“You said an emergency. Nothing-nothing dangerous?”
He smiled briefly, but it didn’t brighten his eyes. “Not for me.” He strode away, then paused at the end of the walk and turned again. Molly lifted Daisy Ann’s little hand and helped her wave goodbye.
He closed his eyes, as if the sight hurt him, then moved determinedly away. “I won’t be long,” he called over his shoulder. “And then we won’t bother you again.”
Weaver wallowed in the familiar sights and smells of the largest of the XNS conference rooms. Coffee, inky and bitterly fragrant, paper, hot from the fax machine. Even the thick file folders had a pleasurable feel beneath his fingertips.
Geez, Reed. Pretty pitiful to get turned on by office supplies.
He ignored the jeering inner voice. He wasn’t turned on, he was made comfortable by the return to his normal world. No diapers, no dogs, no talk about weddings.
Gabe slid into the chair beside him. “I see you made it.”
“Just in the nick of time.”
“Who’s taking care of the baby?”
“Molly.” Guilt gave Weaver a little jab. He saw her in his mind’s eye, tousled and warm from sleep, her arms reaching toward him. Reaching for Daisy Ann.
That elusive puzzle piece floated through his consciousness again, but he couldn’t quite catch hold of it. “Something’s missing,” he murmured to himself.
“Something that explains everything.”
Gabe shot him a funny look, but then the colonel seated himself and the strategy session began. Two operatives missing—they’d missed their check-in time by twenty-one hours now—and the assembled personnel had to plan a way to find them.
Eight pots of coffee later, someone rushed in. “Harry made contact. He got out. He’s okay.”
Pens were thrown down, laptops closed up. The colonel rubbed at his eyes with a gnarled hand. “And what about Sonia?”
“Sonia’s dead.”
Silence turned the room cold. Weaver made a fist, wanting to smash something. Though they all lived with death, worked with it day after day, each time its reality hit was like a baseball bat to the belly.
He still couldn’t breathe right by dawn, when he sat in Gabe’s office nursing another paper cup of bad coffee. “Damn it, Gabe. I told you. Someone else should have been assigned that job.”
Gabe shook his head. “Sonia and Harry were just as good as you and I.”
Weaver snorted. “Right. And now one of them is dead.”
“It could have been you.”
Weaver froze. His mind drifted to Molly again. Her hurt expression when he’d talked of the quickie marriage. Her bewildered expression when he showed up on her doorstep this morning. Her vulnerable expression when he’d said goodbye. “Nothing dangerous?” she’d asked.
She loves me.
His blood pressure zoomed skyward, heating his neck and setting his hands to trembling. He carefully set the coffee cup down on Gabe’s desk. That explained everything.
She loves me.
The pieces of the puzzle he’d already possessed shifted, changed, reordered themselves. She’d wanted him as a husband, Daisy Ann as a daughter. The three of them together, forever.
And he’d suggested a quickie.
He tried throwing off the strange regret that held his heart. A quickie was all he had to offer, right? Temporary. Right?
“Right?” Gabe’s voice broke into Weaver’s thoughts.
“What?”
“I said, you can’t be agreeing to anything dangerous until you’ve gotten things with Daisy sorted out, right?”
Weaver still wasn’t thinking straight. “Huh?”
“Well, it would be pretty lousy for Daisy to lose the only daddy she has.”
“She already lost her daddy.”
“And if she lost you—” Gabe snapped his’ fingers. “Boom! There goes another one.”
Weaver rubbed his hand over his chest. “I don’t like the way you’re describing my demise.”
Gabe shrugged. “Could happen.”
Could happen. Weaver’s blood pressure rose a little higher. Even with Daisy safely ensconced in some nice family, he’d planned on being a part of her life, however peripherally. What if something did happen to him?
She would lose him.
He would lose her.
A dozen different images assailed him. Daisy giggling, crying, reaching, waving. In her crib, in the stroller. In Molly’s arms.
“Hell.” Weaver reached for his coffee cup and downed the contents in one scalding gulp. “I must be losing it.”
Gabe propped his feet up on his desk. “What’s the problem, guy?”
