Men In Uniform Anthology

by Delilah Devlin

  “Such a jackass,” Dani confirmed.

  “Exactly. And how dare he come to my house, take one look at his perfect daughter, and walk away again.” Jane leaned her head in her hands “God, I’m such an idiot!”

  “You’re not an idiot.”

  Just then the doorbell rang again. Jane winced.

  “I’ll get the door, you check on Stella,” Dani said.

  Once her daughter was asleep at night, there was no waking her up, but nap time was a different story. Any little noise could disturb her, and then there was no getting her back down. Nap time meant letting her fall asleep wherever she was and leaving her there until she woke up. You did not wake a sleeping baby. Or toddler.

  Jane peeked into the living room and found Stella still asleep on the floor, her favorite blanket knotted up in her arms, pacifier plunging in and out of her little mouth. Jane’s heart clenched. She had no idea how she could love one tiny person so much. She made her way back to her bedroom to return to her laundry.

  “Um, Jane, I want to go on the record saying that you’re so not an idiot. There are some temptations no woman could resist,” Dani said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Hot Navy SEAL guy,” she whispered.

  “Here? Again?” She stood from her bed.

  Dani winced then moved out of the doorway. Kevin was right behind her. He rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. “Hey, Janie.”

  Jane glared at Dani.

  “I’ll go sit with Stella and make sure she doesn’t wake up. You kids be nice.” Then the traitor turned and left Jane alone with the sexiest man in the universe. But sexy was irrelevant. As were his heated kisses and magic orgasm-inducing penis. She was angry with him.

  “What do you want, Kevin?”

  “We obviously need to talk,” he said.

  Jane took a sobering breath, ignoring the rapid pounding of her heart. “Her name is Stella.”

  “She’s mine?”

  “Obviously.” She blew out a breath. “She has your eyes.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that.” He stepped farther into the room, and it didn’t escape her notice that his gaze landed on the bed behind her. “Were you planning on telling me?” His tone was edged with anger.

  “Oh, no! You don’t get the right to be angry,” she said. “I’m the one that’s angry.”

  “I was inside you yesterday, and you didn’t think to mention that the last time we’d made a kid? Fuck, Jane.” He scraped his fingers against his scalp, ruffling his slightly longer blond hair.

  “Well, you know you didn’t exactly give me time yesterday. And I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. Screw and go seems to be your MO.”

  “You’re the one who walked away yesterday.” He came even closer, his eyes again straying to the bed behind her. It was then that she remembered she was pretty sure she had peanut butter smeared on her shirt and her messy bun might or might not have stray glitter dispersed throughout. But what she looked like didn’t matter. She tore her eyes away from his ridiculously broad chest and defined arms. Seriously, couldn’t he find T-shirts that fit his biceps?

  “I tried.” She took a cleansing breath. “I tried to tell you when I first found out I was pregnant. But no one on your base would relay a message to you because I wasn’t family.”

  He swallowed visibly and nodded. “So, she’s not quite two?”

  “Eighteen months.”

  “Right.” He blew out a breath. “You’re right, I don’t have any reason to be angry. I’m sorry.” He came to stand right in front of her.

  She grabbed a random piece of laundry to hold, just to have something between them.

  “Janie, you have no idea how many times I thought about you while I was gone. How many times I had to take myself in hand to try to work you out of my mind.”

  She shook her head and held up a hand. “No! No, you’re not going to do that seduction thing. ‘I’ll keep in touch, Janie. I’ll call, Janie. You’re the kind of girl a guy can come home to.’ Remember all of that, Kevin? Is that just shit you whisper to all the girls you bring back to your hotel room?”

  “I don’t know what to say to that. There are no other girls. There haven’t been. Not since you.”

  Her heart came to a screeching halt. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that you haven’t slept with any other women for more than two years? You, with all that?” She motioned her hand toward him, gesturing to his entire person.

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Do you think I’m an idiot? There’s no possible way that women don’t throw their underwear at you on a regular basis.”

