With Courage and Commitment

by Charlotte Maclay

  “Fortunately, the Paseo department’s only lost one man since it was founded, which is bad enough, of course.”

  “I know. Ray Gainer. Dad was desperately upset about that. He grieved as much as if he’d lost a son.”

  “That’s probably how he felt. Your dad’s as loyal to his men as they come.”

  From what she’d seen, she suspected Danny valued his friendships, too, at least with his men friends. Women seemed to provide more transient relationships for him, here one moment and gone the next. Stephanie didn’t want to fall into that latter category. She’d almost rather be one of his “buddies” and not risk her heart on a deeper attachment. The gamble wouldn’t be worth it.

  “I was a little surprised that Ray’s widow married another firefighter so soon after his death,” she commented, although not with disapproval.

  “Right, Logan Strong, the best cook at Station 6 and a confirmed bachelor, or so we thought until he popped the question to Janice.” His arms swung easily at his sides, his hands only inches from hers. “There was a rumor going around those wailing bagpipes he plays had finally damaged his brain.”

  “What an awful thing to say.” She aimed her elbow for his ribs but he dodged out the way, circling a liquid amber tree at the curb that was bright with its new spring leaves.

  “Yeah, I know.” He grinned at her. “Just kidding.”

  “My mother warned us girls about marrying a firefighter. Can’t believe Janice would do it twice, but then Logan is probably the exception to the rule.”

  “And I’m not?”

  She eyed him with a haughty lift of her brows. “I suspect you’re exactly the sort of man my mother was talking about.” Which would be true whether he wore a firefighter’s uniform or a business suit. He was simply too easy on the eyes, too much of a flirt, to be trusted with a woman’s heart.

  “Hey, I thought your parents were happy together.”

  “They were. It broke Dad’s heart when she died of cancer. But that didn’t mean my mother hadn’t spent half her life worried about him.”

  “Ironic, isn’t it, that your sister married a guy in Special Forces? That’s got to be ten times more dangerous than fighting fires.”

  “Karen always was a bit of a rebel.”

  It was his turn to shoot his eyebrows up. “And you’re not?”

  Of course she was. Why else had she moved away from Paseo and sought a career and a little excitement in San Francisco? And look at the mess that had gotten her into. Maybe a few sleepless nights concerned about a husband’s safety was a decent trade-off.

  “Rebellion isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” she mumbled.

  They walked to the next corner then turned onto their street. Stephanie checked her watch and broke into a jog toward home. “I’ve gotta dash or I won’t get my shower before it’s time for me to leave for school.”

  Danny matched her stride for stride. “Hey, no jogging. You’ll jiggle the baby.”

  “The baby’s fine. She likes a bumpy ride.”

  “If you say so.” They reached her driveway, and he slowed to a stop while she veered down the driveway toward the back door. “I’ll pick you up about seven for the childbirth class.”

  She groaned. Maybe there would be a huge wildfire and all the off-duty firefighters would be called in to work. Which would leave Stephanie the only one in class without a partner.

  She didn’t know which thought was more demoralizing—being alone for something that should be a shared activity or having Danny touch her and not being able to touch him back.

  THE HOSPITAL PARKING LOT was crammed with cars and a stream of visitors carried bouquets of flowers or stuffed animals toward the main entrance of the two-story structure.

  As Danny whipped into a slot just vacated by an old pickup truck, he smiled, picturing himself bringing flowers for Stephanie and delivering a giant teddy bear for her baby. Or maybe he should get the kid a huge doll.

  Hell, he didn’t know what kind of present a baby would like. He’d never in his life bought anything for a female under the age of twenty, and then not often, he admitted. He didn’t know squat about bottles or diapers. Hadn’t particularly wanted to. He was the last person on earth who should go near a prenatal class.

  He switched off the ignition and sighed.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” Stephanie said. “I can wait till Dad’s back home and start the next class.”

