The Seal's Surprise Baby

He stepped closer and enjoyed her indrawn breath. “I’m always ready—it’s my job. Or did you forget that about me, too?”

Melanie didn’t forget a thing. Not the look in his eyes when he wanted her, not the one he got when he was mad. And he was furious. But then, she knew he would be.

“So are you going to invite me in or do I have to push my way inside?”

She didn’t say anything, the inevitable too clear to argue. She stepped back, waved him inside and closed the door.

He stood close, looming over her, and Melanie wanted nothing more at that moment than the feel of his kiss. His arms around her. Seeing as that was dangerous, she went for reason. “I didn’t try to keep this from you, Jack.”

Her soft tone and liquid eyes caught him in the gut. “Then how come I’m the last to know?”

“I couldn’t reach you. You’re a SEAL.” She moved into the living room. “Everything you do is top secret and cloak-and-dagger. I called your unit and spoke to an Ensign Frostbite—”

“Frostbite?” he interrupted.

“As in, his attitude was chilling enough to give me some.”

Jack tried not to smile. She’d called, he thought, removing his cover and tucking it in his belt. She’d tried to contact him. Some of the fire went out of him.

“He said that since I wasn’t your wife or next of kin, I couldn’t speak with you. Even Lisa tried to contact you for me once, but no one was dying or anything, so they wouldn’t oblige.” She shrugged, understanding in the movement. “And well, tell him he’s the father of a girl, eight pounds seven ounces, is not something you want to leave in a message.”

She moved behind the sofa, dragged her fingers over the edge, tweaked a pillow, and for a split second he saw her as she was then, pregnant, hanging on to a phone and talking with a by-the-book ensign, wanting to tell Jack, but unable to reach him. “Yes, I guess not.”

“I decided I had to wait.”

“I called you a couple times and wrote. My letters came back unopened, undeliverable as addressed.”

Something old and smothered in Melanie tried working itself out just then. “I’d moved home to be near my parents. But I’d always liked it here, so we came back.” She wasn’t going to admit to a soul that it was because of Jack. She’d survived fine without him. She’d had a baby alone, hadn’t she? But then she’d moved back to this place, where she knew he’d be able to find her if he wanted. Real brave, she thought.

Jack glanced around at his surroundings. The interior had a sudden calming effect on him. While the furnishings were elegant—cherry tables, wing backed chairs—the fabrics were casual. Tiny checks and crumpled velvets in sage-green, cream and little splashes of maroon and emerald. Fat pillows with tasseled corners were strewn on the sofa and floor. Elegantly rumpled, he thought and realized he liked it.

Then he noticed the toys. His heart slammed into his chest as he bent to pick up a doll. He rubbed his thumb over the belly, the little gingham dress, and tried to imagine his child playing with it.

“Where is she?”

“She’s sleeping.”

He met her gaze. “I want to see her.”

“I’m not waking her to see a stranger, Jack.”

“I’m not a stranger.”

“But to her you are.”

“I won’t wake her up. I just want to look at her.”

“In a few minutes, okay?”

As long as she knew he wasn’t leaving without a look at his baby. “So what did you tell your parents?”

“Nothing more than they needed to know.” And once Juliana arrived they were the grandparents any child could hope for.

His temper quick-started like an engine. “Dammit. So they think I’m some sort of jerk that would let their daughter have a baby without helping?”

“No. They don’t think that. They understood.”

In truth, her father had been the hardest to handle, and given a moment of free rein, Dad would have turned over mountains to find Jack, punched his lights out, then make him marry her. Which was the last thing Melanie wanted.

She didn’t want a husband because of a child.

But Jack was honorable, a real hero type, and though he hadn’t gotten to it, Melanie suspected there was a bigger battle coming.

He folded his arms over his chest and widened his stance. “So, enlighten me. How did this happen?”

She sent him an innocent blinking look. “Gee, sailor, think maybe we forgot protection one of those times?”

“Don’t get cute. That I figured. It happens. I was as willing as you were. I have no regrets.” He arched a brow, the question unsaid.

She felt the heat of that night spin through her and light her from the inside out. She could almost fall into his arms again if he wasn’t looking at her like a new target to assault. “Neither do I, Jack.”

His stance softened. “Then if you accept that, why couldn’t you accept that I would want to know, to help?”

“Other than I couldn’t contact you,” she reminded him. “I didn’t need it.”

“And that makes it right?”

“Maybe, maybe not.” She moved to the kitchen and started preparing a pot of coffee. Maybe by giving up on hunting him down she thought she was doing him a favor. A man like him, with a dangerous job, he didn’t need to be worrying about her and a child when he was supposed to be concentrating on keeping his head down and staying alive. Just the thought of him being distracted by her when he was in the line of fire gave her nightmares and kept her from charging into his unit office and embarrassing herself and Jack by demanding he be contacted. Then she just got used to thinking alone, doing alone. But all she’d wanted then, when she was round with his baby and wondering what he’d think, was to hear his voice.

Jack followed her and said, “What about what I needed, Melanie?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “And you needed a daughter?”

“How the heck should I know? I’ve never had one. And if it was up to you, I never would have known about her.”

Melanie glanced toward the hallway. “Keep your voice down.” She flipped the switch on the coffeemaker.

Jack moved to her, gripped her arms and stared down at her. “Talk to me, Mel.”

He was hurt, she could see. More deeply than she’d thought.

“You kept my baby from me,” he went on. “That’s not easily forgivable.”

“I did what I had to do, with the resources I had. You were unreachable. They wouldn’t even tell me if you were in this country.”

He hadn’t been, but he couldn’t tell her that. “Did you even once think of me?”

She blinked, hurt and insulted, and pushed off his touch, stepping back. “How can you say that? I had your baby growing inside me, Jack. All I thought about was you. When I was screaming in pain delivering her, I thought about you and I wanted to beat you senseless, by the way.”