Baby By Christmas (The McIntyre Men Book 5)

by Maggie Shayne

  So far, no solution to that had come to mind.

  That wasn’t entirely true. A few ideas had come to her. She’d considered running him over with her car, or breaking his legs with a baseball bat. They couldn’t very well ship him back to Afghanistan if he couldn’t walk.

  When she got home after the longer-than-planned afternoon, she parked her car on the side of the road in front of her house, because her driveway was full. Her parents were there. Angie was there and Adam was home, which meant she was going to have to go in and pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary, even though she felt like her heart was being pulled to pieces.

  She plastered a smile on her face, climbed out of the car and walked inside.

  Her house was full of laugher and noise, like it always was when the family was visiting, but when Allie walked in, she didn’t see a single person.

  The sound of Christmas music and laughter was coming from upstairs, so Allie followed it up and into the guest room.

  It smelled like fresh paint. Light and voices and music spilled out the partially open door and Allie pushed it open the rest of the way. And then her breath caught in her throat. The walls were freshly painted in the soft green she’d chosen. The crib was set up where the futon had been only a few hours earlier. The changing table had been assembled too, and now it held rows of diapers and stacks of baby wipes. A brand-new rocking chair sat on the left side of the room near the big window, with thick yellow cushions. Tiny Christmas lights had been strung around the ceiling.

  She looked around the room from one person to the next. Her parents smiled at her from the window where her mom was placing curtains on the rod and handing them to her dad to hang. Little Jack was folding tiny outfits and putting them in the baby’s dresser and Cassie was unfolding them and holding them up and saying, “oooo, pwetty.” Adam was hanging pictures of happy animals on the walls, and Angie was just finishing up the fresh white paint on the woodwork. And there, in the middle of it all, was Logan. He stood by the crib, adjusting the mobile over top of it, and the look on his face brought tears to her eyes.

  “Surprise!” her mom said.

  “What do you think?” Adam asked.

  “This is incredible! Thank you. All of you.” She looked at Logan and hoped he knew she was talking to him. “How did you get this all done? I’ve only been gone a few hours.”

  “Logan started long before we got here,” Allie’s mom told her. The paint’s still a little tacky, but we thought it was dry enough to add the finishing touches.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “Pizza’s here,” Adam said, clapping his hands together. The hungry hoard all but stampeded out of the room and downstairs to greet the pizza guy, leaving Allie alone with Logan.

  “This was your idea?” she asked.

  “I didn’t see how we’d get it all done without help, and Doc Sophie did say any day now.”

  “I thought it was odd nobody insisted on chaperoning me today.”

  “Your mother asked the mother of the bride to keep an eye on you.”

  “Of course she did.”

  He smiled. “Of course she did.”

  Allie closed the distance between them and threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you.”

  Logan lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her, and everything else, even the fact that her entire family was only a short flight of stairs away from them, just evaporated from her mind. She couldn't think of anything at all except for him.

  Eventually, though, she ended the kiss, and stared up at him, knowing her heart was probably in her eyes. “What are we doing, Logan?”

  He smiled at her, but his eyes looked sad. “We’re enjoying the time we’ve got. We’re basking in the moment. Like it says to do in those self-help books you have scattered all over this house. Look, Allie, I’m not going to be here to help you for the next few months. But I want to do everything I can to help you now. I want to be here for you as much as I possibly can be, until I have to go.”

  And what about after that? The question jumped to her lips, but she pressed them tight and kept it inside. He wanted to be in the moment. What was so wrong with that? It was a pretty great moment. He was here. They were together. She was going to have a baby. And it was Christmastime.

  Maybe she could be in the moment, too. Maybe everything else could wait.

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

  And then the baby kicked hard, and he grinned, and looked down at her belly. “I think our child approves of your decision.”

  “I think we’ve got a black belt on our hands.”

  Logan let his hand trail over her abdomen and the baby kicked again. His eyes filled with wonder and joy. It was real. He wasn’t faking that. She didn’t really think he was faking anything.

  Allie wondered how she was going to survive when he left her, and then she told herself there’d be enough time to miss him later. She didn’t need to start right now.

  “Adam’s going to sleep at Angie’s tonight,” Logan whispered. “He’s giving Jack his gift early. It’s the newest Play Station. He says they’re having a gaming marathon tonight.”

  “And…they didn’t invite you?” she whispered.

  “There are only two paddles,” he said. “Thank goodness.” He kissed her neck.

  She shivered all over.

  “Get down here, you two! Pizza’s getting cold,” Angie called.

  So they did.

  * * *

  Everyone left. They were alone. They sat by the Christmas tree for a while, just basking in the twinkling lights. And then they went upstairs together, hand in hand, and he never took his eyes from hers as they undressed each other and fell into her bed together.

  They kissed, and they touched. He made love to her without actually entering her—and she knew he was afraid he might hurt the baby. But it was beautiful, and it was blissful and fulfilling.

  And falling asleep in his arms was absolute heaven.