  “Not to worry. The firefighter’s creed is to serve.” He popped open his door, got out and hurried around to her side of the SUV, but she didn’t wait for his help. Too darn independent for that. “You know where we’re supposed to go?”

  “The education wing. After we check in, they’ll probably give us a tour of the maternity ward.”

  “Great.” Instinctively he took her arm to usher her between the parked cars. The night air was cool, and she was wearing a bright yellow sweater in a soft nubby knit and dark slacks. He didn’t touch her often but when he did, like now, an electric current hummed through his fingertips as though he’d grazed a live wire. She was one potent lady, although he didn’t think she realized that was the case.

  The automatic doors swished open for them and they entered the lobby. Upholstered chairs were scattered in conversational groupings between mock-marble columns. Two older women in pink volunteer jackets worked at an information booth in the center of the room. They smiled at Danny but Stephanie seemed to know where she was going, leading them down a corridor to the left.

  “You’ve been here before?” Danny asked.

  “More times than I care to remember—when mother was sick. They have support groups for cancer patients and their families.”

  Those couldn’t be happy memories.

  They made a turn into a new hallway, and Danny almost bumped into a nurse hurrying the opposite way.

  “Hey, Addy,” he said, immediately recognizing her from the various trips he or his fellow firefighters had made to the hospital. “What’s happening, sweetheart? Are things so slow in the emergency room you have to round up your own patients?”

  “Don’t I wish, hon.” She laughed warmly and glanced at Stephanie then back to Danny. “What brings you here?”

  “Childbirth class.”

  Registering surprise, she dropped her gaze to Stephanie’s midsection. “Well, congratulations. To both of you. I hadn’t heard—”

  “What did I tell you?” Stephanie said. She shrugged. “You explain it this time. I’m going to find the classroom.”

  “No, wait.” He reached out to snare her arm but she was too quick for him.

  “Oops, did I say something wrong?” Addy asked.

  “No, everything’s cool.” He watched Stephanie striding down the hallway, her back as stiff as a pole. “I’m not the baby’s father, though.”

  “Hmm, interesting.” She got a curious twinkle in her eyes. “You’re just filling in?”

  “Something like that.” Stephanie vanished through a door. “Look, I gotta go. Good to see you, Addy.”

  “Take care,” she called after him.

  He barely heard her, already at the door to the classroom. He scooted past the volunteer checking couples in at the desk and found Stephanie seated at a conference table toward the back of the room.

  He slid into the molded-plastic chair beside her. “Why’d you take off so fast?”

  “So you could be alone with your girlfriend while you explained—”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “No?” Stephanie cocked her brows. “You called her sweetheart.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. I call all the girls…well, that’s not the point. She’s the emergency room nurse on the swing shift. All the guys at the station know her. She’s the one who stitches us together if we get banged up.”

  Stephanie’s expression relented—marginally. “She called you hon.”

  “That’s what she calls everyone, probably because she can’t remember all our names
.”

  “Are you saying you’ve never dated her?”

  Unwilling to lie, he swallowed hard. Almost every man in the department had dated Addy at one point or another. She was a lot of fun to be with, almost one of the guys. But he’d never been serious about her. “A couple of beers, maybe. In a crowd. With the guys, you know? It was no big deal.”

  She humphed. “I wonder if that’s how she felt about it. She certainly gave you an appreciative once over before she figured out I was pregnant.”

  “Aw, come on—”

  “Good evening, moms-and-dads-to-be and coaches.” A middle-aged woman in a floral-print medical jacket had taken center stage in front of the classroom. “I’m Maureen Truelove.” She smiled in a self-effacing way. “Typecast from the day I was born, I’m afraid. Welcome to Paseo Community Hospital’s expectant parent class.”

  “Look, Stephanie, I don’t think you ought to—”

  “Shh. I want to listen to this even if you don’t.” She shifted in her chair a quarter turn away from him, giving him the cold shoulder and a view of her aristocratic neck.

