Melody spotted him from across the town common and her heart nearly stopped.
The Romanellas’ new foster kid, Andy Marshall, was fighting with two boys who had to be at least three years older and a foot and a half taller than he was.
The three kids were in the shadows of the trees at the edge of the town playground. As Melody watched, Andy was knocked almost playfully to the ground as the two older boys laughed. But the kid rolled into the fall like an accomplished stunt fighter and came up swinging. His fist connected with the nose of one of the other boys, sending the taller one staggering back.
Melody could hear the bellow of pain from inside her car. She heard the shouts change from taunting laughter to genuine anger, and she knew that Andy was on the verge of getting the spit kicked out of him.
She took a quick left onto Huntington Street and another left the wrong way into the Exit Only marked drive of the playground parking lot, leaning on her horn as she went.
“Hey!” she shouted out the car window. “You boys! Stop that! Stop fighting right now!”
One of the older boys—Alex Parks—savagely backhanded Andy with enough force to make Melody’s own teeth rattle before he and his friend turned and ran.
As Melody scrambled to pull her girth from the front seat of her car, Andy tried to run, too, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t do better than to push himself up onto his hands and knees on the grass.
“Oh, Andy!” Melody crouched down next to him. “Oh, God! Are you all right?”
She reached for him, but he jerked away and she backed off.
His knees and elbows were raw, and his nose was bleeding pretty steadily. He had a scrape on his cheek underneath his left eye, and his lip was already swollen and split. His brown hair was messy and clotted with dirt and bits of grass, and his T-shirt was bloody and torn.
He’d had the wind knocked out of him and he struggled to regain his breath as tears of pain and humiliation filled his eyes.
“Go away,” he growled. “Just leave me alone!”
“I can’t do that,” Melody told him evenly. “Because we’re neighbors. And here in Appleton, neighbors look out for each other.”
She sat down in the grass, crossing her legs tailor-style, fighting a familiar wave of nausea, thankful they were sitting in the shade.
He was checking the watch he wore on his skinny left wrist, examining the protective surface over the clock face and holding it to his ear to be sure it was still ticking.
“Did they break it?” Melody asked.
“What’s it to you?” he sneered.
“Well, you seem more concerned with your watch than with the fact that you’re bleeding, so I thought—”
“You’re the unwed mother, right?”
Melody refused to acknowledge the tone of his voice. He was being purposely rude so that she wouldn’t know he was on the verge of dissolving into tears. She ignored both the rudeness and the threatening tears. “In a nutshell, yeah, I guess I am. My name’s Melody Evans. I live next door to the Romanellas. We met last week, when Vince and Kirsty brought you home with them.”
He sat down, still catching his breath. “You know, they talk about you. They wonder exactly who knocked you up. Everyone in town talks about you all the time.”
“Except when they’re talking about you,” Melody pointed out. “Between the two of us, we’ve got the gossips working full-time, haven’t we? A foster child from the big, bad city who blows up lawn mowers. There’s probably a betting pool guessing how long it’ll be before the police become involved in your discipline.”
Her bluntly honest words surprised him, and he actually looked at her. For a brief moment, he actually met her eyes. His own were brown and angry—far too angry and bitter for a twelve-year-old. But then he looked away.
“The hell with them,” he said harshly. “I won’t be here long anyway.”
Melody feigned surprise. “Really? Vince told me you were going to be staying with him and Kirsty at least until next September—that’s almost a year.” She fished in her handbag for some tissues. She wished she had a can of ginger ale in her bag, too. She was trying to make friends with this kid, and God knows throwing up on him wouldn’t win her big points.
“A year.” Andy snorted. “Yeah, right. I’ll be gone in a month. Less. A week. That’s all most people can take of me.”
She handed him a wad of tissues for his nose. “Gee, maybe you should try a different brand of mouthwash.”
There was another flash of surprise in his eyes. “You’re a laugh riot,” he said scornfully, expertly stemming the flow of blood. He seemed to be a pro at repairing the damage done him in fistfights.
“You’re a sweet little bundle of charm and good cheer yourself, munchkin.”
He held her gaze insolently. He was James Dean and Marlon Brando rolled into one with his heavily lidded eyes and curled lip. He’d successfully concealed all of his pain and angry tears behind a “who cares?” facade. “I broke your window yesterday.”
“I know.” Melody could play the “who cares?” game, too. “Accidents happen.”
“Your sister didn’t think it was an accident.”
“Brittany wasn’t born with a lot of patience.”
“She’s a witch.”
Melody had to laugh. “No, she’s not. She’s got something of a volatile temper, though.”