  * * *

  Chapter Twelve

  * * *

  Christmas Eve

  Allie woke up warm and happy and more comfortable than she’d been in weeks. Logan was pressed up against her. One of his arms cradled her head and the other was wrapped around her waist. She felt perfect, and thought how good it would be to wake up like this every day. She wanted a life with him, and that terrified her, because she knew he was leaving and she was going to be broken-hearted.

  She heard a knock at the front door and glanced at the clock. It was nine in the morning. She had no idea how she’d slept so late.

  It took a lot of effort to extract herself from Logan’s arms, and honestly, it wasn’t something she wanted to do, but she finally managed to detangle herself without waking him up. She pulled on a snuggly robe and headed downstairs, opened the front door and greeted her sister who was smiling at her.

  “What are you doing here?” Allie asked.

  “Jack forgot a toy he can’t live without.” Angie came inside, shrugging out of her jacket and glancing around the place expectantly. The door to the den where Adam had been staying was open, his bed was still made up, nice and neat. She frowned and glanced toward the sofa, and then frowned even harder and looked up the stairs. “You um…you have any coffee, sis?” she asked.

  “Not yet, but we can make some.”

  “Good.” Angie headed for the kitchen and said, “I’m going to need a cup while you tell me why Logan is in your bed.”

  “What? What are you talking about, Logan’s not—”

  “Logan’s not on the sofa. He’s not in Adam’s room—that is, the den. And I know he didn’t spend the night in the nursery, because we took out the futon and he would never fit in that crib.”

  Allie opened her mouth, closed it again, and sank onto the stool at the kitchen island. She felt like she’d been keeping this secret forever. But she just didn’t want to keep it any more. She wanted to tell Angie everything.

  “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. Not to men
tion the way you look at him. There’s something going on.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “To me it is. To Mom, too. Dad and Adam are…well, they’re guys.” Angie took the carafe to the sink and filled it, then poured water into the coffee maker.

  “It all started the night before Adam deployed,” Allie began. And it was as if a dam inside her had broken, as her words and thoughts and feelings just spilled out of her.

  By the time she had finished, the coffee was done, their mugs were half empty. The silence stretched and she looked at her sister, waiting for a reaction.

  Angie was beaming. “This is wonderful!”

  “What? No. This is a disaster. You heard the part where I said he’s leaving, right?”

  “Yeah. For three months. Three months is nothing. Hell, Jeff and I could do three months in our sleep. It’ll be over before you know it. The point is, he’s nuts about you, and I can tell from the look on your face that you’re nuts about him, too.”

  “I…yeah. I am.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing! Allie, this is a good thing. This is fate, practically hand-delivering your happily-ever-after to you. How could you even think about turning it down?

  “I just…I don’t think I can do it. I’ve been here. I’ve seen what you’ve gone through, losing Jeff. And the kids, what it’s doing to them. I can’t watch Logan leave and wonder if he’s ever going to come home again. I can’t let my baby go through that. I can’t.”

  Angie’s jaw tightened at the mention of Jeff’s name and Allie could see the hurt in her eyes.

  “Losing Jeff has been hard. But marrying him was the best decision I ever made. And yes, I’m hurting. There hasn’t been a single day that I haven’t thought about him, or wanted to share something with him and couldn’t, or just plain ached for him. But you don’t walk away from something good just because there’s a chance you could lose it someday.” Angie took a deep breath and sighed. “My heart breaks every day. But if someone gave me the chance to go back, I’d do it all over again. Knowing everything that was going to happen, I’d still do it all again. It’s worth it, Allie. Jeff was worth it. What we had together was worth it. The years our kids had with the best dad on the planet were worth it. And I have a feeling that what you have with Logan is worth it, too.”

  Allie blinked back her tears.

  “Allie, if you love him, then love him. Love him now, while he’s here. Love him while he’s away, and love him when he comes back. Love him as hard as you can for as long as you can. If you’re lucky, that’ll be a very long time. But I’m here to tell you honey, any time is better than none at all.”

  Angie’s words stayed with Allie long after she’d left. They ran through her mind all day, and every time she looked at Logan she heard them again.

  * * *

  The Long Branch Saloon had started a Christmas Eve tradition in Big Falls. They shut off the flow of alcohol for the evening, and Chef Ned prepared a feast fit for royalty. The whole town turned out, and everyone brought an ornament for the giant tree that filled the front windows of the dining room. Carols were sung, ornaments were hung, food was imbibed, and then they closed down early to get the little ones home in time for Santa.

  White Christmas lights wound their way around curving bannisters to the second floor, where there were guest rooms. The place looked like a magical holiday wonderland.

  Logan escorted Allie through the batwing doors. His black dinner jacket made his hair seem even darker and his blue eyes looked brighter in the glow of holiday lights. She’d heard that pregnancy made your hormones kick into overdrive, and she wondered if that was part of the reason she was so infatuated with Logan. But her heart knew better. Long after she had this baby, she was still going to be head over heels for this man. Her heart swelled.

  She was in love with him.

  “You look incredible,” he whispered to her.

  She didn’t believe him for a second. She was wearing a red dress that fell just above the knee, but she knew at this point in her pregnancy everything looked basically the same. All her clothes became tent-shaped as soon as she put them on.

