Kitabı oku: «The Sergeant's Baby»

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.