The Marine's Baby, Maybe

by Rogenna Brewer

  She gave up watching and moved away from the window.

  After that night drive through the salt lakes in the U-Haul, he probably thought she’d freak out when she saw him cleaning his gun and think he was having another post-traumatic stress moment.

  She probably would have.

  But she hadn’t lied about feeling safe with him.

  And she wasn’t afraid to have an ex-Marine sniper in her shed cleaning his weapon, as long as it was Calhoun.

  ALL THE COMFORTS OF HOME. Lucky had turned off the overhead and continued working by the soft glow of the small black-and-white TV he’d plugged in by the workbench. It had been among his things in storage. He also had a hot plate and mini fridge. Along with his camping gear, he was set.

  He took out each piece of his weapon and meticulously cleaned it with a soft cloth before putting it back. He’d see Cait through this pregnancy because he owed it to her and to Luke. He’d take care of some family business while he was here because he owed that to himself.

  But he’d painted that Forward Operating Base sign on the door as a reminder not to get too comfortable. He was playing a dangerous game with himself, holding Cait the way he had. And make no mistake about it, it had been just an excuse to hold her. Her and the baby. In his arms.

  It’s where they belonged. Yet there was nothing about him that deserved it. Cait had been Luke’s wife. And if Lucky was ever going to really forgive himself for his past, he’d have to honor that.

  He took out his night scope and blew on the lens, not that he’d find a speck of dust, then rubbed it with a clean cloth on both ends. He glanced through the crosshairs and wiped it down again.

  The lights were off in the house.

  He aimed his night scope in that direction. Through the kitchen window he could see the faucet and sink, unpacked boxes. And he had an unobstructed view of Cait lying on the couch in front of the TV.

  His heart pounded.

  He took deep, even breaths until he and the blood thrumming through his veins were one. A sniper observed his world from a distance. He wasn’t part of it.

  And if he needed a reminder of that, he had only to focus on the wedding DVD Cait was watching. After several minutes of observing her from a distance he put his scope away.

  The only person he was a danger to was himself.

  “SO, YOU SHOWED UP,” BIG LUKE said the following morning at eight o’clock when Lucky marched across the showroom floor of Calhoun Cycles.

  Because he had something to prove.

  Big Luke looked him up and down, in his jeans and leather jacket. “The job doesn’t require a shirt and tie, but we do have a dress code.” Lucky had seen the polo shirts worn by the sales staff with the Calhoun Cycles logo. He didn’t want one.

  “I’m not here to sell your bikes.”

  Big Luke knew him well enough to know what he did want. “No son of mine is working in the back.”

  “Those are my conditions. And consider this temporary.”

  He didn’t need this job. He needed to live up to the man he’d become as a Marine, not the boy who’d ran away from here. And when he walked away this time, and he would walk away again, it would be on his terms.

  “You never had a problem with the grease under my nails before,” Lucky said. He’d worked in his father’s garage as unpaid help as a teen, both of them pretending he wasn’t back there building his bikes, learning the business, soaking it all in.

  Luke had been the face of their father’s business in his fancy motocross gear. But of Big Luke’s three sons, only Lucky had the same fire and passion in his gut for motorcycles.

  Lucky maybe could have turned his racing career into something if it hadn’t been all about getting even with Luke.

  If he hadn’t run away.

  Without another word, Big Luke changed direction and headed to the four bays out back. These garages were newer, cleaner, but his father had retained the same parts-and-service manager.

  “Hey, if it isn’t my old sidekick,” greeted an older Jose, who was slower to his feet as he pushed up from a crouch next to a broken-down bike. “You coming back to work with us, Junior?”

  It had been a long time since anyone called him anything other than Lucky.

  CALHOUN CYCLES WAS farther along Broadway than Caitlin had thought and she was glad she hadn’t decided to walk.

  After a week of volunteering, she’d taken time off to unpack, and now she needed a break from unpacking.

  She entered a large showroom with several attentive employees.