  His lips quirked in a grin. “It’s the truth. I haven’t slept with anyone besides you since that first night we met.”

  Her heart pounded, her mind whirling with the possibilities of what his words could mean. “Well, whatever. It still doesn’t explain that you said those things that sounded like promises, but then I…” She paused and shook her head. “You know what, it doesn’t matter. Wherever you were, whatever you were doing, you obviously didn’t think I was important enough to contact.”

  “Had I known what was going on back here, I would have made an effort sooner. Truthfully, I wanted to be with you. I knew that an email or a phone call would only have made me want you more, and there was no way I could get to you. So, I just waited until I’d have more time to spend with you. Then I got injured, and now here I am.”

  More like he waited until he didn’t have anything better to do than to come back to the awkward girl he’d seduced in Texas.

  “But now I know about Stella, and now we can plan our future,” he said.

  “Hold up, what future?”

  “Us. Our family.” He gave her a soft smile. Then he was quiet for a few moments. “I’m not sure if I told you that I grew up in the foster care system. Aged out.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I was never adopted.”

  Her heart stuttered. She’d had students before in similar situations, and it was always heartbreaking.

  “I’m well and truly on my own, or I was until I joined the navy,” he continued. “Anyway, I always promised myself that if I ever had a kid, I’d do whatever it took to be the best dad possible.”

  “You want to get to know Stella?” she asked. She’d never even really considered that as an option—having Kevin in Stella’s life. Well, she had initially when she’d found out she was pregnant, and she’d had fantasies about him coming back and finding out and them making things work. But that had been fueled by that bizarre pregnancy-induced horniness that had baffled her.

  “I want us to be a family,” he said.

  Her confusion must have been apparent on her face, because he took her hands into his.

  “Janie, marry me.”

  “What?”

  His smile fell.

  “We don’t even know each other.”

  “We’ll get to know each other. It’s the right thing to do.”

  “In the eighteenth century, but not anymore. No one is worried about my reputation.” That wasn’t entirely true, but most of the rumors and whispers had stopped once Stella turned one and people stopped asking where her baby daddy was.

  “I’m not having a kid of mine floating around out there without my name. I’ll honor my responsibilities.”

  “She’s not your responsibility. She’s mine, and we’re doing fine.” She crossed her hands over her chest. “If you want to get to know your daughter, that’s one thing, but I’m not marrying you.”

  “Janie, we’re good together.” He pulled her to him and kissed her, his tongue sliding against hers. She arched into him, her fingers clawing at his back. One hand slid up the front of her shirt and cupped her breast, and her nipples hardened painfully. Wet desire flooded her pussy.

  She shook her head and pushed away from him, putting distance between them. “No, no more sex. I can’t think when you touch me. You can co
me around and spend some time with Stella, though I’m not telling her who you are right now.” Not until she knew he was staying around, which seemed unlikely. He might be here until his next mission, but she wouldn’t put her daughter through the heartbreak of gaining and then losing a daddy.

  “I’m going to change your mind,” he said. “You’ll soon see that when I make a promise, I stick to my word.”

  He eyed the bed behind her, and damned if her stupid nipples didn’t harden in response. She was the worst sort of cliché.

  “Got anything to write on?”

  She turned away from him and grabbed the notebook she kept in her nightstand and handed it to him. He jotted something down and handed it to her.

  “This is where I’m staying and all my contact information. Call anytime.”

  She frowned but accepted the notebook back. “You know I’ve been doing this whole parenting thing on my own. I’m not going to suddenly need your help because you’re passing through town.”

  His jaw clenched. He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “I’m never going to disappoint you again, Janie, and that’s a promise.”

  Chapter Six

  No more sex.

  Jane’s words rang inside his head. She was putting her role as a mother ahead of that as a woman, and damned if he didn’t find that attractive. No adult in his life had ever put him first. Jane was exactly what he’d want for a mom for his kid. Still he wanted to lose himself inside her sweet curves.

