Suddenly Daddy and Suddenly Mommy

by Loree Lough

  She pulled away, inhaled a great draft of air.

  Like a man too long in the desert yearns for water, his lips sought hers again.

  “Do you still love me?” she murmured against his open mouth.

  A palm on each of her cheeks, he sat back to study her face. Surely she wasn’t serious.

  The raised brows and pouting lower lip told him she was. Did she really think it was possible for him to stop? “Ciara, sweetie, I’ve always loved you. From the minute I first saw you, looking out to sea at the rail of that beat-up old cruise ship, I loved you….”

  “Beat-up? I’ll have you know that was once The Love Boat.”

  “Yeah. Right. Like they had such things a century ago. But you can’t distract me that easily,” he said, an eyebrow cocked. “Every minute that passes, I love you more. I’ve never stopped. Not for a heartbeat. Couldn’t if I tried.” Not even if I find out that you and Bradley— Mitch swallowed. His ping-ponging emotions were sure to make him crazy…if they didn’t give him a heart attack first.

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice thick and sweet as syrup.

  “Thank you?” he echoed, a wry grin tilting his mouth. “You’ve been to the movies. You know how it’s supposed to be done.” He held a finger aloft and began the lesson. “I say ‘I love you,’ and you say ‘I love you, too.’ Not ‘thank you’ but ‘I love you.’” Mitch chuckled, tenderly grasped her lips with the fingertips of both hands, and gently manipulated her mouth. “’I love you,’” he said, as if he were the ventriloquist and she his dummy. “Go on, now you try it, all by yourself.”

  She kissed his playful fingers. “I am grateful, Mitch. What’s wrong with admitting it?”

  She branded him with an alluring, hypnotic gaze. His heart ached and his stomach flipped. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that, he wanted to tell her, but it isn’t what I need to hear right now.

  After a seemingly endless moment, Ciara closed her eyes. “I love you more today than yesterday,” she whispered, reciting the old promise with heartfelt feeling, “but not as much as tomorrow.”

  He held her, and she melted in his arms, her rounded little body feeling warm and reassuring as it pressed tightly against him. “It’s good to be home,” he admitted, putting aside his worries that she might be carrying another man’s child. “I’m sorry I was gone so lo—”

  She silenced him with a kiss.

  The memory lapse was short-lived.

  Did she kiss Bradley? The ugly thought took his breath away, and he ended the intimate moment. Mitch sat on the edge of the sofa bed with his back to her and ran both hands through his hair. What’s wrong with you, Mahoney? One minute you’re sure as shootin’ she couldn’t have cheated on you, the next you’re just as sure she did. What’s it gonna take to make up your mind!

  He could ask her, straight-out, for starters. If she was innocent, she’d be shocked, hurt, furious, that he hadn’t trusted her. But if she was guilty, didn’t he have a right to know?

  Mitch shook his head. Asking her was out of the question. At least for now. If you haven’t figured it out by the time the baby’s born… He gulped down the last of the coffee he’d brought her. Until then, she’s to rest and stay calm.

  If the child was his, he wanted to ensure a healthy birth. Even if it wasn’t, well, the baby hadn’t played a part in the duplicity that led to its conception. It deserved nothing but good things, no matter who its father was.

  “Fine waiter you are,” she teased, “bringing me fresh-brewed coffee, then drinking it yourself.”

  He looked over his shoulder at her sweet, smiling face. “I’ll get you a refill.”

  Let it be my kid, he prayed as he headed for the kitchen. Please let it be my kid….

  Ciara listened to Mitch in the kitchen, clattering pots and pans and utensils, and remembered that kiss. Guilt hammered in her heart. She would never have deliberately hurt him, but she had, and the proof had been the abrupt way he’d ended their brief intimacy.

  She’d said a lot to hurt him yesterday. Maybe after lunch they could discuss it a little more quietly than they had the night he’d left, or yesterday morning when he’d phoned from headquarters, or later, before she’d collapsed.

  That old spark is still there, strong and bright as ever. Ciara touched her fingertips to her lips, remembering how wonderful it felt to be in his arms again, to be kissing him again. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed him, until the old familiar stirrings of passion erupted within her.

