Her Baby and Her Beau

by Victoria Pade

  Only a hint of the sunrise’s pale pink-and-orange glow came in through the nursery windows, casting just enough light for her to see his chiseled face and the scruff that shadowed his sculpted jawline as he gazed down at the baby and the bottle that his big hand dwarfed as he held it for her.

  Once more he had on only his sweatpants, leaving his feet and his upper half bare. Immy nestled comfortably against his lean abs, gently cradled in arms as thick as tree branches.

  And they looked so comfortable with each other. So accustomed to each other. So much as if they belonged together...

  But that kind of thinking was something she knew she shouldn’t indulge in, so she pushed away from the doorjamb and went the rest of the way into the nursery.

  That movement caught Beau’s attention and he looked up at her with those blue, blue eyes, taking her in from tousled hair to his T-shirt to bikini panties that peeked from under it to bare legs and feet.

  It would have been as easy to put on her dress again when she’d gotten out of bed—it was on the floor along with his T-shirt. And the dress would have been more concealing. Or she could have gone into her own bedroom for her robe.

  But it was his T-shirt that she’d wanted wrapped around her. The clean, soapy scent of him making her feel as if it was still him next to her skin.

  He smiled a smile that made her blood rush—full of warmth and appreciation and that devilishness he kept so well concealed most of the time.

  “You’re just who I wanted to see,” he whispered.

  “Oh, yeah?” she whispered back impishly as she came to stand near the rocking chair to peer down at Immy.

  Immy was so cute with her coppery curls and her chubby cheeks. Her eyes were closed as she finished her bottle, a tiny fist just under the side of her chin. Kyla couldn’t help reaching out to brush the baby’s brow, moving close enough to Beau for her leg to press against his, again making herself a part of what they were sharing.

  “I think she’s done,” Kyla whispered then, because Beau was looking at her and not at Immy. Then she reached for the bottle as he drew it out of Immy’s still-suckling mouth so he could raise the swaddled bundle to his shoulder to pat a burp out of her.

  It only took a minute and it was loud enough to make them both smile, then Beau lowered Immy again— apparently to see if she was sleeping.

  She was and he said, “Thank you, Immy,” as if he and the baby had made some kind of deal.

  Then he got up from the rocking chair and put her in the crib.

  “She goes back to sleep now?” Kyla asked.

  “Not always. But I was hoping she would today.”

  With Immy settled—and without another sound—he took Kyla’s hand to lead her out of the nursery.

  Following him she ogled the magnificence of his naked back, thinking that she knew what was on his mind and that the same thing was on hers—returning to his bed to make love yet again.

  But once they were in the master suite he didn’t go all the way to the bed. Instead he spun her around and loosely draped his arms around her, his hands clasped at the small of her back.

  “Marry me, Kyla,” he said, no longer whispering.

  Kyla laughed because he had to be kidding. “Sure,” she said facetiously.

  “I mean it.”

  There was something in his voice that confirmed that and sobered her.

  She frowned up at him in confusion. “What?”

  “I want you to marry me,” he said matter-of-factly. “I know I don’t have the civilian stuff under control yet and I need a better handle on it all, but I think I have a start and I know I’ll get there because I won’t let up on myself until I do.”

  He went on to tell her what had gone through his mind since he’d left her in bed.

  Some of it was wonderful and touched her and tempted her.

  But more of it pushed panic buttons in her.

  “When Seth said maybe I didn’t have to wait until I’m the perfect civilian to be happy,” he seemed to be concluding, “I blew it off, but—”

  “So being a civilian again is a hill you need to conquer and I’m the troops you want to command to do it,” she cut him off, translating what that had sounded like to her. “With what? Schedules and organization and timetables like you laid out when Immy and I first got here?”

  Even as the words flooded out of her she knew she wasn’t handling this well. But everything that made her worry about getting involved with him, everything she’d cautioned herself about, had flooded into her mind at once while he’d talked and it threw her off balance. So off balance that she eased out of his arms and took a few steps away from him as if distance was her only hope of regaining her equilibrium.

  “Well, yes and no,” he said, looking surprised by her response. “Getting used to being a civilian is something I need to conquer, and yeah, I like schedules and organization and the rest of that. I think we all need discipline and rules to follow. But was I figuring I’d be in command of you? That I’d be telling you what to do? No. In case you haven’t noticed, you don’t take orders all that well.”

  “So there would be a constant tug-of-war between us—that wouldn’t be good,” she argued.

  His brows dipped toward the bridge of his nose. “I don’t feel like we have a constant tug-of-war.”

  “But we’re different, Beau. A lot different. That’s what comes out of that. I’m not the way my parents were, but I’m more like them than like you—”

  “Who says we have to be alike? I think our differences even us out. You kick the starch out of me, and you said that after growing up the way you did you wanted a little structure—”

  “A little structure—”

  “And if I step over the line trying to put more in than you want, you stop me.”

