THANKSGIVING DADDY

by Rachel Lee

  “What about here?”

  “Cold but not nearly as snowy. We’re actually a pretty dry climate for the most part. Although that seems to be changing like so much about the weather. Why?”

  “Just wondering. The mountains reminded me.”

  “Our mountains are pretty craggy in places, but not nearly as hostile, at least not around here. We’ll take our son camping up there sometime. It’s great.”

  Making more plans. Uneasiness trickled through her but she pushed it away. Things were moving too fast. Maybe. But at least one thing was coming fast regardless: motherhood. And there were still so many things to decide.

  “We need to talk,” she said finally.

  “Hence driving around the county later. Neutral territory. No distractions in the form of your lovely body.”

  That warmed her all the way to her toes, but she managed a snort. “You’ve got your mind on one thing.”

  “Not really. But for safety’s sake, we’ll take a drive. And if you give me that sidelong look again, you may not finish your walk.”

  She had to laugh. “Sure, you’re going to pick me up and carry me back to the house in plain view of the entire world....”

  “Don’t tempt me, because I can and I will.”

  She looked at him again and saw no humor in his face. Steely determination once again. Sometimes she could definitely see the man who had been a SEAL for so long. Not a person to screw around with.

  God, a SEAL. Had she really been foolish enough to get involved with one of the most dangerous men on earth? Nice as he was to her, he would always be the guy who could go solo, or with a team, into impossibly dangerous situations. A guy who wouldn’t hesitate no matter how high the risks.

  “Will the real Seth Hardin stand up?” she muttered.

  Suddenly his hand gripped her elbow. “Let’s go take that drive now.”

  “I haven’t finished my walk.”

  “We can finish it later.”

  “What’s the damn rush, Seth?”

  “I get the feeling that you’re busy looking for reasons to wash your hands of me. So let’s get acquainted. For real.”

  “We can do that while we walk.”

  “Not if we get into a shouting match. Excuse me, but I don’t want half the town hearing our business.”

  She couldn’t argue with that. He was looking awfully grim all of a sudden, and she didn’t want to argue with him, either.

  Was he right? Was she trying to find some reason, any reason, to discard him? Because he was a SEAL and SEALs were dangerous men? Because she couldn’t quite believe he was the nice guy she’d spent the past couple of weeks with? The amazingly tender lover?

  She said nothing as he helped her into the car, nothing as he stopped by Maude’s to pick up some kind of lunch, and then they were driving out into the gently rolling countryside that seemed so empty, but must have been full of ranches and farms. He didn’t speak, either. He seemed to be mulling something and his jaw was tight.

  At last he pulled off the road and drove over a bumpy track to a stand of cottonwoods beside a stream. “I know the guy who owns this place,” he said tautly. “He won’t mind. But we may see some sheep.”

  She didn’t answer because she didn’t know how to answer. How had such a stupid little remark on her part opened this all up in some way she couldn’t begin to imagine? What were they dealing with here?

  He pulled a blanket from the trunk and spread it on the ground for her to sit on in the shade of autumn leaves, with the stream burbling gently nearby. Under other circumstances, it would have been idyllic.

  He remained standing, facing the stream and the mountains, his back to her.

  “You want to know the real Seth Hardin?” he finally asked.

  “I’m not sure what I meant by that.”

  He faced her. “I know what you meant. So I’m going to tell you. I’m an assassin, a person who killed simply because I had orders to. I blew up buildings. I fought bad guys in places you’ve never heard of as part of covert operations. I took on gangs of pirates to save ship crews. I’ve even boarded ships at sea in the dead of night to prevent the transport of nuclear materials or weapons. I’ve gone in undercover and spied. I have taken lives with my bare hands. I am a SEAL. That will always be with me. Is that what scares you?”

  She stuck out her chin. “Did I say I was scared?”

  He leaned slightly toward her. “I can also read people very well because my life has depended on it. You don’t need to say it.”

  “Seth...”

  “Let me finish. I’m the guy they make movies about without telling the whole ugly story. I’m capable of all those things and I have to live with it. But I’ve made peace with my past. The Seth Hardin you’ve met here, and that night in Afghanistan, is also the real Seth Hardin. He’s the man I want to be all the time now that I don’t have to war anymore. Both sides are equally real. But it’s not me you’re really scared of.”

  “What?” Startled, she almost gaped.

  He put his hands on his hips. “If you remember, I gave you my contact information that morning. I made it as possible as I could for you to find me anywhere in the world through my parents. You didn’t give me a damn thing.”

  Now her jaw did drop.

  “I actually hoped you would get in touch. I wanted to see you again. Never thought of that, did you? No, of course not. You made an assumption and walked away and tried to never take another look back. You wanted to erase the whole thing from your life.”

  “But...”

  “Yeah, but. Instead, life grabbed you and wouldn’t let you pretend it never happened. You came here out of some sense of duty, hoping like hell I’d tell you to kiss off. Well, shock, lady, I don’t want you to kiss off and I am not going to give up my son. So maybe you need to knit your head together and figure out what the hell is frightening you. What are you scared of, because it sure as hell isn’t me, however much you try to make it your excuse.”