  But I need time, she thought, time to forget all those months alone, time to be sure he won’t do it again.

  Every wifely instinct in her had made Ciara want to reach out and comfort him when he’d ended the kiss, turned away from her and held his head in his hands. But what would she have said? What might she have done? Since nothing had come to mind, she’d chosen instead to make light of it, to behave as if she hadn’t noticed at all. “Fine waiter you are,” she’d teased when he drained her cup in one gulp.

  You’re not in this alone, you know, she reminded herself. It’s hard for Mitch, too. She sipped the refill of decaf he’d brought her and sighed. Their love had been as deep and wide as the Montana sky, bright with joy, deep with companionship, hot with passion. Will we ever get back to that? Ciara slumped against the cool, pillowy backrest of the sofa bed and closed her eyes. Please God, help us find our way back.

  Right from the start, she and Mitch, like the boy and girl next door who’d known each other a lifetime, had felt relaxed and at ease in each other’s presence. It had been that factor more than any other that told her it would be safe to fall in love so soon after the pastor’s cordial introduction.

  Ciara missed that serenity, the satisfaction born of the comfort they shared. Not take-you-for-granted comfort, but the old-shoe-dependable kind that she sensed would wrap around them—warming, soothing, nourishing their love—for a lifetime. She’d heard all about the fireworks-and-sparks kind of love, and had never wanted any part of it. I’ll take charcoal over flash paper any day, she’d thought, because paper burned hot and quick…and died the same way. Coal might not heat up as fast, but it stayed warm a whole lot longer. She likened Mitch to charcoal—steady, sure, lasting. No one had been more surprised than Ciara to discover that her calm, dependable guy turned out to be a hot-blooded, passionate man.

  You can’t judge a book by its cover, he’d said earlier that day. But Ciara had said it first…on their wedding night.

  Once they’d passed that initial test, she and Mitch had not needed the traditional “getting to know you” time her married friends had warned her about. It was a miracle, Ciara believed, that they’d started out feeling like life-mates. Their time apart had all but destroyed that comfortable, companionable feeling. But the passion was still there; that kiss proved it. Perhaps that was God’s way of telling them the rest could be salvaged, if they were willing to work at it.

  Ciara prayed for all she was worth. “Lord,” she whispered, “I love him, Lord. Help us.” She shook her head. “Help us repair the damage, so that our child will never know the loneliness that comes from living with parents who aren’t in love.”

  Her mom and dad had always claimed to love each other deeply, and from time to time, they’d actually put on a pretty good show of it. She suspected things weren’t quite right before she was seven. By the time she turned ten, Ciara had seen through their ruse. She didn’t want her child wondering the things that she’d wondered as a girl: had their love for her been an act, as well?

  “I hope you’re cooking up an appetite,” Mitch called from the kitchen, breaking into her thoughts, “because I’m cooking up one special lunch out here….”

  He’d fixed her a meal once, days before he left. Breakfast, as she recalled, chuckling to herself. She’d been in the front hall, trying to decide whether to store their winter hats and gloves on the shelf in the closet or in the sideboard near the front door. “Sweetie,” he’d called from the kitchen, “I hate to
bother you, but—”

  She’d had to jam a knuckle between her teeth and bite down hard to keep from laughing when she walked into the room. Covered by a red-and-white gingham apron, his jeans-covered legs had poked out from the bottom, and the bulky sleeves of his University of Maryland sweatshirt stuck out from its ruffly shoulders. He held a pancake turner in one hand, hot dog tongs in the other. If he’d worn the outfit to a Halloween party, he’d have won the Silliest Costume Prize, hands-down.

  “What?” he’d asked, mischievous dark eyes narrowing in response to her appraisal.

  “I just missed you,” she’d replied, “because you’re the most handsome husband a girl ever had.”

  He’d grinned. “You think?”

  “I do.” She wiggled her eyebrows flirtatiously, wrapped her arms around his aproned waist. “In fact,” she’d said, winking, “I’m giving a lot of thought to kissing you, right here, right now.”

