Читать книгу The SEAL's Miracle Baby - Laura Altom Marie - Страница 11

Chapter Five

Jessie raised the hem of the old high school softball T-shirt she’d changed into to dry her eyes. Crying about not having a baby wasn’t going to get her one, and those extra few tears shed over what might’ve been with Grady were just plain wrong. He wasn’t even worth her tears. He was a cocky cowboy-turned-SEAL who never would have settled for a broken mess like her.

She forced a deep breath and pulled herself together.

Before Grady’s arrival, she’d never been prone to crying jags—although, to be fair, she also hadn’t dealt with her entire town and life being blown to smithereens.

A coyote’s lonesome howl summed up her feelings.

“I hear ya, bud.”

Back in the house, the TV erupted with a WWII battle. From upstairs came the baby’s now frantic cries.

Jessie wandered into the laundry room for peace, only to encounter Grady sneaking through the back door.

She jumped. “Jeez! I didn’t even know you were outside.”

He shrugged. “Didn’t know I needed your permission to leave the house.” Then he winced. “Is it always this loud around here?”

“Yes, on the TV. No, on the baby. Wanna go grab a beer?” Jessie didn’t know why she’d asked the question. But standing close in the confined space, she realized that after all these years her racing heart still recognized the scent of his breath, and she’d go anywhere with him if for no other reason than to escape the current chaos.

“I’m down. Only, since I’m already on my second, think you could drive?”

“Deal. I’ll be right back.”

She grabbed her wristlet wallet and keys, then dashed upstairs for a quick change into hip-hugging faded jeans, a white tank and cowboy boots. After yanking out her ponytail to finger-comb her long hair into messy waves, she added lip gloss, then rejoined Grady in the laundry room so the two of them could slip out before their parents had even noticed they were missing.

Twenty minutes later, they occupied two stools at the bar of the Dew Drop Tavern over in Schilling—also unaffected by the storm. The few times Jessie had been there on dates, it hadn’t been this crowded, but then there had also been a dozen other establishments for folks to gather that no longer existed.

After their on-tap Buds had been delivered, along with a basket of hand-cut fries to share, Grady said, “Last time I was in this place was after that homecoming game our sophomore year when it rained the whole damn night. Allen and I thought we had it won, then lost in, what? Like the last ten seconds?”

“Technically, there had been three seconds left on the clock.”

He winced. “Thanks for reminding me. Pretty sure my back still hurts from that game.”

“So this is where you guys went, huh?” Jessie grinned, running her index finger around her glass’s rim. “Corny and I waited for you two losers thirty minutes outside the locker room. When you never showed, we went to the dance alone and pissed. Come to think of it, your whole flat-tire story was pretty dumb, considering you could have just walked to the gym from the field.”

“Sorry. Allen and I needed a guys’ night, so we snuck out of the locker room through the coach’s door.”

“Creep!” She pummeled his chest, never meaning her actions as anything other than playful fun. But when Grady trapped her hands squarely over his heart, she discovered it beat as fast as her own. Suddenly he leaned in for what she hoped, thought, prayed would be a kiss, and she thought her heart would stop altogether.

And then he abruptly backed away to down the remainder of his beer before signaling the bartender for another.

For the second, maybe even third, time that night, Jessie’s eyes welled, but she’d be damned if she’d give him the satisfaction of knowing she still cared. She didn’t. It had been a good long while since she’d been kissed, and that craving—no, more like yearning—tugged at her heartstrings. Nothing more. If he were to dare claim otherwise, she’d slap his no-good, whisker-stubbled cheek for sass.

But he not only didn’t make claims, sassy or otherwise, but wouldn’t even look her way until after she’d eaten all the fries and he’d finished his third beer.

Mortification and loneliness didn’t begin to cover the way she felt all crammed in next to him in the crowd, with their thighs, hips and shoulders brushing, and that achingly familiar attraction she held for him humming, when he seemed oblivious to her. In fact, when he went so far as to ask an old classmate of theirs—who’d wedged in on his other side in her too-tight jeans and a rodeo buckle practically bigger than her pile of fake red hair—to dance, Jessie threw up a little in her mouth.

After the twosome left, she might have gained breathing room, but she’d lost her ever-loving sanity.

