He closed his eyes to everything, determined not to torture himself unnecessarily. He didn’t begrudge them their moments of joy. Blast it, he would have liked to be a part of it himself.
Shifting his duffel bag to his other shoulder, he continued to weave his way through the noisy crowd. In the distance he heard the base band strike up a tune, but he wasn’t really listening. He slowed his steps, deliberately putting off the time when he would have to enter his empty quarters.
An aching loneliness settled in the pit of his stomach. What if he couldn’t convince Elizabeth to marry him? What if he lost her and the child he already loved? He didn’t know if he would be able to stand that kind of pain.
“Hey, Hard Case,” someone close by shouted and he half turned to see Staff Sergeant Jack Macguire running up to him, hand outstretched. Grabbing Harding’s right hand, Jack pumped it wildly for a minute before saying, “Congratulations, you old Devil Dog! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” Harding asked, but his question went unanswered as Jack spun around and raced back to his wife’s impatient arms. He stared after his friend and mumbled, “Now what was that all about?”
Shaking his head, Harding started walking again. As he did, the crowd drifted away until he was looking directly at a lone woman standing at the edge of the tarmac. Her hair was longer than he remembered, but the lovely features, he recognized. Elizabeth. His gaze shifted to the sign she held in front of her. It read simply, “I love you.”
Harding swallowed back a sudden, rushing tide of hope inside him. Dodging around his fellow Marines, he kept his gaze locked with hers as he made his way toward her, desperately afraid that she would disappear before he reached her side.
She was here. Waiting for him. Surely that meant something. He felt a grin blossom on his face and didn’t even bother trying to hide it. As he came closer, he dropped his duffel bag to the ground and stopped just inches away from her.
“You’re here,” he said softly, and wished all of the people, and most especially the blasted band, away.
“I had to be here,” she whispered, meeting his gaze squarely. “I love you.”
Something lodged in his throat, but he spoke around it. “I love you, Elizabeth. I always have.”
“I know that now,” she told him. “I can see it in your eyes. That’s why I had to come.”
He sucked in a gulp of air and risked everything he had ever wanted on one question. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she said quickly, tears spilling from her eyes and coursing unchecked down her cheeks.
“Ooo-rah!” Harding shouted and laughed all at once, feeling months of worry and fear fall from his shoulders like an unwanted blanket. He reached for her, but Elizabeth was still clutching that sign of hers and showed no intention of letting it drop. “Honey,” he said with a smile, “to get the kind of kiss we both need, you’re gonna have to let go of that so we can move in close.”
Grimacing slightly, she lowered the posterboard to reveal a very pregnant body. “I’m afraid close is a relative term, Harding.”
Stunned, he stared at the mound of their child for a long minute before gently laying his palm atop it. She covered his hand with one of hers. The baby gave a solid kick, and Harding’s eyes widened in disbelief. Finally, after too many years alone, he at last knew what it was to have a family.
“I’m fat,” she whined with a half smile.
“Uh-uh, lady,” he whispered as he bent to claim her lips, “you’re gorgeous.”
He tasted her tears and swallowed them, knowing them as the blessing they were. Love rose up around them as surely as the mounting applause from the surrounding soldiers and their families. Harding didn’t care who was watching. Everything he had ever wanted was right there, held tight to his heart.
And he would never let them go.
Epilogue
Three months later.
“Ah, sweetheart,” Harding whispered as he brushed her damp hair back off her forehead. “I swear to you, I’m going in for a vasectomy today.”
Despite the pain, Elizabeth laughed and held his hand tightly. “Don’t you dare,” she told him. “I don’t want junior to be an only child.”
Eyes wild, he bent, kissed her forehead, then looked at her like she was crazy. “How can you even think about another baby now?”
The crushing pain ebbed slightly, and she lifted her gaze to her harried husband’s worried features. God, how she loved him. Every day she gave thanks for whatever fates had brought them together.
“Don’t worry so much, Harding,” she said, then gasped as the next pain rushed at her, “I’m not the first woman to have a baby.”
Whatever he might have said was lost as the doctor announced, “All right, everybody, it’s showtime! Harding, get behind your wife and prop her up.”
As he moved to follow orders, Harding brushed a kiss on the top of her head and whispered, “I love you.”
“Me, too,” she said, concentrating entirely on the task at hand.
“Here we go, Elizabeth, bear down.”
She did and in minutes, her son had entered the world, screaming his displeasure. Breathing deeply, Elizabeth lay back down and watched the doctor lift her baby so that she could get a good look at him before handing the newborn to his father.
Harding held the squirming infant confidently, as he did everything in his life. She smiled gently as she watched her bear of a Marine tenderly inspect his child with a loving touch and a soothing whisper of sound. At last he looked at her, his blue eyes brimming with unshed tears, his face touched with a smile of wonder.
“He’s beautiful, Elizabeth,” he said, and gently laid their son in the crook of his mother’s arm. Bending protectively over them, he planted a quick, gentle kiss at the corner of her mouth. “Thank you,” he said in a tone meant only for her to hear. “Thank you for bringing me to life.”
