Tall, Dark and Dangerous Part 1

by Suzanne Brockmann

  There was a trail of freckles across her nose and cheeks, making her look as if she had slowly ripened in the summer sun. Her pregnancy had added a lushness to her body, a womanly fullness to breasts and hips that had been almost boyishly slender before. Even her face was fuller, less little-girl cute and more grown-woman beautiful.

  Cowboy wanted to touch her. He was dying to press his hand against the tautness of her stomach, to feel the reality of her baby—his baby—beneath his fingers.

  They’d done this together. They’d created this baby in the cramped bathroom of that 747 to Paris. It had to have happened then. It was the only time they hadn’t used protection. Hell, it was the only time in thirteen years he’d had sex without a condom.

  He could still remember the dizzying swiftness with which he had thrown aside a lifetime of precaution and control. And he could also remember the heart-stoppingly exquisite sensation when he’d driven himself deeply inside her.

  Damn, but he wanted to do that again. And over and over again…

  Cowboy cleared his throat, unable to hide the heat he knew was in his eyes as he looked at her. “It’s just that, well, let me put it this way. I could think of far worse ways to spend the rest of my life than being married to you.”

  Married. Damn, the word still made him feel faint.

  She held his gaze with eyes the color of a perfect summer sky. They were so familiar, those eyes. He’d dreamed about her eyes more times than he could count. He’d dreamed about sitting right here, across from her on the front porch of her house and gazing at her.

  He’d dreamed that he’d touch her. He’d trail one finger down the silky smoothness of her cheek and she would smile and open her arms to him. And then, finally, after all these months of starving for the taste of her lips, he would kiss her and…

  But here in real life, he didn’t dare reach for her. And she didn’t smile. She simply looked away.

  But not before he saw it—the undeniable answering heat of attraction that flashed across her face. There was still a spark between them. Despite everything she’d said, she was not unaffected by his presence. But it just wasn’t enough.

  “I can’t think of anything worse,” she said softly, “than to get married for the wrong reason.”

  “And you don’t think that little baby you’re carrying is a right enough reason?”

  Melody lifted her chin in the air in that gesture of defiance that was so familiar. “No, I don’t. Love is the only reason two people should get married.”

  He was about to speak, but she stopped him. “And I know you don’t love me, so don’t insult my intelligence by even trying to pretend that you do. People don’t really fall in love at first sight—or even after eight days. Lust, yes, but not love. Love takes time. The kind of love you base a long-term relationship on—a relationship like marriage—needs to grow over a course of weeks and months and even years. What we experienced during my rescue and those days following it had nothing to do with love. Love is about normal things—about sharing breakfast and then going off to work. It’s about working in the yard together on the weekend. It’s about sitting on the back porch and watching the sunset.”

  “When I go off to work, I don’t come back for four weeks,” Cowboy said quietly.

  “I know.” She gave him a very sad smile. “That’s not what I want from a husband. If I’m going to get married, it’s going to be to a man whose idea of risking his life is to mow the lawn near the hornet’s nest.”

  Cowboy was silent. He’d never been one for long speeches. He’d never been the type for philosophizing or debating some minute detail of an issue the way Harvard could do for hours at a time.

  But at this crucial moment, Cowboy wished he had Harvard’s talent for waxing eloquent. Because he knew how he felt—he just wasn’t certain he’d be able to find the right words to explain.

  “Sometimes, Mel,” he started slowly, hesitantly, “you’ve got to take what life dishes out. And sometimes that’s real different from what you hoped for or what you expected. I mean, I didn’t exactly picture myself getting married and starting a family for a whole hell of a lot of years, but here I am, sitting here with a diamond ring in a box in my pocket.”

  “I’m not going to marry you,” she interrupted. “I don’t want to marry you!”

  His voice rose despite his intentions to stay calm. “Yeah, well, honey, I’m not that excited about it myself.” He took a deep breath and when he spoke again his voice was softer. “But it’s the right thing to do.”

  She pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead. “I knew it. I knew you were going to start with ‘the right thing.”’

