Apparently the women had finished their meals, because they’d picked up their checks and Ally was digging around in her purse. When they got up, though, Danny concentrated on his plate. He didn’t want Ally to catch him watching.
The women came toward them, and there was no ignoring the situation now. “Hello, Colonel Palmore, Ms. Carter,” Danny said, rising to greet them.
Jake gulped down his last bite and scrambled to his feet. “Hello, ladies,” he said. “Did you enjoy your lunch?”
“Yes, thank you,” Ally replied politely, her gaze studiously directed away from Danny and toward Jake. “I didn’t realize you were here.”
“Captain Haddad told us about the place,” Jake said, making it possible for Danny not to have to explain why they were really there. No way was he going to let Ally know that he hadn’t agreed on this restaurant here until he’d seen her car in the lot. “I can see why he recommended it.”
Still avoiding Danny’s eye, Ally said, “Sorry to cut this short, but we have to get back. Enjoy your lunches.” She moved toward the door.
“What was that about?” Jake asked as he sat back down and reached for his burger.
“What was what?”
“That ‘let’s ignore Ms. Carter’thing you had going.”
“Nothing. I was just being polite to speak to them at all.” Danny leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms firmly over his chest, hoping that Jake would get the message that he didn’t want to discuss it.
“Polite, my ass. Ever since we walked into the classroom the other day, you’ve been drooling over Ms. Carter the way a thirsty man in the desert looks at a mirage. What am I missing?”
Evidently, he wasn’t missing a damn thing, Danny thought sourly, but he wasn’t about to feed the man any more ammunition. “Eat. We have to get back to class. If we’re late, it’ll count against us.”
Jake selected another fry, dragged it through a puddle of ketchup and shoved it into his mouth. “Anything you say, Murphey,” he said.
ALLY REACHED for the phone. She’d picked up the receiver and placed it back down several times already, but she still couldn’t decide what to do. She wanted so much to call Danny and tell him the results of today’s ultrasound, but she restrained herself.
She still wasn’t sure just how big a part she was willing to let Danny play in her daughter’s life, and until she’d worked that out, she would just have to carry on as though Danny knew nothing about the child she was carrying.
She smiled to herself, though. She no longer had any question about whether her baby was a girl. Her obstetrician had confirmed the fact. And she had the printout from the ultrasound to prove it.
Now she just wished she had someone to show the printout to.
As if some cosmic fairy godmother had heard her unspoken wish, the doorbell rang. Ally hurried to answer it. She’d gladly purchase a hairbrush, magazine subscription or a piece of stale chocolate candy just to be able to share her photograph with someone. Smiling with pleasure, she flung open the door.
“Well, that’s a sight any man would love at the end of a hard day,” Danny Murphey said. He was still wearing his BDUs, and a glance at her watch told Ally that he must have come directly from class.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said.
“You were expecting somebody else?”
Ally’s eyes clouded with confusion. “No. I didn’t know who was there.”
Danny narrowed his gaze. “Haven’t you learned yet not to answer the door unless you know who’s on the other side?” He walked in, shut the door, latched the chain, then strode into the living room.
“You are not my keeper, Danny,” Ally said, following him. He had to prove to her that he wanted to be an equal partner in the rearing of their baby, not that he planned to run her life.
Danny made himself comfortable on the couch. Didn’t she realize that he was concerned about her? After all, she hadn’t gone back to her office after lunch. The pool secretary had said she had a doctor’s appointment, and Danny needed to know why. He cared about her just as much as he cared about their baby.
He had to be certain that he hadn’t endangered her health, and by extension that of the baby, by upsetting her last night. She had seemed so tired in class. Danny hoped it hadn’t had anything to do with him.
“You had a doctor’s appointment. Is there a problem? Are you working too hard?”
The Murphey men had always prided themselves on being able to provide for the people they loved. Until Ally had raised an objection, he hadn’t considered that to be a negative. After all, he’d seen how hard his mother had worked caring for eight children. He couldn’t imagine her holding down a job, too.
Ally had started to settle herself into the chair across from him, but she spun around so fast that she could have given herself whiplash. “You certainly are full of yourself, aren’t you,” she said, but the pleased expression on her face told him she wasn’t mad.
“I’m not exactly digging ditches, Danny. Of course it had something to do with you. You are the father of this baby, as you are so fond of reminding me.”
“Is there something wrong with the baby? Is that why you had to go to the doctor?” Danny asked with alarm. Surely that little place kicker he’d felt last night was healthy and strong.
“Why would you ask that?” She regarded him as though he had suddenly grown another head. “Of course not. It was a routine appointment. I’ll be seeing Dr. Schmale every couple of weeks for the next two months.”
“Good to know,” Danny said, releasing his death grip on the arm of the couch.
“She said little Ally Junior is just fine. I have a picture to prove it!”
Danny was so enthralled with the idea of a little girl having Ally’s dark eyes and raven hair that he almost missed the second part of Ally’s statement. “You have a picture? How can—”
She stopped him with her raised hand. “I had an ultrasound today. It’s definitely a girl!” She reached for a sheet of paper lying on the table beside her. “See.”
