But with no pick-up bars in sight, that left the Internet. He’d never had to lie to a woman online because he’d never let it get that personal. He didn’t make promises lightly, and never ones he couldn’t keep.
Please, promise me you’ll keep this between us. He barely knew her, yet here he was guarding the biggest secret of his life.
“How can you afford all those engagement rings?” Lucky asked, thinking of one diamond-and-emerald ring in particular. That was some token Luke had given Cait.
“Combat pay.”
“You forget I know just how little you make.”
“Cubic zirconia.”
“Fake diamonds?”
Randall shrugged. “Costs $29.99 plus shipping and handling. Available online.”
Lucky shook his head. “You get a gal to fall for that, then you’re both getting what you deserve.” Okay, so no gal deserved to be stuck with Randall. Least of all one so blinded by love and cubic zirconia she couldn’t imagine he’d cheat her out of the real thing.
This cost comparison got him thinking about the kind of price tag he’d put on love. Probably the industry standard of two and a half times his monthly base pay. He was more practical than romantic. Which explained why he was still single at thirty-two.
The Marine Corps didn’t issue brides with their seabags.
Kids, either.
“Look her up on Google.”
“What?”
Randall nodded toward Lucky’s computer screen. “Look her up on Google.”
Lucky wasn’t a cyber geek, but he wasn’t a cyber idiot, either. He’d found Cait’s phone number and address online. He just hadn’t thought to research her on the Internet.
Taking the advice of a master, Lucky looked up Caitlin Calhoun and came up with 1,204 useless bits and pieces of information: her physical address and phone number—both of which he already had—and one site with potential, a photography studio in Annapolis, Maryland.
He clicked on the link and came face-to-face with Caitlin and Luke’s online wedding album. Yeah, like he really needed to see them feeding each other cake. It was just as well he didn’t have the necessary password to check out the rest of the photo shoot.
The beautiful bride. The handsome naval officer.
It was enough to make him want to puke.
The last time he’d seen Luke in those choker whites was at his brothers’, as in brothers’ plural, graduation from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. He’d managed to avoid Luke for most of the formalities and the reception that followed.
They’d crossed paths in the parking lot afterward.
Lucky had raised the middle-finger salute. Two of Luke’s men had tried to tear into him for that show of insubordination. After all, he was an enlisted Marine, and Luke had been a naval officer. But Luke had held them back. “It’s okay. My big brother’s just being his asshole self.”
Big brother.
They’d let it drop as a family matter. If another officer had been present, Lucky would have been in some serious shit.
Luke could have gotten him into trouble.
So why hadn’t he?
But Lucky already knew the answer.
Luke had had no reason to envy Lucky the way Lucky had envied his half brother. Because Luke had had it all. And when Lucky looked at that wedding photo, he had all the more reason to be jealous. Caitlin Calhoun wasn’t just beautiful, she was breathtaking.
Blond hair, done up. Brown eyes that sparkled. And a smile that held nothing back.
Her groom—his little brother—must have been itching under his choker collar to get her out of that sexy-virgin wedding gown.
Lucky wracked his brain for the word used to describe brides and pregnant woman. Radiant.
Caitlin Calhoun was radiant in her love for her husband.
Lucky shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
What made a woman, even one so obviously in love, want to have her dead husband’s baby?
He couldn’t even begin to answer that question. As lucky as he was, he’d never found that kind of love.
Ironically, he located her e-mail address at the bottom of the page—a way to contact the bride and groom to get the photo album password. He clicked on the address hyperlink and found himself staring at white space, his mind as blank as the screen.
What was he supposed to say to a woman who’d asked him to be her sperm donor after the fact? Lucky scrubbed a tired hand over the day’s growth of stubble. It wasn’t as if she’d planned it. She was the real victim in this. But that didn’t make him feel any less helpless. He still had to speak with a JAG officer about his will and survivors’ benefits before he could get any sleep tonight.