  “You bet I’m starting with it. Because I believe that baby—my baby as well as yours, Mel—deserves a name.”

  “He’ll have a name. He’ll have my name!”

  “And he’ll grow up in this little town with everyone knowing he’s a bastard. Yeah, you’re really looking out for him, aren’t you?”

  Anger flashed in her eyes. “Stop with the Middle Ages mentality. Women are single mothers all the time these days. I can take care of this baby by my—”

  “I know. I heard you. You’ve got it all figured out. You’ve got his college education handled. But you know, there is one thing you can’t provide for this kid, and that’s a chance for him to know his father. I’m the only one who can make sure this kid grows up knowing that he’s got a father who cares.”

  Cowboy couldn’t believe the words that had come out of his mouth. He was glad he was sitting down. A father who cared. Hell, he actually sounded as if he knew what he was talking about—as if he knew anything at all about how to make sure this unborn child would grow up believing that he was loved.

  In truth, he was clueless. His own father had been a dismal failure in that regard. By-the-book U.S. Navy, Admiral Jones was a perfectionist. He was harsh and demanding and cold and—with the exception of Cowboy’s joining the SEALs—was never happy with anything he ever did. With the old man as his only real role model, Cowboy wasn’t sure he was ready to get within a hundred feet of an impressionable child.

  Still, he didn’t have any choice, did he? He drew the ring box from his pocket and snapped the lid open. He held it out to her. “Mel, you gotta marry me. This isn’t just about you and me anymore.”

  Melody couldn’t bring herself even to look at the ring.

  She clumsily pushed herself to her feet, fighting to keep from crying. She’d made a mistake—assuming Jones wouldn’t care. She’d misjudged him—thinking his good-time, pleasure-seeking, no-strings disposition would win out over his sense of responsibility.

  But a sense of responsibility didn’t make for a happy home.

  “The worst thing we can do for this baby is enter into a marriage neither one of us wants,” she said. “What kind of home life could we possibly give him when we don’t even know if we like each other?”

  That seemed to floor Jones. He swore softly, shaking his head. “I like you. I sort of thought you liked me, too.” He laughed in disbelief. “I mean, come on…”

  She stopped, her hand on the screen door. “I did like you,” she told him. “I liked you a whole lot when you were the only thing standing between me and death when we were inside that embassy. And I liked you even more when you made love to me, after we were back and safe. But there’s a whole lot more to you besides your abilities as a Navy SEAL and your considerable talent in bed. And I don’t know that part of you at all. And you don’t know me, either. Let’s be honest—you don’t.”

  Let’s be honest. Except she wasn’t—not really. She did like Cowboy Jones. She admired and respected him, and every time he opened his mouth, every minute longer he hung around, she liked him more and more.

  It wouldn’t take much for her feelings to grow into something stronger.

  And that would be trouble, because adventure and excitement were this man’s middle names. There was no way he would be satisfied with a marriage to someone as unad
venturous and unexciting as Melody Evans. And after the novelty of doing the right thing wore off, they’d both be miserable.

  By then, he’d be bored with her, and she—fool that she was—would be hopelessly in love with him.

  Melody looked up at him as she opened the door and stepped inside. “So, no, Lieutenant Jones, I’m not going to marry you.”

  “I need a room.”

  The elderly woman behind the counter at the local inn could have been a SEAL team’s point man. Cowboy could tell that she missed nothing with her shrewd, sweeping gaze. She quickly took in his naval uniform, his perfectly shined shoes, the pile of medals that decorated his chest. No doubt she was memorizing the color of his eyes and hair and taking a mental picture of his face—probably for reference later when she watched Top Cops or another of those reality-based TV shows just to make sure the uniform wasn’t an elaborate disguise when, in fact, he was wanted for heinous crimes in seven different states.

  He gave her his hundred-dollar smile.

  She didn’t blink. “How many nights?”

  “Just one, ma’am.”

  She pursed her lips, making her face look even longer and narrower, and slid a standard hotel-room registration form across the counter to him. “You’re from Texas?”