  “I’m here to see Big Luke. Can you tell him it’s his daughter-in-law, Caitlin?” She followed the salesman past row upon row of motorcycles until she got sidetracked by the showcase tribute to Luke.

  It would have been nice if it wasn’t so tacky.

  Big Luke’s office was in sight of the showroom, and she watched through the glass as the salesman told Big Luke she was here. Big Luke looked up, then headed her way.

  “Cait,” he greeted her with that trademark big smile she’d seen on TV. “How’s my grandbaby? Kickin’ up a fuss, I bet.”

  “You’re exactly right about that.” This Calhoun was already shooting hoops.

  “Come on in.” Big Luke closed his office door behind them. “Can I get you anything? Coffee, water?”

  She accepted a bottle of water. “Actually, I came to thank you again for the house and to ask a big favor.”

  “Anything. Sit down,” he urged when she remained standing. “How much do you need?” he asked, getting out his checkbook.

  “No,” Caitlin said, embarrassed, “this isn’t about money.”

  “Nonsense, you just reminded me I haven’t given you a housewarming gift.” He ripped out the check and handed it to her. She looked at the amount in her hand, a thousand dollars, and immediately thought of Calhoun’s scholarship fund for Peanut.

  Peanut needed her to pick out a new name.

  One that wouldn’t hurt Calhoun every time he heard it.

  “This is too generous. And not why I’m here…It’s about your commercial. And Little Luke’s uniform on display…” She stated her misgivings as she’d rehearsed them. He nodded throughout but didn’t say a word. When she finished she thanked him for his time and got up to leave.

  Caitlin hesitated in the doorway.

  “Junior’s around back,” he said, without her having to ask.

  CAITLIN FOLLOWED BIG LUKE’S directions to a humming four-bay garage. Calhoun spotted her first and met her halfway.

  “Everything okay?” His eyes went immediately to her stomach as he wiped his greasy hands on a rag.

  “I just wanted to see where you worked,” she said. “And I thought maybe you’d let me buy you lunch.”

  “How about I buy you lunch?”

  “Okay.” She didn’t argue. He was the one with the paying job. She just volunteered. She still had money in the bank and Luke’s pension. And her cost of living was now half what it had been. But she needed to scrimp if she was going to take any time with the baby before looking for work.

  They hadn’t seen much of each other these past two weeks.

  He left early and came back late. Then, after checking in with her, he did some work around the house or yard, then went out to the shed for the night.

  “Let me get cleaned up,” he said. When he came back, they walked without talking until they placed their lunch order at the closest Subway sandwich counter.

  “So you’ve been busy,” she said outside, after they’d gotten their food. Busy keeping his distance. And she didn’t know how to tell him she missed spending time with him. She wondered how this restaurant compared to the Subway at Camp Victory and if Calhoun missed any part of being a Marine.

  Did he miss his uniform?

  Marines had a handsome dress uniform, and after her talk with Big Luke earlier she had uniforms on the brain. The very first thing she’d noticed about Luke had been his dress whites. Silly, but it was enough to get her to take a se
cond look and to say yes when he’d asked her out on that first date.

  Big Luke had mentioned Little Luke’s joining the Naval Academy with the intention of becoming a Marine officer. But he’d become a Naval officer instead.

  That had been years before she’d met him. And another piece of trivia she hadn’t known about her husband. But today she wasn’t going to feel sad about that.

  Headed back to the garage, Calhoun steered her in the direction of a picnic table under a shade tree.

  There was a smokeless ashtray at either end. Was this where all the smokers hung out on their breaks? She hadn’t seen Calhoun light up again. And he didn’t smell like tobacco. But he still carried around that pack of cigarettes he’d bought on their road trip.

  Or was that another pack of cigarettes?

  She hoped not.

  “So I found an ob/gyn. Did you want to come?” she asked him.

  “Where?” He stood there, looking confused.

  “To my seventh-month ob/gyn appointment in two weeks?”

  She’d be seven months plus one week pregnant to be exact, but that was the earliest she could be squeezed in.

  He looked like a man given the choice between tar pits and quicksand.

