The Sergeant's Baby

by Bonnie Gardner

  “For business purposes,” Ally said calmly. “I need to continue to use Carter. You don’t mind, do you?”

  Danny pushed himself to his feet and glared down at her. He could not believe she would even think of asking that after all they’d been through. What should he say? How should he react? He had not anticipated anything like this! Not even on a bad day.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but then snapped it shut to keep from saying the wrong thing. He turned toward the door. He had to get out of there. He had to think.

  “Danny? What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong?” he bellowed. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. I just offered my life to you, and you…you…just—”

  “I accepted,” Ally said, looking as if she had no idea what he was getting at, acting as if he’d hurt her feelings.

  Her feelings? he thought indignantly. What about his?

  “No, you didn’t. Here I was, ready to lay my life on the line for you. Make an honorable woman out of you. Give your baby my name. And you throw my proposal back at me like it means nothing to you?” he shouted.

  Ally shrank from him for a moment, but then rose to face him. “My baby?” She sounded incredulous. “I’m not sure I want to marry you after all, Danny Murphey. I agreed to be your wife. That ought to be enough.”

  “Well, it isn’t,” Danny fired back. “I’m an old-fashioned kind of guy. I want everyone to know that you’re mine. I offered you my name. I offered you everything I have.”

  Ally drew herself up to her full five feet. “Don’t do me any favors, Murphey. I don’t need you to take care of me. I am not a prize breeding cow to be branded so that everyone who sees me knows who owns me. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. And your baby. Until you figure that out, I’ll just continue to do exactly that.” She glared at him.

  Danny had no quick retort, nothing he could say.

  He wanted to strangle her.

  He wanted to kiss her.

  He wanted to go back in time and start again. But there wouldn’t be any do-overs tonight.

  Danny strode to the door, yanked it open and rushed outside. He slammed it so hard behind him that the frame rattled.

  When the cool night air hit him, Danny stopped. What the hell had just happened? He had been in the middle of the best moment of his life and then everything had disintegrated.

  He turned and raised his fist to knock on the door, but reconsidered. He needed to think. Maybe Ally needed to think just as much as he did.

  He damn sure didn’t need to stay here and make the situation worse. If it could get any worse.

  He hurried to the rental car and let himself inside. Even then, he couldn’t make himself drive away.

  What was he doing just sitting there? Did he hope that Ally might come running out after him, begging for forgiveness?

  He waited for what seemed an eternity, but when the door didn’t open, Danny turned the key in the ignition and pulled slowly out of the driveway.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ally sank limply onto the couch and stared at the door that Danny had just slammed so violently that the noise still echoed deep in her soul. Surely Danny would realize what she’d been trying to tell him. Surely he would understand that she wasn’t rejecting him and come back.

  He had to.

  “Everything was so perfect,” she wailed. “Why did I have to pick tonight to bring that stupid issue up? Why did I have to open my big mouth?”

  If she didn’t love Danny so much, she’d almost think she had been trying to drive him away.

  When Ally didn’t hear Danny’s car start and the irrevocable sound of him driving away from her, she dared to hope. The silence surrounded her as she counted the minutes, it seemed to cling to her, to suffocate her, as she waited for some sign.

  Just as she decided that she would have to make the first move and pushed herself to her feet, starting toward the door to bring him back, to beg him if she had to, she heard it.

  The engine started up.

  Ally rushed to the door and tried to open it, but the lock, slammed with such violence, had accidentally engaged. She fumbled with the latch, her fingers clumsy and uncooperative. Danny had to return. She needed to apologize, to ask his forgiveness.

  Finally, the recalcitrant mechanism gave way.

  “Danny, Danny, come back!” she called frantically as she flung open the door.

  It was too late.

  She stood in the doorway and stared at the twin red taillights, which looked like the angry eyes of a retreating demon, taunting her as they grew smaller and dimmer in the distance.

  Ally watched until the lights disappeared around the corner, then she slowly turned.

  On boneless legs she walked back inside. With trembling hands, she locked the door behind her.

  What had she just done?

  Like a robot, she trudged to her bedroom.

  The puppy must have heard the commotion, because Ally heard his frightened whimpering as she stepped into the room. She hurried to his crate, but she didn’t see him in it. At last, she found him cowering in a corner.

  Tamping down her own anguish, Ally crouched and quietly called the puppy to her. “Come here, Sweetie-Pie,” she crooned, trying very hard to push her heartbreak out of her voice. “I won’t hurt you. It’s all right,” she coaxed.

  The puppy crept toward her, and when he was within reach, Ally scooped him up into her arms and held him gently to her breast. His tiny heart seemed to race a hundred miles an hour as she held him to her. “I’m so sorry, Sweetie-Pie,” she whispered, attempting to soothe him. “I didn’t mean to drive Daddy away.”

  The puppy grew calmer, and as he did, so did she. Ally didn’t know why she thought everything would turn out in the end, but she had to hope it would.

  Danny was an intelligent man, even if he was often far too hotheaded. Surely, when he took some time to think about what she’d really said to him, he’d realize that she hadn’t completely rejected his name and, therefore him.

  He had to.

