by Cathie Linz
So the first thing he did the next morning was talk to Jessica’s co-workers, interrogating them one at a time.
He spoke to the youngest one first. Lisa was her name. He was there early and Blue had gone to speak to Jessica, allowing him to speak to Lisa privately for a moment or two. He didn’t have time for small talk, the rest of the kids would be barging in any minute.
He got right to the point. “Tell me what Jessie’s favorite things are. What does she like?”
“Marines in dress blues,” Lisa replied with a saucy grin. “And she’s not alone in that.” The meaning in her brown eyes was clear, sending out blatant I’m available signals.
This pretty young thing was giving him the green light, and he felt nothing. He hadn’t had to court her, hadn’t had to do anything. He wasn’t even wearing dress blues, just his regulation camouflage. Even so, she was letting him know she was interested. But he didn’t feel anything. He wasn’t the least bit tempted. He would have worried that the sniper’s bullet had left him with more than a bum leg were it not for the fact that he just about went off like a firecracker whenever Jessie was around.
If he was only looking to marry someone just to watch Blue, Lisa would be good. But telling Jessie that wouldn’t do him any good. Telling her that he wanted her in his bed wouldn’t do the trick, either. No, he had to get this courting thing mastered.
“Ma’am, I just want to know about Jessie,” Curt steadfastly maintained.
“Well…” Lisa bit her lip as she thought a moment. “She’s loyal and true, like the U.S. Marines. Her favorite ice cream is Chunky Monkey, she’s allergic to shellfish, has a weakness for barbecued potato chips, and is a big Genesis fan. That help?”
“It’s a start. Thank you, ma’am.”
“You could ask her this yourself, you know,” Lisa said.
“Negative, ma’am. And don’t tell her I asked you about her, okay?”
Leaning closer, Lisa whispered, “So this is a covert operation, hmm?”
Curt nodded. “Affirmative, ma’am.”
“My lips are sealed. Are you going to speak to Tawanna, too?”
“Later,” he replied, noting the suspicious and disapproving looks Jessie was shooting his way. But before he could make his getaway, Tawanna approached him on her own.
“I sure hope you’re not going to turn into pond scum,” the older African-American woman said, her dark eyes flashing.
“Pardon me, ma’am?”
Propping her hands on her ample hips, Tawanna said, “I saw Lisa flirting with you.”
“Then you should also have seen that I wasn’t flirting back.”
“I just wanted to be real sure about that.”
“Be sure. I’m interested in Jessie. And I could use your help, ma’am.” He had a feeling that throwing himself on the older woman’s mercy would work well, and it did.
She thawed considerably. “About time you asked me. But we can’t talk here. I’ll give you my phone number, and you can call me.” Reaching into the pocket of her colorful jumper, she pulled out a piece of paper and pen. Scribbling the information down, she handed it to him.
Jessica couldn’t believe what she was seeing. First Curt hits on Lisa, and now Tawanna. Did the man have no conscience? What was he doing? she wondered bitterly. Asking them to marry him now that she’d said no? Was she so easily replaceable? Preschool teacher, preschool teaching assistants, it didn’t matter. Nineteen years old or fifty, that made no difference. Curt just wanted a wife.
Okay, so she was probably overreacting here. She should just ask Lisa and Tawanna what they were talking about with Curt.
“I don’t remember,” Lisa replied, despite the fact that Curt had only left less than five minutes ago. “It wasn’t anything important.” But her gaze slid away from Jessica’s face as if she were hiding something.
Tawanna was equally evasive. “What did we discuss? Nothing much. We didn’t talk for more than a second or two.”
“I saw you give him a piece of paper.”
Tawanna shrugged. “A book I was recommending.”
“Is that right? Which one?”
“Why the interrogation, girlfriend?” Tawanna gave her a direct look as she asked, “Something going on I should know about?”
“No.” Jessica wasn’t about to confess that Curt had proposed to her last night. Her feelings were still too raw, too contradictory. Part of her wanted to believe that he did want her and no one else. Part of her wanted to run in the other direction before she got hurt.
