“I’m outta here,” Andy said. “It’s not like anyone’s gonna miss me, right?”
“Andy, Vince doesn’t even wear a belt.” Vince Romanella might’ve looked like the kind of guy who would react with one of his big, beefy fists rather than think things through, but in the three years he and his wife had been foster parents, he’d never raised a hand to a child. What Andy was going to “get” was a trip to his bedroom tonight, where he would sit alone, writing a five-page essay on nonviolent alternatives to fighting.
But before she could tell Andy that, he was gone, walking quickly across the field, trying his best to hide a limp.
“Andy, wait!”
She started after him. He glanced back at her and began to run.
“Shoot, Andy, wait for me!”
Melody broke into a waddling trot, supporting her stomach with her arms.
He had to stop at Main Street and wait for a break in the traffic before he could cross.
“Andy, Vince isn’t going to hit you!”
But he didn’t hear her. He darted across the road and started running down the street.
Melody picked up her own pace, feeling like one of the running dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. With each step she took, the sky should have rumbled and the earth should have shook.
“Andy! Wait! Somebody stop Andy Marshall—please!”
She was light-headed and dizzy and within nanoseconds of losing what little breakfast she’d forced down earlier this morning. But no one seemed to notice her calls of help. No one seemed to be paying one bit of attention to the gigantically pregnant woman chasing the twelve-year-old boy.
No one except the exceptionally tall, exceptionally broad-shouldered man on the corner. Sunlight gleamed off sun-streaked brown hair that was pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. He was dressed similarly to just about all the other Saturday-morning antique shoppers who crowded the quaint little stores that surrounded the common. He wore a muted green polo shirt and a pair of khaki Dockers that fit sinfully well.
Seemingly effortlessly, he reached out and grabbed Andy around the waist. He moved with the fluid grace of a trained warrior, and as he moved, Melody recognized him instantly. He didn’t have to come any closer for Melody to know that his shirt accentuated the brilliant green of his eyes.
Lt. Harlan “Cowboy” Jones had come to Appleton to find her. Blackness pressed around Melody, taking out her peripheral vision and giving her the illusion of looking at Jones through a long, dark tunnel.
“Is this the kid you wanted, ma’am?” he called across the street to her, his voice carrying faintly over the roaring in her ears. He didn’t realize he’d found her. He didn’t recognize her new, extralarge, two-for-the-price-of-one size.
Melody felt nausea churning inside of her, felt dizziness swirling around her, and she did the only thing she could possibly do, given the circumstances.
She carefully lowered herself down onto the grass of the Appleton Common and fainted.
“What’s wrong with you?” Cowboy scolded the squirming kid as he carried him across the street. “Making your mama chase after you like that.”
“She’s not my mother,” the kid spit. “And you’re not my father, so let go of me!”
Cowboy looked up and blinked. That was odd. The woman had been standing right behind the blue Honda sedan. She was blond and hugely, heavily pregnant, but somehow she had managed to vanish.
He took a few more steps and then he saw her. She was on the ground, on the grass behind the parked cars, lying on her side as if she’d stopped to take a nap, her long hair hanging like a curtain over her face.
The kid saw her, too, and stopped struggling. “God, is she dead?” His face twisted. “Oh, God, did I kill her?”
Cowboy let go of the kid and moved fast, kneeling next to the woman. He slid his hand underneath her hair and up to the softness of her neck, searching for a pulse. He found one, but it was going much too fast. “She’s not dead.”
The kid was no longer trying to run away. “Should I find a phone and call 911?”
Cowboy put his hand on the woman’s abdomen, wondering if she was in labor, wondering if he’d even be able to feel her contractions if she was. He knew quite a bit about first aid—enough to qualify as a medic in most units. He knew the drill when it came to knife wounds, gunshot wounds and third-degree burns. But unconscious pregnant women were way out of his league. Still, he knew enough to recognize shock when he saw it. He brushed her hair out of her face to check her eyes, glancing up at the kid. “Is the hospital far away?”
