to fix this. We need to talk about it.”

  She inhaled sharply and blew air out in a rush. “I know you want to talk…”

  “But?” he asked, hearing her unspoken hesitation and bracing for the worst.

  “But it doesn’t matter,” she said.

  “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?” His grip on Maegan tightened, and the baby squirmed against him in protest.

  “Talking won’t change anything,” she said tightly.

  “Won’t change what?” he forced himself to ask, despite having the decided feeling that he wasn’t going to like what she had to say.

  “This just isn’t going to work,” she muttered, more to herself than to him. “I really thought it would, but it won’t. Can’t.”

  Keeping his gaze fixed on her wounded eyes, Brian asked bluntly, “What are you trying to say?”

  “The only thing I can say. The wedding’s off, Brian,” she said, and he felt each of her words hit him with the impact of a bullet.

  Twelve

  “Are you out of your mind?” he demanded in a bellow just below the noise level of an air-raid siren.

  She shook her head fiercely. “Shouting at me won’t change my mind.”

  “What will?” Brian ground out stiffly.

  “Nothing,” she said, and walked past him into the center of the apartment. Wrapping her arms around herself, she held on tightly and looked at him. She seemed so…lost his heart ached for her. The warm, cozy familiarity of the apartment was almost mocking him now. There was no warmth here anymore. Just one man fighting to hold on to the woman who’d come to mean so much to him.

  “I was wrong,” she said, and her voice shook slightly. She bit down on her bottom lip. “I thought if I pretended our marriage wasn’t real, I could avoid being hurt. Now I know differently.”

  “Kathy,” he said, and took two steps closer to her. She shook her head wildly and backed up a pace to keep him at a distance. Renewed pain and frustration sliced at him. “What you saw was nothing.”

  “It doesn’t matter, don’t you see?”

  “No,” he said abruptly. “I don’t.”

  “When I saw you and Donna…together…I knew. I knew that, pretend marriage or not,” she said as a single tear rolled down her cheek, “if you cheated on me, or left me, I’d be devastated.”

  “If? You’re willing to throw away what we have on an if?” This couldn’t be happening, he told himself. She was a smart woman. She wouldn’t do this. No matter what her childhood had been like.

  “I have to. I won’t put myself—or you and Maegan—through the kind of pain a divorce brings. I just won’t.” As hard as this was, and she felt as though her heart was actually splintering in her chest, Kathy knew it was easier than what they might face in the future. If she had married him, built a life with him and then lost it, it would have killed her. Right now, she was maimed. But she would survive, darn it.

  Maegan, reacting to the emotions coloring the air, reached out both arms to her, and what was left of Kathy’s heart dissolved. God, she was losing everything. Brian. Maegan. And the fleeting hope of a family.

  Instinctively she went to him and plucked the baby from his arms. Cuddling her close, she cooed soft words and snatches of half-remembered melodies in an effort to soothe both Maegan and herself. It wasn’t working.

  Teary-eyed, she looked up at Brian. Seeing the devastation in his eyes almost convinced her to change her mind. But she strengthened her resolve. Best to end it now before they were both in it so deep there would be no living through the pain of an ending.

  “I think it would be better,” she said brokenly, “if we just didn’t see each other anymore.”

  “Just like that,” he said, and she heard the tightly leashed fury in his voice.

  “It’ll be easier on all of us,” Kathy said even though she knew that nothing about this was easy. “Maybe your friend Donna will watch Maegan for you until you can find someone else.”

  “Yeah,” he said, and Kathy risked another glance at him. His features were hard, and she finally saw him as the professional warrior she knew him to be. “She probably will.”

  She nodded, though her heart was breaking. Some other woman would be loving her baby. Someone else would watch her smiles, dry her tears and see all the little miracles she would perform while growing up.

  And someday, she thought, though her mind fought against going there, some other woman would lie in the shelter of Brian’s arms and find the magic she’d discovered such a short time ago.

  Oh, God, could a person live with a shattered heart?

  Giving the baby a kiss, Kathy whispered, “Goodbye, sweetheart,” before she could give in to the urge to grab on to Brian and hang on. Then she handed her back to her father. Kathy’s arms had never felt emptier. She’d never felt so cold.

  “Okay, I’ll go,” Brian said, “because I can see that talking to you now isn’t going to do a damn bit of good.”

  She nodded gratefully.

  “But before I go, there’s a few things you ought to know.” Patting the baby’s back gently, he straightened up to his full, imposing height and looked down at Kathy through eyes so icy it was a wonder she didn’t get frostbite. “You say you’re doing all this because I might cheat. Hurt you.”

  Kathy swallowed hard and kept her gaze locked with his. “Yes.”