He looked away. “Whatever.”
“Volatile means hot. Quick to go off.”
“Duh. I know that,” he lied.
She handed him more tissues, wishing she could pull him into her arms and give him a hug. He was skinny for a twelve-year-old, just a narrow slip of a little boy. His injuries from the fight—and probably from the battles he’d been fighting all of his life—went far deeper than a split lip, a bloody nose and a few scrapes and scratches. Still, although he may have looked like a child, his attitude was pure jaded adolescent, and she gave him a smile instead.
“You’re prettier than what’s-her-name, the witch,” he said, then snorted again. “But look what being prettier got you. Preggo.”
“Actually, being careless got me…preggo. And to tell you the truth,” Melody said seriously, “not using a condom could’ve gotten me far more than just pregnant. These days, you have to use a condom to protect yourself against AIDS. But I’m sure you already know that. Smart men never forget—not even for a minute.”
Andy nodded, acting ultracool, as if sitting around and talking about condoms was something he did every day. It was clear he liked being spoken to as if he were an adult.
“What was the fight about?”
“They insulted me.” He shrugged. “I jumped them.”
“You jumped them? Andy, together those boys weigh four times more than you.”
He bristled. “They insulted me. They were making up stories about my mother, saying how she was a whore, turning tricks for a living, and she didn’t even know who my father was—like I was some kind of lousy bastard.” He glanced down at her belly. “Sorry.”
“I know who the father of my baby is.”
“Some soldier who saved your life.”
Melody laughed. “Gee, you’re up to speed on the town gossip after only a few days, aren’t you?”
Another shrug. “I pay attention. My father’s a soldier, too. He doesn’t give a damn about me, either.”
Doesn’t give a damn. Melody closed her eyes, fighting another wave of nausea. She hadn’t exactly given Harlan Jones a chance to give a damn, had she?
“So you gonna keep it or give it away?”
The baby. Andy was talking about the baby. “I’m going to keep it. Him.” Melody forced a smile. “I think he’s a boy. But I don’t know for sure. I had an ultrasound, but I didn’t want to know. Still, it just…he feels like a boy to me.”
As if on cue, the baby began his familiar acrobatic routine, stretching and turning and kicking hard.
Melody laughed, pressing her hand against her taut belly and feeling the ripple of movement from both inside and out. It was an amazing miracle—she’d never get used to the joy of the sensation. It made her sour stomach and her dizziness fade far away.
“He’s kicking,” she told Andy. “Give me your hand—you’ve got to feel this.”
Andy gave her a skeptical look.
“Come on,” she urged him. “It feels so cool.”
He wiped the palm of his hand on his grubby shorts before holding it out to her. She held it down on the bulge close to her belly button just as the baby did what felt like a complete somersault.
Andy pulled back his hand in alarm. “Whoa!” But then he hesitantly reached for her again, his eyes wide.
Melody covered his hand with hers, pressing it down once again on the playground-ball tightness of her protruding stomach.
Andy laughed, revealing crooked front teeth, one of which was endearingly chipped. “It feels like there’s some kind of alien inside of you!”
“Well, there sort of is,” Melody said. “I mean, think about it. There’s a person inside of me. A human being.” She smiled. “A little, wonderful, lovely human being.” And if she was lucky, that little human being would take after his mother. Her smile faded. If she was really lucky, she wouldn’t have to spend the rest of her life gazing into emerald green eyes and remembering….
“Are you okay?” Andy asked.
It was ironic, really. He was the one who looked as if he’d been hit by a train. Yet he was asking if she was all right. Underneath the tough-guy exterior, Andy Marshall was an okay kid.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Melody forced another smile. “I just get dizzy and…kind of queasy sometimes.”
“You gonna barf?”
“No.” Melody took a deep breath. “Why don’t we go get you cleaned up?” she suggested. “Maybe I should take you over to the hospital…?”
He pulled away, slipping instantly back into surly James Dean mode. “No way.”
“You’ve got dirt ground into your knee.” Melody tried to sound reasonable. “It’s got to be washed. All of your scrapes have to be washed. My sister’s a nurse. She could—”
“Yeah, like I’d ever let the Wicked Witch of the West touch me.”
“Then let me take you home to Kirsty—”
“No!” Beneath his suntan and the dirt, Andy’s face had gone pale. “I can’t go there looking like this. Vince said…” He turned abruptly away from her.
“He told you no more fighting,” Melody guessed. Violence wasn’t in her next-door neighbor’s vocabulary.
