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The Sergeant's Baby
Bonnie Gardner
His Baby…Her WaySergeant Danny Murphey thought he'd found the love of his life, except when he woke up the next morning she was gone. He'd almost resigned himself to losing her when he found the raven-haired beauty again six months later, teaching at an air force base–and very pregnant with his child.Ally Carter thought she'd found the man of her dreams, until she discovered his idea of marriage meant that she'd stay home with the kids while he flew off into danger. Independent Ally would have none of it. Drat her feelings for the man, which refused to wane.Now she has one heck of a fight on her hands–teaching him that being a father to their child doesn't include being her lord and master!Can the old-fashioned sergeant learn new tricks?
“ I think I’ll have a filet mignon. And a really, really big baked potato with all the trimmings,” Ally said.
“ Only a filet mignon?” Danny asked. “I thought you were hungry enough to eat a horse.”
Ally made a shocked face. “I could never eat Black Beauty.”
Danny had to laugh. “I was speaking figuratively, and you know it. Of course, you’re making up for it with the loaded potato.”
The dining room was crowded and Ally lowered her voice, looking at him conspiratorially. “Humor me. I’m pregnant. I get strange cravings, and I can’t tell from one day to the next what they will be for.”
Danny just smiled and signaled for the waiter. He knew all about cravings. In his case, though, they were not for food.
Dear Reader,
Sometimes military life leads a man or a woman in a direction he or she hadn’t originally intended. Both air force TSGT Danny Murphey and Ally Carter thought they knew exactly where they were going. Then life intruded.
Danny was baseball, apple pie, mom and family. He wanted a home and a family, and he fully expected to be responsible for taking care of them. When he met independent Ally Carter, he thought he’d found the perfect woman. Ally Carter had a mind of her own. She’d come from a less traditional family. Her father had been a cultural anthropologist studying in the Middle East when he met her mother, a native of Tamalya. In Ally’s rebellion against her mother’s traditional upbringing, she almost lost her own happiness.
How do you make two diametrically opposed personalities come together in a meeting of minds (and bodies)? You throw in an unexpected pregnancy, assignment to a Middle Eastern war zone, and mix well. The result is lasting love.
Though there are military special operations schools that prepare servicemen and women for their assignments, I have left the details purposely vague, and I have invented the foreign country in question. However, the reactions and emotions of our characters are real.
I hope you come to know and understand Danny and Ally as I do. And I hope you enjoy reading their story.
Fondly,
Bonnie Gardner
The Sergeant’s Baby
Bonnie Gardner
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
In loving memory of my dad, George W. Purcell, Major, U.S. Army Ret. (March 19, 1925–February 17, 2004). He was my first military hero.
To Mud, as always.
As always, I thank, for their hard work and dedication, the military men and women who sacrifice so much to keep our world safe, and the families they must leave behind to keep the home fires burning.
Books by Bonnie Gardner
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE
911—SGT. BILLY’S BRIDE
958—THE SERGEANT’S SECRET SON
970—PRICELESS MARRIAGE
1019—SERGEANT DARLING
1067—THE SERGEANT’S BABY
Contents
Prologue (#uc86b379a-bc62-51cd-851b-3cde727902de)
Chapter One (#ud6c81ba4-97c4-5b4e-a337-00ede6dd1cfb)
Chapter Two (#uc8ea8410-c85f-5b8d-bb63-041fd428717b)
Chapter Three (#ucb4d5bb3-442e-5798-835a-52475ed25e45)
Chapter Four (#ue221a02b-8e84-5c46-8b33-d5ef66285b23)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
Two Years Ago
Fort Walton Beach, Florida
Allison Carter stood in her bra and panties in front of the closet and tried to decide what to put on. She’d always preferred slimming blacks and dark colors, but tonight she and her fiancé, Danny Murphey, were going to announce their engagement at Danny’s air-force unit’s annual Fourth of July bash on the beach. She needed something that shouted celebration, for the nation’s birthday and her own special day.
“I like the red one,” Danny said from behind her. He wrapped his arms around hers, pinning them to her sides, and drew her to him. He nuzzled her neck, his breath warm and arousing against her cheek. He was referring to the crimson silk sheath with the oriental motif.
Ally had to admit that she looked great in that dress when she was wearing four-inch heels, but on the sandy beach, they would be very much out of place, nor would she be able to walk. Plus, considering her five-foot frame, she wasn’t so sure the dress would have the same effect when she had on flat sandals.
Ally turned around and found Danny’s lips. She tasted him hungrily, and soon she wasn’t worrying about what to wear.
What was there about this man that made him different from the others she’d dated? Ally wondered with delight. She felt Danny harden against her, but she gently pushed him away.
“There’s plenty of time for that later, Danny,” she said breathlessly, turning back to the open closet. “Tonight’s important. Tonight, we’ll officially be a couple.”
“We aren’t now?” Danny countered. “We’ve been all but living together for months. It’s hardly a secret.”
“I know,” Ally replied. “But it’s a big deal for a woman. I can’t wait to introduce you to the people I work with,” she said as she selected a fuchsia sun-dress. She’d always thought it a little bright, but Danny had helped her pick it out. And she could wear sandals with it. “Will this one pass inspection?”
“Definitely.”
Danny reached around her and grabbed a moss-green polo shirt. Ally loved the way it stretched across his broad chest and over his wide shoulders. She smiled as she thought of the day she’d helped him pick it out. Telling her that he wore green almost every day, he’d rejected it almost immediately. She’d had to explain to him that with his tanned complexion, Irish green eyes and red hair it was perfect, and nowhere close to the same green as his battle-dress air force uniform. She chuckled, remembering.
“I don’t know why it matters, anyway,” Danny said.
“What matters?”
“Introducing me to your friends from work.”
“Not friends, Danny. Colleagues,” she corrected him. “My work is important to me. So are the people I work with.”
“Yeah, but you’ll be quitting soon enough,” Danny said.
Had he really just said that? Ally turned, her hands on her hips, and stared at him. Surely he was joking. But his expression proved that he was serious. “Why on earth would I be quitting my job?”
“No Murphey has ever allowed his wife to work. Not while he was alive, anyway,” Danny said.
“Allowed his wife to work? Allowed?” Ally repeated with incredulity. “What gives you Murphey men or any other men, for that matter, any say in the matter?”
He gaped at her as though she’d spoken in tongues. “As the head of the family,” he said slowly, as if addressing a slow child, “it’s the duty of the man of the house to provide for his wife and children.”
“I did not spend four years in college and work my buns off getting myself established in government civil service to have you or any man tell me that I can’t work, Danny!” Ally exclaimed.
He shrugged. “Okay. Let’s drop it for now. We have a party to go to. Let’s have fun.” He smiled and kissed Ally on the top of her head, then finished dressing. “We can hash the working thing out tomorrow.”
Chapter One
Fayetteville, North Carolina
Allison Carter smoothed her tailored business suit over her rounding belly and drew in a deep breath. She hadn’t realized how difficult it would be to work in her condition, but she’d made her bed—literally—and now she had to lie in it. At least now in her new position as instructor in this specialty school, her life had taken “normal” parameters. Her exhausting travel schedule had been reduced so as to be nearly nonexistent.