  “Lady, when I make a promise, I keep it. My word means something to me.” He took a step closer, and Kathy felt anger and disappointment and frustration pouring from him in cold waves. “If I swear to be faithful to you, then, by damn, I’m faithful. But saying it doesn’t mean squat if you can’t trust me.”

  “That’s not what this is about,” she interrupted.

  His eyes flashed. “That’s exactly what this is about.” Shock roared through him, and Brian took a tight rein on the temper boiling inside. The woman he loved was throwing away everything they’d found together because of what might go wrong years down the line. And there didn’t seem to be a damn thing he could do about it.

  Well, screw it. At least he’d go down fighting.

  “Y’know something, Kathy?” he asked. “You’re a coward.”

  She hiccuped. “What?”

  “A coward. You’re hiding from what we might have because you don’t want to take the risk of being hurt.” He sucked in a deep gulp of air, kept one hand on Maegan’s back and continued. “Well, welcome to the world, honey. Everybody gets hurt from time to time. That’s part of living. And if you’re not taking risks, then you’re not living.” Shaking
his head, he added, “Ignoring love doesn’t mean it’s not there. It just means you’re missing the best parts of life.”

  She didn’t say anything, just stared up at him through those brown eyes he knew would be haunting him.

  Hopeless, he thought. This was all hopeless. Turning around, he headed for the door, but when he got there, he stopped and looked back at her. “You know, I’ve been avoiding saying something that I should have said the first time I laid eyes on you.”

  “Brian…” She shook her head as if she could stop him from uttering the words. She couldn’t.

  “I love you, damn it.” He stabbed his index finger in the air, pointing at her. “And you love me.”

  “It’s not about love.”

  “Of course it is,” he said on a choked-off snort of derision. “And here’s something else for you to chew on when you think about all this. You’re feeling like this only because of the way you grew up.”

  She stiffened.

  “Well, I can’t do anything about the hurts you had as a kid, but I want you to know something. I admire your mother.”

  “What?”

  She looked completely confused now, so Brian cleared it up for her.

  “That’s right. I admire her. Because no matter how many times she’s been disappointed by love, she’s never stopped looking for it.” His voice dropped to a low, husky note as he added, “And, honey, that’s a better way to live than hiding from love entirely.”

  Then he was gone and Kathy was alone again.

  “Man,” Jack Harris snapped, “if you don’t lighten up I’m going to see what I can do about arranging a firing squad.”

  Lighten up? Brian felt as if he was drowning in a sea of darkness. He hadn’t seen Kathy since she’d called off their wedding, hoping that their separation might work in his favor. But apparently, she was made of sterner stuff than he was. Because although missing her was driving him nuts, she hadn’t cracked.

  “Her mother’s wedding’s tomorrow,” Brian said as he continued to pace the tiny confines of their office. “Hell, we were supposed to get married tomorrow.”

  “So?”

  Brian shot the other man a glare that should have fried him. “So?”

  “So, what are you gonna do about it?” Jack leaned back in his chair and looked at him.

  “I’ll tell you what I want to do.”

  “Besides punch me, you mean?”

  Not just Jack, he thought. He wanted to punch walls, faces, doors. Anything. But there was something else he wanted far more.

  “Yeah. I want to fly to Vegas, hog-tie her and force her to marry me.”

  “Ahh. A plan destined to win any woman’s heart.”

  “I’ve already got her heart, damn it,” Brian said furiously. It was driving him nuts knowing that she loved him and still wouldn’t marry him.

  “Then it seems to me something drastic is called for.”

  “Like?”

  “Well,” Jack said, a smug smile on his face, “when Donna tried to leave me, I followed her to the airport and carried her back home where she belonged.”

  Brian remembered. Their fellow marines had teased Jack unmercifully, calling him “my hero” for weeks. But Jack hadn’t cared. He had Donna and that’s all he’d been interested in. “But you were already married.”

  He shrugged. “Vegas is full of chapels.”

  “Yeah,” Brian said softly, thinking fondly of the idea. “Maybe what I have to do here is order a full-frontal assault on her defenses.”

  “So you’re not ready to call strike three?” Jack asked, hiding a smile. “The guys will be disappointed.”

  “Strike three?” Brian grinned for the first time in days. “Hell, boy, I’m about to smack a grand slam!” Then he headed for the door.

  Behind him, he heard Jack holler, “Ooh-rah!”

  Kathy hadn’t known there was that much pain in the world. A dull, throbbing ache in the spot where her heart used to be had been her constant companion the past few days. She missed Maegan desperately. And not having Brian in her life was pure torture.

  So what had she accomplished by cutting him out of her life? No future pain could be worse than what she was already suffering. Basically, in order to save herself pain, she’d given herself pain.

  Brilliant.

  “Oh, honey, I’m so glad you’re here,” her mother said, and Kathy forced her attentions back on the coming wedding.