“He said I got into another fight, I’d get it.” Andy’s chin went out as he pushed himself to his feet. “No way am I gonna let him take his belt to me! Hell, I just won’t go back!”
Melody laughed aloud. “Vince? Take his belt to you?”
“I’m outta here,” Andy said. “It’s not like anyone’s gonna miss me, right?”
“Andy, Vince doesn’t even wear a belt.” Vince Romanella might’ve looked like the kind of guy who would react with one of his big, beefy fists rather than think things through, but in the three years he and his wife had been foster parents, he’d never raised a hand to a child. What Andy was going to “get” was a trip to his bedroom tonight, where he would sit alone, writing a five-page essay on nonviolent alternatives to fighting.
But before she could tell Andy that, he was gone, walking quickly across the field, trying his best to hide a limp.
“Andy, wait!”
She started after him. He glanced back at her and began to run.
“Shoot, Andy, wait for me!”
Melody broke into a waddling trot, supporting her stomach with her arms.
He had to stop at Main Street and wait for a break in the traffic before he could cross.
“Andy, Vince isn’t going to hit you!”
But he didn’t hear her. He darted across the road and started running down the street.
Melody picked up her own pace, feeling like one of the running dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. With each step she took, the sky should have rumbled and the earth should have shook.
“Andy! Wait! Somebody stop Andy Marshall—please!”
She was light-headed and dizzy and within nanoseconds of losing what little breakfast she’d forced down earlier this morning. But no one seemed to notice her calls of help. No one seemed to be paying one bit of attention to the gigantically pregnant woman chasing the twelve-year-old boy.
No one except the exceptionally tall, exceptionally broad-shouldered man on the corner. Sunlight gleamed off sun-streaked brown hair that was pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. He was dressed similarly to just about all the other Saturday-morning antique shoppers who crowded the quaint little stores that surrounded the common. He wore a muted green polo shirt and a pair of khaki Dockers that fit sinfully well.
Seemingly effortlessly, he reached out and grabbed Andy around the waist. He moved with the fluid grace of a trained warrior, and as he moved, Melody recognized him instantly. He didn’t have to come any closer for Melody to know that his shirt accentuated the brilliant green of his eyes.
Lt. Harlan “Cowboy” Jones had come to Appleton to find her. Blackness pressed around Melody, taking out her peripheral vision and giving her the illusion of looking at Jones through a long, dark tunnel.
“Is this the kid you wanted, ma’am?” he called across the street to her, his voice carrying faintly over the roaring in her ears. He didn’t realize he’d found her. He didn’t recognize her new, extralarge, two-for-the-price-of-one size.
Melody felt nausea churning inside of her, felt dizziness swirling around her, and she did the only thing she could possibly do, given the circumstances.
She carefully lowered herself down onto the grass of the Appleton Common and fainted.
* * *
“What’s wrong with you?” Cowboy scolded the squirming kid as he carried him across the street. “Making your mama chase after you like that.”
“She’s not my mother,” the kid spit. “And you’re not my father, so let go of me!”
Cowboy looked up and blinked. That was odd. The woman had been standing right behind the blue Honda sedan. She was blond and hugely, heavily pregnant, but somehow she had managed to vanish.
He took a few more steps and then he saw her. She was on the ground, on the grass behind the parked cars, lying on her side as if she’d stopped to take a nap, her long hair hanging like a curtain over her face.
The kid saw her, too, and stopped struggling. “God, is she dead?” His face twisted. “Oh, God, did I kill her?”
Cowboy let go of the kid and moved fast, kneeling next to the woman. He slid his hand underneath her hair and up to the softness of her neck, searching for a pulse. He found one, but it was going much too fast. “She’s not dead.”
The kid was no longer trying to run away. “Should I find a phone and call 911?”
Cowboy put his hand on the woman’s abdomen, wondering if she was in labor, wondering if he’d even be able to feel her contractions if she was. He knew quite a bit about first aid—enough to qualify as a medic in most units. He knew the drill when it came to knife wounds, gunshot wounds and third-degree burns. But unconscious pregnant women were way out of his league. Still, he knew enough to recognize shock when he saw it. He brushed her hair out of her face to check her eyes, glancing up at the kid. “Is the hospital far away?”
“No, it’s right here in town—just a few blocks north.”
Cowboy looked back to check the woman’s eyes, and for several long, timeless seconds, he couldn’t move.
Dear, dear God, it was Melody. It was Melody. This immensely pregnant woman was Melody. His Melody. His…
He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, could hardly even think. Melody. Pregnant?
The implication nearly knocked him over, but then his training kicked in. Keep going, keep moving. Don’t analyze more than you have to. Don’t think if it’s gonna slow you down. Act. Act and react.