  Damn! How did he get himself into this mess anyway? Sure, he owed Harlan Gray a lot. And he liked Stephanie more than he should. But he didn’t belong here with her. Some other guy, the one she loved, should be sitting beside her. Caring about her. Concerned about her health, her well being and that of the baby they’d created together.

  Danny knew darn well if she were carrying his baby no one could have kept him away from this class. Or Stephanie. No matter how scary the prospect of being a father might be.

  Glancing around the room, he saw lots of telling body language going on. Couples holding hands. Leaning toward each other. Guys wrapping their arms around their woman’s shoulders.

  Meanwhile, he and Stephanie were like opposite poles of a magnet—resisting each other. How the hell would he be able to help her when it came time to deliver the baby if she didn’t let him get close to her?

  Despite the air-conditioned room, sweat began to creep down his spine. He didn’t want to fail her.

  “HOW LONG IS THE AVERAGE labor?” one of the young women in the class asked as the class was touring the facilities.

  “That varies so widely it’s impossible to say,” Maureen responded. She stood near the head of an ordinary-looking bed in the labor room talking to the eight couples that had squeezed into the room. The scent of antiseptic mixed with the sweeter perfume worn by one of the expectant mothers.

  “My sister took twenty hours to deliver her first baby.”

  “For a first-time mother, that’s not unusual. And remember some labors go much more quickly and some actually take longer. Either way, the delivery can be perfectly normal.”

  The group groaned in unison, not a woman in the class eager to consider a labor that went longer than twenty hours.

  As the nurse continued to explain the process and the equipment available in the room, Stephanie became increasingly aware of Danny standing directly behind her. He was so close, she felt the heat of his body, the soft current of his breath warm across her neck. Other couples were standing with the husband’s arms wrapped around his wife. A part of her—a feminine, needy part—wanted Danny to do the same.

  Her good sense told her it would be better if he would step away. But there was nowhere for him to go. He was backed up against the couch where a husband or delivery coach could take a nap if the hours went on too long.

  She couldn’t move, either, not without shoving the couple who stood in front of her out of the way.

  So she gritted her teeth and endured the unwelcome heat of desire curling through her midsection, trying not to imagine Danny making love to her.

  “All right,” Maureen said. “Let’s step outside and turn to our right. We’ll take a look at an actual delivery room, unless they’re all occupied.”

  The delivery room looked more foreign than the labor room. More intimidating and medical.

  With Danny practically joined at her hip now and making her so nervous, she wondered how she’d manage the greater intimacy of delivering a baby with him at her side. Of course, she wouldn’t be thinking about having sex with him when the time came—a topic which seemed to be very much on her mind at the moment.

  Still she couldn’t imagine any situation that made a woman more vulnerable than giving birth. Danny would recognize her fear. See her weakness. She wouldn’t be able to hide behind the screen of witty comebacks that she used to cover her real feelings.

  Her only hope was to ask the doctor to knock her out early in the process so she wouldn’t embarrass herself by crying and carrying on like a baby in front of Danny.

  The tour finally led them to the nursery where the couples pressed their faces to the glass, oohing and aahing over the newborn babies.

  At the sight of a set of twins snuggled together in their shared bassinet, wrapped tightly in their blankets, emotion crowded into Stephanie’s throat.

  “Oh, Danny, look at the twins. Aren’t they precious?”

  “They’re so small.” The note of awe in his voice matched her own wonder.

  “But everything’s so perfect. Their tiny ears. Their little mouths.” The emotion welled up, pressing tears to the back of her eyes. A silent sob shook her shoulders.

  “Hey, Twigs, take it easy.” As if he knew exactly what she wanted, he slid his arms around her middle and pulled her back against him, resting his cheek against her head. He cocooned her away from the other couples, whispering in her ear, “Your baby will be perfect, too.”

  “I know. They’re just so beautiful and I’m…I’m so scared.”

  “Shh. You don’t have to be. I’ll be there with you every minute. I promise.”

  Trying to calm herself, to find some emotional distance, she drew a shuddering breath. “Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of, that you’ll be there laughing at me.”