As a woman of Middle-Eastern descent and an instructor at the Military Deployment Readiness School, she’d been busy training service members for the culture shock they would encounter when they arrived at their posts in the Middle East. Her days off had been few, given the current state of world affairs, but she was happy that she had settled into her present job.
She had already been a civil service employee, so when the bulletins seeking instructors with expertise about that part of the world had been posted, she had eagerly submitted her résumé. With her background, she’d readily gained the appointment. The opportunity couldn’t have come at a better time. She’d just been through a bitter breakup with the man she’d hoped to marry, and she’d appreciated the opportunity to move far away from him.
Though much of Ally’s knowledge of the Middle East had come because her mother had come from Tamahlya, a neighboring country to Tamahlyastan, the site of the current unpleasantness, the customs and traditions were so similar that they were nearly interchangeable. Ally had also taken courses in college on the subject. Little had she known then that the things she had learned from her mother and her esoteric college minor would ever be put to such good use.
She truly enjoyed preparing military and civilian personnel to take assignments in a part of the world where the lifestyles and traditions were completely alien to them. True, most of the men and women she taught already knew a lot about the restrictions in Middle Eastern society, but she was also able to explain and illustrate using her mother’s experiences.
To know that her students were well prepared for their foreign assignments was very satisfying. Thanks to her classes, they would be less likely to make innocent mistakes that could cause anything from a minor misunderstanding, such as using the wrong hand to pick up food, to a major incident like speaking to a woman without permission.
At 0729 hours, she gathered up her notes and her laptop computer and stepped from her office into the adjacent classroom. She was sure that her lesson plans would cover all instances that any of her students would encounter.
There were a few empty seats in the room, but a quick head count confirmed that everyone on her class printout was already present. She called the roll, more to become familiar with the men and women she would be working with than to ensure that they were who they were supposed to be. Attendance was never a problem in this training course.
She was halfway through the list when the classroom door opened.
Colonel Kathryn Palmore, the commander of the Air Force Deployment Readiness School, walked in. “I’m sorry to interrupt you, Ms. Carter,” she said, “but we have a few last-minute additions to your class.”
Allison smiled. She liked Kathryn Palmore and often spent spare moments discussing books, movies—anything but international affairs—with the attractive woman. “Certainly, Colonel,” she said. “We have a few extra chairs.”
Then her two last-minute students stepped into the room.
Their red berets folded and tucked into the large cargo pockets on the thighs of their camouflage battle-dress uniforms told Allison that they were combat controllers. Their specialized training allowed them to parachute into unfamiliar territory, secure an area and set up air-traffic control operations in advance of incoming aircraft. Such rigorous training made them a cocky group. How familiar she was with that uniform, those men—and one combat controller in particular.
“Sorry to interrupt you, Miz Carter,” a familiar voice, laced with sarcasm, said.
Allison looked into Danny Murphey’s eyes. His russet hair was cut regulation short as always; his battle-dress uniform was as immaculately pressed as ever. He was the consummate air commando, from his red beret down to the high-laced jump boots.
The anger in his tone, however, was certainly not regulation, and it was impossible to ignore. His Irish eyes were not smiling, and Allison knew why.
Her breath caught and her heart skipped a beat. They may have broken up over two years ago, but she and Danny seemed destined to forever walk in and out of each other’s lives. The last time had been just six months ago, and Danny was obviously unhappy about the way she had left him that time.
He would be even less amused if he figured out her secret. Considering her rounded belly, it wouldn’t be a matter of if but when.
Steeling herself for anything, Allison watched as Danny and the other man—someone she didn’t know—sauntered confidently into the room. “Have a seat, gentlemen,” she said, mustering up a brisk, professional tone. “I’ll check your paperwork later. We’re just about to get started.”
Allison didn’t need to read any paperwork to know the vital statistics for Technical Sergeant Daniel Xavier Murphey. She’d been intimate with every inch of his well-muscled physique, from his hair to his feet. She’d known him almost as well as she knew herself. No, she didn’t need to read anything. His eyes used to shine down on her, but that was before he’d issued the ultimatum that had been the beginning of the end.
Colonel Palmore stepped outside, leaving Allison to deal with her students.
Though she had hoped it would take Danny days to notice, Allison saw it the instant Danny realized her condition. His eyes narrowed, and he seemed to hold her against the dry-erase board behind her with his accusing gaze. Allison held her breath and readied herself for the scene she was certain he was going to make.
To his credit, Danny held his tongue, but Allison felt his apparent acceptance, his silence, like the tension of waiting for a time bomb to go off once the button had been pushed. The minutes crawled by. How was she going to get through the rest of the morning, the remainder of the class, anticipating the explosion that was sure to come.
DANNY DIDN’T KNOW how he’d managed to keep it together through that interminable morning, but he had. Now was his chance. He couldn’t believe that the woman he’d wanted to spend the rest of his life with had found someone else so quickly—someone who was obviously okay with her working and carrying a baby at the same time.
Ally hadn’t changed much since he’d last seen her six months ago. Except for her swelling belly, she was still petite and slim. Her jet-black hair was pinned up in a businesslike manner in deference to her job, but Danny remembered that it shone like black silk and smelled of roses when he pulled out the hairpins and let it tumble loose around her shoulders. How he’d loved to rake his fingers through her long locks.
He shook the image out of his head. No, he couldn’t keep thinking of her that way. Ms. Carter—he had to think of her as that—had finally excused the class, giving them a little over an hour to eat at either the base chow hall, the Servicemen’s Club or some other nearby eating establishment before class reconvened. Jake Magnussen, the guy who had walked in late with him, had jerked his head for Danny to come on, but Danny waved him off. “I want to ask the instructor something,” he had said, and Magnussen went on without him.
Danny was now alone in the room with Allison Carter, the woman who’d been a major player in his dreams for the future. “I guess congratulations are in order,” he said slowly, trying mightily to temper his anger and disguise his pain. He hated like hell that Allison—his Ally—might realize just how much her rejection had hurt him.
Ally looked up from busily policing her stuff. Obviously startled by the sound of his voice, she nearly dropped the notes she’d been gathering. “Oh,” she squeaked, “I thought I was alone.”
“I said,” Danny repeated, pausing for effect, “that I thought I needed to congratulate you.”
Her expressive, dark eyebrows knitted in consternation above her gray eyes. “For what?”
“Your marriage…so soon after leaving my bed.” The Ally he knew might have wanted a career and family, but he didn’t think she would want it alone. He hadn’t meant to mention his bed, but his hurt had won in the battle between manners and truth.
How could she have gone from him to another man so quickly, and seemingly without a second thought? Not the Ally he loved.
“Your husband doesn’t mind that you haven’t taken his name?”
“Husband?” she asked. “I’m not married. What made you think I was married?”
Danny arched an eyebrow and glanced pointedly at her swelling stomach. She might still be wearing regular clothes, but the way her skirt was hiked up over her rounded belly was a sure indication that maternity clothing was not far away. “I’ve never known you to overeat, so I don’t think that bulge around your middle has anything to do with the usual kind of weight gain.”
“No…it doesn’t,” Allison said.
She paused, and Danny wondered if she would deny it.
“Yes, I am pregnant,” she finally admitted.
“When are you due?” Danny asked bluntly. He might have a stake in this. After all, he was as capable of counting as anybody else. Though six months had passed since he and Ally had been together and they’d used protection, accidents did happen. From what he could see, six months was about how far along she was. After all, he came from a large family, and he’d seen a lot of pregnant women in his thirty-three years. But then, he reminded himself, Ally was a small woman and any weight gain would be magnified on her tiny frame.