And the puzzle shifted and changed once again, like a kaleidoscope. What just minutes ago had been orderly and complete now erupted into jagged, bursting shapes. A feeling, brilliant and intense, shot out from his heart to his fingertips and toes.
Weaver stared into the distance. “Maybe it’s something like my color blindness,” he murmured to himself. “Colors are there, it’s just that I can’t see them. And like that, I couldn’t see my own feelings, though the feelings have been right there all the time.”
“You okay?” Gabe sounded puzzled.
“I’m in love with them.” Weaver raked back his hair and turned his gaze on Gabe. “Molly and Daisy Ann. I’m in love with both of them.”
Gabe hooted. “Congratulations, you dolt! I could’ve told you that days ago.”
Weaver crushed his paper cup and launched it toward Gabe’s wastebasket. Two points. “And I think they love me, too.”
Gabe sobered. “Now you just have to do something about it.”
Weaver couldn’t find them anywhere. He knocked on Molly’s door again just to be sure. No response.
He’d already been to his place, but nothing looked lived-in. He noticed the grass had grown another couple of inches. He’d be mowing again soon. Great.
Where would Molly have gone?
Her car sat in the driveway, but he hadn’t seen a sign of the baby jogger he’d left on the porch the day before. Out for a walk?
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. The sane thing would be to stay in one place and wait for her to come to him. He sat on her porch step, jumped right back up again, prodded by an urgent need to see Molly again. And his daughter.
The word sent his heart hammering nervously. Needing action, he set off down the street, hoping his instincts—and his love—would lead him to them.
Slowing to a jog, Molly grabbed the hem of her long T-shirt and blotted the sweat from her face. Why hadn’t she done this days ago? Even though pushing the baby jogger and coping with Patch on a leash was awkward, completing two of her normal four miles was more soothing than retail therapy at the nearest mall.
She had three pairs of shoes, two skirts, a blouse and a dress to prove how ineffective that was.
She dabbed at her face again. She’d need a makeover next. Little sleep and a lot of sweat did not a beauty make.
In the block ahead, she glimpsed a man’s figure.
Weaver. Molly’s heart twisted and hopped and she slowed to a walk. No, she thought. He would have called or something.
She squinted and caught a better glimpse before he turned the corner. No, she thought, pushing a wet lock of hair off her forehead. I can’t see him looking like this.
Hot and sweaty would leave her vulnerable, and she needed all her defenses when she saw him again. When she had to say goodbye to Daisy Ann again.
Her heart squeezed, then twisted tighter. “Daisy,” she whispered. In the shade of an overhanging tree, she stopped. Patch flopped down, ready for the rest. Molly spun the jogger and knelt to look into Daisy’s face.
The baby grinned. Tears stung Molly’s eyes. “Hiya, angel girl.”
Daisy Ann blew a spit bubble.
“You won’t forget me, will you? Because I’ll never, ever forget you.”
Patch whined and stood to butt his head against Molly’s shoulder.
She slung an arm around his neck. “I know, boy. She will forget us. But that’s okay. Instead of memories, Weaver will get her the very best kind of family.”
“A forever family.”
She whirled at the deep voice over her head. “Weaver.” She tried tucking a sodden tendril of hair into her braid.
“Hello, Molly.”
There was something different about him. An inner quietness, a certainty she’d never sensed in him before. “Did—did everything go all right?”
His blue eyes darkened and he shook his head. “No.”
She clung tighter to Patch. “I—”
Daisy Ann’s squeal interrupted, and Weaver turned his gaze to the baby. He hunkered down, his knee bumping against Molly’s ribs. She tried edging away, but his hand came out and gripped her forearm.
“Stay close,” he said.
Stay close? she screamed inside, while he chucked the baby under the chin and made her laugh. Didn’t he see she couldn’t stay close? Not and survive.
He suddenly looked down at Molly as if he could feel her thoughts. With a hand under her elbow, he lifted her to a stand. “Let’s go.”
His hand slid down her arm to meet her palm. Zowie. His touch sparked off the familiar sexual burn. She tried tugging her fingers away.
He held on.