  They’d exchanged some texts over the past few days and had decided that today, Saturday, would be the first day he’d get to spend some time with Stella.

  Stella, his daughter.

  He was a dad. He swallowed down the panic that bubbled inside him. He’d handled insurgents and terrorists. Surely he could handle spending some time with a toddler. He knew that’s what she was called—he’d googled it. Along with a bunch of other shit that made him feel like a bastard again for not reaching out to her while he’d been gone. He’d wanted time, though. Hadn’t wanted to suffice with stolen moments and short phone calls.

  He parked his leased truck on the street in front of Jane’s bungalow. A few minutes later she opened her front door.

  “Come on in, we’re almost ready.” She turned away from him, giving him a perfect view of her round ass as she walked across the room. “Stella,” she called. “Are you ready to go?”

  Silence.

  “Stellaluna,” Jane said.

  A ridiculously adorable giggle came from behind him, the sound wrapping around his heart like the sweetest of vises. He turned and saw the blond curls, then wide blue eyes. He sank to his knees.

  “Hey, Stella,” he said. “Is it okay if I go with you to story time at the library?”

  She gave him a shy smile and nodded.

  “Stella, can you say hello to Mommy’s friend?” Jane asked.

  He looked at the little girl, her chubby fingers wrapped around a—was that a rubber chicken? She popped a pacifier in her mouth. The little knob on the end declared itself a “mute button.” She glanced up at him, her round dark blue eyes staring at him. She did have his eyes.

  His heart pounded and clenched. He hadn’t felt this way since his very first time in combat. She was his kid. His daughter.

  Warm, sticky fingers grabbed onto one of his, and he swallowed the lump that had suddenly lodged in his throat.

  Jane’s blue-grey gaze took in the sight, and she opened her mouth to say something then turned away. She grabbed the keys off the entryway table and then walked them to the door.

  “We’ll take my car. If you can fold your giant body into my compact,” she said.

  “No need. I can drive. My truck’s bigger.”

  “Yes, but I have the car seat.”

  “I have one, too.” He led Stella, who still gripped his finger tightly, all the way to his F150 at the curb.

  “You bought a car seat?” Jane asked.

  “Yeah. It should be a good one, too. The sales clerk said it was a top seller, and the fireman who installed it agreed it was safe.”

  Her mouth opened, and she closed it, repeating the motion a few times so she looked like an adorable fish. “You went to the firehouse?”

  He shrugged. “That’s what it suggested on the parenting site.” He lifted Stella up in his arms and opened the passenger-side doors. Jane was still eyeing him like he’d grown an extra head.

  She pushed him out of the way to buckle all the various buckles. “I’m still mad at you, don’t forget that.”

  He chuckled. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” He waited a beat before asking, “Should I ask about the rubber chicken?”

  “You know, you’d think there would be an interesting story there, but not so much. It’s just her favorite.”

  …

  Two days later, Jane stopped walking on the sidewalk and turned to face Kevin. “I’m going to apologize now for anything that might be said in the next few hours.”

  He chuckled.

  “No, you don’t understand. My family is crazy. And loud. And crazy and not always nice.”

  “I fight terrorists for a living, Janie. I think I’ll be okay.”

  She blew out a breath. “Okay then.” She didn’t bother knocking. It was unlikely anyone was inside, anyway. So she led him through her parents’ living room and out the back door onto the patio.

  “Where’s my big girl?” her dad asked, already squatting to the ground. His apron bunched up, and he held his free arm out while keeping his spatula away.

  Stella ran into his arms. “PopPop!” she squealed. “Where Noodle?”

  Jane fought the urge to laugh.

  “Noodle?” Kevin whispered beside her.

  “It’s what she calls my mom, but no one knows why. Mom kept trying to get her to call her MiMi—which is what my nephews call her—but Stella will have none of it. She is Noodle.”

  “I take it I shouldn’t laugh about that.”

  “Not if you want my mom to like you.”