  Cowboy paused before picking up the pen. His accent wasn’t that obvious. “You have a good ear, ma’am.”

  “That was a question, young man,” she told him sternly. “I was asking. But you are, aren’t you? You’re that sailor from Texas.”

  Another elderly woman, this one as round and short as the other was tall and narrow, came out of the back room.

  “Oh, my,” she said, stopping short at the sight of him. “It’s him, isn’t it? Melody’s navy fellow.”

  “He wants to stay the night, Peggy,” the stern-faced woman intoned, disapproval thickening her voice. “I’m not sure I want his type in our establishment. Having all kinds of rowdy parties. Getting all of the local girls pregnant.”

  All of the…?

  “Hannah Shelton called to say he just bought a diamond ring at Front Street Jeweler’s,” the round lady—Peggy—said. “On credit.”

  Both women turned to look at him.

  “About time,” the tall one sniffed.

  “Did he give it to her?” Peggy wondered.

  It was odd—the way they talked about him as if he weren’t there, even as they stood staring directly at him.

  He decided the best course would simply be to ignore their comments. “I’d like a room with a telephone, if possible,” he said as he filled out the registration form. “I need to make some out-of-state calls. I have a calling card, of course.”

  “None of our rooms have private phones,” the tall lady informed him.

  “Our guests are welcome to use the lobby phone.” Peggy gestured across the room toward an antique sideboard upon which sat an equally antique-looking rotary phone.

  The lobby phone. Of course. God forbid a conversation go on in this building that Peggy and the bird lady not know about.

  “You did buy it as an engagement ring, didn’t you?” the tall woman asked, narrowing her eyes, finally confronting him directly. “With the intention of giving it to Melody Evans?”

  Cowboy tried his best to be pleasant. “That’s private business between Ms. Evans and me.”

  “Thank God, Lieutenant! You’re still here!” Brittany came bursting through the inn’s lobby door. “I have to talk to you.”

  “It’s Brittany Evans.” Peggy stated the obvious to her dour-faced companion.

  “I can see that. She wants to talk to the sailor.”

  “Do you have a few minutes?” Mel’s sister asked Cowboy.

  He shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Although I’m not sure if the Spanish Inquisition has finished with me.”

  She laughed, and he could see traces of Melody in her face. The wave of longing that hit him was overpowering. Why couldn’t this have been easy? Why couldn’t he have arrived in Appleton to find Melody happy to see him—and not seven months pregnant?

  But “why couldn’t” scenarios were of no help to him now. He couldn’t change the past—that wasn’t in his control. And difficult as it seemed, he somehow had to change Mel’s mind. He had to make her see that they really only had one choice here.

  As he’d walked away with that diamond ring still in his pocket, it occurred to him that he’d been taking the wrong tack. He shouldn’t have tried to argue with Melody. He should’ve spent all of his energy sweet-talking her instead. He should’ve tried to seduce his way back into her life.

  Yeah, sure, great sex probably wasn’t enough to base a long-term relationship on. But great sex combined with a soon-to-be-born baby were grounds for a definite start.

  Brittany turned to the two old ladies, fixing them with a pointed finger and a glare. “Peggy. Estelle. If either one of you breathes so much as a word about the fact that I came here to talk to Lieutenant Jones, and my sister hears about it, I swear I will take my chain saw to your rosebushes. Is that understood?”

  Estelle didn’t seem convinced, lifting a hawklike nose into the air. “She’d never do it.”

  Peggy wasn’t quite so certain. “She might.”

  Brittany grabbed Cowboy’s arm. “Come on, Lieutenant. Let’s take a walk.”

  He scooped his duffel bag off the floor and followed her out into the early-evening dusk.

  There was a chill in the air as the sun dipped below the horizon. After weeks of unseasonably warm weather, autumn was definitely on its way.

  Melody’s sister marched in silence until they were a good fifty feet away from the front porch of the inn. At that point, Cowboy ventured to speak. “I doubt they can hear us from this distance. Although I suppose they could be tracking us via some KH-12 SATCOM.” At her frown of confusion, he explained, “Spy satellite. It’d be right up their alley.”