The dimly lit joint was humming with energy as the whole place sang along to Toby Keith’s “Red Solo Cup.” The air was thick from smoke and far too many tall tales.

“Hey, little lady.” A cowboy sporting a brown leather hat and obligatory Wranglers held out his hand and smiled. “Wanna proceed to party?”

“Sure.” Why not?

It wasn’t as if she had any reason to stick around the bar. She only carried her wristlet wallet, into which she’d stashed her keyless remote, credit card, cash and lip gloss—not that she’d even had need for the latter, since her first coat of the night was sadly in place even after munching all those fries.

She took the cowboy’s hand, letting him guide her through the crowd to the dance floor, where she spied Grady and his redhead. He held his hands low on her hips, and had hooked his thumbs over the top edge of her leather belt. The girl from high school, whose name Jessie couldn’t even remember, had tucked her hands into Grady’s back pockets.

“What’s your name?” the stranger asked.

Jessie told him, and they somehow made small talk over blaring, old-school Johnny Cash.

At the end of the song, her stomach sank when she realized that Grady was no longer on the dance floor. Had he taken the redhead outside for air? The very thought of him kissing another woman turned her stomach almost as much as thinking of herself lip-locking with another man did—ridiculous, in light of the fact that unless she intended to die alone, one day she would kiss another man and like it!

But not tonight...

“Thank you,” she said to Bobby, a nice guy whose only fault was that he wasn’t Grady. “This has been fun.”

“Who says it has to end?”

She laughed. Great question. And so she danced with him again to a slow Garth Brooks tune about heartache and pain. Grady appeared through the shadows, as if the song had summoned him, and he asked Jessie’s current partner if he minded if he cut in.

The pass-off was amicable enough.

The way her pulse raced like a caged hummingbird’s was not.

“What’re you doing, Grady?”

“Seems obvious, Jess.” His breath smelled familiar and sexy and laced with just enough beer that she credited Budweiser for any sweet-talking rather than him. “I saw the prettiest girl in the room and claimed her.”

“Oh, you did?”

“Hell, yeah...” He leaned his head low, nuzzling her neck, downright stealing what little strength remained in her knees. “And now I’m gonna kiss her.”

“And just how do you figure on doing that when she wants nothing to do with you?”

“She might say that.” He backed away just far enough for her to catch his sloppy wink. Sadly, this wasn’t him talking, but too much beer. “But deep down, there’s no hiding the fact that we share unfinished business.”

“Oh?” She gulped.

He skimmed her hair back behind her ears, then framed her face, brushing her full lower lip with the pads of his thumbs. “See, I know a secret. She happens to love makin’ out on dance floors.”

Lord help her, but from the jukebox Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood launched into “Remind Me,” and Jessie was reminded of just how good it had once felt being held in Grady’s arms. As for the possibility of him kissing her? The thought turned her all hot and achy and wanting. And she hated it almost as much as she craved even more from him. But being held by him was the emotional equivalent of letting a flame lick too close and then burn. No matter how beautiful and seductive Grady’s flame was, she couldn’t risk being burned again.

“Y-you don’t know anything,” she somehow managed, nudging him a safe distance from her. “And anyway, it’s late, and I have to be back at school in the morning.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re a buzzkill?”

Mainly just herself.

* * *

GRADY HAD A tough time opening his eyes the next morning.

Complicating the issue was the fact that not only had he made a drunken pass at the woman he’d sworn to steer clear of, but she now stood at the head of his bed, hands on her hips, scowling. “Get up.”

He groaned, giving himself a leisurely scratch as opposed to leaping to attention like Miss Bossy Pants would have no doubt preferred. He could deny it all he wanted, but last night at that bar, they’d shared a moment—until she’d gone and dumped the verbal equivalent of ice water on his head.

“I mean it.”

“What’s the problem, and why the hell are you in my room?”

“Technically, it’s my parents’ guest room, and trust me, this is the last place I want to be.”

He’d just now gotten around to noticing the background soundtrack of the wailing mystery baby and winced. “Your mom still hasn’t found her folks?”

“No, and I’m due at what used to be my school in five minutes. In what I’m sure is another stupid matchmaking scheme, apparently you and I have been left to play parents all day, but I’m not falling for it.” She charged from his room and presumably into the nursery just as the crying stopped.