“No, it’s right here in town—just a few blocks north.”
Cowboy looked back to check the woman’s eyes, and for several long, timeless seconds, he couldn’t move.
Dear, dear God, it was Melody. It was Melody. This immensely pregnant woman was Melody. His Melody. His…
He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, could hardly even think. Melody. Pregnant?
The implication nearly knocked him over, but then his training kicked in. Keep going, keep moving. Don’t analyze more than you have to. Don’t think if it’s gonna slow you down. Act. Act and react.
His rental car was on the corner of Main Street. “We can probably get her to the hospital faster ourselves.” His voice sounded hoarse. It was a wonder he could speak at all. He handed his car keys to the kid with the split lip. “I’ll carry Mel, you unlock the car door.”
The kid stared at him as he lifted Melody up and into his arms. “You know her?”
A hell of a question, considering he’d gone and gotten her pregnant. “Yeah. I know her.”
She roused slightly as he carried her down the street toward his car. “Jones…?”
“Yeah, honey, I’m here.”
The kid dropped the keys twice but finally managed to get the passenger door open.
“Oh, God, you are, aren’t you?” Melody closed her eyes as he affixed the seat belt around her girth.
Cowboy felt light-headed himself. She looked as if she were hiding a watermelon underneath her dress. And he’d done that to her. He’d sent his seed deep inside of her and now she was going to have his baby. And if he didn’t hurry, she was going to have his baby in the front seat of this car.
“Hang on, Mel. I’m taking you to the hospital.”
Cowboy turned around to order the kid into the back seat, but the kid was gone. He did a quick sweep of the area and spotted the boy at ten o’clock, running full speed across the common. Melody had no doubt been chasing him for a reason, but no matter what that reason was, getting her to the hospital had to take priority.
The kid had left Cowboy’s car keys on the front seat, thank God. Cowboy scooped them up as he slid behind the wheel, then started the engine with a roar.
Melody was pregnant and the baby had to be his. Didn’t it? Had it truly been nine months since the hostage rescue at the embassy? He did a quick count but came up with only seven months. He must have counted wrong. He pushed all thoughts away as he searched the street for a familiar blue hospital sign. Don’t think. Act. He’d have plenty of time to think after he was certain Mel was going to be okay.
The kid had been right—the hospital was nearby. Within moments, Cowboy pulled up to the emergency-room entrance.
He took the shortest route to the automatic ER doors—over the hood of the car—and helped the sliding doors open faster with his hands. “I need some help,” he shouted into the empty corridor. “A wheelchair, a stretcher, something! I’ve got a lady about to have a baby here!”
The startled face of a nurse appeared, and Cowboy moved quickly back to the car, opening the door and lifting Melody into his arms. Even with the added weight of her pregnancy, she still felt impossibly light, improbably slender. She still felt so familiar. She still fit perfectly in his arms. God, how he’d missed her.
He was met at the door by a gray-haired nurse with a wheelchair who took one look at Mel and called out, “It’s Melody Evans. Someone call Brittany d
own here, stat!”
“She’s unconscious,” Cowboy reported. “She’s come out of it once but slipped back.”
The nurse pushed the chair away. “She’d only fall out of this. Can you carry her?”
“Absolutely.” He tossed his car keys to a security guard. “Move my car for me, will you, please?”
He followed the woman through a set of doors and into the emergency room where they were joined by another woman—this one a doctor.
“She’s preregistered, but we will need your signature on a form before you go,” the nurse told him as they moved briskly toward a hospital bed separated from a row of other beds by only a thin, sliding curtain.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Cowboy said.
“Can you tell me when the contractions started?” the doctor asked. “How far apart they are?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted as he set Melody on the bed. “She was out cold when I found her. She must have just keeled over, right by the side of the road.”
“Did she hit her head when she fell?” The doctor examined Melody quickly, lifting her eyelids, checking her eyes and feeling the back of her head for possible injury.
