The Sergeant's Baby

by Bonnie Gardner

  “Yes, ma’am,” he snapped, and executed a perfect salute.

  “Ally, get dressed.”

  “Aye-aye, sir,” Ally couldn’t help teasing. She made a sloppy salute of her own.

  DANNY STOOD QUIETLY in the chaplain’s office off the chancel of the base chapel. How Colonel Palmore and Ally had managed to put this together so fast astounded him. But, he supposed, it was good to have friends in high places.

  He tugged at the collar of his mess-dress uniform, brought from Florida by his best man, Second Lieutenant Ray Darling. He and Ray had been roommates until Ray had come back from Officer Candidate School. Then he’d married Patsy Pritchard, the woman “purchased by his aunt” for him in the same bachelor auction where Ally had bought Danny.

  Damn, life was funny.

  Neither Ray nor Danny had been real happy at being drafted to participate in that dog-and-pony show. But look how things had turned out. If this wasn’t a happy ending, Danny didn’t know what was. Even if he did have to wear this monkey suit again.

  Ray slipped quietly into the office. “I just delivered Aunt Myrtle to the bride’s room. I didn’t try to see what was going on in there, but I think it’s almost showtime.”

  Danny felt beads of sweat form on his forehead. He tugged at the collar again and fiddled with the bow tie that was a part of the formal mess dress. “It couldn’t come too soon for me.”

  COLONEL KATHIE PALMORE, in her women’s mess-dress uniform, helped Ally adjust her veil. Even puffed up like a giant silk-covered balloon, Ally couldn’t help admiring her reflection in the mirror of the bride’s room. There was something about the white organdy that made everything right.

  The details of this wedding had come together so quickly that Ally almost wondered if she had dreamed everything. She wanted to pinch herself to make sure that wasn’t the case, but on the other hand, if she did she just might wake up, and she sure didn’t want that to happen.

  A knock sounded on the door. Kathie let the veil fall around Ally’s shoulders and went to answer. She opened the door a crack, lest it be Danny, who was forbidden to see the bride until the proper moment.

  “Who is it?”

  “I’m Myrtle Carter, the bride’s aunt,” a female voice, familiar to Ally after a week of phone conversations, replied.

  Ally smiled in anticipation and spun around, eager to meet her newfound relative. The church was so stuffed with Murpheys she worried she might never learn all the names.

  “Aunt Myrtle, I’m so happy to finally meet—” Ally stopped as she stared at the woman in the bright purple suit. Ally would recognize her anywhere. And she was still wearing a red hat, although this one was much more discreet than the other one. “Omigod!” she exclaimed. “I know you.”

  Aunt Myrtle and Kathie both looked puzzled.

  “Well,” Aunt Myrtle said slowly, “I guess we have gotten to know each other through our phone chats.”

  “No,” Ally said, shaking her head. “We’ve met before. About six—no, seven—months ago,” she said, automatically placing her hand on her tummy.

  “I don’t think so, dear,” Aunt Myrtle said, shaking her coiffed gray head.

  “Yes. We did. You’re the lady who had the extra ticket to the bachelor auction. You were wearing a red hat and a different purple outfit. How could I possibly forget that? If you hadn’t given me that extra ticket you had and I hadn’t gone to the auction, I would never have ‘bought’ Danny. And I wouldn’t have been getting ready for a wedding today.”

  “Almost like a fairy godmother,” Kathie said, echoing what Ally was thinking.

  “Well, dear, I do remember that, now that you’ve reminded me,” she said, seeming to muse out loud. “What an odd turn of events. Who would have thought that our paths could have crossed like that and we didn’t realize it.”

  “And to think that I had lived for several years in the same county and never knew you were there.” Ally chuckled. “It’s funny. I realized I might have some family on my father’s side, but I really didn’t consider trying to find anyone until I discovered little Danielle was on the way.”

  “Well, my dear, you have another cousin you’ve yet to meet. My niece, Patsy Darling, is married to the best man. You’ll get to meet them both at the reception.”

  Aunt Myrtle glanced at Ally’s swollen tummy, evident beneath the cream-colored peau de soie. “However, if I really were a fairy godmother with magical powers, one would think I’d have timed things better.”

  Ally smiled at her aunt. She might only have just met the woman, but it seemed as though they’d known each other forever. Maybe there had been some sort of cosmic connection that had made them cross paths before the auction.

  Whatever the reason, Ally thought happily as she heard the organist begin to play the “Wedding March,” everything had worked out for the best. Today, she was a princess, fairy godmother and all.

  And she was about to wed her handsome Prince Charming.

  Could anything but a very happy ending be far behind?

  Epilogue

  Danny paced the delivery room waiting area like the impatient father-to-be he was. Danielle wasn’t supposed to make her appearance in the world for another couple of weeks, but she’d decided that tonight, the evening before her daddy was to depart for his assignment in Tamahlyastan, was the perfect moment to come into the world.

  As far as Danny was concerned, his daughter’s timing was impeccable.

  Danny had wanted very much to participate in the birth, but because he and Ally weren’t expecting him to be in the country, they’d agreed that Colonel Palmore would attend the prenatal classes and act as Ally’s coach. Now Danny was feeling more than a little excluded.

  “Congratulations, Sergeant. You’re a dad,” a masked-and-gowned figure, obviously Colonel Palmore, announced from the doorway. “Your wife is ready to introduce her daughter to her daddy. They’re waiting for you.”

  This was the moment he’d been waiting for. He paused only long enough to give Colonel Palmore a bear hug.

  Danny still had a hard time calling the colonel by her first name, but he would have to get used to doing it. The woman was Ally’s best friend, and he’d already been promised an assignment at headquarters when he returned from his overseas tour. So he’d be seeing the woman on a regular basis.

  “Is she…? Are they…?”

  “Wife and daughter are just fine,” the colonel said. “Go,” she said, shooing him with her hands. “Don’t keep them waiting. After all, that precious little girl had to work hard to get here early so she could see her daddy off.”

  Danny didn’t miss the glint of tears in the colonel’s eyes.

  “Go on,” she said gruffly. “Time’s a-wastin’.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice,” Danny said, hurrying down the hall.

  A smiling nurse pointed him toward the recovery room. “Congratulations, Daddy.”

  Danny just beamed. Everything had happened so quickly that he hadn’t had a chance to buy cigars. He guessed he would owe everyone, but even those would have to wait until he returned from his tour.

  He paused in the indicated doorway and drank in the sight of mother and child. His wife. His child. He couldn’t have painted a more perfect picture if he’d been an old master painting the Madonna and Child. “Beautiful” was all he could manage to say.

  Ally looked up, tired, but smiling through happy tears. “Oh, Danny, I never knew I could love anyone so very, very much,” she whispered, stroking the baby’s dark, fuzzy head.

  “Me, either,” he said huskily as he sank to his knees beside the bed. He touched the thick fuzz. “So soft,” he said with wonder. “But so beautiful. Just like her mother.”

  “She has her daddy’s curly hair, though,” Ally said, allowing one tendril to curl around her finger. She looked at her husband, tears of joy spilling from her eyes. “I love you both.”

  “Yeah,” he said thickly. “I love you, too. And I’ll do everything I can to make
this tour of duty pass as fast as possible so I can get back to make a family with you both.”

  “No,” Ally said. “With the three of us. You forgot…Buddy.”

  Danny had to smile. “You’re right. There will be three of you keeping the home fires burning—you, Danielle and Buddy, the dog. A guy couldn’t dream up a better happy ending if he tried.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-6935-7

  THE SERGEANT’S BABY

  Copyright © 2005 by Bonnie Gardner.

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  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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