  She wanted so much to be Mrs. Murphey that it hurt. “Now I just have to figure out how to make sure that he knows it.” Ally gazed at the tiny brown creature huddled in her arms. “It’ll be all right, little one. It will all work out.”

  The baby kicked her soundly, and Ally wasn’t sure whether it was in agreement with her statement or a way of showing an objection to what her stupid mother had done. Whatever the reason, Ally felt she deserved it.

  “You’re absolutely right, baby girl. I feel like kicking myself, too,” she murmured.

  “I promise you, little Danielle,” she went on as she settled the puppy back into his crate. “You will grow up with a daddy who loves you. And loves me, too,” she added without quite as much conviction.

  “Danielle Murphey,” she repeated, savoring the feel of the name on her tongue, listening to the sound. She didn’t know why the name had come to her with such certainty now, but it seemed right.

  She got up and placed her hand over her stomach. “You will grow up with a traditional, happy family—mommy, daddy, puppy and all.”

  The baby kicked her as if to second that emotion.

  THOUGH DANNY TRIED to temper his anger on the drive back to the Q, the frustration finally got to him. Seeing an open slot near the front door, he gunned the engine and screeched in, then he slammed on the brakes. His first thought had been to go somewhere and to lay on a drunk, but good sense won over. After all, he still had three days of this class to get through.

  He was going into a combat zone and his life might depend on it.

  The rest of his life might also hang on what he said and did with Ally, he realized.

  He switched off the headlights and sat for a moment in the darkness, the street lamp on the far side of the lot the only illumination. He had to get a handle on this thing. On differences he and Ally had.

  And what they had in common.

  Maybe if he stayed away from her for a couple
of days he’d be more objective.

  That was it, he decided. He would keep Ally out of his line of sight until he’d had a chance to thoroughly think through all their options.

  He loved that exasperating, aggravating…beautiful woman with every ounce of his being. And if it meant skulking around in corridors and making himself scarce until he could figure her out, then so be it.

  He might leave this place alone, but it would not be because he’d driven Ally from his life.

  He’d leave because his job forced him to.

  Sometimes, honor and duty were a crock.

  ALLY WOULDN’T GO OUT of her way to avoid Danny, but she wouldn’t hide, either.

  As it happened, she didn’t have to. Danny seemed to be ducking behind furniture every time she appeared. She knew he needed time to think, but she also knew that his time was limited.

  If he didn’t come to his senses in the next two days, it would be too late.

  Might be too late, she amended, ever hopeful.

  She wished he would at least speak to her. Then she’d stand a chance of getting a feel for his state of mind. She stepped out of her office and into the hall on one of her frequent trips to the bathroom and walked right into him.

  “Excuse me—” Danny stopped. “Oh, Ally,” he said carefully.

  At least he hadn’t called her Ms. Carter, Ally thought, hoping that Danny’s failure to address her formally was an encouraging sign.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “My fault.” She wanted him to understand what she was talking about. Ally knew that the corridor of Building 4527 was not the right place to work things out, but she had to try to communicate her willingness to do so. “I should have been watching where I was going,” she added.

  “Yeah, you should have,” Danny replied, and they both understood that he wasn’t referring to where she was going in this hallway.

  “I want to compromise,” Ally said.

  “You do that, Ally,” Danny said, then pivoted and strode down the hall in the opposite direction. “I’ll do the same,” he called, looking back over his shoulder.

  Ally wanted to follow him, to catch him by the sleeve of the battle-dress uniform and make him stay and talk to her. Danny shoved open the heavy exterior door, letting in a shaft of light that made her blink because of its brilliance. Ally knew she had to let him go. He still had to get his thoughts together about this.

  About them.

  That he hadn’t rejected her outright this morning was encouraging, even though it wasn’t nearly enough.

  Ally watched Danny withdraw his scarlet beret from his uniform pocket and jam it onto his head. He was adjusting it to the precise, regulation-mandated angle as the door swung shut between them.

  That was the picture of Danny she’d always carried in her mind’s eye, the one she’d always carry with her. She didn’t want this week to be the last time she would see him for real.

  Remembering her original purpose for being in the hall, Ally hurried on. It wasn’t much progress, but she did feel as though she and Danny had made a little.

  She just hoped it wasn’t too little, too late.

  And she sure wished that Kathie Palmore were around to talk it over with. There were times when a woman just needed a sympathetic ear.

  But it wasn’t a substitute for a strong shoulder.

  THE SUN WAS BARELY UP when Danny and Jake hurried out for their daily exercise. Today was the last day of class, and weather that had been balmy all week had begun to change. The sky, just beginning to lighten, was thick with clouds and the air heavy with the threat of rain. Danny didn’t care. If it rained, so what? He’d just cool down that much quicker.

  He’d used his daily run for the past few days as time to think, really think, and to clear his head for the day before him. If the truth be told, he wanted a way to work off his frustrations. His feet operating on automatic, his thoughts churned as he and Jake trotted from the Q to the base exercise field. As they approached the running track, Danny increased his pace, feeling his feet pound against the pavement, feeling his anger leave him and some sort of calm come to him.

  Soon he’d left Jake Magnussen far behind.