His rental car was on the corner of Main Street. “We can probably get her to the hospital faster ourselves.” His voice sounded hoarse. It was a wonder he could speak at all. He handed his car keys to the kid with the split lip. “I’ll carry Mel, you unlock the car door.”
The kid stared at him as he lifted Melody up and into his arms. “You know her?”
A hell of a question, considering he’d gone and gotten her pregnant. “Yeah. I know her.”
She roused slightly as he carried her down the street toward his car. “Jones…?”
“Yeah, honey, I’m here.”
The kid dropped the keys twice but finally managed to get the passenger door open.
“Oh, God, you are, aren’t you?” Melody closed her eyes as he affixed the seat belt around her girth.
Cowboy felt light-headed himself. She looked as if she were hiding a watermelon underneath her dress. And he’d done that to her. He’d sent his seed deep inside of her and now she was going to have his baby. And if he didn’t hurry, she was going to have his baby in the front seat of this car.
“Hang on, Mel. I’m taking you to the hospital.”
Cowboy turned around to order the kid into the back seat, but the kid was gone. He did a quick sweep of the area and spotted the boy at ten o’clock, running full speed across the common. Melody had no doubt been chasing him for a reason, but no matter what that reason was, getting her to the hospital had to take priority.
The kid had left Cowboy’s car keys on the front seat, thank God. Cowboy scooped them up as he slid behind the wheel, then started the engine with a roar.
Melody was pregnant and the baby had to be his. Didn’t it? Had it truly been nine months since the hostage rescue at the embassy? He did a quick count but came up with only seven months. He must have counted wrong. He pushed all thoughts away as he searched the street for a familiar blue hospital sign. Don’t think. Act. He’d have plenty of time to think after he was certain Mel was going to be okay.
The kid had been right—the hospital was nearby. Within moments, Cowboy pulled up to the emergency-room entrance.
He took the shortest route to the automatic ER doors—over the hood of the car—and helped the sliding doors open faster with his hands. “I need some help,” he shouted into the empty corridor. “A wheelchair, a stretcher, something! I’ve got a lady about to have a baby here!”
The startled face of a nurse appeared, and Cowboy moved quickly back to the car, opening the door and lifting Melody into his arms. Even with the added weight of her pregnancy, she still felt impossibly light, improbably slender. She still felt so familiar. She still fit perfectly in his arms. God, how he’d missed her.
He was met at the door by a gray-haired nurse with a wheelchair who took one look at Mel and called out, “It’s Melody Evans. Someone call Brittany down here, stat!”
“She’s unconscious,” Cowboy reported. “She’s come out of it once but slipped back.”
The nurse pushed the chair away. “She’d only fall out of this. Can you carry her?”
“Absolutely.” He tossed his car keys to a security guard. “Move my car for me, will you, please?”
He followed the woman through a set of doors and into the emergency room where they were joined by another woman—this one a doctor.
“She’s preregistered, but we will need your signature on a form before you go,” the nurse told him as they moved briskly toward a hospital bed separated from a row of other beds by only a thin, sliding curtain.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Cowboy said.
“Can you tell me when the contractions started?” the doctor asked. “How far apart they are?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted as he set Melody on the bed. “She was out cold when I found her. She must have just keeled over, right by the side of the road.”
“Did she hit her head when she fell?” The doctor examined Melody quickly, lifting her eyelids, checking her eyes and feeling the back of her head for possible injury.
“I don’t know,” Cowboy said again, feeling a surge of frustration. “I didn’t see her fall.”
The nurse had already slipped a blood-pressure cuff on Mel’s arm. She pumped it up and took a reading. “Blood pressure’s fine. Pulse seems steady.”
Melody looked so helpless lying there on that narrow bed. Her face was so pale. Her hair was so much longer than it had been in Paris. Of course, his hair was a lot longer, too.
It had been a long time since he’d seen her.
But it had only been seven months. Not nine.
Was it possible that she’d already been two months pregnant in Paris? He couldn’t believe that. He wouldn’t believe that. Of course the baby was his. She’d told him it had been close to a year since she’d broken up with her last serious boyfriend and…
Melody’s eyelashes flickered.
“Well, hello,” the doctor said to her. “Welcome back.”
As Cowboy watched, Melody gazed up at the doctor, her brow wrinkled slightly with confusion. “Where am I?” she breathed.
“At County Hospital. Do you remember blacking out?”
Melody closed her eyes briefly. “I remember…” She opened them, sitting up suddenly, turning to look around the room until her gaze fell directly on Cowboy. “Oh, God. You’re real.”