  He nodded.

  “Come on, let’s get this over with.” Jane walked farther into the yard and took a seat on one of the benches at the seven-foot table.

  “Boys! Boys!” Kathleen yelled, then she swore. “Justin, stop them before they drown the cat.”

  Her husband, Justin, ran off to do her bidding.

  Kathleen turned her gaze onto Jane, then her eyes widened when she saw Kevin. Here it came.

  “Oh. My. God,” Kathleen said. “Who do we have here?”

  “Kevin, this is my sister, Kathleen.”

  He stood slightly to lean across the table and shake her hand, all smiles and gorgeousness.

  “Where’s Michael?” Jane asked.

  “Not here yet.”

  “Yes!” Jane pumped her fist. “I’m not the last one for once.”

  Her mom came and sat and took one look at Jane and tsked her tongue. “For heaven’s sake, Jane, you could have at least put on some makeup.”

  “For our family grill out? Why?”

  Her mother’s eyes widened, and her glance moved back and forth between Kevin and Jane. “You need some color, dear. You look tired.”

  “I am tired. I have a toddler and a full-time job, so yeah, pretty damn tired.”

  “Well, you could have at least put some lipstick on for your friend here.” She held her hand out to Kevin, and they exchanged names.

  Jane rolled her eyes. “This isn’t a date. He’s Stella’s dad.” Fuckity fuck! The words just fell out of her mouth without her even thinking about it. She hadn’t planned to tell them. At least not today.

  “Holy shit, Jane! I mean, I know you said he was hot, but I just thought, you know, like hot…for you.”

  “Thanks, Kathleen.” Jane held her hands up. “Okay, I didn’t mean to out him quite like that, so let’s get this over with. Yes, Kevin is Stella’s dad. No, she doesn’t know yet, and we’re not going to talk about it today. He’s getting to know her, spending time with her, and sadly that
means getting to know y’all, too. Be nice, don’t give him a hard time, and don’t ask too many questions. Got it?”

  Kevin reached over and squeezed the back of her neck. “Relax, Janie. I’m fine.”

  God, why did his hands have to feel so good on her skin? And why did her damn nipples react no matter where he touched her? It was a Pavlovian response, nothing more. Her body recognized the sex unicorn that he was and responded. She sighed.

  “So are y’all together now?” Kathleen asked.

  “Working on it,” Kevin said at the same time Jane said, “No.” They exchanged looks, and he winked at her.

  “It’s complicated,” he said.

  Kathleen smiled and nodded. “Does he know what a hot mess you are yet?”

  “Mess, I’m not so sure about, but definitely hot,” Kevin said.

  Her cheeks flamed. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Don’t make eye contact.

  “Cute. But that’s not what I meant,” Kathleen continued. “Jane, here, has always been an original. She used to wear two different-colored shoes to school.”

  “They were both Chucks, and they both matched the rest of my outfit,” Jane said. She knew her sister meant it all in good fun, but damned if Jane wasn’t tired of being the oddball. The awkward, weird one.

  “Oh, or Halloween.” Kathleen grinned broadly. “While all the other girls were dressing up like sexy kittens or sexy unicorns, this one,” she pointed at Jane, “dressed up as something from that wizard book.”

  “The Golden Snitch,” Jane provided.

  “Yeah?” Kevin asked, his lips kicking up in a grin. “I love those books. Golden Snitch is pretty creative.”

  “Another year she was one of those troll guys with the hairy feet.” Her sister was on a roll now.

  “Oh yes, that Froggy character,” her mother said.

  “Frodo,” Jane corrected. “But I was actually Sam.”

  “Because he’s the real hero of the story,” Kevin said.

  Jane met his gaze. “Yes, yes he is.”

  “Sounds like you had some great costumes, Janie. I bet you’re just as creative with Stella’s.”

  The triplets ran by the table carrying something suspicious, and Kathleen jumped up to go chase them, effectively ending the humiliate-Jane portion of the lunch.