No telling how long that would take.
Another line. Another couple of hours.
He double-clicked on Caitlin’s e-mail address and changed it to Bruce’s.
Subj: The Widow-Bride
Date: Saturday, December 22, 2007 11:52:07 p.m.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
If anything happens to me, take care of the widow-bride. That’s an order, Marine.
Lucky
“Sarg!” Tick burst in. “Captain wants you to round up the squad. We’re moving out.”
Lucky hit Send before he could think twice about it.
Bruce had way too much time on his hands now that he was out of the hospital. The last thing Lucky needed was his brother hooking up with the pregnant widow-bride. Now there was another Calhoun family happy ending just waiting to happen. But Bruce had his own reasons for staying away from Caitlin Calhoun, and Lucky needed someone he could trust.
CAITLIN DROPPED HER BUTT DOWN on the couch, clutching a bowl of oatmeal-raisin cookie dough to her chest. She’d been up all night baking cookies. Or rather, she’d baked cookies all night because she was up, letting her wedding DVD play over and over again.
The team was coming home today.
She wanted to be there. She needed to be.
She’d even bought a new dress. Black with tiny red rosebuds—a maternity/mourning/homecoming dress, if there was such a thing.
She’d braved the crowded mall full of last-minute holiday shoppers. Then made it up to the check-out counter at Macy’s with an armful of maternity clothes off the sales racks…only to face the embarrassment of having her debit card declined.
She had hoped to balance out her friends’ hand-me-downs with a few newer pieces. But because of the five-day bank hold on the CryoBank check and the seven-to ten-day wait on her replacement credit cards, she’d had to put everything back. Everything except that dress—which wasn’t on sale—and which she paid for with her limited cash.
How desperate was she that she’d left the tag on so she’d have the option of taking it back? She really couldn’t afford it.
But she wanted to look her best today.
That wasn’t going to happen. Her hair was as limp as the rest of her felt. Her eyes were puffy from lack of sleep and red-rimmed from crying. And her smile had flat-lined the day Luke’s heart had stopped beating.
No, his heart was here, beating inside her.
Luke’s baby.
Wrong Luke. She heard that arrogant voice as clearly as if he were standing behind her, whispering it in her ear. She didn’t know when she’d decided he was the enemy. None of this was his fault. But he made a convenient scapegoat.
Two days. And no e-mail.
She didn’t know whether to think of him as Luke or Lucky. Both names were problematic for her. Luke for obvious reasons. And Lucky because…Well, what grown man went by the name of Lucky?
The truth was, she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
He was her living, breathing connection to Luke.
But she didn’t want to think about him. And she didn’t want to think about what two days and no e-mail might mean.
After several more minutes crying into her cookie dough, Caitlin put it aside to get dresse
d for homecoming. Was an e-mail really too much to ask?
AN HOUR LATER CAITLIN WAS standing in a packed airplane hangar at Naval Air Station, North Island. The place was filled with red, white and blue helium balloons and Christmas decorations. And anticipation. Santa wore combat boots and looked as if he’d be equally comfortable toting an M-16, instead of a bag of toys.
Parents, wives and children of all ages waved homemade banners welcoming their SEAL team home. When the C-130 touched down, the overhead speakers blasted out music.
Caitlin felt like the only one not celebrating with Kool & the Gang. She stood off to the side of the milling crowd, an observer to the joyful and tearful reunions as the men deplaned.
To her right—two pairs of boots, two rifles, two helmets.
Two men who would not be coming home.
They already had—in body bags and flag-draped coffins.
The Zahn family wasn’t there. The sister was active-duty military. And the parents either weren’t living, or lived in another state.
The widow-bride stood alone.
Following a brief welcome-home speech, the commanding officer offered Caitlin his personal condolences. “On behalf of a grateful nation, the President of the United States and a proud Navy…”
Caitlin tried to draw comfort from the sentiment as she had at Luke’s interment.