Danny could barely contain his emotion as he reached for the paper. This was something even more tangible than feeling the baby kick. This was a photograph of something that he and Ally had created. Together.
Out of love.
He’d expected a fuzzy black-and-white image, but this was almost like a photograph. “It looks like a real baby,” he said, unable to conceal the wonder he felt at what he saw.
“It is a real baby, Danny,” Ally said, beaming. “Our baby.”
“But how—?”
“Don’t ask me. It’s just cutting-edge technology that I don’t even pretend to understand.” She smiled again and crossed the room to sit beside him. She touched one side of the photograph as he held the other. “Isn’t she beautiful?”
“Not half as lovely as her mother,” Danny said, meaning it.
Ally beamed. “I’m fat.”
“You’re beautiful,” Danny repeated firmly. Why did women always equate pregnancy weight with ugliness? He had never seen a woman as lovely as Ally was at this moment, her face full with the bit of added weight, her skin glowing.
“Darn,” Danny said, suddenly remembering something.
“Darn? Darn what? You don’t want a girl?” Ally’s disappointment was plain.
Quickly, Danny gathered Ally into his arms for a chaste hug. “I’m happy she’s a girl, but I was hoping for a son someday to share my Star Wars Collection with.”
Ally eyed him skeptically. “The Star Wars stuff you had still in the original packaging that no one was allowed to touch? That Star Wars stuff?”
“Yeah. I can’t wait to show it to him.”
“But you won’t let him play with it?”
Danny stared at her. Was she serious? “Of course he can play with it. Little Ally Junior can, too.”
“Well, you didn’t.”
“You didn’t come from a big family, Ally. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me,” she sai
d, pushing out of his arms and propping her hands on her hips as she challenged him to explain.
“In a big family you have to share everything. And you don’t often get anything that is new. I started collecting those things when I was grown, to make up for what I didn’t have.” He smiled. “Now that doesn’t seem so important anymore.” He liked the idea of having a child play with the toys he’d only admired from afar.
“Oh,” Ally said quietly. “You know, that does make an odd sort of sense to me,” she said softly, and she leaned back into his arms. Then her stomach grumbled and the spell was broken.
“Well, there’s no secret about what’s on your mind,” Danny said dryly.
“I’m so embarrassed,” Ally said, scrambling away from him.
“Why? It’s a natural function. It isn’t as if it doesn’t happen to everybody,” Danny said, turning to see where she’d gone. He thought they had enough history that she shouldn’t run off every time she did something silly in front of him. “Hey, don’t run off.”
She didn’t respond, and Danny started to repeat himself in case she hadn’t heard him. But one glance her way told him that wasn’t why she hadn’t answered. She stood in the kitchen doorway, leaning against the jamb, gnawing on her lower lip, indecision evident in her posture.
“Ally?”
She shook her head and yawned, or maybe she sighed, and then, standing straight, she said, “Can I offer you something to eat? You couldn’t possibly have gotten any supper after you left class.”
“I could eat,” Danny said agreeably as he got up and followed her into the kitchen. “But don’t go out of your way for me.”
She crossed the small kitchen to the counter and lifted the lid off a slow cooker, releasing a fragrant burst of steam. “I tossed some stuff into the pot this morning before I went to work, and I haven’t had a chance to eat, either.” She reached for a wooden spoon from a crock on the counter and stirred the mixture in the cooker. “It’s not fancy, but it’s nutritious.”
Danny followed her into the small room in three long strides and came to a stop behind her. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her from behind. “Ally, Ally, Ally, you know I never was into gourmet food. Make it filling and hot, and I’m happy.” He kissed her gently on the top of her head. “Is there anything I can do?”
Helping his mom had been a requirement in the Murphey house when he was growing up, and something about the moment reminded him of that. As a teenager he’d felt annoyed when he’d had to set the table or dry a dish; now it just seemed…right.
“I can set the table if you’ll point me toward the dishes.”
Ally smiled. “No, that’s okay.” She tugged open the refrigerator door. “I’ll just toss us a salad, and we’ll be able to eat in a couple of minutes. Go wash up.”
Danny swiped a hand to his brow in a mock salute and hurried to do her bidding.
Ally shook her head, bewildered at the new man. Was it a real change, or just an act on Danny’s part to get back into her good graces?
Still, she mused as she collected salad ingredients from the fridge, she liked this Danny as much as the old Danny she’d loved beyond reason. But she wasn’t certain that she wasn’t turning to him because she was overwhelmed with emotions as a result of her pregnancy.
As she retrieved a bowl for the salad from the cabinet, Danny came back in. She’d hoped to have the salad done and the table set before he returned. “The dishes are here,” she said, indicating the cabinet. “You can go ahead and put them out. This salad won’t take but another minute.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Danny reached around her for plates.
Ally hadn’t realized that he was so close, and now she could smell his aftershave, and it evoked thoughts of steamy summer nights in Florida and Sunday mornings in bed. She shook the memory out of her mind. Even if she liked the intimate way they were working together in her compact kitchen, she couldn’t let her feelings get the better of her.
She needed to do what would be best for her. And her baby.