  He paused a moment, while she struggled with the bombardment, scrambling for a place from which she could start thinking.

  “One other thing,” he said. “I still have nightmares occasionally. Once in a while I remember things I’d rather not. But I was damned lucky. I got out of all that reasonably intact. So, any way you want to slice it, I am not a threat to you, and I am not a threat to that baby. Unless you decide I am, and that all comes back to what you are afraid of.”

  Then he turned and strode away along the stream, leaving her with the sounds of rustling leaves and the stream. A dead leaf slowly drifted down and she watched it fall.

  She wanted to yell after him, to tell him to come back, to tell him he was all wrong. But somewhere deep inside the truth had sunk home. She was afraid. But of what?

  Tiredness was creeping up on her again, maybe from the tension, but she didn’t want to give in. She had to think. She had to. This was too important. He was right, there was their son to consider. If for no other reason she had to figure out why she kept getting the urge to run, yet felt an equally strong urge to stay.

  She thought she’d been sorting things out so well when she’d driven out here, but clearly there were a whole bunch of issues she hadn’t even taken into account.

  Like him giving her his family’s address and phone number. She’d tossed it like trash, never considering why he’d given it to her. Never thinking that he really might want to see her again. Not wanting even to admit the possibility.

  All that stuff about her career and not damaging it was beginning to sound pretty thin even to her. Oh, yeah, she had meant it, but it was still only half a life. A good life, but only half. Other officers, other pilots, got married and had families. She could have done it without ruining anything. Hell, for all she knew, it might have helped her because the air force was
big on that whole family thing.

  Instead she had chosen to live like a cloistered nun, even avoiding most of the ordinary socializing. Oh, she did what was expected of her, but she avoided the casual stuff, keeping her friendships at work and the rest of her life fairly empty. She had called it focus, but now she wondered why.

  Finally she lay back, cradling her head on her hands and staring up into the gently stirring leaves. She could see a deep blue sky beyond them, a sky she loved to fly in.

  She’d been frightened of losing her ability to fly. She knew that. She’d been miserable since her removal from flight status. But it was more than that. Much more.

  Slowly, cautiously, she opened her well of memories, delving all the way back to her childhood. There had to be something somewhere to explain the driven, single-minded woman she had become. Something that frightened her. Or maybe something she feared becoming.

  * * *

  Half an hour later Seth returned. He wasn’t happy with the way he’d broached his concerns, wasn’t pleased with his own behavior, but with Edie he felt sometimes like he was banging his head on a brick wall. They’d take a few steps forward and then he’d watch that internal retreat of hers.

  Yes, it was all new. Yes, it was happening fast, but the bottom line hadn’t changed one bit. Nothing would deter him from being a father to his son. Nothing. So they had to get past that wall of hers to some kind of decent agreement.

  When he found her asleep, he wrapped the other half of the blanket over her and sat on the grass, staring at the mountains. It was cool today, and while the blanket and her jacket would be enough for a while, he worried about her getting a chill if she slept too long.

  But he didn’t wake her. Damn, he’d come on like gangbusters, but he wasn’t used to pulling his punches and dancing around things. He knew who he was. In fact, he suspected he knew himself far better than she knew herself.

  Something was going on inside of her that wasn’t making any sense, at least not to him, and he suspected not to her. Not good.

  In four months they’d be parents. They had to find an accommodation of some kind. He’d marry her tomorrow under any terms she wanted, he’d simply travel with her, married or not, or he’d visit that kid every damn weekend. No way was he giving that boy up.

  So she’d better agree to something. And she’d better figure out what kept pulling her back every time she moved closer. After what they’d shared yesterday, nothing could have appalled him more than to sense the fear in her while they were out walking. It was another round in a boxing match where his opponent was invisible, not only to him, but also to her he guessed.

  They sure needed a more stable arrangement than that, for their own sakes but most especially the baby’s. Kids were so sensitive to tensions. He’d learned that from his nieces and nephews. They had built-in radar for an upset parent.

  As he watched Edie sleep, he felt an unwanted wave of tenderness, something he hadn’t felt often in his life except with his wives. And nothing quite this strong, maybe because a baby had never been involved before.

  Hell, he’d been hard on her and probably should apologize. She had reasons to be dubious. Hadn’t he himself called his father and asked him how men like them transitioned to fatherhood?

  Everything in his life had trained him in a way that hardly seemed likely to create a good father. Fatherhood would require a whole different set of mental and emotional muscles, and he was sure some of them had been stunted by training and experience.

  Could he nurture them fast enough, well enough?

  Maybe he should trust Edie’s concerns about him. They shared a lot of experience, but despite all the risks she had taken and the dangers she had flown into, she hadn’t visited the same dark boxes of the human mind and soul. She probably had every right to be worried about him.