“That, Sergeant Murphey, is none of your business.” Allison snatched her papers off her desk and scurried out a side door, closing it firmly behind her.
“None of my business, my ass,” Danny muttered as he stared at the door. He’d wanted to spend his life with this woman. He deserved to know the truth. “I will find out if you’re carrying my baby if it’s the last thing I do.”
Then he pivoted sharply and headed after Jake Magnussen.
Even though he wasn’t the least bit hungry. At least, not for food.
ALLISON SANK into her desk chair and tried to slow her racing heart. Her fingers trembled as she fumbled with a stack of notes on her desk. Finally, she gave up any pretense of trying to pretend that Danny’s…reaction had surprised her.
She’d never imagined that Danny might turn up in her classroom. He’d caught her off guard.
If she’d been thinking at all, she would have thanked him for his congratulations and let him go on assuming what he had. It would have saved them both a lot of heartache. But no. She had pretty much given him more reasons to wonder.
She’d once expected to make a life with Danny. Had dreamed of growing large with his child. But when he’d issued that stupid macho ultimatum that she relinquish her job once they were married, she had walked away.
Funny, she had known that he’d had a traditional, blue-collar upbringing, and she’d certainly enjoyed some aspects of his protectiveness toward women. But she’d always assumed that she’d be able to persuade him to see her side of the issue. His refusal to bend on that one important aspect of her life, however, had definitely been a deal breaker. There was no way she’d ever spend her life dependent on a man who intended to orchestrate her life in the manner her mother had always believed was proper.
Raneea Hassim Carter had met and married Allison’s father when he was an exchange student at the university in Tamahlya, Raneea’s home. In spite of her traditional upbringing, they’d fallen head-over-heels in love, and Raneea’s forward-thinking, college-professor father had given them his blessing. Though Raneea had attended university, she’d been content to take on a passive role in their marriage, as her grandmother had, and her mother, and her mother before her, even after she and her husband had come to the United States. She’d seldom ventured from the house and hadn’t made much of an effort to learn the language of her new country.
Ally’s father died when Ally was a senior in high school in Chicago, and Raneea had been unable to accept the idea of getting a job and supporting her child. Even if she had wanted to, the language barrier would have been insurmountable. For that matter, she hadn’t even been able to manage something as simple as paying the bills or balancing her checkbook. That had been a real eye-opener for Allison. Finally, her mother had gone back to Tamahlya to live with her family, and only the fact that Allison had, by that time, already entered college, kept her from being forced to leave the country herself.
Yes, she had loved her mother, but she would never allow any man to rule her life. She’d found her mother’s behavior so abhorrent that she’d never really wanted to understand her or her Tamahlyan family. Courses in college had given her some appreciation of the culture she’d come from; but by then it had been too late. Her approach to life had been formed.
Allison sighed, realizing that her memories had replaced her upset. Fortunately, she did not have to teach the afternoon session. But she did have to eat lunch. Even if she wasn’t hungry, she had someone else to think about.
Rapping on the jamb of her opened door startled her, and Allison looked up with a jerk.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you,” Kathryn Palmore said. “When you didn’t come to my office, I thought you might have forgotten our lunch date. Is there a problem with your class?”
Boy, was there! But no way would Allison drag Kathie into it. She simply shook her head. “Just tired, I guess.” She placed her hand over her expanding belly. “I didn’t think carrying an extra little person around, even one this tiny, would be so exhausting.” It was the truth, just not the answer to the question that Kathie had asked.
“Been there, done that,” Kathie said with a laugh. “And you’ve been deprived of the pleasure of coffee, to boot. I swear, that was the hardest part of having all my kids. Well, the last two, anyway. The first time, they still hadn’t come up with the no-caffeine rule. Or maybe I just ignored it.” She made a dismissive motion with her hands.
Allison pushed herself up out of the chair. “I’m with you on that one. Decaf’s better than nothing, but barely. And I’m already sick of being so tired that I have to go to bed early. That is definitely for the birds.”
As she took her jacket off the chair back, realized that Danny wouldn’t know any good restaurants off base, so she and Kathie would be better off going to one in town, though they had originally planned to eat at the Servicemen’s Club. “How about Romano’s? I have a craving for one of their spinach salads.”
The colonel laughed as Allison collected her purse from her desk drawer. “No wonder you haven’t gained very much weight. Most people have cravings for fattening things like chocolate marshmallow ice cream. By the time I was six months pregnant, I was as big as the side of a barn.”
“Oh, I crave chocolate,” Allison confessed. “I just eat it when nobody’s looking. It doesn’t count then,” she added, wishing fervently that were true.
“They make great chocolate cheesecake at Romano’s,” Kathryn said, wagging her eyebrows suggestively as Allison followed her into the corridor.
“Let’s just change the subject. Have you seen the latest Reese Witherspoon movie?”
“No. Is it good?” Kathie asked as they stepped outside into the blustery, fall air.
“It’s gotten some good reviews. Want to go with?”
“Maybe. I’ll have to see what Robbie has to do this weekend.” Kathryn’s husband, Robert, had been killed in Operation Desert Storm, and Kathie had pulled herself together and gone back into the Air Force to support her children and be an example to her daughters. Robbie, the youngest, was the only one still at home. Allison admired the way Kathie had picked up the pieces and carried on. Colonel Kathryn Palmore was certainly a role model any young woman could admire.
And Allison wanted to be a similar example to her own child. She didn’t need a man to cling to. She was quite capable of taking care of herself. And her baby. Thank goodness, attitudes had changed and she would face few ramifications for being single and pregnant. Of course, she would have preferred to do it the right way. But only with the right man.
Danny Murphey’s antiquated beliefs had made it clear he wasn’t.
She had willed herself not to think about the man who had fathered her child—not an easy task since that moment Danny had strode into her classroom this morning. Until then, he had simply been the sperm donor. She had told herself that he did not figure in her and her baby’s lives at all. Yet somewhere in the deepest recesses of her heart, she wished he did.
THE AROMAS coming from the kitchen were tempting. Danny’s mouth watered as he waited in the chow line. His mood ranged from irate to curious to confused, and he welcomed to opportunity to puzzle it all out. One minute he wanted to know who had fathered Ally’s child so soon after that wonderful, awful night they’d had. The next minute, he was furious.
And Danny wasn’t the least bit certain whether he was angry that Ally had had the audacity to find another man so soon after she’d been with him, or that she hadn’t deemed him good enough to father her child.
Then again, he wasn’t so certain that he wasn’t the father. The timing was about right, according to his calculations. She could have visited a sperm bank. However, Danny didn’t think so. Ambitious and independent or not, she wouldn’t want to go that route just to have a child.
Danny couldn’t imagine her casually drifting from one man to another. And he knew the importance she’d always placed on marriage and family. To the right man.
It just hadn’t been him.
They had used protection the last night they had been together, but that condom had been in his wallet for a long time….
He drew in a deep, exasperated breath. Sisters or no, he’d never really understood women, particularly educated, ambitious ones. Why in the hell had he had to fall in love with this one?
“Hey, Murph. You in there?”
Danny blinked himself out of his thoughts as Jake Magnussen waved his hand in front of his face. “Huh? What did you say?”
