Rich started to speak, but Mrs. Benton grabbed his arm and steered him toward a knot of men huddled on the other side of the women. Rebecca and Tom stood just to the front of both groups. Mrs. Benton pushed Jennifer toward the cluster of unmarried women.
Seeming to be satisfied with the arrangements, Mrs. Benton nodded toward the drummer. “Okay. Now.”
He began the drumroll again.
Tom leaned in and kissed his bride, and Rebecca blushed prettily. She bent over, pulled her dress up slightly, and proceeded to roll a lacy, blue garter down her leg.
Jennifer had forgotten about the garter tradition. The groom tossed it to the single men, and whichever one caught it was supposed to be the next to marry. She couldn’t help a derisive snort.
The drumroll stopped. The room was expectantly quiet as Tom pulled the garter past Rebecca’s trim ankle and over her shoe. Rich glanced toward Jennifer and mouthed something to her again. We still have to talk, she thought he said.
Then Tom tossed the garter. Several laughing men and boys lunged for it, but Rich reached up and snagged it effortlessly out of the air. Then he looked at it as if he didn’t know what it was.
“Congratulations,” Mrs. Benton announced. “Rich Larsen, you’re next.”
“Next what?”
“The next man to marry.”
Rich looked at the piece of blue ribbon and lace in his hand, then tossed it away like it was a live grenade. He held both hands up. “No, no. Not me,” he protested.
Mrs. Benton tut-tutted and shook her head. “It’s only a tradition, not a disease.” She scooped up the garter and pressed it into his hand.
Rich scowled, shoved it into his pocket and looked toward Jennifer. She shrugged as he turned and, ignoring the rest of the gathered people, made his way toward her.
“We have to talk,” he insisted as he worked his way around behind Jennifer. The drums began again, and Rebecca faced away from the crowd.
“One,” the women chanted.
“We have a problem,” Rich said.
“Yes,” Jennifer answered absently, her eyes drawn, like someone trying not to look at a car wreck, to the spectacle in front of her.
“A big problem,” he insisted.
“Two,” the single ladies went on.
Jennifer sighed. She was beginning to think that Rich was stalling. “Do you think you could get to the point?” she finally asked, turning her head toward him, but still keeping one eye on what was happening.
Rich drew in a deep, long breath. “Rebecca called everyone she could think of to keep the kids.”
“Good,” Jennifer said.
“Three.”
Rebecca bent low and then let the bouquet fly up over her head.
It seemed to soar toward Jennifer at the speed of light while Rich’s next words seemed to come in slow motion.
“I told her I’d take them for the rest of the week.”
Jennifer turned her head around so fast, she almost lost her balance. “What?”
“I said I’d keep the kids.”
Something in her peripheral vision caught her eye, and Jennifer instinctively reached for it.
She felt her fingers connect and realized that she, in spite of all her efforts not to, had caught the bouquet. The instant she knew what it was, she flung it away, and it bounced into Sherry’s hands.
Jennifer stepped back, surprised, or horrified, or both.
She looked at Rich, she looked at Sherry raising the bouquet to her nose to sniff the fragrant blooms, then she looked at Rebecca.
Rebecca smiled, waved, then dashed toward the changing room with Tom.
“No,” Jennifer protested. “No. We can’t take the kids back with us. You can’t take care of them.”
Mrs. Benton spoke up again. “Well, I never. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen that happen.”
Jennifer looked at the woman. How could she be worrying about something as trivial as the bouquet when Rich had just volunteered himself—and her, she’d bet—for another week of child-care duty?
She looked at Rich as if he’d lost his mind.
Chapter Seven
“What do you mean by saying that you’d take care of those kids for another week?” Jennifer demanded.
Rich looked into her wide brown eyes. Did she seriously think that he’d had a choice? He steered Jennifer away from the knot of people surrounding Sherry and the bouquet. He felt Jennifer’s muscles tense under the smooth, blue fabric of her sleeve. “They’re my family, Jennifer. What else could I do? I didn’t want them to go to strangers.”