Ally glanced over at Danny, who had turned to set the table, and reminded herself that Danny had more than a small stake in this, as well.
“MAN, THAT WAS GOOD,” Danny said as he scraped the last bit out of his second bowl of stew. “Reminds me of the kind of stuff my mother used to cook.”
Ally stiffened, and Danny wondered what he’d done to set her off. He thought he’d just given Ally a compliment. Was he missing something? He realized he still had a lot to learn about this thoroughly modern woman. He’d once thought he knew her so well. He couldn’t have been that far off base.
“Danny Murphey, I have no intention of becoming the kind of little woman who waits patiently at home with the children, barefoot and pregnant, for the big, strong husband to return,” she said archly.
Damn, he was going to have to learn to walk and talk carefully around her, but at the same time, he had to laugh. Obviously, she didn’t realize just how close she was to that image at this moment. Try as he might, he couldn’t hold it in.
Of course Ally bristled again. “What is so funny?” she blustered as Danny continued to laugh.
“Well, two out of the three isn’t bad,” he finally managed after smothering his chuckles. What with watching the various expressions skitter across Ally’s face, saying that hadn’t been easy.
“Two out of th—?” She looked down at her bare feet, propped on the rung of the kitchen chair, and quickly curled her toes back underneath it as if trying to hide them. “Oh.”
The look on her face when she understood what he was referring to was priceless, and Danny wished he had a camera to record it.
“You got me there,” Ally admitted sheepishly. “I am undoubtedly pregnant, and I’m not wearing shoes right at this moment.” She paused, then continued. “But if you think I’m going to wait at home for a man to take care of me, Danny Murphey, you have another think coming!” She glared at him.
Danny just smiled, and after a moment, Ally couldn’t keep from laughing, either.
“All right, all right,” she said. “I concede this one, but it is the exception to the rule. And I usually do a full day of work, as you well know.”
“I saw how tired you looked when I arrived at your door.” He held up his hand to stop her from speaking. “Now, before you go getting all hot and bothered, I want to have my say. As I’ve told you, I came from a very large family. My mother never worked out of the house, but she worked very hard at home. She was always tired, never had enough time. You might be able to do it now, but once the baby arrives, things will be different. Do you really believe you can have it all?”
“Your mother had eight kids, Danny,” Ally pointed out reasonably. “No wonder she was tired. No way am I going to have anywhere close to that many. You can’t tell me that one little baby will be that exhausting. How much work can she be?”
“More than you think. Just ask Jennifer and Rich Larsen.” Rich had been in their circle of friends when Danny and Ally had been dating back at Hurlburt, so he assumed Ally would recognize the name.
“Rich Larsen got married?”
Danny nodded.
“And he has kids?”
“Just one,” Danny said. “But when he and Jennifer first got involved, he’d just gotten stuck with his sister’s two rugrats while she was in the hospital recovering from a car crash that killed her husband. Talk about a fish out of water!”
“Rich wasn’t prepared,” Ally countered.
“Maybe not, but he and Jennifer still have a hard time managing sometimes now that Sara is here.”
“Okay. I think we’re just going to have to disagree on this one for now,” Ally said. “Let me remind you that I make a very good income, and I can certainly afford help.”
“And leave the rearing of our baby to a stranger?” That was the crux of it. Danny didn’t like the idea of a stranger knowing his child better than he did. And with him leaving for Tamahlyastan in a couple of months, he would be t
he stranger when he returned.
Ally started to say something but wisely snapped her mouth shut.
Danny pushed himself up. “I’ll do the dishes, then I’m out of here.” He reached for his stew bowl and stacked his utensils inside it.
“That’s not necessary, Danny. Let the little woman do it,” Ally insisted, her tone showing that she hadn’t forgotten the original topic of conversation.
“No, dammit. I always pitched in at home, and I fully expected that I would do my fair share when I had my own family.” He grimly scraped his bowl, rinsed it and positioned it the dishwasher, while Ally watched.
Then he turned, strode out of the kitchen and yanked open the front door. Without so much as a simple wave goodbye, he marched outside, shutting the door firmly behind him.
The sound of the closing door still echoing in her ears, Ally finished clearing the table and washing up the dishes. What had started out as a pleasant evening had fallen apart.
And she had been the cause of the disagreement. Why had she been so quick to take exception to everything that Danny said? Why couldn’t she just accept what Danny was telling her at face value? After all, he hadn’t said one thing about wanting to marry her.
Why couldn’t Danny have just stayed out of her life and out of her business?
Why did he want only the baby and not her?
The tears she had been trying to hold back finally won in the battle of her emotions.
Chapter Seven
Her part in the current class was over! Ally thought with relief—or maybe it was regret—as she gathered up her equipment at the end of the day on Friday. She wouldn’t have to face Danny every day for the remaining week of the course.
Irritatingly enough, Ally wasn’t sure whether she was relieved or disappointed about this. She’d rather enjoyed feeling his green-eyed gaze trained on her as he listened to her talk, and his cropped, red head bent over his notebook as he studiously took notes. He’d really contributed to her lectures, and she’d appreciated the way he’d continued to handle Lieutenant Abernathy.
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