  “But what does that mean? That we’ll have a whole life of me having to stop you from stepping over lines? My parents were fruitcakes in their own way, but they were the same kind of fruitcakes—they wanted the same things, had the same goals, the same dreams, they agreed on things, they were both okay with the way they lived. They were alike, so they never fought. I don’t think anyone has a chance of making it work if it means an entire future of struggling to find common ground—”

  “We might not be as alike as your parents were, Kyla, but we don’t struggle over everything, either. I think we’re pretty good at bringing our own strengths to the table and finding a compromise. Isn’t that better than the way your parents were together? Better than no one knowing when to put on the brakes or be responsible or take care of their kid or do the grocery shopping?”

  He was arguing with logic, but this had all thrown her and fear was her fuel.

  “I don’t know if it’s better or not,” she said. “But I do know that I can’t just be your underling—”

  He laughed with a hint of wickedness tingeing his own confusion. “There are some advantages to being under me some of the time,” he joked. But when he saw that she was in no way in a joking mood, he sobered again.

  “I can’t—I won’t—raise Immy in boot camp,” she said as if he wasn’t seeing her point of view.

  “And what would you do if I even unconsciously fell into doing that?” he asked, sounding rational and sensible.

  “I’d blow you right out of the water!” she threatened defensively.

  “Exactly. You wouldn’t let it go on and when you blew me out of the water it would open my eyes to what I was doing and I’d stop it. Because I agree with you—kids shouldn’t be raised like that. I promise you, Kyla, I’m not talking about being commander-in-chief here. I’m talking about a partnership. And I’ve never known you not to be able to hold your own with me—you have an independent streak that’s a mile wide. I admire that. I like it. I wouldn’t want you to change.”

  “But marriage sacrifices some of that independence. It’s risky...” And it would mean trusting him and a future with him.

  He must have read what she was thinking in her face
because he said, “I’m sorry you were hurt all those years ago, Kyla. I’m so damn sorry. But you weren’t wrong to believe in me then and you can trust me now.”

  “And what about then?” she demanded. “Is this coming from guilt about what happened when we were kids? Because you can’t base a lifetime on that, Beau. If you think you’re just stepping up a little late—”

  “Wow, you are spinning, aren’t you? I would do anything—anything—to wipe out what happened then. To change it. To have it to do over again. But none of that’s possible. And the only thing that then and now have to do with each other is that you’re who I fell in love with then, and who I’ve fallen in love with all over again. This isn’t about the past, it’s about the future. It’s about you and me, and me wanting you in my life.”

  He took a step to close some of the distance between them but still left her breathing room—as if he knew she needed it. He reached out to clasp her upper arms in those big hands as he said, “I love you, Kyla. I will do whatever it takes to make you happy because you make me happy. I will do whatever it takes to make this work now because I want it to work now, and not because of anything that came before. We were kids and that was first love and maybe that’s where what we have now is rooted, but the roots are only the beginning—this is more than that...so much more. And when it comes to Immy...”

  He shook his head as if in awe of his own feelings. “I love Immy, too,” he said. “I know she isn’t ours, but if my great-grandfather and your father hadn’t done what they did, a baby would have brought us together a long time ago. And now a baby brought us together again. Maybe that’s because this is the way it was meant to be all along. That’s sure as hell how it feels to me.”

  And it was such a nice way of looking at it.

  But still...

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know...” Kyla lamented, wanting to let herself be swayed. Wanting to just get back into that bed with him.

  But this was all coming at her too fast. Too unexpectedly. And so early in the morning. After a night when she’d had very little sleep. And she was having trouble thinking straight. Trouble doing anything but reacting to what were hot-button issues for her.

  Immy let out a half cry just then and they both glanced in the direction of the nursery.

  “I’ll get her,” Kyla said with more urgency than the scant cry called for because she wanted—needed—an escape.

  But Beau vetoed it. “You shouldn’t lift her. I’ll check on her and give you a minute,” he said softly, taking his hands away.

  She didn’t argue, she just watched him go and then collapsed on the edge of the bed as if the wind had been knocked out of her.

  Fourteen years ago, as a pregnant sixteen-year-old, she’d fantasized about Beau proposing to her. Dreamed of it.

  Now it just scared her.

  And it certainly wasn’t what was supposed to have come out of making love with him last night! That was supposed to have put an end to her craving for him so she could move on.

  But it hadn’t put an end to the craving. It had actually only made it worse.

  He was chocolate, not peanut butter.

  And she never got enough chocolate...

  But he also wasn’t the seventeen-year-old semi-man he’d been in those early fantasies and dreams. Now he was tougher. He was a force. He was all marine.

  Being more like her parents than like him, Kyla knew that made her almost the opposite end of the spectrum. And no, she didn’t want a life of tug-of-war, of struggling, of holding the line against the marine.

  Except that that wasn’t what it felt as though she’d been doing. Without him standing right in front of her, she thought about this time they’d spent together since he’d shown up at the truck stop.