  He looked away toward the mountains again, asking himself questions, searching deep inside, trying to measure himself against the father who had raised him and the father he had found later. Could he really live up to that? He was determined to, and there was very little he made up his mind to do that he hadn’t accomplished.

  But this was different. Was having two good examples enough?

  One thing he was sure of, he couldn’t afford to mess this up. Edie and their baby were too important. Lives were at stake, as simple as that. Futures.

  This was, without a doubt, the most important undertaking of his entire life.

  “Seth?”

  Edie’s sleepy voice reached him. She was still curled up with the blanket wrapped around her. At once he stretched out beside her on the grass, looking into her drowsy face.

  “I’m here. Are you getting cold?”

  “A tiny bit, but I’m fine.” Those blue eyes opened, still drowsy. “I’m sorry I made you mad.”

  “You didn’t really make me mad. I think you scared me.”

  A tiny smile curved her lips. “You? Scared?”

  “I have an intimate acquaintance with fear at all levels and of all kinds. A frequent companion.”

  “Well, I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too, for coming on like gangbusters. You need time, and you have every right to work things through.”

  “I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve been working through all the wrong things.” She sighed. Her eyes drooped closed, then slowly opened again. “I’m thinking, Seth. I promise I’m thinking. About myself. About what exactly I’m doing and why. You made a good point.”

  He shook his head a little. “I’ve got no business analyzing you.”

  “Sure you do. I’m the mother of your son.”

  With amazement, he felt his heart squeeze. “Yes, you are. And I’m glad you are.”

  She sighed. “Dang, I’m hungry again. I can’t believe it. And I need the facilities. Again.”

  His mood lifted a bit. “I know a great tree. And lunch is in the car. Or we can head home and get you warm.”

  She surprised him then, seizing his hand for the first time to pull it beneath the blanket and press it to her belly. She’d never done that before. She smiled. “He’s happy.”

  Seth sure as hell hoped so, but he started smiling, too, as he felt the little prods. “How impatient are you?”

  “Not terribly yet. It’s still a long way. But others have told me the last month will seem endless.”

  “I can imagine.”

  She opted for the tree, obviously, but also decided to have a picnic lunch. “It’s beautiful here. I hope we can come again sometime.”

  Well, that was a change, he thought, feeling lighter yet. This was her first mention of something she wanted to do with him down the road. A good sign? Maybe they were getting over the first hump? Which still left some mountains to climb, he reminded himself. In fact, a whole damn range of them.

  The day began to grow colder, so shortly after they finished their sandwiches, they headed back to town. He asked if she wanted to do something, but she shook her head.

  “I’ve got some heavy-duty thinking to do.”

  And that’s what she did. She withdrew to some place inside herself, sitting in the recliner or going out to walk alone. Leaving him wondering what the hell was in the offing. At least she wasn’t packing her duffel.

  Yet.

  * * *

  Edie had no intention of packing her duffel, although she had little idea what decisions she was going to make about everything else. Reaching all the way back in her memory, she tried to figure out how she had gotten to this point. She needed to figure it out for the sake of her son. How could she be a good mother if she didn’t know what fears were holding her back?

  Because Seth was right about that. She wasn’t afraid of him. Not as if he were some kind of threat to the baby. It had nothing to do with him being a SEAL, but everything to do with some
part of her.

  She didn’t have to think very hard about the obstacles. She knew she was a control freak. She’d committed to only two things in her life: the air force and CSAR. Big commitments, but very much under her control.

  She couldn’t control Seth, and all too soon she wouldn’t be able to control the baby, either. But why did she feel that need to be in charge, to be able to handle so much of life with surety and a plan?

  Yeah, she could roll with the punches. She’d had to on many occasions, but there was always that sense of control, of knowing she could deal with the unexpected that came up on a mission.

  This was very different. A whole new world. Life had begun throwing curveballs, and they just kept coming. Worse, the curveballs involved other people. You might be able to control most of what happened with a mechanical failure or a weather problem, or even when being shot at, but you couldn’t control other people. Ever.

  Which made all of this one big scary unknown.

  So yeah, she was afraid. Of herself. Of the future. Of not having an ironclad plan. And how silly to think she could have made one that would last any length of time.

  Seth had pointed out a couple of times that she kept threatening to run. She couldn’t deny it. She kept wanting to go back to her familiar world, however messed up it was at the moment.

  She sat on a park bench during one of her long walks the next day, trying to sort out a whole bunch of feelings, trying to find their source. Seth had been giving her space, even to the point of sleeping in the other room, but so far she had gotten nowhere useful.

  What was it she really feared?

  The lack of control or something else?

  Abandonment.

  The word floated up out of her subconscious and froze her as if a spike had just driven into her mind.

  Abandonment.

  She jumped up from the bench and started walking as fast as she could without making herself too breathless. Evidently it disturbed the baby because she felt a couple of serious kicks, so she slowed down a little.

  “No.” She spoke aloud to herself. Not that. Really?