“I’d say hi, how are you, but that’s kind of obvious.” Cowboy did his best to keep his voice low and even. She was in no condition to be yelled at—even if she damn well deserved it. “It looks as if you have some news you forgot to tell me yesterday when we spoke on the phone.”
Her cheeks flushed, but she lifted her chin. “I’m pregnant.”
He moved closer. “I noticed. When were you planning to tell me?”
She lowered her voice. “I thought you told me SEALs were trained never to assume anything. Yet here you are, assuming my condition has something to do with you.”
“Are you telling me it doesn’t?” He knew without a doubt that that baby was his. He couldn’t imagine her with somebody else. The idea was ludicrous—and unbearable.
“How far apart are the contractions?” the doctor asked as the nurse gently pushed Melody back down on the hospital bed.
“Are you telling me it doesn’t?” Cowboy said again, knowing he should just step back and give the doctor space but needing to know if Melody was actually going to look him in the eye and lie to him.
She looked from the doctor to Cowboy and back. “The…what?”
“Contractions.” The doctor spoke slowly and clearly. “How far apart are they?”
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to wait outside,” the nurse murmured to him.
“And, ma’am, I’m going to have to decline that request. I’m staying right here until I know for sure Melody’s all right.”
Melody was shaking her head. “But I’m not—”
“Mel, what happened?” Another nurse came bursting through the door. She didn’t wait for an answer before turning to the doctor. “It’s nearly two months too soon. Have you given her something to stop the contractions? How far is she dilated?”
“I’m not having—”
“I’ve given her nothing,” the doctor reported calmly. “If she’s having contractions, they’re very far apart. I haven’t even done a pelvic exam.”
“Sir, her sister’s here now. Please wait outside,” the older nurse murmured, trying to push him gently toward the door.
Cowboy didn’t budge. So this was Mel’s sister. Of course. Mel had told him she was a nurse.
“I don’t need a pelvic exam,” Melody protested loudly. “I’m not having contractions at all. I was running after Andy Marshall and I got a little dizzy, that’s all.”
Her sister nearly jumped down her throat. “You were running!”
Melody sat up again, turning toward Cowboy. “You caught Andy for me. I saw you. Is he here?”
“No. I’m sorry. He ran away while I was getting you into my car.”
“Shoot! Shoot!” Melody turned toward her sister. “Brittany, you’ve got to call the Romanellas for me. Andy’s going to run away because he thinks Vince is going to take his belt to him for getting into another fight!”
But Brittany was looking at Cowboy, noticing him for the first time. Her eyes were a different shade of blue than Mel’s. Her face was sharper, more angular, too, but it was clear the two women were closely related. “Who the hell are you?”
“That depends on the baby’s due date,” he answered.
“What?”
“He brought Melody in,” the other nurse told her. “I’ve been trying to tell him—”
“Can we focus on Melody for a minute?” the doctor asked, gently trying to push Melody back down onto the bed. “I’d like to do that pelvic anyway—make sure that fall didn’t do anything it shouldn’t have.”
The gray-haired nurse was persistent. “Sir, now you really must wait outside.”
Brittany was still looking at him, her eyes narrowed in speculation. “Her due date, huh?”
Melody sat up again. “If we don’t hurry, Andy Marshall will be gone!”
“December 1st,” Brittany told Cowboy. She looked him over more carefully, from the tips of his boots to the end of his ponytail. “My God, you’re what’s-his-name, the SEAL, aren’t you?”
December 1st. That made more sense. Melody wasn’t due now—she wasn’t about to have the baby. With her slender frame and petite build she only looked as if she were going to pop any minute.
December…Cowboy quickly counted back nine months to…March. He’d been in the Middle East in March performing that hostage rescue. And after that, he’d spent six solid days in heaven.
He met Melody’s eyes. She knew without a doubt that he’d done the easy math and put two and two together—or, more accurately, one and one. And in this case, one and one had very definitely made three.
“I’m Lt. Harlan Jones,” he said, holding Melody’s gaze, daring her to deny what he was about to say. “I’m the baby’s father.”
* * *
Jones was waiting for her in the hospital lounge.
Melody took a deep breath when she saw him, afraid that she might pass out again. She’d more than half expected him to be long gone.
Brittany tightened her grip on her arm. “Are you okay?” her sister whispered.
“I’m scared,” Melody whispered back.
Britt nodded. “This isn’t going to be easy for either of you. Are you sure you don’t want me to stick around?”
Jones was standing by the windows, leaning against the frame, looking out over the new housing development going up on Sycamore Street. He looked so tall, so imposing, so stern.