“You’re holding up the line,” a chief master sergeant, standing a couple of people back, growled.
Danny snapped to. He was standing at the silverware bin and the line in front of him had moved all the way to the dessert section.
“Sorry,” he muttered, then grabbed the necessary utensils and quickly moved on, not bothering to look at what he was selecting.
“What’s with you, man?” Jake challenged. “You were so fired up about taking this class and being shipped out to where the real action is, and now you’re all moody about it. You change your mind?”
“No, I have not changed my mind,” Danny snapped as he picked up a cup and filled it with high-test, full-caffeine coffee. They’d loaded on a C-130 transport at Hurlburt at zero-dark-thirty this morning so he could accept this last-minute opening, and he needed the jump start. Maybe if his mind was clear, he’d be able to wrap his brain around this wholeAllison thing.
Maybe.
Yeah, sure.
“Well, what’s got you breathing fire, then?” Magnussen was nothing if not persistent.
Danny had a good mind to tell Jake to shove it where the sun don’t shine as he followed him to a vacant table. But he didn’t. “I didn’t get enough sleep last night,” he finally said, taking a seat. Hell, he knew that was a lame excuse.
Jake started to say something, then wisely shut his mouth. Danny shrugged, sat down and started to eat. He didn’t speak until he was through. Only then did he realize that he didn’t even know what he’d eaten.
He had been thinking—a dangerous thing, some people might say—and he’d made up his mind. He no more believed that Allison Carter would casually have somebody’s baby than he believed in the man in the moon—unless you counted Neil Armstrong.
He picked up his tray and headed for the door, not even waiting for Jake. He had to get a game plan in place, and he didn’t need Jake sticking his pointed, Norwegian nose into it.
Ally was the woman he’d always dreamed of, the woman he loved. If it was the last thing he did, he was going to make Allison “I want to be independent” Carter agree to let him be the father to her baby. His baby, he was almost positive.
And he was going to marry her. Even if he had to kidnap her and carry her to the nearest justice of the peace.
Chapter Two
At least Captain Haddad was teaching the afternoon session, Allison thought with relief as she rested her chin wearily on the palm of her hand, elbow propped on her cluttered desk. She wouldn’t have to face Danny again today. His accusing glares during the morning session had been bad enough, and the scene right before lunch had thoroughly unnerved her.
She’d had some time to think this afternoon, though she should have been preparing for tomorrow morning’s session. She had been unfair to Danny, she realized as she began to gather her things together to take home. She hadn’t really planned to…steal his “donation” that night—they had used protection—but when she’d discovered she was pregnant it had been the answer to many prayers.
She had wanted to be a mother for so long. When she and Danny were together, she’d wanted a baby, but the stupid man had ruined it all with his pig-headed, old-fashioned attitude. She’d erroneously assumed that men working side by side with women in uniform would have transcended that approach. However, as far as Danny was concerned, there could be no compromise.
At the time Ally had been nearing thirty. Since her chances of finding the right man would diminish as she got older—if published statistics were accurate—she’d reluctantly said goodbye, in the hope of finding someone else to make a life and have a child with, but on her terms. Later, with no man in the picture, she had even considered artificial insemination to conceive the child she wanted.
As it happened, she didn’t have to.
To kill her last evening in town after attending a conference at Hurlburt Field, Florida, where Danny was stationed, she’d accepted a ticket to a Charity Bachelor Auction given to her by a sweet elderly lady in a red hat and a purple dress, who’d said that her niece couldn’t use it. Among the bachelors for sale was Danny Murphey.
After Ally had realized that she’d become pregnant from that one night’s reunion, she’d wondered if the lady in the red hat had been her fairy godmother making her fondest wish come true. Of course, she knew that those kinds of things only happened in fiction, not real life. But it had seemed like fate.
Karma.
Destiny.
Still, she had been so elated that that night had produced a miracle that she hadn’t really considered how her situation might affect Danny.
And it had never occurred to her that he would find out.
Or that he might actually care.
Now he has found out, and he apparently does care, Allison thought as she shoved her notes for tomorrow’s class into her already overstuffed briefcase. But was it a real desire to know his child that motivated him, or simply stupid macho pride. She jammed her arms through the sleeves of her coat and looped the belt loosely around her waist.
Danny was here, and had figured out she was pregnant. Now she had to figure out what to do.
DANNY HATED resorting to subterfuge, but he had already scouted out Allison’s car in the staff parking lot. She still drove the same one she’d had at Hurl-burt Field, so finding it hadn’t been hard.
Ally wouldn’t recognize the rental he’d picked up at noon. He sat in the driver’s seat, motor idling, as the late-September sun began to sink behind the Headquarters Building. As much of a workaholic as Allison had been in the good old days, he couldn’t imagine her staying into the night to work with a baby on board.
A recorded bugle call announced “Retreat” and Danny stepped out of his car and stood at attention as the flag in front of HQ was taken down for the day. He couldn’t actually see the ceremony, but he knew what that distinctive melody meant, and he knew what he had to do.
If Ally picked this moment to come out, she was supposed to stop, as well. Maybe she wouldn’t notice him, just see him as one of many nameless, faceless airmen coming to attention as the flag came down. She didn’t appear. When the last strains of “Retreat” faded, Danny relaxed and climbed back into the car to wait.
Within minutes Allison emerged from the building and headed for her car. Yessss, Danny cheered inwardly. Right on time. Ally hadn’t left early, but she hadn’t lingered, either.
Danny watched as she’d stowed her bags in the back seat, settled herself into the car, turned on the engine and pulled out of her slot. Once she’d steered out to the main road, he pulled out behind her.
ALLY DRUMMED HER FINGERS impatiently against the steering wheel as she idled at the red light on the congested road leading out of the base. She just wanted to go home, where she could relax and unwind. Maybe five in the afternoon didn’t seem late to anybody else, but to Allison Carter it might as well have been midnight. Every muscle in her body ached with a kind of fatigue she’d never experienced. This wasn’t the normal pregnancy weariness she’d been having so far. This feeling was something entirely different.
It was because of Danny. Of that she was certain.
Her fatigue was easily explained. It was from the tension of wondering what Technical Sergeant Daniel Xavier Murphey was going to do next.
So far so good, though, she thought with relief. She’d made it through the day without any more scenes from Danny, so maybe that was the extent of the problems he would cause. Maybe Danny had just needed to let off some steam, and he’d let her be from now on.
Maybe she’d convinced him that the baby she was carrying was not his, even if it was and even if she longed with every fiber of her being to acknowledge him as the father. Not only that, but she wanted so much to be gathered into his arms and to enjoy that safe and protected feeling that only Danny could give her.
Of course, she’d ruined any chance of that happening by her refusal to satisfactorily respond to his probing this morning.
An impatient driver leaning on his car horn brought her to attention. The light had turned green while she’d been woolgathering. She quickly eased out onto the main road, the better to avoid the wrath of an entire crew of tired workers angry at her for keeping them from their homes and their dinners.
She had leftover homemade soup in the fridge. Nothing would make her happier than to kick off her shoes, slip into her most comfortable old sweats, heat up the soup in the microwave and just sit. She’d have the rest of the evening to regenerate and to rehearse what she would say if Danny confronted her again.