  “Not a chance. I’ll be too scared myself to give anyone a hard time. Hell, I’ll be lucky if I don’t pass out at the first sight of blood.”

  “You wouldn’t,” she gasped. That possibility was shocking. Danny was the most macho man she’d ever known. He’d never pass out like an ordinary mortal might.

  “I could. Those darn training films they show of a woman giving birth in the back seat of a car always make me sick to my stomach. You watch, you’ll be the one giving me smelling salts before this whole thing is over.”

  She almost laughed out loud. The image of her getting up from the delivery table to resurrect Danny after he’d fainted was so absurd it stretched credibility. And it was just what she’d needed to hear. He wasn’t perfect, and he was scared, too.

  “If you faint while I’m in the middle of labor,” she chided him, “I’ll never let you live it down.”

  “Great. Now you’ve turned this whole ordeal into a challenge, and you know I can’t resist a challenge.”

  Turning her face, she brushed a kiss to his cheek. “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “For making me feel like I’m not such a wimp.” Looking into his bright blue eyes, she recognized it had been far too easy to fall in love with Danny and the most foolish thing she’d ever done in her life. It had happened while she wasn’t looking. Blindsided her. And now, despite how unwise it might be, her loving Danny was a fait accompli. She couldn’t turn back the clock.

  Why couldn’t a woman lead with her head instead of her heart?

  MAKING IT THROUGH the firefighting academy didn’t compare to the intensity of this ordeal, and things had just gotten worse.

  The instructor had organized the couples with the men straddle-legged sitting behind their ladies, everybody on big, oversize pillows. Stephanie was cuddled up to Danny close enough for him to catch the scent of her shampoo. Violets, he thought, soft and sweet, as innocent as a spring day. But he wasn’t feeling the least bit innocent at the moment.

  “We’re going to do a few relaxation exercises,” Maureen announced, “and then we’ll be done for
this session. But don’t forget to take along the handouts you received.”

  Danny wasn’t sure he wanted to read any more about pregnancy and delivery. It was hard enough he’d had to confess he’d probably pass out at the critical moment. Some coach he was going to make.

  “A woman experiences a lot of aches and pains during pregnancy,” the nurse explained. “Her body is changing, muscles are stretching. Even her joints loosen as she prepares for delivery. Relaxation at every stage is critically important.” She glanced around the room at her students. “And I’ll give you a clue, gentlemen. Fifteen years from now when your wife is coping with an adolescent, these exercises will be even more welcome.”

  The couples tittered.

  Danny didn’t. It wasn’t likely he’d be around Stephanie long enough to see her baby become a teenager.

  The hell of it was that bothered him. More than it should.

  “First, gentlemen, let’s work on your partner’s neck muscles.” Maureen strolled around the room, moving among the couples, smiling and offering encouragement. “I want you to take your fingertips and massage from the top of her head down to her shoulders. Make your movements steady and firm as though you want to shove all that unwanted tension away. And, moms, I want you to close your eyes and think of something pleasant—a pretty sunset or a sailboat on the ocean. And breathe slowly.”

  Danny did as instructed. In response, he heard Stephanie’s soft moan of pleasure. Each time he did the exercise, her tension eased while his built to an uncomfortable level. He’d never touched her in this way, caressing her, measuring the silky texture of her hair, discovering the warmth of her flesh beneath his fingertips.

  Following the teacher’s directions, he moved his hands to her shoulders, kneading along her spine with his thumbs, aware that she was pliant and vulnerable to his touch. The ache that had begun hours ago grew more insistent behind the zipper of his jeans. A sheen of sweat dampened his forehead.

  How long did the teacher expect him to keep this up without embarrassing both himself and Stephanie?

  Stephanie’s head lolled forward when Danny began massaging the small of her back. Her spine curved to an elegant arch, allowing him to explore the delicate shape of each vertebra with his fingertips, yet the thickness of her sweater frustrated his efforts. He wanted his hands on her. Skin to skin. All over her.