  Throngs of people milled around the place. The owner, Joey McIntyre, was there with his wife Emily and their adorable little girl, Matilda. Allie’s friend Kiley was there with her weeks-old baby girl and adoring husband Rob, and Kiley’s sister Kendra, and most everyone else. Even Doc Sophie and her family were in attendance.

  The red velvet curtains between the bar side of the place and the dining room side were held open with braided gold ropes. Some people stood, others sat at tables. And Santa—not Jack’s Santa, she noted—was seated near the lighted tree, reading from a big hardcover edition of The Night Before Christmas to a group of awestruck children. This was the new addition to the Christmas Eve gathering that her father had been so excited about.

  As he finished, Santa pulled out his pocket watch and looked at it as if surprised. “Oh my, it’s getting late. I have some work to take care of tonight!” He waved to the children as he crossed the room, and they surrounded him all the way to the batwing doors. “Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas to all,” he called. He went outside, and the kids raced back to the big windows to watch him go.

  “Watch this,” Allie whispered, pointing out the windows as Santa moved past them. He tapped the glass from outside and waved, and every child looked. Then he walked away, and a second later they heard the jingle of sleigh-bells and a projector flashed the image of a shadowy sleigh and reindeer across the cloudy sky. The children squealed with delight and laughter.

  Logan smiled and squeezed her hand. “You were right about this town. It’s magic. I’m so happy our baby is going to grow up here.”

  “Me, too.”

  Jack came running. The smile on his face was brighter than it had been in a year.

  “Did you see that?” Jack asked

  Allie hugged him. She hadn’t mentioned their encounter with Santa Claus to her sister and now she was feeling guilty, wondering how the little boy would react when he woke up tomorrow morning. She leaned down until she was at eye level. “Jack, I’m really glad you’re so happy. I want you to have a great Christmas, and I don’t want you to be disappointed if you don’t get what you want.”

  Jack smiled. “Don’t worry, Aunt Allie. I know it’s not gonna happen this year. I might have to wait a long time, just like Logan did. But that was the real Santa. Daddy is gonna come home.”

  Allie would have argued, but her sister appeared then, and she didn’t want to stress her out on Christmas Eve.

  Angie gave her a hug. “Ready to go?” she asked Jack.

  He nodded. “We have to get to bed early.” Jack started off through the crowd and Angie hurried to catch up. “See you tomorrow,” she called behind her.

  Allie tried to focus on the festive party around her, but she was worried about her nephew.

  “It’s not your fault,” Logan said as if reading her mind. “This was going to be tough for him no matter what you did. There’s no way around that. At least this way he’s not heartbroken.”

  Allie nodded. “Yeah, but he’s not going to accept it, either.”

  Logan placed a finger under her chin and lifted it, so she looked up at him. “He wasn’t accepting it any better before he talked to Santa, was he? Now how about I get you some punch? And it looks like they have cookies. Would you care to sample some?”

  “That sounds nice.”

  Logan disappeared into the crowd and Allie found herself looking around the restaurant for familiar faces. She caught a glimpse of Adam standing just on the other side of the curtains, near the curving bar with its saddle shaped stools. He was speaking tersely to someone, and as Allie angled herself for a better view, she saw the woman shooting daggers back at him. Riley Everett, Adam’s ex-wife, the PI who’d spent months trying to help Allie find Logan.

  She squeezed her way through the crowd, her belly occas
ionally bumping into people as she passed. She was nervous and her stomach clenched, thinking about how angry her brother looked, and what he and Riley could possibly be talking about. Their marriage hadn’t ended well.

  She pushed her way through the crowd, but only in time to see them heading out through the batwing doors and into the cool Christmas Eve air of the parking lot outside. Of course she followed, this was her family.

  “Why did you come back, Riley?” Adam demanded.

  “I don’t owe you any kind of explanation!”

  “You never were big on explaining yourself, were you? You didn’t even think you owed me an explanation when you walked out on our marriage.”

  “You not knowing why I left, that was the explanation.” Riley tossed back the rest of her drink and stalked towards the entrance again.

  Tough as nails Riley Everett had perfected her bitch face long ago, but her expression as she walked toward the restaurant was that of a woman who was barely holding it together. The anguish on her face only eased when she saw Allie standing there.

  “Hey, Riley,” Allie said.

  Riley’s eyes were filling with tears. She blinked them back, and wrapped Allie in a hug. “I shouldn’t have come. I have some information for you, but this isn’t the right time. I’m sorry.” She kissed Allie’s cheek.

  Adam was right beside them now. “You did this?” he asked Allie. “You brought her here?” It was more an accusation than a question and it seemed to be exactly what Riley needed to pull herself together.

  Her red curls bobbed as she spun around and leveled Adam with a cold glare. “I grew up here too, Adam. I have as much right to come home for Christmas as you do. And I divorced you. Not your family. If they need me, I’m going to be here.”

  “They don’t need you. We don’t need you.”

  “I needed her,” Allie said, angry with her brother for treating Riley so badly. “I called her. She was helping me find the baby’s father.” She’d lied to Adam enough, so she figured giving him part of the truth was the best option.