Colonel Daddy

by Maureen Child

  “And I’m running out of time, Evie.” Kate jumped to her feet and walked into the yard. Restless, uneasy, she needed to move. To be doing something. The soft, sun-warmed grass felt good on her feet. She tipped her head back to stare up at the profusion of purple flowers above her and watched as the wind plucked tiny, horn-shaped blooms and sent them flying across the yard to lie in a lavender carpet on the lawn.

  “The baby will be born in just a little under two months. I can’t keep waiting, hoping that Thomas will wake up and realize that he loves me.” She glanced at Evie as the woman walked up to stand beside her. “And I can’t bear the idea of raising a child in a house where love is considered unimportant.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted, and that was the hardest part of all of this. She’d tried everything she could to reach Thomas. “I went into this marriage determined to wage a successful campaign.”

  ‘Ah.“ Evie said and nodded. ”A military mind at work.”

  A bit defensive, Kate looked at her and said, “It’s what I know, Evie. It’s who I am.”

  “Of course,” she replied.

  She didn’t seem convinced, though, so Kate added, “I systematically went about wearing down his defenses.”

  “So why didn’t it work?”

  Why indeed? “Apparently his defenses are more fortified than I’d thought.”

  “Maybe you’re going at this the wrong way, honey,” Evie ventured.

  “What do you mean?”

  A gentle breeze ruffled Evie’s silvery hair and lifted the collar of her bold red-and-green soccer jersey. “Think about it,” she said. “What have you done in the past three months?”

  “Nothing extraordinary.” Kate shrugged. “Went to work. Came home. Spent time with Thomas. Went to doctor’s appointments.”

  “Ah,” Evie said, wagging her index finger at Kate. “You see, that’s where the mistake comes in.”

  Frowning, Kate looked down at her friend in confusion. She didn’t understand and said so.

  “What I mean is, you’ve given Thomas everything the man could want, right?”

  “I suppose,” she said, not quite sure where the other woman was headed with this.

  “Of course you have!” Sniffing, Evie went on, a dangerous gleam in her eye. “You’re a career woman, good at your job.”

  “Yeah...”

  “You’re a wife, home every night, sharing the household tasks.”

  “Uh-huh...”

  “You’re carrying his child—a son, no less,” Evie held up one hand for silence as Kate started to interrupt. “Say what you will, a man wants a son. Oh, it’s not politically correct these days to admit to such a thing, but that doesn’t make it untrue.”

  “Maybe...” But Kate wasn’t convinced. She’d seen Thomas’s face the day of the ultrasound. Tears stung the backs of her eyes at the memory. He’d been awestruck by the miracle long before the doctor had told them the baby’s sex.

  “At any rate,” Evie continued, demanding her attention once more, “the man has it made in the shade.”

  “Evie... ”

  The older woman held up one hand and ticked off her reasons on her fingers. “A smart career woman. A wife. A mother. A warm and welcoming lover.”

  Amazingly enough, Kate felt the stirrings of a blush steal up her neck. For heaven’s sake.

  “And to top it all off, you always let him know that you love him, don’t you?”

  “Well, naturally,” Kate said. “That was the whole object of my battle plan. To get him to the point where he not only was used to hearing me say those three little words, but actually enjoyed it, too.”

  “And does he, do you think?”

  “I think so,” she said after a moment’s thought. There was no more of the trapped animal in his look when she professed her love. More of a pleased acceptance.

  “Well, why shouldn’t he?” Evie threw her hands high in the air, then let them slap down along her sides again. Clearly exasperated with her, she stared at Kate for a long moment before asking, “Don’t you see?”

  “No. See what?”

  “You’ve given him what he needs without asking for anything in return. Why shouldn’t he be happy?”

  A bubble of irritation rose up inside her and she batted it back down. “If I have to ask for his love, it won’t mean anything.”

  “Hogwash.”

  “Huh?”

  Evie shook her head. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Youth is wasted on the wrong people.” Taking a deep breath, she continued just as hotly, “If Thomas came to you and said, ‘Tell me you love me, Kate,’ would his asking to hear it devalue what you feel for him? Make it worthless?”

  “No.” Ridiculous question.

  “So why do you think it would devalue his declaration for you?”

  Kate opened her mouth to explain just how it was different, but couldn’t. Pressing her lips together tightly, she realized that Evie was right. About everything. Thomas hadn’t confessed his love because Kate had let him know that she was willing to go on as they were forever.

  Why should he take the last leap of faith? She’d as much as told him he didn’t have to.

  “I’m an idiot,” she whispered, shaking her head.

  “Not an idiot,” Evie assured her with a chuckle. “Just a woman in love trying to do the right thing for everyone involved. The only problem is, dear—”

  Kate looked at her.

  “You’ve been looking after everyone but yourself. You’re careful of Thomas’s feelings. Watching out for your baby, and those are good things. But you’re important, too, honey. And it’s time you took a stand.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Kate said softly, shifting her gaze to stare off into space.

  “Of course I’m right,” Evie told her. “Ask anyone. They’ll tell you I’m always right.”

  Ignoring that particular statement, Kate said, “I guess I need a new battle plan.”