She jerked her arm out of his grasp and looked at him with an expression that appeared more like disgust than Rich would have cared for. “Almost any stranger has more knowledge about children than you do,” she said through clenched teeth. She nodded toward Mrs. Benton and directed as phony a smile as Rich had ever seen her way.
Then she turned back to Rich. “I sincerely hope you don’t expect me to bail you out this time. I have a job that is important to me. I can’t take time off to take care of those children.”
“Well, fine,” Rich answered. “And, for the record, I didn’t ask you to. I’ll work something out. They do have a day-care center on the base.”
“That has a waiting list a year long,” Jennifer retorted.
Rich hadn’t known that. But then, why would he? And why would she? Was it something women automatically knew? “Well, maybe I can find somebody to come to the apartment during the day.”
“Good luck,” Jennifer replied sweetly. “Rebecca hasn’t been able to find anyone, and she knows people.”
Expelling a long, tired breath, Rich shook his head. “I don’t know what I’ll do, Jennifer. If I have to throw myself on Captain Thibodeaux’s mercy and beg for leave, then I’ll do it. Those kids are my family, and I know what it’s like to be all alone,” he said tiredly. “Maybe you don’t, but I do, and I’m not going to let that happen to those kids.”
Jennifer jerked her head away as if he’d started to strike her. She blinked and looked at him again. Then her eyes misted with tears.
Rich reached toward her, but she shrugged him off, blinking her eyes frantically. “Don’t touch me, Rich Larsen,” she said, her voice decidedly wobbly.
She turned her back to him for a moment, her shoulders shaking. Rich wanted to hold her, but something told him that that wasn’t what she needed right now. Jennifer turned to face him. “I do know what it’s like to be alone and lost,” she said slowly and evenly. “I might not have been a child when it happened, but I do know,” she said, her stubborn chin thrust high and forward. “So don’t come at me with anything like that ever again.” Jennifer’s voice broke, and she walked away.
Rich watched her leave and wondered if she was walking out of his life. He drew in another deep, long breath. Maybe this was for the best. He had enough to worry about right now without being distracted by Jennifer.
Sure, he had hoped he could count on Jennifer’s help, but he hadn’t really considered the ramifications. He barely knew the woman, they weren’t dating, he had no hold on her. Hell, she’d done him an enormous favor just by agreeing to come with him to this wedding.
Then, he realized, he’d been counting on a lot of things. He’d counted on Captain Thibodeaux’s support, and he’d counted on the day-care center on base.
He hadn’t counted on Jennifer turning on him.
Now what was he going to do?
JENNIFER HATED that she’d had to speak to Rich that way, but she couldn’t, she wouldn’t, be sucked any deeper into his life. It was better this way, she tried to convince herself as she kept as much distance as she could between them until she could go home.
The more time she spent with Rich, the harder it would be to get away safely. Oh, she knew he wasn’t about to hurt her. At least, not physically or intentionally. But she knew all too well about those kinds of guys. They were excitement junkies. They liked the chase, but they didn’t hang around for the long h
aul. They weren’t good husband material.
She tried to convince herself that the only reason she’d thought of him in the context of husbands was because she was standing in the middle of a wedding reception. After all, didn’t everybody get sentimental and dreamy at a wedding? She drew in a deep breath and glanced over her shoulder at the man standing ramrod straight in the tailored blue uniform. Even as angry as she was, the sight of him made her breath catch and her heart flutter.
She would bet that he’d be an excellent lover, she thought as she looked at the angular lines of his face and the way those well-trained muscles filled out that dark blue uniform. She remembered all too well what those muscles looked like, and the sight of him bare-chested, holding that baby was something she wasn’t likely to forget even if she lived to be a hundred.
Good lover, yeah. She glanced again toward where Rich still stood, looking perplexed and confounded. He’d all but knocked her socks off just with his kisses. It wouldn’t take much time or effort on his part to talk her out of the rest of her clothes. And, she didn’t need to get involved in anything like that at this stage of her life. She was still getting over Duke.