  The turner and the tongs had clattered to the floor as he pressed her closer. “And they say aggressive women are no fun….”

  After their warm embrace, Mitch started digging in a box marked “Kitchen.” “Can’t make my home fries till we find the big black skillet.”

  She’d glanced at the counter, where he’d piled enough peeled-and-sliced potatoes and onions to feed the Third Regiment. Ciara opened one box as Mitch popped the lid of another. “I’ve already looked in that one,” he said, poking around inside another. “If you find the vegetable oil, salt and pepper, and Old Bay seasoning, let me know.”

  “Old Bay?” she’d asked, incredulous. “That’s for steamed crabs and shrimp, not potatoes and—” At the startled, almost wounded expression on his face, she’d quickly added, “Isn’t it?”

  “Just wait till you taste ’em, sweetie,” he’d said, licking his lips and scrubbing his hands together. “They’re gonna spoil you for anybody else’s potatoes. From now on, you won’t be able to settle for anything but Mitch Mahoney’s breakfast spuds.”

  He’d given her dozens of memories like that one…before that awful night. Memories that had lulled her back to sleep when a bad dream awakened her, memories that gave her the energy to unpack every box in their new house within the first week, so he’d have a proper homecoming…when he came home.

  Night after night as she’d headed for bed, Ciara had stood at the foot of the stairs, one hand on the mahogany rail, the other over her heart, listening for the sound of his key in the lock. Day after day she woke hoping that when she walked into the kitchen, he’d be sitting at the table, reading the morning edition of the Baltimore Sun, lips white from his powdered sugar doughnut as he grumbled about the one-sidedness of the newspaper’s politics.

  When the nights and the days turned into weeks, it got harder and harder to find a reason to hope he might be there waiting when she got home from teaching, a big smile on his handsome face. “Where have you been!” she imagined he’d ask. “I’ve been dying to see you!”

  Every time Lieutenant Bradley’s car pulled into the drive, her heartbeat doubled…maybe this time he’d have a letter for her. Ciara played her tough-girl routine to the hilt. She would show the seasoned agent that she knew a thing or two about bravery. She’d prove she knew how to handle being married to the Bureau. Because when Mitch did come home, she wanted him to be proud of the way she’d conducted herself.

  In truth, her bravado had been almost as much for Bradley as for herself. “I’m so sorry, Ciara,” he would say every time, taking her hand, “but Mitch missed another meeting.” And every time, she’d pull free of his pressing fingers and focus on the look on his face. It could mean one of two things: Bradley was truly distressed to have delivered unpleasant news…again, or his wingtips were two sizes too small.

  She’d never given a thought to the possibility that he’d deliberately kept her and Mitch apart. Why had it been so easy to believe him, instead of her husband? Oh, he was a smooth one, all right, starting out in complete defense of his comrade, slipping in a little doubt here, casting a bit of suspicion there, until he had her thoroughly convinced that the only possible reason Mitch hadn’t written was because he hadn’t wanted to. But she’d let him put those mistrustful thoughts in her head.

  Those first unhappy weeks, she’d spent so much time on her knees, hands folded, it was a minor miracle she hadn’t developed inch-thick calluses. She had gone over it in her mind a hundred times: from those first, thrilling stirrings of love, she had beseeched the Almighty to show her a sign; if Mitch wasn’t the man He intended her to spend the rest of her life with, she would take her mother’s advice and stop wasting her time.

  And then Mitch had taken her in his arms and kissed her, and it had felt so good so right. How else was she to have interpreted the emotions, except as God’s answer to her heartfelt prayer!

  She’d waited a long time to meet the right man. Had she jumped into the relationship because she’d been lonely? Had she misread God’s response? Maybe it had been nothing but hormones, she’d fretted, dictating her interpretation of the Lord’s intent.

  The pastor had said, more than once, that prayer alone is not enough to prevent doubt. It takes faith and lots of it, he’d insisted, to forestall suspicion, to keep uncertainty at bay. It was a lesson, Ciara realized, that she’d have to learn the hard way, through time and trial; for try as she might to look for reasons to believe Mitch would contact her—or come home to her—hope faded with each lonely, passing day.