  Brittany laughed, rolling her eyes and crossing the street, taking them onto the town common. “God, I can just picture Peggy and Estelle down in some high-tech studio in their basement, with little headsets on over their purple hair, gleefully monitoring the private conversations going on all over town.”

  “Seems they do pretty well all by themselves. In fact, they could probably teach the staff at NAVINTEL a thing or two about information gathering.”

  Appleton was a perfect little New England town, complete with eighteenth-century clapboard houses that surrounded a picture-perfect, rectangular-shaped common. The common was covered with thick green grass and crisscrossed with sidewalks. Benches and stately trees were scattered here and there. Brittany led the way toward one of the benches.

  “This town has a gossip network like you wouldn’t believe. We’ve got the highest busybody per capita ratio in the entire state.”

  Cowboy swore softly. “That must’ve been really tough on Melody—I mean, when her pregnancy started to show. There was probably a lot of talk.”

  “Actually, she didn’t give anyone a chance to talk. Come on, let’s sit. I’ve been on my feet, running all day.” Brittany sank onto the white-painted bench, and Cowboy sat beside her.

  From a playground, way down at the other end of the green, he could hear the sounds of children laughing. Someday his kid would play there. His kid. He felt a cold streak of fear run down his spine. How could he have a kid? He wasn’t ready to stop being a kid himself.

  “Melody went all the way into the city to buy a home pregnancy test,” Brittany continued. “She knew if she bought it here in town, word would’ve been out within two minutes of leaving the store. When the test turned up positive, she didn’t have to think for very long before deciding that an abortion wasn’t the right choice for her. And giving the child up for adoption was also out of the question. So there she was, pregnant, about to be a single mother. She realized that sooner or later her condition was going to be obvious to the entire town, so she…”

  She broke off, chuckling and shaking her head. “I’m sorry—I still c
an’t quite believe she did this. But my little sister crashed one of Estelle Warner’s Ladies’ Club meetings. The Ladies’ Club is really just a cover name for Gossipers Anonymous. I usually don’t go—Estelle and I aren’t exactly friends—but I was there that day, drumming up support for the hospital’s AIDS awareness program.

  “At first I thought Melody was there to give me support, but when Hazel Parks opened the floor for new topics of discussion, Mel stood up. She cleared her throat and said, ‘I would like you all to know that I have no intention of getting married, but I am, however, two months pregnant.’ She didn’t even give anyone time to gasp in shock. She just kept going. She gave ’em the facts—that you were the father and that she intended to keep the baby.”

  “She stood there,” Brittany went on, “looking all those gossipmongers in the eye, and offered to answer any questions they might have about her condition and her plans. She even passed around a picture of you.”

  Cowboy shook his head in admiration. “She told them the truth. And once the truth was out, no one could speculate.” He paused. “God, I wish she’d told me, too. I wish…”

  He should’ve called her at the beginning of the summer. He should have swallowed his pride a whole hell of a lot sooner and picked up the phone. He should have been there. He should have known right from the start.

  “Although Estelle and Peggy pretend to disapprove, I’ve got to admit even they’ve been pretty supportive. They even threw Mel a baby shower that the entire Ladies’ Club turned out for.” Brittany gazed at him. “There’s been some talk, but not a lot. And most of it’s concerned you.”

  Cowboy sighed. “And here I am, showing up in town, throwing the gossip squad into an uproar. No wonder Melody wanted me to leave as quickly as possible. I’m just making things worse for her, aren’t I?”

  “I heard what you said to my sister this evening out on the porch,” Brittany said baldly. “And I heard what she said to you, about not needing you. Don’t you believe her for a second, Lieutenant. She pretends to be so tough and resilient. But I know better.

  “She’s been depressed and unhappy ever since she came back from Paris,” Brittany told him. “And she may believe with all of her heart that marrying you won’t make her any happier, but I’ve got to tell you, today in the hospital, I watched her when she looked at you. And for the first time in over half a year, she actually seemed alive again. Don’t let her chase you away, Lieutenant.”