“I don’t know,” Cowboy said again, feeling a surge of frustration. “I didn’t see her fall.”
The nurse had already slipped a blood-pressure cuff on Mel’s arm. She pumped it up and took a reading. “Blood pressure’s fine. Pulse seems steady.”
Melody looked so helpless lying there on that narrow bed. Her face was so pale. Her hair was so much longer than it had been in Paris. Of course, his hair was a lot longer, too.
It had been a long time since he’d seen her.
But it had only been seven months. Not nine.
Was it possible that she’d already been two months pregnant in Paris? He couldn’t believe that. He wouldn’t believe that. Of course the baby was his. She’d told him it had been close to a year since she’d broken up with her last serious boyfriend and…
Melody’s eyelashes flickered.
“Well, hello,” the doctor said to her. “Welcome back.”
As Cowboy watched, Melody gazed up at the doctor, her brow wrinkled slightly with confusion. “Where am I?” she breathed.
“At County Hospital. Do you remember blacking out?”
Melody closed her eyes briefly. “I remember…” She opened them, sitting up suddenly, turning to look around the room until her gaze fell directly on Cowboy. “Oh, God. You’re real.”
“I’d say hi, how are you, but that’s kind of obvious.” Cowboy did his best to keep his voice low and even. She was in no condition to be yelled at—even if she damn well deserved it. “It looks as if you have some news you forgot to tell me yesterday when we spoke on the phone.”
Her cheeks flushed, but she lifted her chin. “I’m pregnant.”
He moved closer. “I noticed. When were you planning to tell me?”
She lowered her voice. “I thought you told me SEALs were trained never to assume anything. Yet here you are, assuming my condition has something to do with you.”
“Are you telling me it doesn’t?” He knew without a doubt that that baby was his. He couldn’t imagine her with somebody else. The idea was ludicrous—and unbearable.
“How far apart are the contractions?” the doctor asked as the nurse gently pushed Melody back down on the hospital bed.
“Are you telling me it doesn’t?” Cowboy said again, knowing he should just step back and give the doctor space but needing to know if Melody was actually going to look him in the eye and lie to him.
She looked from the doctor to Cowboy and back. “The…what?”
“Contractions.” The doctor spoke slowly and clearly. “How far apart are they?”
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to wait outside,” the nurse murmured to him.
“And, ma’am, I’m going to have to decline that request. I’m staying right here until I know for sure Melody’s all right.”
Melody was shaking her head. “But I’m not—”
“Mel, what happened?” Another nurse came bursting through the door. She didn’t wait for an answer before turning to the doctor. “It’s nearly two months too soon. Have you given her something to stop the contractions? How far is she dilated?”
“I’m not having—”
“I’ve given her nothing,” the doctor reported calmly. “If she’s having contractions, they’re very far apart. I haven’t even done a pelvic exam.”
“Sir, her sister’s here now. Please wait outside,” the older nurse murmured, trying to push him gently toward the door.
Cowboy didn’t budge. So this was Mel’s sister. Of course. Mel had told him she was a nurse.
“I don’t need a pelvic exam,” Melody protested loudly. “I’m not having contractions at all. I was running after Andy Marshall and I got a little dizzy, that’s all.”
Her sister nearly jumped down her throat. “You were running!”
Melody sat up again, turning toward Cowboy. “You caught Andy for me. I saw you. Is he here?”
“No. I’m sorry. He ran away while I was getting you into my car.”
“Shoot! Shoot!” Melody turned toward her sister. “Brittany, you’ve got to call the Romanellas for me. Andy’s going to run away because he thinks Vince is going to take his belt to him for getting into another fight!”
But Brittany was looking at Cowboy, noticing him for the first time. Her eyes were a different shade of blue than Mel’s. Her face was sharper, more angular, too, but it was clear the two women were closely related. “Who the hell are you?”
“That depends on the baby’s due date,” he answered.
“What?”