Do you really think he could love you? a tiny voice in her head mocked her. Why should he? Your own father couldn’t love you. Face it, you’re just not the kind of woman that men fall head over heels for.
“Jessie, you look sad,” Blue noted, tugging on Jessie’s hand to get her attention. “Blue’s sad, too.”
Jessie knelt down beside her. “Why are you sad, Blue?”
“’Cause I was bad and kicked those girls in ballet. Kicking is bad.”
“Kicking is bad,” Jessie agreed. “You might have hurt those girls.”
“Blue is bad.”
“Blue did a bad thing, but she’s not bad. Kicking is bad.”
“Is Daddy going to give me back?” Blue whispered.
“Oh, honey.” Blinking away her own tears, Jessie engulfed Blue in a big hug. “No way, sweetie. Your Daddy loves you very much.”
“Mommy left me when she went dead. Don’t want Daddy to leave me.”
“He won’t leave you.” As a result of his leg injury, Curt had been relegated to a desk job, which she knew didn’t please him any. But at least he was safe. And even if he was transferred elsewhere, he’d bring Blue as well. Although the thought of the little girl having to move around the way Jessica had as a child brought a pang to her heart.
“Will you leave me?” Blue asked, her brown eyes so like Curt’s as they gravely stared at her.
Jessica knew the little girl was looking for reassurance, that the attachment Blue felt for her was only that of a child who’d recently lost her mother, that Blue would grow and move on. The years would pass and maybe, if Jessica was lucky, Blue would retain fond memories of the preschool teacher who’d been nice to her.
Logically Jessica knew all that, yet it didn’t seem to stop her heart from melting, didn’t stop her from loving Blue.
But loving Blue didn’t mean that marrying her father, who didn’t love Jessica and might never do so, was a good idea.
“I’ll always be your friend and if you ever need me, I’ll help you,” Jessica promised. “There will always be someone to take care of you. When your daddy is working, then Lisa, Tawanna and I take care of you.”
“You and my daddy both take care of me.”
Jessica nodded. “That’s right.”
“Okay.” Smiling now and clearly satisfied with Jessica’s response, Blue quickly moved on to something else, heading for her friend Susan to help her work on a puzzle.
Watching her, Jessica wished it were that easy to quiet her own fears, that she could get over her own emotional issues with the trusting confidence of a three-year-old.
Blue may have moved on, but she hadn’t forgotten. Later that day, Blue used her time in the art corner to make a drawing with three figures. “My family,” she proudly told Jessica. “Daddy, me and you.”
This time the pain caught Jessica by surprise. So did the intensity with which she wanted what was in that childish drawing—a family, a family that loved her.
As soon as he got Blue to bed that night, Curt called in reinforcements. He called Tawanna.
“Took you long enough,” the older woman scoffed.
“Well, ma’am,” he began, “I don’t know how much Jessie has told you—”
“Nothing,” she interrupted him to say. “But even if she had, I won’t go breaking any confidences.” Her voice carried a clear warning.
“And I wouldn’t ask you to,” he quickly assured her. “I’m just looking for some advice h
ere, ma’am.”
“That shows good sense on your part.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Don’t go ma’aming me,” she scolded him. “Makes me feel older than I am, and I’m old enough as it is. Call me Tawanna.”
To him any woman he didn’t know was a ma’am, regardless of her age. And any man he didn’t know was a sir. It was all part of a marine’s discipline.
Semper Gumby. Be flexible.
“Okay, Tawanna. I’ll try to remember that,” he said.
“You do that. And remember that a little romance never hurt. I went with a soldier once. In the army.”
Curt winced but didn’t correct her by saying a U.S. Marine was not a soldier. He was a marine, always with a capital M.
“He was always so…practical.” Tawanna made the word sound like an insult. “No soul, y’know?”
“Not really.”
“You need to let Jessica know how important she is to you. As important as, say, the U.S. Marines. Think you can do that?”