The walk back felt like a walk to the guillotine. When I get there, she promised herself, I’ll cut them out of my life just as cleanly. She couldn’t afford to prolong the hurt.
Weaver pushed the baby jogger to his front door. On the porch, Molly hesitated. “I—actually, none of Daisy’s things are here. We’ve been living at my parents’ the past few days.” She didn’t say that she’d wanted to avoid her memories of him by avoiding the house.
He made as if to turn around. “Then let’s go—”
Shaking her head, she put her hand on his arm. “Please, Weaver. It would be easier for me if we said goodbye here. I’ll drop off Daisy’s things another time.”
He didn’t answer, just spent long moments looking down at Daisy Ann. Then he slowly smoothed his hand over Patch’s coat. A wry smile came over his face. “I’m a coward, do you know that?”
“You?” She blinked. “What’s a guy like you afraid of?”
He shook his head. “I thought you’d make it easy on me. Blurt it out when you first saw me. Let it spill on the way back to the house.”
She stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“I wanted you to tell me that you loved me.”
Something had gone wrong with the world. Or maybe she’d taken too long a run. “Excuse me?”
“I wanted to hear those three little words first.”
Trying to make sense of him, Molly looked from him to Daisy Ann, who was drooling, to Patch, whose tail was wagging, then back to Weaver. “I don’t think I’m following you.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. A muscle jumped nervously in his jaw. “I’m in love with you, Molly.”
She nearly croaked. “You are not.” A choked laugh escaped her. “You don’t know what love is. You told me that yourself.”
A half smile turned up his lips. “But I think I do. It’s wanting the best for the other person. It’s knowing you can count on the one you love. It’s hoping that you are the best for them.”
Molly gulped, hot tears welling in her eyes. What was happening? Why did she feel so full of dread? She sank down onto the porch, resting her arms and her head on top of her knees.
She stayed silent for several minutes. “The world’s all topsy-turvy,” she finally said.
His big hand stroked her head and she heard wariness in his voice. “What do you mean by that, honey?”
“I’m the coward. After all my big talk about love and weddings and husbands and children, I’m afraid.”
“Afraid of me?”
“Afraid of being hurt. Afraid I’ll reach out for you and Daisy and it will all be snatched away.”
He laughed without humor. “That’s my line. I think I’ve always been afraid of being hurt, too. It’s why I fought my feelings for Daisy and for you. It’s why I let you leave us. It’s why I was glad to be needed in Maryland this week.”
Molly’s heart beat loudly in the silence.
His hand stroked her hair again. “By the way,” he said, “I’ve resigned from XNS.”
She lifted her head. “You have?”
He nodded. “I’ve already called my old commanding officer who lives up the coast. He has a tamer type of security firm now and he says he has a place for me. XNS wasn’t the right kind of job for a family man.”
“Family man.” She tried out the words. “I like the sound of that.”
“What about the sound of this?” He paused. “Molly, will you marry me?”
Sunshine evaporated the fear inside of her. The tears warmed to sparkles in her eyes. “What?” A smile broke over her face. “I thought you said you knew to do these proposals on your knees.”
He shook his head, certainty and happiness warming his grin. “And I don’t have a ring, either. I just came with one thing in-my pocket.”
“What’s that?”
“My absolute, certain, one hundred percent, forever love for you.”
She threw her arms around him, kissed him, saltwater wet from those silly tears in her eyes. “And Daisy Ann?”
“I’m her forever, too.”
Molly lifted her head from his neck and smiled at Daisy. “Did you hear that, sweetheart?”
She looked back at Weaver. “I love you.” She held his dear, dangerously handsome face between her hands. “Say it to me once, will you?”
He laughed. “Say what?”
She whispered in his ear.
He laughed again. “Ready?”
She nodded, throwing out one arm to hug Patch to her.
Weaver rested one palm on Daisy Ann’s head and curved the other around the cheek of the love of his life. “Honey,” he said, quietly, seriously, because he meant it with all his heart. “I’m home.”
* * * * *
eISBN 978-14592-7407-5
HAVE BABY, WILL MARRY
Copyright © 1997 by Christie Ridgway
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Have Baby, Will Marry Page 13