Of course, she’d hoped she wouldn’t have to give any speech, but it was always better to be prepared. If she’d anticipated seeing him, she probably should have been prepared to face Danny, instead of assuming that he was out of her life for good. If she had, their encounter might have gone better than it had this morning.
After all, the military, as spread out as it was, had always been a small community, more like a small town than a giant corporation. News traveled fast, and even if Danny hadn’t appeared in her classroom this morning, one of the other members of Silver Team based at Hurlburt Field in Florida could easily have gone there and reported back to him.
She really should have been prepared, she chided herself.
Ally drew up in front of her small, ranch-style house and paused long enough to retrieve the mail from the box at the side of the road and scoop up the newspaper, clothed in a bright orange plastic bag. That portended rain. What else did she need to polish off her crummy day? She jabbed the remote to open the garage door.
A car cruised by as she steered hers into the garage. It wasn’t a car she’d noticed in the neighborhood before, and its leisurely pace indicated that the driver was probably looking for a house number. The vehicle hadn’t stopped at her house, so as far as Ally was concerned, the problem was somebody else’s.
The garage door closed behind her and Ally sighed in relief. She was home.
She was safe.
She didn’t have to think about Danny Murphey again until 0730.
“WHEW.THAT WAS CLOSE,” Danny told himself as he passed Ally’s house. He made a U-turn farther down the street, then cruised back up and idled in front of a house a couple of lots down from hers. He figured he’d best reconnoiter the situation first. If there really was a man in Ally’s life, he wanted to know about him. He damn sure didn’t want to intrude on somebody else’s domestic tranquility. If there was any.
For a woman who’d placed her career before him, Ally sure had a homey little house. Hell, it was everything any woman would want, except for, maybe, the missing picket fence. But then, he wasn’t sure they even made them anymore.
The lawn was neat and tidy, and mounds of brightly colored flowers lined the sidewalk. Window boxes dripped with some ivylike stuff, and the tiny front porch had one of those clay pots with the holes in the sides. He couldn’t see what she’d planted in it, but he’d bet something was there.
He watched as the lights went on, making the cozy-looking house look even warmer, more welcoming. First in what must have been a kitchen, then the living room and then in a room toward the far end of the house, which must have been her bedroom.
A quiver of envy for the man who had slept with her crept to the front of his mind, but Danny pushed it back. He was here to see if anyone else came home before he confronted Ally one more time.
As much as she had protested that the child she was carrying was not his, something in his gut told him it was. If another man did show up at her house tonight, then Danny would quietly back away and no one would be the wiser. If she was alone, then he’d take his chances.
Tonight might be the only chance he’d get.
Danny waited until the sound of his stomach grumbling seemed to drown out the radio. So far, no man had driven up, and he figured that both he and Allison still had to eat. He might be eating for one, but Ally was eating for two.
He could go pick up a pizza. If a man did turn up, he’d be able to tell because Ally’s garage was made for one car. If there was another car in the driveway when he got back, he’d drive on by.
Besides, if the way to a man’s heart was through the stomach, surely it was the way to a pregnant woman’s, Danny thought as he pulled away from the curb and headed back to a strip mall he’d passed on the way. He’d noticed a pizza place there. He just hoped they were quick.
WAS THIS WHAT PEOPLE MEANT by nesting? Ally wondered as she contemplated lighting the gas logs in the living room. Maybe September was a little early for a fire, but the gray sky outside and the promise of rain made her long for the coziness a fire in the fireplace provided. She liked the notion of being cocooned and safe and warm.
With the sudden appearance of Danny Murphey in town, her comfortable world seemed threatened. She shivered with unease and hugged herself to ward off the uncomfortable feeling. Then she lit the fire. She had a gas fireplace so she could easily turn it off if the room got too hot.
She settled down on the couch, comfortable now in cozy socks and an extra-large sweatsuit, and tucked her legs beneath her. She’d eaten her soup, and she was enjoying a cup of hot chocolate, her one indulgence for today—not counting the chocolate cheesecake she’d shared with Kathie at lunch. The fire, the chocolate, the comfy clothes made her feel safe and secure.
Then somebody rang the doorbell.
Reluctantly, Ally uncurled from the couch and made her way to the door. For a moment, she regretted not having a peephole or a window near the door. It was probably just one of the local kids selling candy for fund-raising or something like that. She’d always supported their causes, and saw no reason to stop now. Plus, she’d have a sweet on hand when the urge struck.
But something made her pause before she opened the door. Some little shred of caution made her call out, “Who is it?”
“Delivery service,” came from a muffled voice to the other side of the door.
Ally wrinkled her brow. She didn’t remember ordering anything recently. “Are you certain you have the right house?” she called through the still-locked door. “I’m not expecting a delivery.”
“Is this 924 Allegheny?”
“Yes.”
“Your name Carter?”
Whoever it was knew her name. She wasn’t certain whether to acknowledge that or not. “Just leave whatever it is on the step,” she suggested. That was what they usually did.
“Look, lady. I gotta get a signature here. You either sign, or I take it back. Makes no difference to me. I gotta get moving, though. You ain’t the only delivery I got tonight,” he added, a note of irritation entering his voice.
Allison hesitated, undecided what to do. She often got deliveries this late and, on occasion, out-of-stock items that had finally arrived so long after she’d ordered them that she’d forgotten all about them. She supposed it could be one of those.
“All right.” She pretended to call toward the back of the house. “It’s okay, Fred. It’s just a delivery-man.”
She opened the door, and Danny Murphey, carrying a pizza box, stepped inside.
“Why don’t you invite Fred to join us,” he said sarcastically as he lowered the box. His tone told her he wasn’t fooled by her ruse, and his cocky grin, so familiar and endearing, opened his handsome face.
“You know there’s no Fred,”Ally said. She couldn’t decide whether to be pleased or annoyed at Danny’s ingenuity. And she was flattered at the same time. All she knew was that she had eaten a light dinner and right now the pizza smelled awfully good. Her mouth watered, and her stomach clamored in agreement.
Still, she stood her ground by the door, held it open and pointed outside. “There’s the exit,” she said. “Please use it.”
Danny simply strode past her, placed the pizza box on the coffee table by the half-empty mug of chocolate and lifted the lid. The rich aroma of tomatoes and spices, stronger now that the box was open, filled the room.
The pizza was tempting, but she had to get Danny to leave. Again, she pointed the way. “I said, get out.”
Her effort was futile. Danny ignored her and made himself comfortable on the couch. He selected a wedge of pizza and took a bite.
“It’s really good,” he said, his mouth full.
He chewed for a moment while Allison stood by the door and wondered what to do.
Danny patted the couch cushion beside him and took another bite. “There’s plenty for both of us,” he said, gesturing toward her with his half-eaten slice.
An empty spot in her stomach that she hadn’t realized she hadn’t filled earlier, plus the fragrant steam coming off the pizza, weakened Allison’s resolve. She closed the door, careful not to turn the lock in case she needed to open the door in a hurry.
The pizza ploy had finally worn her down. Darn it. And as much as Danny’s attitude annoyed her, she still loved the man. In spite of herself. In spite of everything. Of course, Ally was aware that Danny might be irritating and exasperating at times, but he was a good man. He would never hurt her. Not physically, anyway. It was what he might do to her heart that really worried her.
“Thank you for the pizza, Danny,” she said, using sarcasm to disguise her gratitude as she reached into the box and selected a piece. She settled into a chair across from the sofa where Danny sat.