She reached up and caressed his cheek, wiping away a stray tear with her fingertips. Smiling up at him, she said, “I love you, Harding.” Then she winked and promised, “And don’t worry. I won’t tell your little Marine friends that their ‘Hard Case’ should really be called ‘Soft Touch.’”
THE OLDEST LIVING MARRIED VIRGIN
Maureen Child
To Jill Shalvis,
friend and fellow writer,
for long talks over cold plots,
shared laughter and huge
phone bills.
See you in Tahoe!
One
“Just let me die,” Donna Candello muttered as she rolled onto her right side, opened her eyes, then closed them. A helpless moan trickled from her throat.
Sunlight came pouring into the hotel room through floor-to-ceiling windows. Why hadn’t she closed the drapes the night before? Good Lord, what a hideous thing to wake up to. Especially when her head was pounding with the mother of all hangovers.
Opening her eyes, she tried to get used to the golden light splashing across the industrial-gray carpet and the impersonal furniture. When her head didn’t explode, she sighed and lifted one hand to push her black hair back from her face.
Lord, what a night.
From now on she would definitely eat something before trying to find courage at the bottom of a pitcher of margaritas. Heck, the only thing she’d eaten yesterday was the rock salt rimming her glass.
She made a face and licked dry lips with her thick, cottony tongue. Bracing both hands on the mattress, she pushed herself into a sitting position and watched as the world rocked, tilted, then thankfully righted itself.
Absently she noted the loud buzzing in her head and hoped it would wear off soon.
The blanket pooled at her waist and she glanced down to see she was still wearing her bra and panties. But then, the condition she’d been in last night, she was lucky she had remembered to take off her shoes before climbing into bed.
Heck, she had been lucky to find her room.
Suddenly a twinge of memory tugged at th
e corner of her mind, as persistent and nagging as the continued buzzing in her ears. Concentrating, Donna seemed to remember a very nice security guard in a dark blue uniform escorting her upstairs. Without his help, she probably never would have made it.
Too bad she couldn’t remember his name or face. She owed him a big thank-you.
Abruptly the buzzing noise stopped. Before she could thank whatever gods were responsible, though, she heard the distinct sound of a man softly singing. And the sound was coming from behind the closed door of what she guessed was the bathroom.
Good Lord, that was no buzz she’d been hearing. It had been the shower.
Frantically, she tried to put a face to the voice of the man in the other room. But what was left of her brain drew a complete blank.
Dear Lord, she prayed silently, please don’t let this be what it looked like. Please don’t let her have been so drunk she’d slept with a man she couldn’t even remember.
Briefly she cupped her face in her palms, trying to block out the man’s voice. But she couldn’t. Perfect, she said to herself, letting her hands fall to her lap. She’d gone from being the world’s oldest living virgin to a one-night stand in one drunken night.
Well, she wasn’t just going to sit here to wait for whoever he was to step out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a smile.
Casting a wary glance at the still-closed door, Donna edged clumsily off the bed and staggered to her feet. Spinning and swaying, the walls and furniture twisted and writhed like the characters in a Salvador Dali print.
Her stomach lurched and she clamped one hand over her mouth. Maybe it would be easier to just stay to face the no-good fink, she thought, then disregarded the notion entirely. She’d never had any experience with morning-after conversations before. And it wouldn’t be fair to expect too much from herself while in the grips of a hangover.
Still, she briefly entertained the idea of jumping back into the bed and hiding under the covers. No, that wouldn’t work.
She dropped to her knees beside the bed. Tossing her hair out of bloodshot eyes, she told herself to be calm. To think. To remember. Who was in her room? But it was no use. The night before was one long, foggy blank. Heck, she couldn’t even remember registering at the hotel to get a room.
Donna inhaled sharply. Good God. If she didn’t have a room, then whose room was she in?
Briefly she let her head drop to the rumpled sheets. Muttering into the mattress, she whispered, “What did you do, Donna? And who did you do it with?”
Abruptly the man in the bathroom stopped singing.
Donna looked up. She was trapped. Half-dressed, in a hotel where most of the guests were marines and their families, in town to celebrate the birthday of the Corps. Even if she made a break for the door, she was sure to run into people she knew. People her father knew. And some of those folks would be delighted to be able to spread gossip about Donna Candello running around half-dressed through one of the biggest hotels in Laughlin, Nevada.
She groaned at the thought and told herself there had to be a way to salvage this situation. If only her brain wasn’t still hazy with lingering traces of too many margaritas.
How would she ever face her father?
How would she ever be able to look herself in the mirror again?
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she moaned, slamming her forehead into the mattress to punctuate each word.
The doorknob turned.
Donna looked up, frantic. Black hair fell across her eyes. She squinted as the door opened slowly. The only thing missing, she thought, was the telltale horror movie music—to let the audience know that the dummy heroine was about to meet her maker.
The man in the open doorway didn’t look like your typical villain. But hadn’t she read somewhere that most serial killers looked like the boy next door?