  “Hey, man,” Jake shouted after him. “Lighten up. It’s only PT. It isn’t supposed to be a freakin’ competition.”

  At first, when Danny thought back to the other night, all he remembered was the emotional slap in the face he’d experienced when Ally had said she didn’t want to take his name. All he could feel was anger.

  But time did strange things.

  Danny slowed, but not because of Jake. He slowed because he’d finally started to understand some of what had happened.

  The more he thought about it, time or common sense or something else made him remember exactly what Ally had said that night, not what he’d thought he’d heard. She’d said “for professional reasons.”

  Not for her personal life. Their personal life. At least, that was what Danny wanted to believe she meant. She didn’t say that she didn’t want that.

  Funny, at one time he would have gone ballistic at the idea of her having any kind of professional life. Livid at the notion that she might believe he couldn’t provide for her. But some of the things she’d pointed out to him had finally sunk in.

  Why shouldn’t she work if it made her happy? Why couldn’t they have a marriage where they shared everything? Including providing for their child.

  Maybe if his own parents had done that, his father would be around to see his next grandchild. Danny’s first child.

  He checked his watch and slowed his pace. He’d been running long enough; it was time to get back to the Q and shower before class.

  Jake loped up behind him, his face red and dripping with sweat. “Hey, man, so you’ve been majorly funked up the past couple of days. You don’t have to take it out on me.”

  Jake was right. “Didn’t mean to,” Danny grumbled.

  “You say something?” Jake slowed and fell into step with him.

  Danny looked up. “What? I was thinking. I didn’t mean to put it on you,” he said. And he shouldn’t have taken it out on Ally, either.

  “Well, if this is what being in love means, then I don’t want anything to do with it,” Jake said, pulling his sweat-soaked shirt up over his head and blotting his face with it. “Give me a no-strings roll in the hay anytime.”

  There had been a period when Danny might have agreed with the man, but circumstances had changed. Hell, he had changed. He was in love. He’d tried to fall out of it, and it hadn’t happened.

  “Well, I am in love,” Danny finally said, wondering how the hell Jake knew. “And it is right for me.” Damn, he wasn’t sure he’d ever said that before, he just realized. He wasn’t even sure he’d ever said it to Ally. Not in so many words, anyway.

  Maybe that was what he had to do. And why hadn’t he done it before?

  One thing was sure, he vowed to himself as he and Jake silently trudged back to the Q to shower up before class. “I’m gonna do it,” he muttered, not caring whether Jake heard it or not.

  He would not leave this place without making Ally and their child his.

  For real and for always.

  ALLY WOKE UP LATE, feeling sluggish and tired. She hadn’t slept very well. For the past few nights, she’d had to get up several times to take the puppy out.

  And of course, this forced separation from Danny wasn’t exactly what she wanted, either. But until Danny came out of his cave, she would leave him alone.

  Yawning, she sat up in bed. If this was what it was like to carry a child, she was finally beginning to understand what Danny had meant when he’d suggested that working and having a baby would not be quite the effortless, natural process she’d expected.

  She hadn’t imagined how tired she would be after being awakened twice last night, even if only for a few minutes each time. She hadn’t realized how important it would be to sleep the entire night.

  Still, she told herself as she stumbled towar
d her reviving morning shower, “Babies sleep through the night eventually. Surely I can take leave long enough to get past that part.”

  She had to. Even if she and Danny did come to terms and planned to make a life together. She wrapped a towel around her hair and stepped into the shower.

  Legally married or not and on the same wavelength about their roles in life or not, because of Danny’s assignment in Tamahlyastan, she would not have him around to help her through.

  That was something she would really have to think about. Ally guessed she would need to talk to Kathie about it. After all, the colonel had been through it three times. And Ally remembered Kathie’s husband hadn’t been around for one of them.

  Meanwhile, she had to get ready for work. She dressed, fed the puppy, took him outside, then settled him into the crate. Yep, if this was a dress rehearsal for parenthood, she would need a lot more practice, Ally thought as she popped a couple of pieces of wheat toast into the toaster, then peeled the plastic wrap off a slice of cheese while the bread toasted.

  Dropping an apple into her purse for later, Ally waited for the bread to come up. When it did, she slipped the cheese between the two slices, gathered up her belongings and headed out the door.

  Yes, maybe Danny hadn’t really been talking about popcorn when he’d told her she needed a dog. Maybe she just needed the puppy for a reality check.

  Sometimes, it was best to learn something the hard way, she grudgingly admitted. While she might possess quite a bit of book knowledge about life, she hadn’t had that many opportunities to test out the practical applications.

  Whatever his reasons for suggesting a dog, she would thank Danny Murphey for doing it.

  She needed a reason to talk to him, anyway.

  “WE’RE GOING to O’Malley’s for lunch,” Lieutenant Abernathy announced once Mr. Saloam dismissed class. “You in?”

  Danny grinned. The lieutenant had come a long way since that first day in class. He had learned that she would be attached to his unit in Tamahlyastan, and he was almost looking forward to serving with her. “Wish I could, Lieutenant, but I’ve got an important errand to take care of. I guess I’ll just grab a burger.”