“Mrs. Saunders,” Kelly mumbled.
She hurried to the window and spotted her elderly widowed neighbor in the sprawling backyard right next to Kelly’s. The woman was still in her nightgown and chenille robe and was staring up at the trio of massive oak trees that divided their properties.
Gabe got up, too, and when he saw Mrs. Saunders, he handed Noel to Kelly so he could open the back door. The blast of cold air was instant, and Kelly stepped deeper into the kitchen while Gabe went onto the back porch.
“Gabe,” the woman said, smiling so big that it caused her wrinkles to bunch up into more wrinkles. Her hair was almost as white as the icy ground and the fog that her breath was creating in the cold. “I saw you come in last night. Welcome home.”
“Thanks. Mrs. Saunders, it’s too cold for you to be outside dressed like that,” Gabe warned her in a friendly voice.
“I know. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell Doodles, but she won’t come down.”
Kelly groaned. Doodles, her neighbor’s cat. It was always getting up that tree, but now wasn’t a good time for it. She peered into the trees and did indeed spot the tabby. Not on one of the lower branches, of course, but the top one.
“Just go back inside,” Gabe told the woman. “I’ll get the cat down.”
He came back into the kitchen, bringing some of the chill and scents of winter with him, and he immediately headed to the guest room.
“The cat won’t stay up there long,” Kelly explained, following him. “If you just wait a half hour, she’ll get cold and go back in.”
“But Mrs. Saunders likely won’t budge during that time, and I don’t want her dying of exposure.” He took a coat from his duffel bag and slipped it on along with a pair of gloves. They looked warm enough, but this wasn’t necessary.
“That tree branch is high, and it’s coated with ice,” Kelly pointed out.
“Worried about me?” He flashed that smile. The one that had no doubt seduced many women. “I’m a Combat Rescue Officer, remember? Wouldn’t be a very good one if I couldn’t rescue a tabby named Doodles.”
Yes, but she was still thinking about that ice and height.
And that smile.
“Let’s just hope I don’t have to say Doodles’s name too many times,” he added. “Wouldn’t be good for my tough-guy image.”
She fought a smile, but Kelly knew it was a ploy to stop her from fussing about this. “Mrs. Saunders might just want some company,” Kelly tried again. “So don’t let her rope you into doing a long list of chores that’ll keep you here.”
He shrugged. “I have other things to keep me here.” And he dropped a kiss on Noel’s head before heading back toward the kitchen.
Again, Kelly followed him. “Just how long are you planning on staying anyway?”
Another shrug. “I have over thirty days of leave saved up. I’ll stay as long as it takes you to mull over marrying me.”
She blinked. “The answer to that is no.”
If that bothered him in the least, he didn’t show it. Instead, he opened one of the cabinets and located a can of tuna.
“Then, sleep on it again,” Gabe argued. “And while you’re doing that we can talk about Ross…among other things.”
Ross.
Kelly certainly hadn’t forgotten about her brother, but with so many other issues on her mind, she’d put him on the back burner. “What are we going to do about Ross?”
“He’ll be here in a week. I’ll tell him about Noel then. And us.”
Just the thought of it caused her breath to go thin. “But how?”
“I got a whole week to figure that out,” he said as if it would be a piece of cake. “Right now, I have a cat to rescue.”
And with the can of tuna in hand, Gabe stepped out into the winter cold.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE CAT RESCUE was one of his easier missions.
Doodles hadn’t come down for the can of tuna that Gabe had opened for her and waved around in the air, but dangling the toy catnip monkey had done the trick. The tabby had scurried down as if she had a Doberman on her tail, snatched the toy and bolted for Mrs. Saunders’s porch.
Good. Nothing like a little feline addiction to save the day. It’d saved him from shimmying up the tree after her, too. With as much ice as there was on the branches, they could have snapped under his weight. Best not to add a trip to the E.R. while he was on leave, trying to work a miracle with this situation with Kelly.