So impossibly handsome.
Melody could see the muscles in the side of his jaw jumping as he clenched his teeth. She saw the muscles in his forearms tighten and flex as he folded them across his chest. She knew firsthand the strength and power of those arms. She knew how incredibly gentle he could be, as well.
Jones looked so odd in civilian clothes—particularly these pants and this shirt that had such a blandly yuppie style. But she realized that she’d never seen him out of uniform. He’d worn black BDUs under his robe during the rescue. And after that, she’d only seen him in—or out of—his dress uniform.
These oddly conservative clothes might be the way he dressed all the time when he was off duty. Or they might have been something he’d specially chosen to wear for this surprise visit.
Talking about surprises…
As she watched, he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with one hand, as if he had a headache and a half. And why shouldn’t he? He’d come here obviously hoping to sweet-talk his way back into her bed. He’d gotten far more than he’d bargained for—that was for sure.
She could see the lines of stress clearly etched on his face.
He’d smiled and laughed his way through the six days they’d spent together. But then his pager had gone off, and he’d told her he needed to return to California. He’d smiled as he kissed her in the airport, making promises she knew he wouldn’t keep. He’d smiled—right up until the point where she told him she didn’t want to see him again. And as he struggled to understand her many reasons for making a clean break, he looked so grim and imposing—rather like the way he looked right now.
It was as if no time had passed at all. It was as if they were right back where they’d left off.
Except for the obvious differences. His hair was longer. Hers was, too. And instead of being three days pregnant and ignorant of the fact, she was now seven months along.
Melody rubbed her extended belly nervously, afraid of what he was going to say, afraid of the tension she could see in his face and in the tightness of his shoulders.
The early-afternoon sunshine lit his face, giving his hair an even more sun-streaked look.
She remembered how soft his hair had felt beneath her fingers. It had grown down past his shoulders now—rich and gleamingly golden brown. Freed from its restraint, it would hang wavy and thick around his face, making him look like one of those exotic men who graced the covers of the historical romances she liked to read so much.
He straightened up as he saw her coming. A flick of his green eyes took in Brittany, too, and Melody knew he was wondering if they were going to have this conversation with an audience. She saw him straighten his shoulders and clench his teeth a little more tightly, and she knew he intended to say what he had to say whether or not her sister was listening.
But, “I’ve got to get back to work,” Britt announced. She narrowed her eyes at Jones. “Will you see that she gets home safely?”
Jones nodded, managing only a ghost of his usual five-thousand-watt smile. “That’s my specialty.”
“Okay,” Brittany said, backing away. “Then I’m out of here. It was nice finally meeting you, Lieutenant Jones.”
“Likewise, ma’am.”
Melody had forgotten how polite Cowboy Jones could be. She’d forgotten how green his eyes were, how good he smelled, how sweet his lips had tasted…No, she hadn’t forgotten that. She had simply tried to forget.
“Are you really all right?” Jones asked. His smile was gone again, and he gazed searchingly into her eyes, looking for what, she didn’t know. “They don’t want to keep you here overnight or anything? Do more tests…?”
She shook her head, suddenly shy, suddenly wishing that Brittany hadn’t walked away. “I didn’t have much breakfast, and being hungry combined with chasing Andy across the common made me light-headed. It hasn’t been an easy pregnancy—I’ve had trouble keeping food down almost right from the start.”
“I’m sorry.”
Melody glanced up at him. I’ll bet you are. She forced a smile. “Brittany wouldn’t let me leave until I had lunch. Did you have something to eat?”
“Yeah. I grabbed a sandwich from the cafeteria.” He was uncomfortable, too. “Do you want to sit down?”
“No, I want to…I want to go home. If you don’t mind.”
He shook his head. “I don’t mind. It might be easier to talk someplace less public.” He led the way toward the double doors. “My car’s out this way.”
“Are you still with SEAL Team Ten?” she asked, realizing as they stepped out into the warm afternoon sunshine that she had about a million questions to ask him.
“Yes, ma’am.”
God, they’d regressed all the way back to “ma’am.”
“How’s Harvard?”
“He’s fine. He’s good. The entire squad’s in Virginia—for the next few months, at least.”
“Say hello for me next time you see him.”
“I will.” He gestured with his head. “Car’s over here.”
“Have you heard from Crash?” Melody waited as he unlocked and opened her door for her.