“He brought Melody in,” the other nurse told her. “I’ve been trying to tell him—”
“Can we focus on Melody for a minute?” the doctor asked, gently trying to push Melody back down onto the bed. “I’d like to do that pelvic anyway—make sure that fall didn’t do anything it shouldn’t have.”
The gray-haired nurse was persistent. “Sir, now you really must wait outside.”
Brittany was still looking at him, her eyes narrowed in speculation. “Her due date, huh?”
Melody sat up again. “If we don’t hurry, Andy Marshall will be gone!”
“December 1st,” Brittany told Cowboy. She looked him over more carefully, from the tips of his boots to the end of his ponytail. “My God, you’re what’s-his-name, the SEAL, aren’t you?”
December 1st. That made more sense. Melody wasn’t due now—she wasn’t about to have the baby. With her slender frame and petite build she only looked as if she were going to pop any minute.
December…Cowboy quickly counted back nine months to…March. He’d been in the Middle East in March performing that hostage rescue. And after that, he’d spent six solid days in heaven.
He met Melody’s eyes. She knew without a doubt that he’d done the easy math and put two and two together—or, more accurately, one and one. And in this case, one and one had very definitely made three.
“I’m Lt. Harlan Jones,” he said, holding Melody’s gaze, daring her to deny what he was about to say. “I’m the baby’s father.”
Jones was waiting for her in the hospital lounge.
Melody took a deep breath when she saw him, afraid that she might pass out again. She’d more than half expected him to be long gone.
Brittany tightened her grip on her arm. “Are you okay?” her sister whispered.
“I’m scared,” Melody whispered back.
Britt nodded. “This isn’t going to be easy for either of you. Are you sure you don’t want me to stick around?”
Jones was standing by the windows, leaning against the frame, looking out over the new housing development going up on Sycamore Street. He looked so tall, so imposing, so stern.
So impossibly handsome.
Melody could see the muscles in the side of his jaw jumping as he clenched his teeth. She saw the muscles in his forearms t
ighten and flex as he folded them across his chest. She knew firsthand the strength and power of those arms. She knew how incredibly gentle he could be, as well.
Jones looked so odd in civilian clothes—particularly these pants and this shirt that had such a blandly yuppie style. But she realized that she’d never seen him out of uniform. He’d worn black BDUs under his robe during the rescue. And after that, she’d only seen him in—or out of—his dress uniform.
These oddly conservative clothes might be the way he dressed all the time when he was off duty. Or they might have been something he’d specially chosen to wear for this surprise visit.
Talking about surprises…
As she watched, he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with one hand, as if he had a headache and a half. And why shouldn’t he? He’d come here obviously hoping to sweet-talk his way back into her bed. He’d gotten far more than he’d bargained for—that was for sure.
She could see the lines of stress clearly etched on his face.
He’d smiled and laughed his way through the six days they’d spent together. But then his pager had gone off, and he’d told her he needed to return to California. He’d smiled as he kissed her in the airport, making promises she knew he wouldn’t keep. He’d smiled—right up until the point where she told him she didn’t want to see him again. And as he struggled to understand her many reasons for making a clean break, he looked so grim and imposing—rather like the way he looked right now.
It was as if no time had passed at all. It was as if they were right back where they’d left off.
Except for the obvious differences. His hair was longer. Hers was, too. And instead of being three days pregnant and ignorant of the fact, she was now seven months along.
Melody rubbed her extended belly nervously, afraid of what he was going to say, afraid of the tension she could see in his face and in the tightness of his shoulders.
The early-afternoon sunshine lit his face, giving his hair an even more sun-streaked look.
She remembered how soft his hair had felt beneath her fingers. It had grown down past his shoulders now—rich and gleamingly golden brown. Freed from its restraint, it would hang wavy and thick around his face, making him look like one of those exotic men who graced the covers of the historical romances she liked to read so much.
Tall, Dark and Dangerous Part 1 Page 82