“I figured I could get you with black-olive-and-mushroom pizza,” Danny said, looking smug.
But Ally was too hungry to argue; she let his remark ride.
Neither of them spoke as they ate. Finally, there was one piece left. “Do you want it?” Allison asked.
Danny shrugged. “Nope. I’ve had plenty. You’re eating for two, remember?”
It was the first mention of the baby. However, the comment seemed innocuous enough. Ally shrugged. “All right, I can put it in the fridge for later. Are you going to leave now?” Maybe her question was rude, but the tension of having Danny so close was wearing on her. She had to consider the baby.
“Won’t be long,” Danny said with a satisfied expression. He held out his hands. “I have to wash up.”
“Oh. Sure,” Ally said, pointing toward the back of the house. “Second door on the left.”
Wondering why she hadn’t just sent him to the kitchen, Ally watched Danny go. She couldn’t help noting his well-shaped butt as he went, and she mentally chastised herself.
Danny wasn’t gone long. “You sure you’re not gonna eat that piece?” he said as he sat back down.
“You can have it if you want it,” Ally replied, loath to admit that she really could have downed that last piece.
“And I said you were eating for two and you need it,” Danny reminded her. “Take it.”
As she did, Danny reached for her wrist and held her fast by the hand.
“Wh-what do you want?” Ally stammered as she let go of the slice and tried to free her trapped hand.
Danny held on and looked at her with angry green eyes. “Come off it, Allison. You know exactly what I want. And if you don’t, let me spell it out for you. I know you well enough to be damned sure that you wouldn’t have tumbled into bed with me if there had been anyone else in your life. I also know that you don’t leap casually from man to man and bed to bed.
“I did a little recon while I was in your bathroom,” he continued. Danny released her hand, and Ally rubbed it reflexively. “I saw no evidence of a man having been there. Not on even a semipermanent basis,” he said with satisfaction. “And unless you’ve had a personality transplant since we went our separate ways, you haven’t been sleeping around. I figure you didn’t hook up with anyone soon enough after we were together to already be having his baby.”
“Get to the point, Danny,” Allison managed to say, though she was pretty sure she knew what he was about to say. How she found her voice or the strength to get up off the couch, she didn’t know.
“That baby is mine,” he said with as much certainty as he would his own name. “I figure we have a few things to settle.”
Allison paled visibly, her olive skin taking on a greenish cast, and Danny figured he’d hit the truth right on the mark.
He should have felt good about that, but it wasn’t the triumph it might have been. After all, the woman had lied to him, even though it had been by omission. And if he hadn’t just happened to walk into her classroom this morning, she might have kept right on doing so.
Ally swallowed, or maybe she gulped, then she swallowed again. “What do we have to settle?”
Ally wasn’t that dense, so obviously she was still trying to stonewall him. “Give it up, Ally. That’s my baby you’re carrying.” He’d wanted Ally from almost the moment they’d met, and now he wanted the child. And it would require more than an on-the-knee proposal to get that to happen. Hell, he’d been there, done that, and the wedding hadn’t happened.
Ally grew paler yet, if that was possible. “No,” she protested. “She’s mine.”
“She? You mean you already know what you’re having and you hadn’t even bothered to tell me I am going to be a father?” Danny said, disgusted.
“I’m not sure what sex the baby is, but I thought it would be easier to think of it as a her.”
She stopped. Why was she explaining to him? “It takes more than being a sperm donor to be a father,” Allison countered.
She might not have realized it, but that pretty much cinched things for Danny. She had all but admitted the baby was his.
“So, is that what you had in mind the night you paid for my services?” He didn’t know whether to be insulted or flattered.
Appearing none too steady on her feet, Allison sank slowly back to the couch. “I didn’t pay for…services,” she said weakly.
Danny arched an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah. You might not have paid me, but you damn sure paid somebody. Did you get your money’s worth from that bachelor auction?”
Allison gasped and reacted as though he’d slapped her in the face, but the color that had drained from her cheeks had begun to return. “That auction was for charity,” she protested.
“Oh, so you’re telling me that your showing up to bid on me was a convenient accident. There’s no way you can convince me that you just happened to be hundreds of miles away from here and in Florida the very Friday I was drafted into that…” He groped for the right word. “That…blasted auction.” To even finish the thought was too absurd.
“�Coincidence’? Is that the word you’re looking for, Danny?” His indecisiveness had apparently allowed Ally to find her voice. She went on. “Yes, it was a pure coincidence. I was in Florida, at Hurlburt Field, for a conference. I just happened to run into an elderly lady as I was on the way into the dining room for dinner. She said that her niece was supposed to have come with her and couldn’t come. She offered me her extra ticket.
“It seemed like fun,” she added, shrugging. “I was facing a long night alone in the hotel before I could get my flight out in the morning, so I took the ticket. I didn’t know you’d be there. If I had, I would never have…” She let her voice trail off.
“I just wanted a way to kill an evening. I didn’t have anything to read, and I’d gotten tired of staying inside and watching television…to keep from running into you,” she added in a voice so low that Danny almost didn’t hear it.
That admission proved to him that Allison wasn’t nearly as over him as she claimed to be. “So you decided it was time to have a baby, and you knew that I’d be a willing sperm donor. Well, I have a news flash for you, Allison. I didn’t donate anything to you. What you took, you took under false pretenses. My half of the DNA of that baby—our baby—was stolen! I wonder what a judge would have to say about that!”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I wouldn’t what?”
“You wouldn’t take this to court,” Ally said weakly. How had it come to this? What had seemed like such a simple solution to her need to be a mother had suddenly become very complicated. There was no way she was going to give Danny any more ammunition to use against her. “Besides, we used protection.”
“Which you could easily have sabotaged!” Danny countered.
Ally rolled her eyes. She started to say something, but bit back her retort. She didn’t want to argue. “Go away, Danny. Leave me alone,” she said tiredly.
She had to get herself together. Maybe she had been wrong in sleeping with Danny when they were no longer together, but she’d sensed that they’d still had a connection even after two long years apart. She’d hoped that they might be able to reconnect, create a future for themselves this time.
Then he’d ruined it all, assuming that by sleeping with him, she had suggested that she would change her mind about giving up her career and all that she held important. He’d told her that he wanted to take care of her, as if she were a child, incapable of thinking and doing for herself. The pure arrogance of the man!
Until that moment, Ally’d had such high hopes that they might still have a future. Then she’d heard him utter those words. He didn’t know that she’d heard his confident declaration that night while she was asleep—or so he’d thought. In the cold light of the morning after, she’d known that they weren’t going to make it as a couple.
Until Danny changed his attitudes, they couldn’t be together.
“Please, Danny. Leave us alone. All this anger and stress aren’t good for…the baby,” she murmured. She hated to play the baby card, but it was the only thing she had left. And she didn’t have the energy to deal with anything else tonight.
Maybe not ever.
“Okay, Allison. You win for now, but this is in no way over. Not by a long shot.” Danny pushed himself to his feet and headed for the door, but then he turned back and looked at her over his shoulder. “I will be back to finish this.”
That was what Ally was afraid of, but she wasn’t going to say it. She didn’t need to provide Danny Murphey with any clues to what she was thinking, anything that he might use against her later on.
She watched, vainly trying to keep her lips from trembling. She managed to keep from breaking into tears until he’d gone, then she hurried to the door and locked it.