  There had been a bit of a tug-of-war between them at first. Over his schedules and him wanting her to nap and other details of the course he’d plotted for what he thought was the best way to deal with their situation.

  But when she’d balked, when she’d made the corrections to it that she’d wanted to make, he’d accepted them without a problem. The same way he’d accepted the changes she’d made to his house. And every change that had needed to be made along the way with Immy.

  All without any kind of real struggle.

  He liked to have a plan, but if varying from the plan was called for, he did it. He adapted. So while he gave the impression that he might be inflexible, he wasn’t really.

  And if she had any doubts she had only to think about their awful drive home from Northbridge with a carsick two-month-old when his plans to drive straight through had turned into such a disaster. He’d rolled with the whole thing. Without showing any kind of frustration or annoyance. Without complaint.

  It was really himself that he was hardest on, she realized. He expected and demanded more of himself than he did of anyone else. But when she thought about it, she realized that he hadn’t made any demands on her. He hadn’t expected anything of her. To her he’d been considerate, caring, attentive and always concerned with her health, her needs. He would have waited on her hand and foot if she’d have let him.

  And he’d said that she helped loosen him up, helped him relax. She could admit that she’d seen that happening. So really he’d done more changing to accommodate her than she’d done to accommodate him.

  Not that she hadn’t done any adapting to him. When he was right he was right, and she’d gone along with his suggestions. He was right about trying to keep Immy on a regular schedule, and he was more able than Kyla was to take things a step at a time to get on top of them when she was on the verge of buckling beneath too much at once.

  Kind of like now...

  But then that made him right now, too, didn’t it? she asked herself. They did each bring something different to the table. And they were pretty good at compromising.

  That give-and-take was better than her parents being two peas in a pod. That had been nice for them, but it certainly hadn’t been responsible or efficient. And it had left their child fending for herself.

  There was nothing about that that she wanted for Immy.

  Actually, when she considered the pattern she’d fallen into with Beau for caring for Immy, it struck her that they did work as a team, as partners—Kyla did whatever she could, Beau did whatever she couldn’t, until everything was taken care of and so that nothing important was overlooked or forgotten.

  That seemed like a pretty good way to handle parenting. And they were pretty good at it...

  He was logical and he looked at things in a stripped-down sort of way that helped deal with problems. Certainly he’d done that for her own situation with becoming a single parent, with needing to oversee the truck stops, so why should she think that he wouldn’t do that if other kinds of problems arose?

  And he listened to her. He respected her opinions, her views. He took her seriously. He didn’t just disregard her or anything she said. So if they disagreed, it seemed like they’d still be able to hash it out.

  And it was kind of good to know that he could keep his head when she lost hers a little...

  Kind of good to know, but had she already come to rely too much on him? she asked herself, rattled by that idea.

  She’d been relying on his help with Immy—but only for things she was incapable of doing and only temporarily.

  She was relying on his guidance when it came to Immy’s inheritance—but that, too, would only be until she got sound advice on what to do and had learned what she needed to know to do it all herself.

  What she was considering now went so much further than either of those things.

  And it wasn’t temporary...

  Was she willing to put herself in a position where she regularly relied on someone else? Where she had to trust that he was the person she thought he was and wouldn’t let her down?

  That was a big leap for her...

  She hadn’t even had parents she could trust or rely on.

  But who was m
ore trustworthy than Beau? she asked herself now.

  She did believe that if he’d known she was pregnant he would have come through for her all those years ago. And he’d come through for her now—despite the resentment and anger and accusation she’d thrown at him at first.

  Plus she knew he was all about honor and respect and responsibility and doing what was right—if she could rely on anyone it was him.

  She looked through the open bedroom doors to where Beau was leaning over the crib. He was gently rubbing Immy’s back to soothe her.

  And just that sight of him told Kyla what she needed to know.

  She loved him. She loved him with all the passion she’d had when she was sixteen. But, unlike when she was sixteen, what she felt for him now had more depth, more dimension. And it was with her eyes wide open.

  So if it meant some compromise, if it meant some tug-of-wars down the road, if it meant giving up a little of her independence—no matter what it meant—it didn’t matter.

  She wanted him.

  She wanted to be with him.

  She wanted to raise Immy with him.

  And she wanted Immy to have him, too, because she knew that he would be the best thing she could ever give her tiny new charge to make up for losing her own parents.

  The breath Kyla took then felt as though it washed away all the debris of her fears and concerns and left her—finally, fully—able to embrace the thought that this man, who she truly loved, had asked her to marry him.

  She stood up again, went into the nursery and took Beau’s hand the same way he’d taken hers before, leading him away from the dozing-again Immy and back to the master suite.

  There she also did what he’d done—she stopped and turned to face him, letting go of his hand in hopes that he’d put his arms around her again.

  But he didn’t. He stayed still, giving her space.

  “I’m sorry,” she said into that space, looking up into his eyes as his brows shot up.

  She could see that he thought she was beginning the big No and she raised a hand to his chest as she said, “I’m sorry I went a little crazy. You surprised me.”