And it would take a miracle since he wasn’t even sure how he wanted all of this to play out.
Well, not sure except for the part about being in Noel’s life in a big way. That would happen even if Kelly continued to turn down his proposal, but as with his future conversation with Ross, Gabe was still trying to work out the details about that.
Details that might include him being a married man.
That required a deep breath, and he got a reminder of the cold when his lungs practically froze.
“There you go,” Mrs. Saunders said to Doodles. She opened her back door and let the tabby in. “Gabe, come in, too, so I can properly thank you.”
Gabe would have gladly settled for just a verbal thank-you, but while the cat was now inside, Mrs. Saunders still wasn’t. She was on the porch, almost under the eaves where there were dozens of foot-long icicles arrowing right down toward her. Best to get her inside, and the fastest way to do that was to go with her.
Kelly was probably right about the woman just needing a little company.
He stepped into her kitchen, the scents of Christmas assaulting him. Sugar cookies, a fresh-cut tree and hot chocolate. With marshmallows. Mrs. Saunders poured him a cup and motioned for him to sit at the small kitchen table.
Her house was yet another blast from the past because it probably hadn’t been updated since the seventies. Yellow cabinets with avocado-green appliances and a red-checkered tablecloth. There were pictures of her kids and grandkids everywhere, some framed and some just held on the fridge with magnets.
It was the kind of kitchen he’d always figured his own grandmother would have, if he had a grandmother, that is. His mom had never gotten around to introducing him to her folks or his dad’s.
“Are your kids coming home for Christmas?” he asked.
“Three of them are. They’ll be here as soon as the roads clear.” She rattled off their names. Gabe had a good recollection of them, but they were all older than he was. Like him, though, they’d all left town and moved to greener pastures.
“I saw Kelly and you when you got in yesterday,” Mrs. Saunders said a moment later. “So glad you made it home for Christmas.” In addition to the cup of hot chocolate that she put in front of him, she served him a trio of shaped cookies on a saucer. A tree, a wreath and a Santa.
It was early, and he didn’t usually dose up on this much sugar, but Gabe made an exception since the cat rescue, the conversation with Kelly and playtime with Noel had left him starving. One bite of the cookies and his taste buds were in heaven.
Mrs. Saunders took the chair across from him and had a sip of her own hot chocolate. Not exactly the little-old-granny type, even though just about everyone he knew called her Old Lady Saunders. Yes, her hair was gray, her shoulders hunched a little with age, but she had a sturdy build, and there was plenty of light in her weathered brown eyes.
She smiled as if she knew some kind of secret, and then leaned in closer, sliding her hand over his for a gentle pat. “I figured it was you all along. The baby looks just like you.”
Oh. So, that was the secret. It made him wonder how many others knew it, as well. Or had guessed. Of course, after the fiasco at the library, there was no guessing required. Everyone in the tri-county area likely knew that the Sugar Springs assistant librarian had had a fling with the military guy who
slept around a lot.
Gabe chowed down on more of the sugary Santa. “Kelly said you babysit Noel.”
She nodded. “I do at that. Love that little girl to pieces. And she’s a good baby, too.”
Yes, but even a good baby could be taxing, and Gabe wondered just how much longer Mrs. Saunders would be able to do nanny duty. It especially wouldn’t be easy when Noel started walking.
When did babies walk anyway?
He made a mental note to download some books on baby milestones and such.
“I hope you brought Kelly a nice Christmas present,” she commented.
Oh.
Gabe made a mental note to do something about that, too. “Any idea what she wants?”
“Well, she’s always poring over the stuff in Snapshots and Whatnots.”
“The junk store?” That didn’t seem like a decent place to get a Christmas present.
“One person’s junk is another man’s treasure,” Mrs. Saunders remarked. “If the weather clears, I’m sure you can find something up there. Herman keeps all sorts of mementos from the past that Kelly likes. Jewelry, books and toys. In his photography room, he’s even got plenty of old photos that he took from when the high school was still here.”