  “You’d hear the baby’s heartbeat.”

  OVER THE COURSE OF THE NEXT two weeks, Caitlin volunteered at the VA Hospital just enough to keep busy. In California she’d taken the California Pharmacy Jurisprudence Exam, CPJE. In Colorado she had to take the Multi-State Pharmacy Jurisprudence Exam, MPJE. She also had to provide documentation of her degree and continuing education hours to apply for her license. And she discovered that establishing herself in a new state with a new doctor in her seventh month was a bit unnerving. The next appointment in three weeks would be her eighth month, then biweekly and weekly.

  She was in the home stretch.

  The last trimester.

  Calhoun was waiting for her in the tastefully decorated waiting room, looking uncomfortable in his casual work clothes, when she walked in carrying a bottle of water. But no more uncomfortable than she was having to drink and hold what felt like a gallon of water before her ultrasound.

  She’d come directly from her patients on the amputee floor and wore yellow scrubs today.

  “Busy place,” he commented once she was seated beside him.

  “Sign of a good ob/gyn.” She’d met Doctor Jennifer Buhr at the VA Hospital. Though the woman was not a military doctor, she did contract with the military and was established with several other area hospitals, including the one Caitlin had chosen right next door to the VA. Equally important, she accepted Caitlin’s insurance.

  “Caitlin?” The nurse called them to the inner sanctum.

  Calhoun hesitated and Cait had to haul him in with her.

  “Go ahead and step on the scale, please,” the nurse said.

  Cait slipped out of her shoes first. And sighed. She was up twenty pounds from that fateful first visit to the fertility specialist. And she was only going to get fatter. Calhoun cocked an eyebrow when he saw her weight, and she wanted to hit him.

  The nurse took her blood pressure next.

  “I really need to pee,” Caitlin said.

  “Just enough to relieve yourself. Your bladder needs to be full for the ultrasound.” The nurse handed her a specimen cup. “May as well get a sample while you’re at it.”

  Calhoun looked as if he wanted to run.

  Neither of them had brought up CryoBank since the day she’d found out there would be no more Calhoun babies for her. Luke’s. Or Calhoun’s.

  When Caitlin was finished, the nurse showed them to a room. Calhoun camped out in a corner while Caitlin sat on the table. Leaning back, she scratched at her baby bump and looked over her shoulder at him. “It itches all over.”

  The doctor knocked, then entered, reading Cait’s chart before closing it to greet them. She was young. Maybe just out of med school.

  “Cait, it’s good to see you again. Hi—” she held out her hand to Calhoun “—I’m Dr. Jennifer Buhr. And you must be Cait’s donor/brother-in-law.” They shook and maybe held hands a little too long as far as Caitlin was concerned.

  “We’re just going to get a few measurements today,” she explained, to put him at ease. “No wallflowers allowed in this room.” She drew Calhoun in close with her words and with her smile. “Go ahead and lie back, Cait.” Dr. Buhr helped her.

  “So you were a Marine?” she asked Calhoun. “Where were you stationed?”

  “Camp Pendleton. San Diego, California.”

  “I don’t know, Cait,” the doctor teased while exposing Cait’s stomach. “Seems to me like your brother-in-law is the strong, silent type. See any action?” she asked him.

  “He’s just back from Iraq,” Cait said, feeling irritated that she wasn’t the one the doctor was interested in.

  The doctor took out her tape measure and took Cait’s measurements. She gave Cait her complete attention for the next several minutes. Hanging the tape measure around her neck, she put her hands it the pockets of her white lab coat.

  “Have you heard the baby’s heartbeat yet?” she asked Calhoun. “You’re in for a real treat.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE MY OB/GYN was flirting with my brother-in-law over my bare belly!” Caitlin said as soon as they stepped outside the doctor’s office. “But what I really can’t believe is that she asked you out on a date and you accepted!”

  “Cait,” he said with more patience than she deserved, “she asked you if it would be all right first. Then I asked you.”

  “You put me on the spot. You’re not supposed to ask in front of her. What could I say?”