After using the heels of his hands to give his eyes a good rub, Grady rolled out of bed, only to cup his throbbing forehead. How many beers had he had? All he remembered was wanting Jessie more than he’d wanted his first pickup truck, and then her shooting him down, and then the night pretty much turning south—way south, as in straight to hell—from there.

He groaned and wandered into the bathroom to relieve himself, then cautiously made his way to the nursery.

The baby had switched into high gear, and her supersonic wails no doubt had dogs barking clear to the next county.

Cotton was doing a bang-up job.

“Hush,” he said to the yippy dog, plucking him up, only to gently set him out in the hall before closing the nursery door.

“Give me that baby.”

“Why?” Jessie snapped. “You couldn’t take any better care of her than Cotton could.”

“If that’s what you believe, then how come you woke me in the first place?” He crossed his arms.

“I don’t know...” She jiggled and rocked and cooed, but the little lady wasn’t having it.

What Jessie didn’t know was that Grady held not just one ace, but a good half dozen up his sleeve. “Give me that kid.”

This time, he wasn’t taking no for an answer.

Just like he’d been taught over years of pulling babysitting duty for his friends and their wives back in Virginia, he first swaddled the infant nice and snug in a receiving blanket, then held her extraclose, tucking the downy-soft crown of her head beneath his chin. “There you go,” he crooned. “I know you’re scared, but we’re gonna find your momma and daddy real soon.”

He paced the length of the room nice and slow, and when her cries settled into whimpers, and then tiny huffs, and finally peaceful breathing, he couldn’t help but feel a small rush of victory. Hot damn. He still had his touch.

Jessie’s gaze narrowed.

Hands on her hips, she asked, “Where in the world did you learn how to do all that?”

He shrugged. “Must’ve picked it up from watching a movie.”

“Uh-huh. Tell me the truth.”

“For a few years, I was low man on the totem, which meant whenever the older guys on the team opted for a night out on the town with their wives, me and my pals, Wiley, Rowdy and Marsh, always seemed to get pulled for babysitting duty. Well, shoot, after a while, we started making a competition out of it—you know, seeing which one of us the kids liked best. Marsh was the clear winner—especially once he had his own kid. Rowdy was a disaster, but we gave him points for trying. Wiley was so-so, but I did all right. My specialty was the babies. Maybe because they didn’t realize I was faking it.”

“What you just pulled off wasn’t faking it, Grady, but a God-given skill. You were the same way with horses. Chickens, on the other hand...” She winced.

He laughed—but not loud enough to wake the baby who slept in his arms. “I still have a scar on my calf from where Mom’s old Rhode Island Red nailed me.”

“Could you blame her? I’d have pecked you, too, if you’d tried snatching my chick.”

“How was I supposed to know which one was hers? We had about sixteen that year, and I needed the extra credit for science.”

Now Jessie was laughing. “Who could forget the great chicken maze? I’m shocked NASA didn’t recruit you for that one.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re just jealous because it beat your mushroom collection.”

“Whatever.”

Lord, he’d missed this. Just the sheer, simple pleasure of their banter. Didn’t she miss it, too? What was wrong with her that she couldn’t see how perfect they were for each other in every single way? What was wrong with him that since being home, he’d thought of nothing else? “Why wouldn’t you let me kiss you last night?”

“Wh-what?” She coughed.

“You heard me.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Stop. Don’t deny you didn’t feel it.”

She turned her back to him to tidy the already neat contents of the changing table’s shelves.

He stood close enough behind her to feel her heat.

Eyes closed, he imagined them in a different world—one where she finally told him the reason she’d torn them apart. He hadn’t meant to confront her, but holding this baby brought it all rushing back—just how great they’d been together. How great they could be again, if only she’d let him in.

But did he really even want that?

Or had last night’s buzz combined with the sweet smell of fresh-washed baby hair messed with his head?

“You know what?” Grady spun on his heel to aim for the door. “Forget I asked. It was stupid, and I didn’t mean it. Clearly, I need to lay off the suds, and I apologize if I made you feel uncomfortable. So...” He forced a deep breath, and nodded toward the baby. “That said, you go on to work, and know I’ve got this.”