Gabe had to shake his head. He’d known the shop owner, Herman Newman, his whole life. Also knew that Herman was the town’s only photographer, but Gabe had never ventured into the place.
“What kind of photos?” he asked.
“All sorts. Some of you boys in your football uniforms. Graduations. Dances. Stuff like that.”
“And Kelly looks at them?”
She smiled. “Well, the football ones hold a lot of women’s attention. Not mine, mind you, but younger women. Must be those tight pants and shoulder pads.”
He couldn’t imagine Kelly poring over old football shots, but then Ross would have been in the photos, too. Maybe this was more of that family-bond thing that she was trying her damnedest to hold on to.
“But it’s not just pictures,” Mrs. Saunders went on. “There’s an antique rocking chair. Some pretty glass bottles…even some old Raggedy Ann dolls for Noel.”
He made yet a third mental note to get Noel something, too. Something better than a Raggedy Ann doll. This was her first Christmas, and it should be special.
“She cried a lot, you know,” Mrs. Saunders said, looking at him from over the rim of a World’s Greatest Grandma cup.
That got his attention. “Noel cried a lot?” It felt like a punch to the gut to hear that his baby had been so upset.
“No. Kelly did.”
All right. That was a punch of a different kind. With all that’d gone on, he hadn’t even thought to ask Kelly about the pregnancy. “Why’d she cry a lot?”
“I suspect she had plenty of reasons. Being a single woman with money tight. Plus, she missed you.”
That got his attention, too. “She said that?”
“Not with her actual words. People don’t always have to use words to get their point across, but her tears said it all. I saw her once, sitting on her back porch in the rocking chair. Just staring off, her hand on her belly and the tears a-coming like spring rain.”
Oh, man. Yeah, he should have asked her about the pregnancy, and maybe she would have opened up about the crying.
Or not.
Kelly was still working hard to keep her distance from him, and she probably wouldn’t have shared something like that.
“And then that fella from San Antonio came a few times,” Mrs. Saunders added, “and that made her cry even more.”
Suddenly, the cookie didn’t taste so sweet. “What fella?”
“Brent something or another. The lawyer that Kelly used to date.”
Not only had the cookie lost its flavor, but Gabe felt something he didn’t want to feel. Jealousy. It didn’t go that well with cookies and hot chocolate. “Why’d Brent come over? They broke up years ago.”
Despite the fact they were the only two people in the entire house, Mrs. Saunders still leaned in as if telling a secret that she didn’t want anyone else to hear. “I only got bits and pieces from Kelly, but it seems as if that lawyer fella wanted to marry her.”
“W-what?” And yes, he stuttered.
“Marry her,” Mrs. Saunders repeated. “He even told Kelly that he’d move to Sugar Springs and help her raise the baby as his own.”
“When did this happen?” Gabe tried not to snap at the woman.
“A while ago. Maybe two, three weeks.”
Weeks? Some scumbag ex of Kelly’s wanted to marry her and raise his baby just a few weeks ago?
The answer to that would be a thousand gallons of no.
“I need to be going,” Gabe said, getting to his feet. “Thanks for the cookies and cocoa.”
“Anytime. I guess this means Kelly won’t be marrying that lawyer fella?” she asked.
Yeah, that’s exactly what it meant.
Heck, he hoped so anyway.
But it was a very long short walk back over to Kelly’s. In a nutshell, Brent might be Kelly’s ideal package. A lawyer willing to move to Sugar Springs and become a family with Noel and her.
Gabe heard the growl rumble in his throat.
He couldn’t give Kelly that make-believe ending in Sugar Springs, but by God, he wasn’t going to let some other man raise his baby, either. Or marry Kelly.
Except that last one might be out of his control.