  “No.”

  “Ha!” She stormed off ahead of him.

  It took him only two strides to catch up. “So I take it you’re not okay with this?” He unclipped his cell phone.

  “You can’t call off the date! Do you have any idea what this means? If things end badly between the two of you I’m going to have to find a new ob/gyn in my eighth month.”

  “You know, Cait, it isn’t always about you.” He headed toward the parking garage.

  It took her a lot longer than two strides to catch up to him. “What do you mean it isn’t about me?”

  He exhaled as he turned to her under the covered parking. “It’s been a really long time for me. She’s an attractive woman. I’d like to go out on a date. And I didn’t think I needed your permission to do that.”

  He meant sex. “Of course you don’t.”

  “Do you need a ride?” he offered. “I have one of the company cars.”

  “No,” she said, about to let him go. “Oh, the nurse handed me this on the way out.” She dug the flyer about Lamaze classes out of her purse. “Would Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday nights work better for you?” She looked at him expectantly.

  “Is that really brother-in-law duty?” he asked. “Don’t you think you should be asking Nora Jean? If she can’t swing it I’m sure Dottie would be more than happy to fill in.” He made it worse by making up an excuse. “I’m really busy at the shop. I have this bike I’m working on—”

  “No,” she said, embarrassed and disappointed, “you’re right. I shouldn’t have asked you.”

  “I’ll see you after work.”

  And he’d be seeing her doctor this weekend.

  “See you after work,” she repeated. But she didn’t go back to volunteering that afternoon. She got out her cell phone and called Nora Jean.

  THEY WERE PRICING BABY furniture at Babies R Us. “Do you like this one?” her mother-in-law asked, turning over the price tag.

  “Too expensive.”

  Nora Jean sighed and moved on. Her mother-in-law had been twenty when she had Luke. She was in her late forties. Fit. And well-groomed. Her medium-length, light brown hair had been highlighted by a professional colorist, reminding Caitlin she needed to get that stylist’s number.

  “Did I tell you Big Luke has agreed
to shoot a new commercial?” Nora Jean asked. “He called and told me last week. I knew if I went in there with both guns blazing he’d see it my way.”

  “That’s nice,” Cait agreed, hoping her talk with Big Luke had helped, too.

  You know, Cait, it isn’t always about you.

  She’d needed that reality check from Calhoun.

  “Is he still sleeping out in your shed?” Her mother-in-law raised her eyebrow. “Luke would not approve, Caitlin.”

  Caitlin didn’t like how Nora Jean loved to complain about Calhoun. Caitlin thought she wanted that today, too. But now that Nora Jean was being true to form Caitlin realized she didn’t want to gripe about him.

  He’d been very good to her, and if he wanted to date, well, he was a big boy. “He’s welcome to stay as long as he’d like.”

  It’s just that she kept associating the word date with the word sex, and she couldn’t shake the image of him with his arms wrapped around her attractive ob/gyn. His big hands splayed across the other woman’s flat stomach and going lower with that trigger finger.

  “I mean, does it have to be my ob/gyn?”

  “What?” Nora Jean looked at her, perplexed. “Oh, you can always find a nurse midwife if you don’t want to deliver with an ob/gyn. As I was saying,” Nora Jean continued, “we’d like to throw you a baby shower.”

  “I don’t really know anybody here—”

  “We thought your new place would be neutral ground.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Dottie, Evelyn and I. That makes the three of us, some of your coworkers at the hospital…Calhoun Cycles has a couple of female employees. And if we’re going to do that then we’d have to invite Maddie. But I think we could throw you a nice shower.”

  They’d moved out of furniture and over to clothes.

  “I don’t know….” A baby T-shirt caught her eye.

  “Oh, Caitlin, why do you have to be so difficult? With Luke gone, this is my first and only grandbaby. Do it for me?”

  “Okay,” Caitlin relented. For Luke.

  “You wait right here. I’m going to go get you registered.” Nora Jean left her alone to look at the little boys’ clothes.