Though the Navy had been well represented, none of these men had been there. She knew them only through their wives and Luke’s letters. But the sincerity of his teammates meant the world to her as they took time out of their own lives to pay their respects.
As word spread of her pregnancy, she had her stomach rubbed for luck more times than a jade Buddha.
Her cheeks flamed bright red. They believed this baby was Luke’s. And that she was some kind of hero for having her deceased husband’s baby. She wished she could believe it, too.
More than once she thought she caught sight of Luke in the crowd. She had to remind herself that Luke was dead. Besides, this figment of her imagination was wearing a Marine uniform. Guilty conscience.
“Calhoun!” someone called.
Caitlin swiveled around, catching sight of an enlisted man, and following him through the press of bodies. “Calhoun!” he called again. “Wait up!”
This time an enlisted Marine, hobbled by crutches from what she could see of his head and shoulders, stopped and waited for the other man. The Marine looked enough like Luke to be his…brother.
He hadn’t deplaned with the rest of them. Had he been here all along? Somewhere in the crowd? Her heart raced. Why, with all the attention she was getting, hadn’t he introduced himself?
The two men neared an exit, and by the time Caitlin got there, they were gone. She stepped outside into the bright Southern California sunshine. The area was deserted. Disappointed, she turned to go back inside and almost mowed down a man coming out.
“Did you see that enlisted man? He was calling to someone,” she said. “Do you know who it was?”
“You mean Bruce, Mrs. Calhoun, your brother-in-law?”
Chapter Six
“MRS. CALHOUN. MRS. CALHOUN!” Caitlin’s landlady charged up the terrace steps after her. Tucking her mail and the gift from Luke’s aunt inside her purse, Caitlin waited outside her third-floor apartment for her landlady to catch up. Someone had left a fruit basket outside her door. Caitlin bent to retrieve the card.
To Mrs. Calhoun. From the Team.
When had she stopped being Caitlin Calhoun and become this whole other person, this widow, Mrs. Calhoun? Caitlin could count on one hand the number of times she’d been called Mrs. while Luke had been alive.
The first had been at their wedding reception—their first dance as husband and wife—“Ladies and gentlemen, Lieutenant and Mrs. Luke Calhoun.” And then again on the flight to the U.S. Virgin Islands, and while checking into the Ritz-Carlton on St. Thomas.
And the following morning, a sleepy-eyed Luke had awakened her with a kiss and a “Good morning, Mrs. Calhoun.”
When they’d returned from their honeymoon, the first thing they’d done was get her a military dependent I.D. card with her married name. By the end of the week, she’d stood in lines on and off base.
Housing. Security. The DMV. The Navy Federal Credit Union.
Until the transformation was complete.
She was Caitlin Calhoun.
Mrs. Luke Calhoun. Mrs. Calhoun.
Except she didn’t know who that person was anymore. Maybe she’d never known. Her future, her dreams, were full of uncertainty. And if she heard one more Mrs. Calhoun in that patronizing tone she was going to scream.
“Mrs. Calhoun!”
Caitlin bit her tongue and turned to face Mrs. Pèna, who’d stopped one step shy of the top. The woman’s angry color and heaving bosom could be attributed to the climb or to the fact that the stalwart Filipino was missing her afternoon soap.
“Just a few more days. Please, Mrs. Pèna,” Caitlin pleaded. After paying her rent two weeks late, the check had bounced. Three business days left on that five-day hold, and Caitlin was counting down every one of them.
“Your brother-in-law already paid December’s rent.”
“My what?” She’d spent an exhausting afternoon trying to track him down and now her landlady was telling her he’d been here and paid her rent? Caitlin stood with her mouth gaping.
“That’s what I thought.” Mrs. Pèna waggled her finger. “Widow or no widow, no monkey business in the apartment or I throw you out!” The woman descended the steps, muttering something about military men being bad for a widow’s reputation. “And don’t be late with January’s rent!” she tossed back over her shoulder.