Cowboy’s swim buddy, Crash, was as dark and mysterious as his odd nickname implied. They’d met him by chance at the hotel in Paris. Crash wasn’t a member of Alpha Squad, or even SEAL Team Ten. In fact, Cowboy hadn’t been absolutely certain where the SEAL he’d called his best friend back in BUD/S training was assigned. Except for the accidental meeting, it had been years since they’d even seen each other, but the ongoing mutual trust and respect between the two men had been obvious.
“I got some e-mail from him just last week. Nothing much—just a hi, how are ya, I’m still alive. But when I wrote to him, the mail all bounced back, undeliverable. Need help getting in?” He watched her maneuver her unwieldy body into the bucket seat.
She shook her head. “It looks more awkward than it really is. Although ask me again when we get to my house—I won’t refuse a hand getting out.”
Jones leaned over so that he was at her eye level. “I can’t believe you still have two more months to go.” He quickly backpedaled. “Not to imply that you’re not telling the truth or…” He closed his eyes, swearing softly. When he opened them again, his eyes were a startling shade of green against the tan of his face. “What I was trying to say was that if that baby gets much bigger, it’s going to be a real struggle for you to give birth.” He paused. “I want you to know that from the moment I saw you, Mel, I didn’t doubt for a minute that the baby was mine.”
“Jones, you don’t have to—”
“You haven’t denied that I’m right.”
“I haven’t said anything either way!”
“You don’t have to.” Jones straightened up and closed the car door. As Melody watched, he crossed around the front and unlocked the driver’s-side door. “I called your neighbor—Vince Romanella—about that kid. He said to relax—that he’d find him. Andy. That’s the kid’s name.”
The subject of whose baby she was carrying seemed to have been temporarily and quite intentionally dropped. “I know,” Melody said as he climbed in and started the car. “Brittany told me you called Information to get Vince’s number. Thank you for doing that.”
“It was no problem.” He took a left as he pulled out of the driveway.
“Don’t you want me to give you directions?”
Jones glanced at her. “I know where you live. I checked a map and went out there this morning, but you weren’t home.” He smiled slightly, politely, as if they were strangers. “Obviously.”
Melody couldn’t stand it anymore. “Look, I think you should just drop me off and drive away.” He was silent, so she took a deep breath and went on. “You can pretend you don’t know. Pretend you never came to Appleton. Just…drive into Boston and catch the next flight to Virginia and don’t look back. Don’t say hi to Harvard for me. Don’t say anything. You can tell the guys I wouldn’t see you and…”
She had to stop and clear her throat. He was holding on to the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white, but he still didn’t speak.
“I know you didn’t ask for this, Jones. I know this was not what you were thinking when we spent that time together. It wasn’t what I was thinking, either, but I’ve had a chance to deal with it. I’ve had time to fall in love with this little baby, and I’m okay about it now. I’m excited about it. It may not have been what I wanted seven months ago, but I do want it now. Your being here messes things up.”
He pulled into her driveway and, leaving the engine running, turned toward her. “It was on the flight to Paris, wasn’t it? That’s when it happened.”
The look in his eyes was so intense, Melody felt as if he had X-ray vision and could see deep inside of her. She prayed that he couldn’t. She prayed that he wouldn’t know how close she was to throwing up even as she desperately tried to send him away forever.
“Drive away,” she said again, steeling herself, purposely making her words as harsh as she possibly could. “And don’t look back. I don’t need you, Jones. And I don’t want you.”
He looked away, but not before she saw a flare of hurt in his eyes. Her heart nearly broke, but she forced herself to go on. It was better this way. It had to be better this way.
“I know for a fact that the last thing you need is this baby and me, tying you down in any way at all. All you can possibly do is complicate things by sticking around. I have money. I have enough saved so that I can spend the next four years at home with the baby. My mother’s already started a trust fund for him, for college. There’s nothing you can give him that I haven’t already thought of and provided.”
He tried to cover his hurt with a cynical smile. “Well, hell, honey. Don’t hold back. Tell me how you really feel.”
She felt like a total bitch. But she had to do this. She had to make him leave before he got some crazy idea of “doing right” by her. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t think now was the time to play games.”
He exhaled in what might’ve been a laugh, but there wasn’t much humor in it. “I’d say we pretty much covered the game-playing seven months ago.”
Melody flushed, knowing precisely to what he was referring. They’d left their hotel room only once each night—for dinner. They’d gone out onto the winding, romantic streets of both those foreign cities and had let their insatiable desire for one another drive them half-mad. They’d kissed and touched and gazed into each other’s eyes in a silent contest of wills. Who would be the first to give in and beg the other to return to their room to make giddy, passionate love?