Curt supposed this would fall under the adapt portion of his improvise, overcome and adapt battle plan. Not that Jessie wasn’t important to him, because she was. But nothing had ever played as big a role in his life as the United States Marine Corps. He’d been a marine for twelve years. He’d only been a dad for a month. And he’d only been a wannabe husband for a week. But if he wanted to accomplish his mission, then he had to act on the information provided to him.
“I can do that,” he declared without any sign of doubt.
The next night, Curt called Jessica, all in a dither. That alone warned her that something was up, because despite his inexperience, he never sounded this flustered. Not even when she’d gone to his apartment for Daddy Boot Camp and he had jam on his face. No doubt it was against United States Marine Corps policy to get flustered.
And the reason for his extreme agitation? He’d decided he couldn’t face life without her? He wanted to declare his undying love for her?
No. Of course not.
He’d called because Blue had somehow, he wasn’t real clear of the details, gotten a wad of chewing gum stuck in her hair.
“Can you come over and help me?” he asked, sounding so forlorn she almost automatically said yes.
“There’s no need for that. I can tell you over the phone what to do.”
“Everything I did just made it worse. I’m not good with hair,” Curt said.
While it was true that he was no Vidal Sassoon, Blue’s pigtails, when she wore them, were no longer completely lopsided. Occasionally the little girl even had a few daisy or Disney character hair clips that had been placed in her hair with a military precision that only Curt could have provided.
So what was really going on here? Could Curt really sink so low as to use his daughter to get to her? Or was Jessica being overly suspicious? What if Blue really did need her help? What if Curt really did chop her hair badly in his efforts to get the gum out? What if the other kids then ridiculed Blue because of her strangely hacked haircut? It would all be Jessica’s fault.
“If this is a hoax just to get me over to your place, you’re going to be very sorry,” she warned him.
“Will you come over?”
“All right. But I’m not staying.”
She considered changing her clothes. The Save The Children sweatshirt was comfortable, as were the black leggings she wore with it, but they weren’t real flattering.
What did she care? As if it mattered what she wore. She was only going to Curt’s apartment for Blue’s sake. And the little one didn’t care what Jessica wore. For that matter, she doubted that Curt cared what she wore, either.
Jessica was at Curt’s front door within fifteen minutes. He led her straight into Blue’s bedroom, where the little girl was sitting on her bed waiting for her.
When Jessica saw the matted gum in Blue’s hair, she felt badly for suspecting Curt of luring her here under false pretenses. “I’ll need scissors and an ice cube,” she told Curt. Turning to Blue, she said, “We’ll have you fixed up in no time, honey.”
After getting the items she requested, Curt said, “I’ll just leave you two alone,” and beat a hasty retreat. Or attempted to.
Jessica didn’t let him get very far. “Hold it. You’re not going anywhere,” she firmly informed him. “You’re going to have to learn how to manage this by yourself next time. So watch and learn. Here, sit on the other side of Blue and hold the rest of her hair out of the way.”
For a man who didn’t like obeying orders from civilians, he obeyed hers quickly enough. It didn’t take Jessica long to realize that this might not have been the wisest move on her part. Curt was close enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek as she bent closer to apply the ice cube to the wad of gum.
Suddenly she was all thumbs. The slippery ice cube slid from her fingers and flew over Blue’s head to land in… Curt’s lap.
Which wouldn’t have been so bad had he been wearing jeans instead of a thin pair of khaki slacks. To give him credit, he didn’t yelp and leap to his feet. Instead he gave her a wry look that lingered, the heated intensity in his brown eyes warming her heart…and the rest of her body as well. Aware that her cheeks were flushed, she tried not to let him see how flustered she was.
An impossible task. She might as well have tried to build the Great Wall of China between them. No can do.
“I believe this is yours, ma’am,” he drawled, taking her hand and placing the now rapidly melting ice cube in her palm. The contrast of the cold ice and his warm fingertips brushing against her skin was incredibly sensual.