In the next instant she realized that this guy didn’t match that description, either. She reached up, pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked into a disapproving gray stare. Dressed only in a pair of faded blue jeans, his feet and chest bare, he looked perfectly at ease. Except for those eyes of his.
“So, you’re finally awake,” he said.
“Who are you?” Her voice sounded creaky.
“Jack Harris,” he told her, flipping the hand towel he held across one shoulder. Then he crossed his arms over an incredibly wide, muscular chest and leaned negligently against the doorjamb. “Like I told you last night.”
Harris. Harris, she repeated mentally. Why did that name sound familiar? She silently vowed to never again visit a friendly bartender as a therapist.
Trying to recover some of her dignity, which wasn’t easy in her bra and panties, Donna stood, telling herself that she wore less clothing on the beach. There was no reason to feel self-conscious. Still, she folded her arms over her breasts, each hand gripping a bare shoulder.
Clearing her throat, she admitted, “I’m afraid I don’t really remember much about last night.”
He snorted.
Her eyebrows arched.
“Not surprising,” he said tightly. “You could hardly stand up by the time I found you.”
“Which was when exactly?” she asked, throwing dignity to the wind. She wanted to know what happened.
“About twenty-two thirty hours last night. Trying to get into the Battalion Ball through the emergency exit.”
Oh, Lord.
“I stopped you just before the alarm could go off.”
Dimly, she thought she recalled standing in the darkness, tugging and yanking at a door that had stubbornly refused to budge.
Oh, this just kept getting better.
Unconsciously, she lifted one hand from her shoulder to rub at an aching throb settling just between her eyebrows. “Look, Mr. Harris—”
“First Sergeant Harris,” he amended.
First Sergeant Harris. Of course. That’s how she knew the name. Not a serial killer. Worse.
A marine.
Donna stared at him, horrified at the implications of having spent the night in his room. No, surely she hadn’t been drunk enough to— She cut that thought off at the pass, turned around and plunked onto the edge of the bed.
But wouldn’t that be truly ironic? The last living twenty-eight-year-old virgin finally does the deed and is too drunk to remember it?
What an idiot she was!
Shaking her head carefully, Donna muttered more to herself than him. “I don’t remember much from last night, First Sergeant.”
“Like I said,” he remarked, “I’m not surprised.”
She ignored his sarcasm. She was in no shape to fire back. “I do remember a security guard bringing me here. But I don’t remember your arrival.”
Shaking his head, Jack Harris straightened, threw his towel back into the bathroom, then stalked across the room to a closet. Opening it up, he talked as he pulled out her dress and a pale green polo shirt for himself.
She frowned slightly. Where did all of the men’s clothes come from?
“A security guard?” he asked, tossing a scooped-necked, floor-length, red velvet gown at her. “That’s what you remember?”
“Yes,” she snapped, grabbing the dress and holding it close to her body, luxuriating in the feel of something familiar. “And, I might add, he was decidedly more polite than you have been so far this morning.”
“That’s wonderful,” he muttered, and yanked his shirt over his head. She tried not to notice the play of muscles beneath his darkly tanned skin.
She was in enough trouble already. Besides, a great build didn’t make up for a nasty manner. What did he have to be cranky about? She was the one with the hangover here. She was the one who had lost her virginity to a man who only seemed vaguely familiar.
She scowled to herself. Just what did it say about this guy, anyway? Did he usually lurk around hotels hoping to find a drunk woman he could take advantage of? Getting angrier by the minute, she realized he had probably felt as though he’d hit the jackpot when he’d d
iscovered she was a virgin!
Lifting her chin, and holding her dress in front of her like a shield, she said quite calmly, “I really think you should be going, Sergeant.”
“First Sergeant.”
Like that mattered now.
“Fine. First Sergeant. It’s morning. You’re dressed. Why don’t you run along to your own room?”
He shoved the hem of his shirt into the waistband of his jeans. “You’re really something, you know that?”
“What a lovely thing to say,” she said stiffly, then winced as a sharp pain darted across her forehead. Groaning slightly, she added, “Do all of your women curl up their toes and swoon at that line?”
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
“My mistake. I thought you were striving toward politeness.”
“You expect ‘polite’ from a man who just spent the night sleeping on the floor because his bed was being used by a self-indulgent drunk?”
She jumped to her feet and knew immediately that it had been a mistake. Pain exploded behind her eyes. Her stomach pitched and Jack Harris seemed to fade in and out as her eyes desperately tried to focus.
Donna felt herself falling forward, but before she could hit the floor, he was there. Grabbing her, holding her close. The rock-hard strength of his chest seemed like the only stable point in her universe at the moment, so she held on as if it meant her life.
After a few terrifying seconds, it was over.
“Thank you,” she murmured and, almost regretfully, pushed away from him.
He nodded, watching her carefully as if he half expected her to keel over again.
“I’m all right,” she said.
The Littlest Marine & The Oldest Living Married Virgin Page 14