As she walked away, thinking she should have been relieved that Danny was gone, a sudden barrage of pounding against the door almost gave her a heart attack, and she clutched at her throat as she tried to get her heartbeat to return to normal.
“Come on, Ally. Open up.”
“No,” she shouted through the door. “I can’t deal with anything else today.”
“I forgot something,” Danny called.
Ally closed her eyes and drew in a deep, weary breath. If she didn’t let him in, he’d make enough noise to disturb the neighbors. They’d been okay with her unwed status, but she wasn’t sure her standing in the neighborhood would be enhanced by Danny’s making a scene.
She glanced around the room for what he might have left. “I don’t see anything, Danny. What is it?”
“Let me in.”
She just couldn’t continue to let Danny bother the neighbors, so she reluctantly opened the door. He seemed to fill the doorway with his handsome presence, and Allison instinctively stepped back. “All right, get it and get out. What did you forget, anyway?”
“This—” he said, grabbing her by the shoulders and hauling her to him.
Chapter Three
Of course he shouldn’t have done it, but the moment he stepped out the door, he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight until he’d tasted her lips again. By God, he was going to kiss her. Considering he was about to be shipped out to the Middle East soon, this might be his last chance.
He had looked down into Ally’s dark gray eyes and saw fear. Her heart had beat frantically against him as he pressed her to his chest. She’d balled her fists, but she hadn’t struggled. He hated that he’d made her afraid, and he had to try to assure her that he had no evil intent. But, how the hell did he do that? If he tried to explain, she’d only argue with him. Ally had always been so much better with words than he was.
So Danny had done the one thing he’d wanted to do all along. He drew her closer, tipped her face up to his and kissed her. His intent had been simply to drop a kiss on her lips and leave, but he quickly discovered that one kiss was not enough.
Trying not to be too demanding, he went back for more. Her mouth, which at first had been so unyielding, softened beneath his lips. She returned the kiss, tentatively at first, then with more confidence. Her velvety lips parted to let him in, and he felt more than heard her moan of pleasure.
When she wrapped her arms around him and began to play with the hair at his nape, he knew he’d won, hollow victory that it was.
He also knew that if he kept at this, he’d want to take her to bed. As much as he ached for her, he had to stop this now. She was no longer his, and he had no right to her. Even if he planned to do everything he could to make her his again.
In the meantime, they had to think rationally. And he was well aware that when they were in bed together, they never did much thinking.
He jerked away from her, and was rewarded by the look of confusion in Ally’s eyes. “I just wanted to feel you in my arms again, Ally. I didn’t mean to force myself on you. I’ll go, but remember this. We’re not done.”
He yanked open the door and strode down the tidy little walk to his car. Danny knew he’d be lost if he looked back, so he kept his gaze trained forward. He climbed into the car, started the engine and drove away.
But not without regrets.
Lots of regrets.
ALLY STOOD INSIDE the door, her hand to her kiss-swollen lips, and wondered what had just happened. That Danny had kissed her like that wasn’t a surprise, not really. He’d always been a take-charge man, and he was used to getting what he wanted.
Except for her.
He was a wonderful kisser, and though she’d tried, Ally hadn’t been able to forget the way she’d always felt in his arms.
Still, the passion of her response had shocked her. They had been apart so long. Why wasn’t she over him? She had thought that she’d been so rational with her plan to raise the child alone. She had thought that she had it all figured out.
However, almost the minute she was alone with Danny, she’d fallen into his arms. She hadn’t wanted to show Danny how she still felt about him, but now she was pretty sure he did.
She might have been able to lie to him from across the room, she thought as she leaned against the door, but the moment he’d touched her, her body had given her away. Danny had always been able to read her, and she’d all but given him the encyclopedia.
It was a pretty darn big, wonderful kiss, and she’d enjoyed every moment of it. Until Danny had pushed her away.
Ally turned the lock on the front door and it snicked shut, then she wandered toward her bedroom, vaguely remembering to put out the lights as she went. She had too much to process, too much to work through, to consider details like shutting down the house for the night. Fortunately, her body worked on automatic and took care of the mundane tasks.
As much as she’d claimed to be an independent woman, the prospect of raising this child alone—Danny’s child, she reminded herself—terrified her. She might have claimed that she wanted to be thoroughly modern and thoroughly independent, but she didn’t. She wanted a home, a husband, a family and a career. And most of all, she wanted Danny to be part of her—no, their—child’s life.
Now she just had to figure out how to make it happen.
AS HE DROVE through the dark and unfamiliar streets, Danny Murphey had time to think. Time to work things out in his head—something that he usually didn’t do. He was, after all, a man of action, of impulse, and it was obvious that he would have to proceed with cool, calm deliberation.
He had to win Ally back. Had to convince her that he was willing to give a little if she would. If she would, he could take a lot. He wasn’t used to compromising, but he could if it meant that he and Ally would be together in the end.
Danny was pretty sure that just telling Ally that he might compromise wouldn’t do the trick. He’d have to show her.
Lucky for him, he had this time on temporary duty here to make his case.
A SHINY, RED APPLE SAT in a prominent position on her desk when she came into the classroom, and Ally didn’t need an FBI investigation to know who had left it there. Danny Murphey was already in his seat, head bent over his textbook, and he was acting just like a little boy who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
He looked up and smiled at her with the same angelic expression that had first attracted her to him over two years ago, and Ally couldn’t help smiling back.
Maybe they would be able to make it through the day without incident. If Danny behaved and didn’t start her heart racing. As if reading her mind, Danny winked at her.
“Good morning, Miss Carter,” he said in a childish singsong as a few more members of the class filed in.
Though she tried not to, Ally laughed, and it felt good. More surprising, she discovered that the little gesture had already brightened her day.
Allison cleared her throat, wiped her hands on the skirt of her business-appropriate suit and called the class to order. “Today’s lesson will focus on local traditions in some of the areas you will be serving,” she told them. “Although the women are no longer required to wear the tentlike burkhas you probably remember seeing on the television news, they are required by law to maintain a strict code of modesty, and many older women do still feel more comfortable being covered up.
“I guess old habits are hard to break,” she said with a smile, thinking about the handsome, redhaired man leaning back in his chair in the third row, apparently trying to be unobtrusive.
“Not only that,” she continued, “in many countries a woman is not permitted to go out alone or speak to a man who is not a member of her family if she is not properly chaperoned. Even something as innocent as a handshake with someone of the opposite sex is not permitted.”
She glanced around the classroom and waited for the information to sink in. Ally suspected that most of her students already knew this, but the next bit of information she would deliver would probably be new. “Moreover, it would be considered in our best interest to observe their customs, not try to inflict ours on them.”
An eager female lieutenant, blond and blue-eyed—and a service academy graduate, Ally knew from her paperwork—raised her hand. “Excuse me, Ms. Carter. Does that mean we should avoid speaking to the natives?”
“They’re not �natives,’ Lieutenant. You may call them locals or indigenous people, but let’s give them the same respect you would expect.
“In answer to your question, Lieutenant, yes. Especially refrain from man-woman exchanges. In fact, try to avoid contact with the locals unless absolutely necessary,” Ally added. “Let me also mention—and you need to remember this—that you must take care not to appear in public without a male escort.”