She had too much to do, she thought as she settled in a chair in a safe corner.
Though she had managed to leave Rich on the other side of the room, he hadn’t left her. No matter what she did, he wasn’t far from her thoughts.
Yeah, he was surely a good lover, but a lover wasn’t what she wanted. Or needed. She needed somebody she could count on, and she knew from hard experience that she could never count on him. Those military guys could be depended on in a pinch, in an emergency, but it was during the ordinary times that they fell down on the job.
She’d love having someone like Rich around during a crisis, but she also knew that she wouldn’t be able to depend on him when times were good.
At least, when she thought times were good.
She wanted an ordinary, happy-ever-after kind of life, and just like her ex, Rich wanted adventure and excitement. They were oil and water. They wouldn’t mix. What they wanted was just too different.
Caitlyn came running up and distracted Jennifer from her churning thoughts. “Hey, Jen’fer, we hafta frow some birdseed at Aunt Webecca and Uncle Tom so they can go on their hummymoo.”
Saved by the child, Jennifer couldn’t help thinking. She loved the way Caitlyn seemed to put everything into the simplest of terms. Caitlyn didn’t spend a lot of time pondering and analyzing things. She just accepted life at face value.
Jennifer risked another glance over her shoulder toward Rich as she followed Caitlyn toward the door where the maid of honor stood holding a basket full of little net bundles tied with white satin ribbons.
Rich wasn’t there.
And for a brief second, Jennifer felt vindicated. See, she knew he wasn’t a stay-around kind of guy.
RICH TRIED to make himself comfortable in the front seat of Jennifer’s little car, but the silent treatment from the driver’s side was harder to take than the cramped conditions. The trip back to Fort Walton Beach was long enough, and the fact that the kids were upset about not being able to stay with their mother didn’t help the strain between him and Jennifer.
Caitlyn had been uncharacteristically quiet, but Carter had cried for almost half an hour. He had finally stopped whimpering about thirty miles out of Pensacola. He had petered out, sounding like a mechanical toy slowly winding down. Rich glanced behind him and noted that the baby had fallen asleep, his body limp against the car seat and his fuzzy pink head lolling to one side.
“He’ll be all right like that, won’t he?” Rich asked, not realizing that he’d spoken out loud.
Jennifer glanced into the rearview mirror, twisting her body to get Carter into view. “He’ll be fine,” she said. “I think babies fall asleep like that all the time.”
Rich shrugged. “You’re the expert.”
Jennifer muttered a derisive snort. “I hardly think so. I just know more than you.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “Looks like Caitlyn’s given up the ghost, too.” Then she clamped her mouth shut like she’d said too much, and focused again on the road ahead.
Rich still didn’t know what Jennifer was so upset about. He hadn’t asked her to help with the kids. And, now that he knew her opinion of what he was doing, asking her was the last thing he’d resort to. He’d show her.
He’d show Jennifer he could handle two kids without help from anyone of the female persuasion.
Or die trying.
Jennifer kept her face carefully pointed ahead, her eyes on the road, as the miles ticked away on her odometer. She really didn’t know why she was so upset. It wasn’t as if Rich had volunteered her to do anything with those kids. In fact, it bothered her that he hadn’t.
Of course, she’d all but ordered him not to. And now, she didn’t know how to take it back.
But then, that wasn’t really what she was so mad about, she realized. She wasn’t angry at Rich. In fact, his agreeing to take the kids had actually elevated him a notch in her mind. She sighed.
She was upset with herself.
In spite of everything she knew from past experience about military men in the particular specialty field that Rich belonged to, she was beginning to fall for him. That’s what really bothered her. In spite of her fears that Rich wouldn’t stay around for the long haul, he was stealing her heart.
And she didn’t know what to do about it.
RICH HAD SENT Jennifer inside with the kids so he could quickly unload their paraphernalia from the compact car and send her on her way. Trouble was, he didn’t want to send her on.
