Then come face-to-face with the fallout.
Gabe wasn’t concerned as much for himself as he was for Kelly. Ross was more of a father to her than a big brother since he’d raised her after their parents’ deaths. She idolized him, and it would cut her to the core if this put a permanent rift between them.
And it would.
Ross was a good CRO, the kind of guy who could watch your back and his own, but he was downright rigid and old-fashioned when it came to his kid sister.
“When I couldn’t find the van, I went to the TV station in Fredericksburg,” Gabe went on. “The reporter, Cissy, was there, but she’d already dropped off Delbert at his house, and he had the camera and film footage with him. I went there, but he wasn’t home.”
“Delbert,” Kelly mumbled like profanity. That one word said it all.
Delbert the dirtbag would delight in using that footage in the worst possible way. It was even likely that Delbert was home when Gabe had pounded on his door and just hadn’t wanted a confrontation with someone who could kick his butt six ways to Sunday.
Part of Gabe had wanted to continue the search, but the sleet had started, and he hadn’t wanted Kelly leaving the library to drive home in this.
He’d also been concerned about her leaving, period.
As in running off so that she wouldn’t have to discuss why she’d kept a pregnancy and the baby from him. Kelly wouldn’t have left permanently, of course. No way would she leave Sugar Springs just to avoid him, but she might have pulled a Delbert and have been unavailable so it’d take some time for Gabe to find her.
But she hadn’t done that, thank God.
Even if she looked as if that’s exactly what she wanted to do. Well, tough. They were having that discussion, and this time there’d be no TV crew or anything else to distract them.
“I left voice messages for Delbert to call me,” Gabe added. Profanity-laced, threatening messages. Six of them. “All I can do now is wait, and when I can, I’ll get him to destroy what he filmed.”
“And if he doesn’t agree to that?” Kelly asked.
“Oh, he’ll agree.” Because he wouldn’t give Delbert an alternative. That six ways to Sunday butt-kicking was still on the table.
Janine seemed to take that as gospel and blew out a breath of relief. “Then, it’ll be okay. So, I’ll just be getting home. Bear’s coming over before the sleet gets any worse. We’re doing a little gift exchange tonight.”
She bobbled her eyebrows, suggesting that she had a night of hot sex planned. Probably did, too. Janine and Buddy “Bear” McElroy had been doing gift exchanges since high school.
Janine turned to leave but then looked at Kelly and him. “Will you two be okay? I mean, do you need a referee or anything?”
“We’ll be fine,” Kelly said, her voice crisp. “Enjoy your evening, and thanks for watching the baby while I ran the kids’ program.”
Maybe it was the tightness in every part of Kelly’s body language and voice or the tightness in Gabe’s, but Janine didn’t budge.
“Go ahead,” Kelly insisted. “Once Gabe and I have talked, then he can leave for San Antonio…where he probably has people waiting for him.”
“Had,” Gabe corrected. “I called on the drive back here and canceled my plans so we can have that chat. Get your things so we can leave while the roads are still passable.”
Kelly’s eyes widened significantly. “And where are you staying?”
Good question. And she already knew the answer.
Since there was no hotel in town, and he hadn’t exactly stayed chummy with anyone other than Ross, that left one option.
Kelly’s.
The very place he always stayed when he was in town. She let him know that wasn’t an acceptable option with her slightly narrowed eyes.
“Do you really think it’ll do you any good to argue with me?” Gabe asked Kelly when she opened her mouth. No doubt to do just that—argue about him staying at her place.
She knew the answer to that, too, but that didn’t stop her from trying to come up with something else. Anything else. She would have likely even suggested Janine’s place if her friend hadn’t already said she had hot date plans.
“After what happened the last time you came to my house, this isn’t a good idea,” Kelly mumbled, but she finally got moving toward the back of the library.
Janine went in the other direction. Still eyeing them as if they were sticks of dynamite with short lit fuses, she put on her coat, walked outside to the parking lot and got in her car.
After what happened last time. That was like yet another stick of dynamite. Because the last time Kelly and he had ended up in bed together, and now they were the parents of a cooing, smiling, beautiful baby girl.
His baby.
That felt like a punch to the gut and a huge warm, fuzzy hug—all at the same time.
Him, a father!
Gabe had always figured that Hades would experience a sudden ice age before fatherhood happened to him, but here she was. Literally.
Kelly made her way back toward him, turning off lights along the way. With the ice storm bearing down on them, the library had cleared out, and according to the sign on the door, it’d be closed for the next four days for the holidays.
It might take Kelly and him that entire time to hash this out.
She now had Noel bundled in a thick pink blanket. Even though Kelly seemed to be balancing everything all right, Gabe took the diaper bag from her shoulder to help lighten her load.
“Since your car probably has one of those baby seats, we’ll take it, and I’ll drive,” Gabe said, looking out at the sleet spitting down on the sidewalk. “I don’t want you driving in this.”
Kelly opened her mouth again. Maybe to protest his taking charge, but she mumbled a thanks. No doubt because she truly didn’t want to drive on the already slick roads.