Excitement surged through her veins like a fine wine. “I…uh…” She had to unglue her tongue from the roof of her mouth before being able to speak coherently. “I think I’ll try a new ice cube.”
She dropped the one he’d handed her back into the bowl and picked up a new one, tempted to run its coolness over her hot cheeks. She had to get a grip here. She was acting like an idiot. She was acting like Jessie the Brain, social misfit from her high school days, who stumbled over her words and never seemed able to say the right thing around other people.
Okay, she refused to give in to this. Concentrating on what she was doing, she carefully applied the ice. “You do this until the gum freezes and then carefully peel the gum off the hair.”
For her part, Blue was remarkably patient for a three-year-old, not wiggling or complaining. She appeared happy just to have her father and Jessica by her side. She became most unhappy when Jessica appeared to be leaving. Blue’s tears started immediately and didn’t dry until Jessica promised to help Blue with her bath, which then became a bath and a hair wash. Then there was her bedtime story, which both Jessica and Curt had to read to her.
Jessica was touched by the way Curt read Goodnight Moon. He had such an expressive voice it was a shame he didn’t use his non-marine voice more often. Looking around the room, she had to admit that he hadn’t spared any expense in making his daughter a special place to call home. But it took more than furniture and books—it took love.
And while Curt clearly cared for his daughter, there was still a certain distance in his approach to her, as if he continued to be unsure of his role in her life. He didn’t seem able to simply open his heart and lavish Blue with love the way Jessica longed to. But he was making progress, considering how distant he’d been that first day in her classroom.
Blue insisted Jessica stay a little longer, despite the fact that the little girl’s eyelids were fluttering with exhaustion. Jessica sang her a lullaby her mother used to sing to her when she was little and they’d moved to a new place. Jessica hummed the bits she didn’t know and Blue was asleep by the second verse.
Moving cautiously, Jessica removed her hand from Blue’s. She tucked the blanket up over the little girl’s shoulders. Leaning down to brush her lips against Blue’s baby-soft cheek, Jessica gave herself the luxury of whispering, “I love you, sweetie.”
Then she forced
herself to step away. This wasn’t her little girl, wasn’t her family, wasn’t her life. Gathering her composure, Jessica walked into the living room. “She’s asleep now—” Her words stopped as she realized that Curt had dimmed the lights and lit the place with several candles. A Genesis song was softly playing in the background.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
“Trying to seduce you,” he instantly replied. “Am I having any luck yet?”
She had to laugh at his blunt candor, not to mention the hopeful look in his eyes. This was a new Curt, one she hadn’t seen before but one she’d glimpsed in Blue’s bedroom earlier. This was a Curt she wasn’t sure how to resist. Defying the authoritative marine barking orders had been a piece of cake. But this man had a track record of working his magic on her.
“No luck yet?” His inflection reflected his humor. “Then how about this?” He handed her a large gift bag.
“What’s this?”
“Look inside and find out.”
She did and couldn’t believe what she found. A bag of barbecued potato chips. It was even the brand she liked. But there was more. A Genesis Greatest Hits CD. A bottle of her favorite perfumed shower gel. And a plush toy dragon with a cheerful grin. She ran a trembling finger over that grin.
Curt broke the silence, his voice uncharacteristically soft. “Remember in high school at the Halloween carnival how much you wanted to win a dragon? I got detention and had to work the booth, a creative punishment from that long-haired English teacher… What was his name again?”
“Mr. Ivanhoe,” she replied in a slightly unsteady voice. “But he liked us to call him Phil.”
“That’s right. Anyway, I remember you really wanting that dragon and not getting it.”
She remembered it, too. The dragon at the carnival had been the twin of one she’d seen in a store when she was about eight. Even after all these years she could still hear her father’s voice. If you get straight A’s in school, I’ll get you that dragon.
She’d run home with her report card and impatiently waited in the driveway for him to come home. It had been dark and supper was long over, but she’d still waited. Look, Daddy, I got all A’s!