  “Maybe not a new plan. Just bring out the big guns.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Patting her cheek, Evie said wisely, “Honey, none of us ever appreciates what we have until we’re about to lose it.”

  Kate thought about it for a long moment. Big guns. Losing what we have. Instantly she thought about General Thornton’s letter, still tucked away in her desk. She’d sent a gracious “thanks, but no thanks” letter some time ago, but the general had urged her to think it over. Maybe it was time she did. Maybe it was time to let Thomas know about her offer to work in D.C.

  Although, even as she considered it, she thought this new plan sounded like emotional blackmail. But a small voice inside her reminded, All’s fair in love and war.

  “It might not work,” she muttered aloud.

  “Then you’ll be no worse off than you are now.”

  “True. And if it does work...” Just thinking of the possibilities brought a smile to her face. Sometimes, she told herself, a person simply had to take a gamble. Risk everything—no matter how frightening—in an attempt to gain all she’d ever wanted.

  Tom walked into the living room and set the videotape down next to three others just like it. For some reason, several of his friends had thought it a hilarious joke to give him copies of the movie, Father of the Bride, Part Two.

  Personally, he didn’t think it was so funny. Every time he watched it, he felt sympathy for the poor man torn between two delivery rooms—one where his grandchild was being born and the other where his own wife was giving birth.

  One strange thing, though, he was no longer nervous about entering the parenthood game again. In fact, the past few months had been great. Watching their baby grow inside Kate. Making plans. Reading about the latest changes in childbirth and parenting. He and Jack had even talked about buying the lumber so they could build two cribs themselves.

  Tossing his hat onto the nearest chair, Tom unbuttoned his uniform shirt as he turned for the hallwa
y and the bedroom. When he’d gotten married, he would never have believed it would work out this well. But he and Kate had made it work. They’d had some rough spots, true. But on the whole, he thought they’d done a damn fine job of building a marriage based on friendship. Mutual respect. Admiration. Affection.

  He smiled to himself at the paleness of that last word. Affection. It didn’t come near to defining what he felt around Kate. What it was like to hold her as she fell asleep and kiss her awake in the morning. Couldn’t begin to describe the passion they shared that seemed to grow and blossom daily.

  He’d even become accustomed to hearing her say, “I love you.” More than that, he looked forward to hearing it. He no longer felt guilty about being unable to say the words himself. She seemed to understand that what he felt for her was real and deep and didn’t require a label to measure its worth. And for that he was grateful.

  “Kate?” he called as he moved down the hall. “Are you home?”

  He entered the bedroom and stopped just past the threshold. Kate stood by the wide window, late-afternoon sunshine pouring through the sparkling glass in a molten stream and gilding her hair. Wearing a filmy cotton maternity dress that shifted and swirled about her knees in the breeze, she looked beautiful. Ethereal. Until she half turned to glance at him.

  Her expression was at odds with her pose. She seemed so relaxed. So composed. Yet her features were tight, and he could see the evidence of tears long past.

  Since her hormones had evened out a couple of months ago, he hadn’t seen her shed a single tear. Knowing that she’d been crying now gave him a start.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked, a heaviness settling around his heart.

  Her hands clasped atop the mound of her belly, her fingers twisted and pulled at each other in an obvious sign of distress. “We have to talk, Thomas.”

  He’d never known anything good to have come from a conversation starting with those words. Bracing himself for a disaster he couldn’t avoid, Tom said simply. “All right. What is it, Kate?”

  She took a step away from the window, and the golden nimbus surrounding her darkened before disappearing altogether. “I have to ask you a question, and I want you to think about it carefully before you answer me, okay?”

  He nodded stiffly.

  Moving closer, Kate stopped when she was standing beside the foot of the bed. Reaching out, she grabbed hold of the footboard and held on with a grip that made her knuckles stand out white against her skin. She took a deep breath, looked him square in the eye and asked, “Do you love me, Thomas?”

  Her quiet question hit him with the force of a blow to the solar plexus, robbing him of air, stealing the safe footing he’d thought he was on. He stared at her for a long, silent moment.

  “It’s a yes-or-no question, Thomas,” she said, and her voice sounded far less confident than it had a moment ago.

  “Kate, we’ve been through this before.”

  “Months ago,” she told him quickly.

  “Nothing’s changed.”

  “Hasn’t it?” She lifted her left hand and placed it atop the swell of their child. “I’m almost eight months pregnant, Thomas. Our child will be born in just a few weeks.”

  “I know that,” he said, and shoved one hand through his hair.

  “But you don’t know if you love me.”

  “Kate...”

  “Let me finish. Please.” She pulled in a shuddering breath, then straightened her spine until she was almost at full attention. “I know I said once that I didn’t think I could be a single parent. Heaven knows, it’s not the way I would choose to raise my child, but it would be better than raising him in a house without love.”

  Without love? Friendship was love, wasn’t it? They would both love their child, wouldn’t they? But he couldn’t voice those opinions, because she went right on.

  “I was raised like that, Thomas. And I won’t do it to my own child. So. If you can’t or won’t love me, tell me now. I’ll request a transfer to Washington right away.”