If he had known that they wouldn’t be leaving the stuff back in Pensacola he might have been spared this chore, but he welcomed the physical activity.
He picked up the economy-size package of disposable diapers and grinned. Before this week, he’d never diapered a baby in his life. Now he could change a diaper like a pro.
He had left his jacket inside the apartment, so he rolled up the sleeves of the white dress shirt as he surveyed the jumble of stuff packed into the trunk of the tiny car. The quicker he got it unloaded, the sooner he’d be done and the sooner Jennifer could go.
It was almost enough to make him sit down on the curb and…and what? Pout?
No, just postpone getting the stuff unloaded as long as he could. Even if Jennifer wasn’t in his sight, it was good to know that she was there.
He expelled a long, frustrated breath. He had to get a move on. After all, Carter needed a place to sleep, and Caitlyn needed to change out of her “weddy” dress. He put the diaper bag aside in favor of something bigger. Until he brought all the baby furniture back in, they couldn’t do either.
Of course, he suspected that Caitlyn would be just as happy to wear that dress all day, all night and the next day, too. Rich smiled, in spite of the weight of the responsibility pushing down on him, and grabbed the portable crib. That was one battle he would have to win this time. Caitlyn would have to put on play clothes.
The wedding was over. It was time to get back to reality. Still, as he hoisted the folded crib up on his shoulder and grabbed another pastel-colored bundle, he realized that real life—family life—wasn’t exactly something he was used to living.
JENNIFER PRESSED a kiss to the top of Carter’s peach-fuzzed little head and carefully laid him down in the crib. He was still sleeping, and she hoped he’d stay down until she could help Rich get the rest of the kids’ things put away and she could make her escape.
She had to admire Rich for agreeing to take on the task of caring for these children, but she didn’t envy him. She knew he was going to have to do some serious juggling, and she knew he was probably poorly equipped for it. Sure, he could scale a bare cliff face with a forty-pound rucksack on his back, but she wasn’t sure he could handle a forty-pound girl. Not for the long haul, anyway.
“I’m going to take some of my stuff out of the drawers and move into Ski’s room,” Rich said f
rom somewhere behind her.
Jennifer jerked around, startled by the sudden intrusion of Rich’s voice into her thoughts. Why did the man set her heart to fluttering so? She pressed a hand to her chest to try to still the racing. “Don’t sneak up on me,” she snapped to cover the breathlessness in her voice.
He shrugged. “Sorry. The rugrat still asleep?”
“Yes, and he’ll stay that way if you’ll stop tromping in and out of here.”
Rich scooped up an armful of T-shirts and underwear and backed out of the room. “I called Ski,” he said when they were both outside and Jennifer had pulled the door shut. “He’s going to bunk at Murphey’s for the duration.”
Jennifer had halfway hoped that Rich would have Ski Warsinski’s help to take care of the kids, but then she knew Ski from when she was still married, and she was probably being overly optimistic to hope that he’d be any help whatsoever. He was probably even more clueless about a child’s needs than Rich.
She looked up to see Rich setting up Carter’s playpen. He’d already settled Caitlyn in front of the television set with a Strawberry Shortcake video that he’d found somewhere among the piles of stuff Rebecca had packed. Jennifer couldn’t help smiling.
Rich really wanted to take care of those kids, she reminded herself. He didn’t know what to do or how to go about it, but he had an emotional connection to them. Rich was part of their family.
Jennifer sighed. In spite of all her protestations to the contrary, she was going to have to help. She just wasn’t going to let Rich know it.
Just yet.
She wanted to see what he would do, how much he would be willing to sacrifice for those kids.
Judging from what she had seen so far, it would be quite a lot.
RICH LUGGED the last of the kids’ stuff up the single flight of stairs to his apartment and paused outside his door. As much stuff as he’d already carried in—Rebecca had told him she’d already packed for a week with Mrs. Dahlstrom when she’d heard the bad news—he wished there were more because once he was done, Jennifer would be free to go home.
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