Gabe helped her lock up the library and then got Noel and her moving to the car. It seemed to take an eternity to heat up the vehicle, and he kept checking to make sure Noel wasn’t too cold. She wasn’t. She was snuggled into the blanket and the thick lining of the rear-facing carrier that was strapped into the backseat.
“Nothing else can happen between us tonight,” Kelly insisted as he drove out of the parking lot. “Not ever again.”
Gabe nearly reminded her that the damage had already been done. But he refused to think of his little girl as damage. Still, he got what Kelly was trying to say, and there was a clear visual of it as he drove through town toward her house.
This was where she’d been born and raised, and a continued relationship with him would almost certainly jeopardize her staying here in her hometown.
Such that it was.
The “blink and miss it” Main Street with a handful of mom-and-pop shops that had managed to stay open over the years. The Tip Top Café—which consisted of three booths with coin-operated jukeboxes, two tables and a counter. Then there was the Snapshots and Whatnots antique store that also doubled as the town’s only photographer and small-engine repair shop. It was next to the gas station and the bank that still didn’t have an ATM.
To Gabe, the stagnant town always felt like dead weight that he’d been plenty happy to shed, but to Kelly this place was her anchor. However, she could find other anchors.
He hoped.
The drive was a trip down memory lane all right, and while Gabe would have preferred to use the time to figure out what the heck he was going to do about Kelly and Noel, there were things that just captured his attention.
Like the abandoned Up-Do Beauty Salon that his mother had once owned.
His dad had left months before Gabe was born, and he and his mother had lived in the back part of the tiny wood-frame house. The salon had been in the front. Just inches away from his bedroom. He’d grown up
reeking of hair dye and perm solution. Not exactly welcome scents for a misfit jock.
“Do you ever hear from your mother?” Kelly asked, following his gaze to what was left of the Up-Do.
“No.” She’d left town a couple of weeks after he graduated high school to run off with her current “trouble in tight jeans” boyfriend, and Gabe hadn’t heard from her since.
Good riddance, as far as Gabe was concerned.
Something he wouldn’t say aloud to Kelly since it definitely hadn’t been good riddance for her own family.
Her parents had been killed in a car accident when Kelly was just fourteen. Ross, eighteen. Ross had raised her and lived at home while he attended college in nearby San Antonio, and he’d become as much of a father figure as a brother. Ross loved Kelly, and she loved him.
Unlike Gabe’s situation with his mother, Kelly had had a home and family.
Still did.
Gabe got yet more proof of that when he pulled into the gravel driveway of her two-story house. It didn’t exactly have magazine-cover curb appeal with its dark gray limestone facade and weathered front porch, but since Kelly had lived here her entire life, she probably saw only the memories.
Well, some memories anyway.
She probably wasn’t hanging on to the ones that she’d made with him a year ago.
The memories hit Gabe like a Mack truck when they hurried inside. Like everything else in Sugar Springs, Kelly’s house hadn’t changed a bit. The mishmash of furniture and knickknacks collected over four generations. Framed family photos on the fireplace mantel and wall shelves. Some were of Ross and him in various stages of high school and their military careers.
And there was also an overstuffed floral sofa next to the fireplace.
Oh, yeah. Plenty of memories there.
That was where Kelly and he had been sitting a year ago the day after Christmas. The bottle of Jack had been on the coffee table. Ross had already left to finish up some paperwork at the base in San Antonio and would be flying out ahead of Gabe. Kelly and Gabe had talked at first. For hours. And when talk of the dangerous deployment had put some tears in her eyes, Gabe had lent her his shoulder.
Then his mouth.
It was the mouth-lending that’d gotten them in trouble because it’d led them straight to her bed.
Even though there weren’t any visual reminders of that around, Gabe’s imagination was pretty good, and he got a jolt of how Kelly’s mouth had felt. How she tasted.
And yeah, he got another image of her naked.
That really didn’t help with working out this situation between them.
Kelly eased a still-sleeping Noel into a bassinet near the sofa. She turned toward him, ditching the Mrs. Santa hat, and she rubbed her hands down the sides of her costume.
Clearly nervous.
Still, she made a picture there with the holiday tree behind her, practically framing her. She looked like Christmas.
Except for that deeply troubled look on her face.
Kelly took the present that she’d gotten from Ross and put it beneath the tree. There were at least six other gifts, not decorated in traditional wrapping but in hand-painted paper. Kelly’s doing, no doubt. She’d made Christmas here for Noel and her.
“I’ll need to wake the baby up soon, or she won’t sleep well tonight,” she said. “Not that she actually sleeps well, but a long nap will mean she’ll be up more than usual. So, if we’re going to talk, it’s best to do it now.” Kelly glanced down at her costume. “Or at least right after I’ve changed.”
He definitely wanted to talk, but Gabe wasn’t sure Kelly was going to want to hear what he had to say. Especially when she didn’t stay put. She hurried into the first room just off the living room. Her bedroom. Where she was no doubt stripping out of that velvet. Since it wasn’t a good idea for him to be anywhere close to Kelly while she was almost naked, he went over to the bassinet instead.
To have a better look at his baby.