  Another blow. “Washington?” he repeated. “You mean General Thomton? That was months ago, Kate. He’s probably forgotten he made that offer.”

  Slowly, her gaze never leaving his, she dipped one hand into a pocket of her dress, pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to him. Reaching for it as carefully as he would have, had it been a snake coiled to strike, Tom took the paper and read each line with growing dismay. By the time he’d finished, he felt as though a great, yawning hole had opened up beneath him and he was about to tumble into it.

  “How long have you had this?” he asked.

  “A few months.”

  “And you didn’t tell me.” Betrayal stung him sharply.

  “There was no need before,” Kate said. “I hadn’t any intention of accepting his offer.”

  “Until now.”

  She nodded. “Until now.”

  He folded the letter again and tossed it onto the bed. What could he say? He knew what her career had always meant to her. This was the opportunity of a lifetime.

  “So we come back to my question,” she said, splintering his thoughts and dragging him back to the moment at hand. “Do you love me, Thomas?”

  Damn it, why did it always come back down to this? “I care for you, Kate,” he said gruffly. And it was true. He felt more for her than he’d ever believed possible. “I want to be married to you. I want to be a father to my child. Isn’t that enough?”

  She shook her head slowly, sadly. “Not anymore.”

  “Why the hell not?” he demanded.

  “Because the baby...and I, deserve better. Oh, Thomas. You deserve better.”

  “Haven’t we been happy these past few months?” he asked, and heard the note of desperation in his own voice, yet was helpless to contain it.

  “Yes,” she said, a sad smile curving one corner of her mouth. “We have been. But our future is about to arrive, and Thomas, I want more. For all of us.”

  She wanted his heart. No strings attached. She wanted his soul, and he wasn’t sure he could give it to her. Heck, he wasn’t completely sure he still had one.

  This time with Kate had been the happiest of his life. He’d wanted it to go on forever, but he should have known it couldn’t. She was right. She did deserve more. He didn’t—couldn’t speak.

  And after a silent minute or two passed, Kate said sadly, “I’ll contact the general’s office tomorrow.”

  As she walked past him, headed for the doorway, Kate moved slowly, hoping against hope that he would call her back, confess his love and they could live happily ever after.

  But he didn’t, and when she stopped on the threshold of the guest room to look back at him, her heart sank even further. He hadn’t moved an inch. Standing alone in the center of the room, he looked very much what he obviously was. A solitary man who needed no one.

  She’d pinned her hopes on this last, all-or-nothing gamble and she’d lost. Stepping into the guest room, she closed the door behind her and gave in to the tears raging inside.

  The bed seemed bigger. Colder.

  Lonely, dark hours passed, and still he couldn’t sleep.

  Tom reached out and grabbed the pillow where Kate had laid her head so many nights. Clutching it to his chest, he stared blindly at the moon-washed ceiling above him.

  Visions drifted across his mind. Visions of the long, empty years stretching out ahead of him. His imagination conjured up awkward phone calls and uncomfortable visits. His own son would be a stranger to him—just as Donna had been. Once again he would lose the precious few years of childhood.

  And Kate. A woman as passionate as she was wouldn’t be alone her whole life. Unbidden came mental images of his wife in the arms of some faceless man. A man who wasn’t afraid to love. A man who didn’t let his past rule his future. A man who could bring himself to say three small words. I love you.

  The moon dipped behind a bank of clouds, and his bedroom was enveloped by a smothering wall of bl
ackness. When he finally fell asleep, he found no comfort in his dreams. Instead he was haunted by vivid nightmares of Kate and his child, locked away behind walls too high for him to climb.

  Kate was up and out of the house before Thomas woke up. She didn’t want another confrontation. She didn’t want to have to look at him, knowing that he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—confess his love. Instead she went to her office early, determined to put in a phone call to General Thornton.

  It was past time that she began making plans for her and her baby’s future. A future that sadly, would not include Thomas.

  When he woke up, it was nearly mid-morning and he was alone.

  Tom showered, dressed and walked through the empty house to the kitchen. Standing at the counter, he drank a cup of coffee and listened futilely for the sound of Kate’s voice coming from another room.

  His jaw tight, he realized that the old house seemed to echo with the loneliness that apparently was his destiny. He told himself to get used to the quiet. To welcome the shattering stillness that would forever define his life.

  There would be no more quiet moments of shared laughter. No more kisses over morning coffee. No more sweet nights of lovemaking followed by the tenderness of falling asleep with Kate snuggled close to his side.

  His gaze shifting around the room, he noticed Kate’s jacket hanging on a peg by the back door and her book left on the edge of the table. A pair of her earrings were sitting on the windowsill above the sink. A sale paper on baby furniture had been neatly folded and left near the phone.

  She was so much a part of his life, he didn’t know how he would survive without her.

  Finally his gaze landed on a framed photo of him and Kate together. Taken at a carnival just the month before, they looked happy, smiling into each other’s eyes, their hands joined atop their growing child.

  Destiny, he thought. Was it really his destiny to live apart from the one woman who had made him feel whole again? Or was destiny what you made of it when you stopped worrying about the future and made a grab for life when it was offered to you?