  “Me, too, Mom.” Actually, Kathy thought as she looked at her mother, Spring looked different than she had at any of her other nuptials. The older woman was actually glowing in anticipation of reciting the vows she had to know by heart.

  “I know I’ve said this before,” Spring said ruefully, “but I really believe that this time it’s going to be different. This time it’s forever.” She shifted her gaze to watch her groom approach, and even Kathy could see the shine in her mother’s eyes.

  Frank Butler stopped alongside Spring, threaded her arm through his and looked at Kathy through kind eyes. “Your being here means a lot to your mother,” her about-to-be new stepfather said, “and to me.”

  “I wouldn’t have missed it,” Kathy said, and studied the man. Frank Butler wasn’t what she had expected. About sixty, he had a well-developed paunch, a hairline that had receded to the back of his head—and he looked at Spring as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world.

  Maybe it would be different this time, Kathy thought hopefully. Maybe her mom really had found happiness at last.

  As the couple took their places at the altar, Kathy stepped into a pew and watched, only half listening to the ceremony. Brian’s words kept echoing over and over again in her mind, and she finally acknowledged that he’d been right. About a lot of things.

  She was a coward. Her eyes teared as she watched her mom exchange rings with her new husband and realized with a start that, as Brian had said, Spring had never stopped looking for love. And wasn’t that a better way to live than actually finding love and throwing it away because you were afraid you might lose it?

  Here she sat, wearing the pretty ivory dress she’d picked as her wedding outfit. Kathy ran the flat of her hand over the lace-edged skirt and sighed. A wedding dress and no wedding. How depressing was that?

  Could the pain of turning your back on love be any less than losing it? Good heavens, her mother had spent her whole life looking for what Kathy had found and tossed aside.

  Her mind spinning, Kathy smiled at her mother as the newlyweds retreated down the aisle. She tried to follow them, but her feet wouldn’t move. She felt as though she was stuck in cement. Her gaze flitted over the tacky furnishings of the Love Me Tender Wedding Chapel, and all she could think was, If she hadn’t been so stupid, she and Brian would be standing at that altar right now.

  They’d have been a family. She would have been with the man she loved. She would have been a mother. She would have had everything she’d ever dreamed of. Instead she was alone and she had no one but herself to blame.

  Knees weak, brain racing, Kathy at last forced herself out of the pew and toward the exit. Somehow she’d find the words to congratulate her mother—and maybe even apologize for not understanding her before. Then, if it wasn’t too late, she’d go home and talk to Brian.

  Maybe he missed her as much as she missed him. Maybe he’d be willing to forgive her for being so stupid and hardheaded. And maybe she’d get a second chance.

  She stepped into the Vegas sunshine and blinked at the brightness. Before her eyes were used to the light, she walked smack into a familiar broad chest, and only a strong hand on her forearm kept her from falling.

  “Brian?” she whispered, half wondering if her broken heart had summoned up his image just to torture her.

  “This has gone on long enough,” he said in a growl that let her know immediately this was no vision.

  “It is you,” she said, and felt her heart begin to beat again for the first time since telling him goodbye.

  “Of
course it’s me,” he said, and when the baby gurgled, he added, “and Maegan.”

  “And Maegan,” Kathy repeated, feeling a bubble of laughter rise up inside her. She felt so light, so full of wonder and happiness she was amazed she didn’t simply float off the sidewalk.

  It didn’t matter to her why he was there. The important thing was he’d come.

  “Aren’t you going to ask why we’re here?” he demanded.

  If he wanted her to, okay by her.

  “Sure,” she said, grinning up at him. She couldn’t stop smiling. Didn’t want to stop smiling. “Why are you here?”

  He frowned at her and paused for a long moment. Apparently, he’d had his speech all worked out and she was throwing him a loop.

  “Kathy?” her mother said.

  “Mom, this is Brian Haley and his daughter, Maegan.” She never took her eyes off the tall marine in full uniform. “Brian, this is my mom, Spring, and my stepfather, Frank.”

  He glanced their way and said, “Nice to meet you, folks.” Then he handed Maegan to a surprised Spring. “Would you mind, ma’am.”

  “Not at all,” she said, and immediately jiggled the little girl while keeping her interested gaze fixed on her daughter and the marine.

  Brian set both hands on Kathy’s shoulders and pulled her so close that she was forced to tilt her head right back just to look at him. He’d been planning this speech for hours, but now that he was here, he knew the most important thing in the world was just to kiss her.

  Bending his head, he took her mouth in a deep, soul-searing kiss that branded her as completely as it did him. As if he was leaving his last mark on the earth, he gave her everything he had to give and tried to tell her without words just what she meant to him. And after a small eternity passed, he lifted his head and looked down into her dazed, brown eyes.

  “Oh, Brian…”

  “Nope,” he said quickly, interrupting her. “My turn to talk.”

  “But…” She smiled and Brian’s heart ached.