After leaving the Naval Air Station, Caitlin had stopped by the post office to pick up a package. Her aunt by marriage had sent her a pair of slipper socks knitted out of flashy-colored fun fur. And then she’d gone on a wild-goose chase to follow his aunt’s instruction, to deliver a similar package to the amputee ward at Balboa Naval Hospital. That’s where Caitlin had discovered her brother-in-law, Bruce, was no longer an in-patient, but an outpatient.
It was just as well the trail had ended there. After the way he’d avoided her today she didn’t feel comfortable leaving what she suspected were a pair of slipper socks for an amputee she’d never met.
She would have liked to have met him, though.
“Mrs. Pèna,” Caitlin called down to the courtyard. “Did he say anything else?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Pèna stopped outside her own apartment door. “He said to wish you a Merry Christmas, Mrs. Calhoun.”
LUCKY STOOD in the chow line, in full battle dress, for his first hot meal in two days. The next twenty-four hours couldn’t come and go fast enough. Fighting escalated in every region during holy days, no matter the religion.
“Did you know she was pregnant?” Was that censure in his brother’s tone, or a bad connection?
“Yeah,” he admitted into his cell phone as the mess specialist slopped scrambled eggs onto his plate. Instead of Midnight Mass, he was celebrating Christmas Eve with midnight rations at the Coalition Café.
“With Luke’s baby?” his brother continued.
Lucky pushed his tray down the line and slid into the first available seat. He knew better than to attribute the sudden pang in his gut to hunger. He wasn’t all that hungry anymore. “So I’ve been told.”
“I guess that explains your e-mail.”
“I guess it does.”
“Like hell it does! Take care of the widow-bride?” Now that was censure. “Since when do you give a damn about Luke’s wife?”
“Widow,” he corrected. “She’s Luke’s widow, not his wife.” The lack of sleep showed in his irritation. “And for the record, I changed my will this morning.” Bruce was the executor of his estate, not that he had an estate. But he did have some money saved. “I’m leaving everything to Caitlin and the baby.”
“Caitlin? Since when do you call the widow-bride by name? Two
nights ago you didn’t even know her e-mail address.”
Lucky salted his eggs with unnecessary vigor. “If you called to give me shit, you can quit wasting my cell-phone minutes.”
“Finally, something you’ve said that makes sense. I just thought you’d want to know she’s in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” The shaker stilled in his hand.
“Money trouble.”
Lucky put the shaker down and shoveled his first mouthful of salted egg, then stabbed a wedge of pancake to push it down. Luke had been an officer, making more than what Lucky made; he should have had money in the bank. And even if he didn’t, there were survivors’ benefits. Luke’s pension. Social Security. Her settlement with CryoBank…
Not to mention she came from old money.
She should never have to work a day in her life.
Unless she wanted to.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said around a mouthful.
“Her mailbox was overstuffed with bills. And there was an eviction notice posted on her door. I paid December’s rent and I can hit up the guys on the team for January’s, but…” there was a long pause “…she was Luke’s wife. I think we should ask Big Luke for help.”
Lucky’s mouthful of syrup-soaked pancakes turned as dry as the dust kicked up by a convoy of Humvees. He’d never asked Big Luke for anything in his life, and he wasn’t about to start now. “I’ll take care of the widow-bride. How much is her rent?”
“Eighteen-fifty.”
When Bruce named the staggering amount, Lucky felt as if he’d swallowed sand. “Beachfront?”
“Ocean view. Coronado.”
He pushed the food around on his plate. If it was an ocean view she wanted why couldn’t she have found a place in Imperial Beach? He didn’t know the extent of her money woes, but stress couldn’t be good for the baby. “How’d she look?”
“You just volunteered what amounts to half your base pay and all you have to say is, how’d she look?”
“Well?”
The Marine's Baby, Maybe Page 4