She couldn’t marry Brent. She just couldn’t. But it might be the very reason she kept telling Gabe no to his own marriage proposal. And with that weighing on his mind and temper, Gabe went back inside Kelly’s kitchen and ditched his coat on one of the chairs.
Kelly wasn’t there, but he followed the sound of her voice and Noel’s cooings to the nursery.
Kelly had changed her clothes and was in the process of changing Noel, but she looked up at him. “Are Mrs. Saunders and the cat all right?”
Gabe just skipped right over that and went to the heart of the matter. “Brent asked you to marry him?”
The surprise froze on her face for a few moments. “Mrs. Saunders told you that?”
“Yeah, that and some other things. It’s true?”
The surprise turned to concern. “What other things?”
Gabe huffed. “Did Brent propose to you?”
He was riled, but it was hard to stay that way when Noel reached out her little hand and wiggled her fingers. As if motioning for him to come closer. He did, but while smiling at his baby girl, he narrowed his eyes a bit at Kelly.
“Yes, Brent asked me to marry him,” Kelly finally said. And that was it. No details.
“And?” Gabe prompted.
“He’s giving me to New Year’s Day to think about it.”
Gabe had no idea what expression was on his face, but it was possibly a mix of anger, surprise and what-the-heck? “So, you’re sleeping on it, too?”
“So to speak.” She finished dressing Noel and stood, meeting him eye to eye. “But I’m not sleeping with him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
He wasn’t. Gabe figured she hadn’t exactly had time for that, but if she accepted Brent’s proposal, that would certainly end.
“And?” he prompted when she didn’t continue. “What will you tell him?”
“I’m pretty sure my answer to his proposal will be no.”
“Pretty sure?” Heck, Gabe doubted she was pretty sure when it came to his proposal. Kelly definitely seemed to be leaning to the “no way, no how” response when it came to him, but Brent got a wishy-washy kind of no.
“While I’d love for Noel to have a family as I did,” she added, “I don’t believe marrying for her sake is the right thing to do.”
You’re damn right it�
��s not the right thing to do, Gabe nearly blurted out. However, it was sort of what he was asking her to do.
Sort of.
“The big difference between Brent and me is that I’m Noel’s father.” Though Gabe knew that Kelly hadn’t forgotten that.
Of course, the big difference in her mind was that Brent, the suck-up, was apparently ready to ditch San Antonio and move to Sugar Springs.
“Any reason you didn’t tell me about all of this?” he asked.
“Because I was too busy sleeping on it,” she grumbled, the sarcasm dripping from her voice. With Noel in her arms, she brushed past him, heading back to the kitchen, but Gabe wasn’t done with this conversation.
“Mrs. Saunders said you cried a lot,” he tossed out there.
Kelly didn’t stop. She eased Noel into her infant seat on the table and proceeded to pour herself a cup of tea. However, Gabe moved closer, and practically got right in her face.
Not an especially good idea.
It put them practically mouth to mouth, and it was a quick reminder that her mouth was probably as sweet as those cookies Mrs. Saunders had just served him.
No, not a good time to remember that.
Or maybe it was.
Maybe if he just hauled her to him and kissed her, all the doubts about his proposal would vanish. And then he remembered that having some doubts might be good. After all, they had plenty to work out because unlike the suck-up Brent, Gabe couldn’t just pull the plug on his career and move back to town.
Not immediately anyway.
He had two years left on his current military commitment, and after that he’d be just eight years away from putting in his twenty, where he could collect retirement pay. It seemed a lot to throw away, especially since he loved being in the Air Force, but he had to consider doing it for Noel.
“You’re staring at my mouth,” Kelly said, jolting him back to reality.
“Because I was thinking about kissing you.”
The pulse jumped in her throat. “You can’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It’s not. But I’m thinking about doing it anyway.”
She set her tea aside and put her palm on his chest. It was a puny attempt if she was trying to hold him back. In the swirls of all that green, he could see that she wanted to kiss him, too.
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