Jones had had no shame, sliding his hand up her skirt, along the inside of her thigh to touch her intimately beneath the curtained privacy of a thick restaurant tablecloth. She had lost the battle that night but won the next when he did the same, only to discover she’d gone out without her panties on—without even the smallest scrap of lace to cover her. And when she smiled into his eyes right there in the restaurant and opened herself to his exploring fingers…
They’d taken a taxi back to the hotel that night, even though the restaurant had only been a short three-block walk away.
It had happened similarly on that flight to France. What began as an innocent conversation about favorite books and movies with a four-star general also heading to Paris took on more meaningful undercurrents. Jones had thought it best to hide the nature of their relationship, and sitting side by side without touching soon had them both totally on edge.
Jones had had to reach past her to shake the general’s hand, and his arm brushed her breast. The sensation nearly sent her through the roof—a fact she knew that he had not missed.
She’d countered by leaning across him to get a look out the window at the countryside below and letting her fingers brush his thigh.
He’d stretched his legs and accidentally bumped into her.
She’d excused herself and went into one of the tiny bathrooms. When she returned and sat back down, she looked through her handbag in the pretense of searching for some chewing gum. She opened her bag carefully, revealing its contents—including a white bit of satin and lace—only to Jones and not the general. While she’d been gone, she’d once again removed her panties, knowing full well Jones would recognize the same article of clothing he’d taken such pains to remove earlier that morning, causing them to have to rush to get to the airport on time.
Melody felt her blush deepen. Who would’ve thought she’d have done such things, such daring, provocative, sexually aggressive things like that?
She’d liked it, though. She’d loved the way Jones had made her feel as if she was the sexiest woman in the world. She loved the way he’d needed her so desperately, the way he couldn’t seem to get enough of her.
On that flight to Paris, she’d lured him into the tiny bathroom. She hadn’t realized he wasn’t carrying any condoms. And he had thought she had some in her purse. But once they were together in that hot little closet of a room, the need to sate their searing desire had taken priority over the fact they had no protection.
Jones had roughly pushed her skirt up her thighs and she had wrapped her legs around him as he thrust deeply inside her and took her to heaven. He’d pulled out in an attempt to keep her from getting pregnant, but Melody was well aware that as a form of birth control, the withdrawal method was far less than foolproof.
Still, she’d convinced herself that one time wouldn’t matter. Surely they could cheat just once. Surely the odds were in their favor. And heck, luck had been on their side so far. Besides, she’d told herself, she wanted Jones badly enough to be willing to face the consequences.
As she glanced at him now, she knew he was remembering that little airplane bathroom, too. He was remembering the taste of her, the scent of her, the slick heat that surrounded him, carrying them both to ecstasy.
God knows she’d never forget the incredible waves of pleasure that engulfed her as he gritted his teeth, fighting to keep himself from releasing all of his seed deep inside her.
He cleared his throat not once but twice before he could speak. “At least the sex was the greatest I’ve ever had in my life. I mean, it would’ve been real anticlimactic—no pun intended—to find out that I got you pregnant after having only mediocre sex.”
Melody laughed. She couldn’t stop herself. It was so like Jones to search for the positives in a no-win situation. But then her eyes filled up and she opened the car door, afraid she was going to burst into tears.
Somehow she managed to scramble up and out of the bucket seat. She closed the door, then he climbed out, too. But he stood with his door open, engine still running, as he looked at her over the top of the car.
“Jones, we had fun together. I can’t deny that. But I told you back in March and I’m telling you again—what we shared is not enough to base any kind of real relationship on.” Her voice shook slightly, and she fought to steady it. “So good luck. God bless. Don’t think I won’t remember you. I will.” She forced a smile. “I brought home a souvenir.”
Jones shook his head. “Melody, I can’t—”
“Please. Do me a favor and don’t say anything,” she begged him. “Just…leave and think about it for a week or two. Don’t say anything until you’ve given yourself time to really think it through. This whole concept—my pregnancy—is still so new to you. I’m giving you a chance to walk away. No strings attached. Give yourself time to think about what that means before you say or do anything rash.” She turned and headed toward the house.
He didn’t follow, thank God.
She nearly dropped her keys as she unlocked the door. As she went inside, he was still standing there, half in and half out of his car.
As she shut the door behind her, she heard the car door slam. And then, through the window, she saw him drive away.
With any luck at all, he’d do as she asked and think about his options. And if her luck held, he would realize that she was dead serious about this easy way out she was giving him. And that would be that. He wouldn’t call, he wouldn’t write.
She would never see Lt. Harlan Jones of the U.S. Navy SEALs again.
The baby kicked her, hard.