The lieutenant raised her hand again and, without waiting to be called on, blurted, “But we’re not members of their society, and I’m not about to start kow-towing to men and walking three steps behind.” She looked as though she wanted to say more, but Ally stopped her by holding up her hand.
“Relations with some of these countries are quite strained, Lieutenant Abernathy. We must be certain not to do anything that might jeopardize our mission there. Have you heard the expression �When in Rome, do as the Romans do’?”
Looking doubtful, her lips pursed, the lieutenant nodded.
“Then do it,” Danny Murphey interjected, staring pointedly at the woman.
Lieutenant Abernathy rolled her eyes. “Obviously, you didn’t spend four years at the Air Force Academy, Sergeant,” the woman retorted. “I didn’t work like a dog trying to prove I was as good as any man there, to be sent to Tamahlyastan on my first assignment and have to go around wearing a tent and trotting behind a man like a trained puppy.”
“I didn’t say you had to wear a burkha,” Allison interjected, knowing that Danny was sure to comment on that. He had never minced words when dealing with “overeducated” academy grads.
Danny held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Nobody said you had to act like a…dumb blonde, Lieutenant,” he said. “Just follow the rules. You can do that, can’t you? Isn’t that what you had to do at the Academy?” He appeared ready to say something else, but Ally shot him a quelling glance, and Danny had the good sense to quit while he was ahead.
“You can still use your brains and your education,” Ally explained, hoping to ease the situation. “You just have to respect the local customs when you are out in public. You’re there to act as ambassadors as well as to work. When you’re at your post, doing your job, you’re under no obligation to observe custom. It’s only when you’re outside. Don’t act like the Ugly Americans so many people in those societies perceive us to be.”
Clearly, the lieutenant didn’t want to leave it at that. “Well, I think it’s ridiculous.”
“Lieutenant Abernathy,” Danny said, and Ally held her breath, hoping that he wouldn’t say something stupid. “Do you stand at attention when the flag is raised?”
“Yes.”
“When you’re in civvies, do you put your hand over your heart and stand when they play the national anthem at ball games?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like it when a man holds the door open for you even when you are perfectly capable of doing it yourself?”
“Yes. What’s your point, Sergeant?” the lieutenant finally asked, obviously tiring of the exercise.
Ally, too, was curious about Danny’s point.
“All those—” he groped for the right word “—gestures are not required by law. They’re traditions—customs, if you want—not laws. We don’t have monitors making sure you do them, but you do them anyway.”
“Yes,” the lieutenant answered slowly, her brows knitted in puzzlement.
“Well, those are all customs that you observe that someone from another country might think are stupid. Am I right?”
Score one for Danny Murphey, Ally thought with approval. Maybe he had matured a little since they’d been together several years ago.
“I get your point,” the lieutenant said begrudgingly. She glanced up at Ally. “I’m sorry, Ms. Carter. Go on with your presentation.”
DANNY REMAINED SEATED until the rest of the class had left for lunch. Today, Ally hadn’t ducked out the rear door. That fact was enough to give him hope. He leaned back in his chair and watched as she deliberately gathered up her materials and stacked them neatly in a pile. She retrieved the disk for her PowerPoint presentation, then turned to him.
“Are you free for lunch, Sergeant?” she asked, surprising the hell out of him. He’d thought he’d have to make the first move.
“Thought you’d never ask, Teach,” he replied, sliding out of his seat. “Your place or mine?” He grinned, knowing she wouldn’t go for that one.
Ally’s mouth twitched as she tried to suppress a smile. “The club will be fine,” she said primly as she buttoned the jacket of the suit over her stomach. The buttons strained across her growing belly. “I’ll pay.”
Danny wouldn’t protest. It was an old argument between the two of them, and one he’d never once won. The best he’d been able to negotiate was Dutch treat.
Danny held the classroom door open and waited for Ally to step through. Even with her belly swelling with his child, she moved with fluid grace. Danny made no effort to disguise his appreciation of the view. For a small woman she had terrific legs, even if she had apparently given up wearing high, high heels in deference to her pregnancy.
“Still a leg man, I see,” Ally said as she brushed by him.
“Can’t get anything past you, can I.”
Ally chuckled. “Not when it’s that blatant. You could make an effort to be more discreet.”
“Oh, I can be when I need to,” Danny said, remembering his stealth campaign of the previous evening. He shrugged, then touched the small of Ally’s back and urged her forward. She seemed a little softer than he remembered, but then, he supposed that was to be expected. “Considering you’re pretty well checked out on all my moves, I figured I didn’t need to hide anything. You know what I want.”
“That I do, Danny,” she said, a lighthearted expression on her face. “That I do. However, you could have learned some new moves since…”
She didn’t continue, but Danny understood exactly what she meant. Since I left you. But, then she’d probably turn the argument around and say he’d left her by not being willing to see things her way.
Danny shook himself out of those morose thoughts. He’d succeeded in getting her to go to lunch with him—well, actually, she’d beaten him to the punch, and that was even better. Score one for his team.
He didn’t try to hide his satisfied smile.
“I saw it, Danny. You never could hide anything from me,” Ally said. “You don’t exactly have a poker face.”
“Only where you’re concerned,” Danny protested, but Ally shushed him with a gentle touch of a finger to his lips.
“Seriously, though. I appreciated the way you handled the lieutenant this morning. I was afraid she was going to be a real problem child.”
“I guess maybe this old dog has learned a few new tricks since we were…together.” Danny grinned. “I may not have been born with a generous helping of tact, but I’m not stupid. I can be taught.” He shrugged as he held open the door that led outside.
The lesson had been difficult and hard to take, but when he’d been angry at the world after Ally had taken off the first time, he’d entered into a real shouting match with the major and had barely escaped serious trouble. Fortunately, Lieutenant Marx, new to the squadron at the time, had taken him aside and given him a few pointers, a lesson he hadn’t been particularly interested in then, but one that had eventually sunk in.
“Good to know,” Ally replied. She stood at the edge of the parking lot and surveyed the scattering of cars still in the lot. “Do you want to walk to the club or drive? It isn’t far.”
The late-September sky was a clear Air-Force-blue; there wasn’t a cloud or even a hint of humidity. A breeze played with a loose strand of Ally’s hair and carried with it a hint of fall. It was a perfect day for a walk.
“Is it okay?” he asked. “With you being…?”
“Pregnant? It isn’t a dirty word, Danny. It’s a natural process. It happens to women all over the world every day.” She turned and began walking toward the club, a few blocks away.
“I know,” he said defensively. “But I’ve never been the…”
Chapter Four
“Father?”
Danny stopped. She’d said the word so easily, voicing the concept as though it was nothing. To him it was still something he had a hard time wrapping his brain around, even if Ally had finally confirmed it.
“Yeah,” he said huskily. “The father.”
“Come on. Both of us are hungry.” Ally tugged on his arm impatiently. “The exercise is good for us.”
“Okay,” Danny said. “Do you mean us, like you and me? Or you and the baby?” He paused, then added, “But I’m paying for my own.”
“Works for me,” Ally said, tossing him a dazzling smile. “And in answer to your question—both of the above.”
Danny laughed and raised an eyebrow. “What, no protest? After all, you invited me. I should expect you to pay.” In the old days, Ally would have argued until any man opposing her had no choice but to give in. She had always had to show that she could do things on her own. Maybe she was mellowing, too.
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