Noel was on her back, her head turned slightly to the side, and she occasionally pursed her lips as if sucking at a bottle. Everything about her was fascinating. So beautiful.
Perfect, really.
Even if that was his mouth, hair and eyes. So much of him all rolled into that tiny, precious face. Gabe wasn’t sure how he could love someone this much that he’d just met, but he did.
He’d once heard Kelly’s mom say that love for a child was soul deep. Gabe hadn’t understood that then.
But, man, he understood it now.
He reached down, brushed his fingers over those baby curls. Like pure silk. So was her skin, Gabe learned when he trailed his finger to her cheek.
He got so lost in the moment that he didn’t immediately notice the baby monitor mounted to the foot of the bassinet. And it had a camera on it. He wondered if Kelly was on the other end, and Gabe got confirmation that she was when she practically barreled back into the living room, still tugging on a pair of socks.
“You were watching her sleep,” Kelly mumbled, her tone sounding a little like an accusation. She fluttered her fingers toward her bedroom. “I have baby monitors in the house so I can keep an eye on her no matter which room I’m in.”
Gabe nodded. Good idea since it was a big house. But he seriously doubted that Kelly dressed at breakneck speed when he wasn’t there. Maybe she’d seen that “soul deep” look of love on his face, or maybe she was just wired too much to slow down.
Either way, she was only half put together.
Her jeans were partially zipped. Her green sweater hiked up on one hip. She bobbled around while still trying to get that sock right.
When she finally finished, she shot him one nerve-laced look and headed for the kitchen just a few yards away, where she put the kettle on the burner of the old-fashioned gas stove. For a cup of tea, no doubt, but tea wasn’t going to soothe this tangle of nerves inside her.
Or the one inside him.
“You want me to fix you a cup, too?” she asked.
“No, thanks. I’d rather just talk. You should have told me about the pregnancy,” he repeated and then waved her off before she could repeat her rationale for keeping it secret. “I understand why you didn’t, but not telling me has put us in this position.”
Too bad he wasn’t exactly sure what position that was.
Gabe decided to go with the nonnegotiable part. “I want to be part of Noel’s life.”
“How?” Kelly immediately asked. “Her life is here with me, in Sugar Springs.”
“That can change.”
Judging from the gasp she made, that wasn’t the answer she’d been expecting. “This is my home. I can’t leave. And please don’t suggest split custody. She’s way too young for that.”
Obviously, Kelly had given this more thought than he had. Of course, she’d had nearly a year to consider all options and angles. He’d had only a few hours to cobble together some possibilities.
And yeah, split custody had been one of them.
While looking down at Noel in the bassinet, Gabe had considered the logistics of that. Wouldn’t be easy. But he could make it work.
Correction, he would make it work.
Kelly turned away from him, her attention suddenly fixed on the metal canister of tea that she took from the cabinets. Since he doubted the tea had captured her complete attention, she was likely about to say something that she preferred to say while not making eye contact with him.
“Besides, a baby wouldn’t fit into your lifestyle,” Kelly added. “You’re a player, Gabe.”
He groaned. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to make eye contact. “You know, for a so-called player, I’m not getting a lot of action,” he mumbled under his breath.
Kelly would be surprised to learn that he hadn’t been with anyone since her. Pro
bably wouldn’t believe him, either. There’d been some opportunities during those four months at the base in Germany. Opportunities that he’d passed up because, well, because he just had.
Not because of Kelly.
And it was a sad day in a man’s life when he started lying to himself.
Of course, it’d been because of her. Ross’s little sister. That’s how he’d seen her anyway until that night a year ago. That night, he’d seen Kelly exactly as he was seeing her now.
Mouthwatering.
A woman he wanted in his bed again, but that was something he couldn’t have.
He had to think with his head now and not some other part of him that rarely made good decisions. He had to do what was best for Noel and give her something he’d never had.
A father.
Even if he couldn’t give her what she deserved—a family.
“Well?” Kelly said, clearly waiting for an answer.
“Noel won’t have to fit into my lifestyle because I’ll fit into hers,” he said.
She threw up her hands, one of them palm up, the other still holding the unopened canister of tea. “How?”
Gabe hoped this sounded a lot better out loud than it did in his head. “For starters, you’ll marry me.”
There was a moment of startled silence. Just a moment. Then, the tin of tea crashed to the floor, making a loud clanging on the hardwood floor, and tea bags inside went flying. But that wasn’t the only sounds.
Kelly gasped again.
And Noel started to whimper.
Kelly didn’t bother picking up the tea. She rushed past him and scooped up the baby, whirling back around toward him and holding Noel like a cuddly shield.
Despite the thick tension, Gabe smiled at Noel and his heart doubled in size when the baby smiled back.
But Kelly sure wasn’t smiling, and she was almost certainly on the verge of telling him what he could do with his marriage proposal.
“Don’t give me an answer now,” Gabe insisted before she could say anything. “Sleep on it. In fact, take a day or two. But consider this. It’ll be best for Noel if we’re married. She’ll be my military dependent and can get all kinds of benefits.”
Unexpected Gift Page 3