  And just about the time she was about ready to give up altogether, Dr. Peterson confirmed what she had suspected for weeks: Ciara was going to have a baby. Mitch’s baby! The news changed everything. Surely when he heard their baby would be born the following summer, Mitch would do everything in his power to come back. She wrote a long, loving letter, outlining her hopes and dreams for this child growing inside her. When she handed it over to the lieutenant, Ciara had wanted to believe that Mitch would find a way to be with her, to share the joyous news, face-to-face.

  But Lieutenant Bradley returned the very next week, wearing that same hang-dog expression she’d come to expect of him, and she set all hope aside. Her mother had been right: he was a cop, first and foremost, and would always put his job ahead of everything—everyone else—including their unborn baby.

  “Mitch missed another meeting,” he’d said, hands outstretched, as if imploring her to forgive him for her husband’s transgressions.

  One of the teachers at Ciara’s school was married to a divorce attorney, and on the day Dr. Peterson let her hear the baby’s heartbeat, she made an appointment to see the lawyer. For the child’s sake if not her own, she had to make plans. If Mitch never came back, she had to ensure a stable, secure future for her child. If he did return, it wasn’t likely he’d be a dedicated father, and she must protect the baby from such callousness.

  She had no one to talk to about the situation. Who would understand such a thing! Certainly not her mother, because from day one, the woman’s bitterness against Ciara’s father spilled onto Mitch as well.

  “He’ll never love you as much as he loves his job,” she’d said when Ciara showed her the sparkling diamond engagement ring. “The only enjoyment he’ll get from life will be related to his work.”

  Judging by the furrows that lined her father’s handsome brow and the way his mouth turned down at the corners when working a case, Ciara found it hard to believe her dad loved his job at all. She’d put the question to him on the night Mitch asked her to marry him.

  Her father had answered in his typically soft-spoken way. “All I ever wanted was to see right win out over wrong.”

  “That doesn’t happen very often,” she’d countered. “It’s in the news all the time…the way criminals get away with murder.”

  He’d nodded his agreement. “That’s true far too often, I’m afraid. But it’s so satisfying when the system works as our forefathers intended it to,” he’d said, dark-lashed blue eyes gleaming as he plucked an imaginary prize from the air and secu
red it in a tight fist. “And you forget when the D.A. botched up, or the lab lost evidence, or the arresting officer forgot to read the suspect his rights. You forget that a lot of the time, everything goes wrong, because you’re able to focus on what went right.”

  Her father didn’t love his job, Ciara understood when the conversation ended, he loved justice.

  During her first weekend home after finishing up her freshman year in college, Ciara and her mother had been alone in the kitchen, chatting quietly as they’d washed the supper dishes. The contrast had reminded her of the weekend she’d gone home with her roommate, Kelly, to a cozily cluttered house that throbbed with the cheerful sounds of a big family. It hadn’t been the first time Ciara had compared other households to her own—somber as a funeral parlor, quiet as a hospital. If her parents were that unhappy, why not get a divorce? she’d often wondered. She hoped they hadn’t spent nineteen miserable years together for her sake, because if she was the reason they’d endured all that misery…

  Perhaps they’d stuck it out because of the “for better or for worse” line in the marriage vows. But was that what God intended? That two individuals—who made a promise while they were too young and too foolish to understand the gravity or longevity of it—spend the rest of their lives locked in an unhappy union?

  Ciara had always seen marriage as a loving gift, hand delivered by the Father. Her parents’ marriage had been more a jail sentence than a gift of any kind. When she married, Ciara had decided, it wouldn’t just be for love. No, she’d consider the future, as her parents obviously had not, because she would not, could not inflict a bitter loveless marriage on any children she might have. Ciara knew only too well what that could be like. If only she had siblings, maybe things wouldn’t have seemed so bleak….

  She dried the plate her mother had just washed. “Mom, why don’t I have any brothers or sisters?”

  The answer had come so quickly, Ciara figured out much later, because it was something that was often on her mother’s mind. “I didn’t think it would be fair to bring more children into this world, children who’d feel neglected and slighted by their own father.”