The Seal's Surprise Baby

Two

The front door swung open and Jack’s sister glared at him. “Well, that’s not the fine welcome I expected from my only sibling,” he said.

“I’m wondering if I should claim you as my brother.” Lisa made a sour face and spun about, striding into the living room. Jack stepped inside and reached for her.

“Hey, what’s up? Bad day with the baby? Who I’m dying to meet.”

“Really?”

“Hell, yes. Uncle Jack wants to pamper the little lady. My right, you know.” He produced a stuffed koala bear.

Lisa softened a little, but not for long. She gestured to her house. “See any baby things around here?”

He looked. The little house she and her husband, Brian, owned was immaculate, homey and adult. He frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“I didn’t have a baby, Jack.”

He stepped back, scowling. “Then why did you send me that card?”

Lisa glanced to the side, avoiding his gaze, something she never did.

“Hey, darlin’, what’s going on here?” he said in the voice that always got her to share with him.

She looked at him. “I sent the card to get you to come home and face your responsibilities.”

His brows shot up. “What responsibility?”

“The one to your daughter, Jack.”

He paled. “I don’t have a child. I’m not a father.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, she’s six months old and her name is Juliana. She has your hair and your eyes.”

Jack choked on his own breath. A baby? There was a baby in this world that was his? His gaze snapped to his sister’s. Reality slammed into his gut.

“Melanie. Where is she? I tried to call her.”

“You called?”

He gave her a look that said, “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” and he wasn’t pleased about it. “Yes, I did—when I got to a ship-to-shore phone. I sent her a few notes while I was out at sea, but she couldn’t write to me.” His look said what he was doing with the SEALs wasn’t up for discussion. “Still, when I got stateside, there was nothing, no phone listing, no address.”

Lisa met his gaze. “You really called her, huh? When she said she didn’t want you to know, I thought it was just a…well, that she was hiding her feelings.”

“Don’t you think I had the right to know?”

“Of course! That’s why I sent the card. Good grief, Jack, I thought you hadn’t contacted her. That’s the impression she gave me.”

“How did you find out?”

“Brian and I were in Charleston on a little vacation and I went into the bank to cash a check. Melanie was the bank manager. She’s moved back here now, but she really doesn’t want you in her life.”

“Well, she’s getting me, dammit,” he muttered, heading to the door.

“Jack, wait! She’s not going to like this.” Lisa moaned and folded her arms over her middle. “What are you going to do?”

“Talk to her, marry her, give my daughter my name. My child isn’t going to grow up like I did, Lisa. I won’t allow that.” He let out a breath. “Tell me where she lives.”

Jack marched up the neat path to the little house. It was a perfect cottage in the woods, far back enough from the street to be private and surrounded by a small picket fence to protect a child from the traffic.

He stopped short. A child. His child. Good God. Melanie had given birth to his baby. Alone, without him. Without him ever knowing he’d become a father. And his daughter was already six months old! He’d missed everything. Missed seeing Melanie round with his baby, missed the baby’s birth, those moments when dads go into complete panic with the coming of labor pains. He’d missed his baby’s first smile, her mother’s first look of pride… Damn. Inside, anger as wide as the Chechessie River warred with a strange feeling of absolute joy.

He was a father. There was a baby in that house that was half his. A life he and Melanie had created that night. And she’d tried to take that from him, take away his chance for something more than what he was.

Anger boiled and he continued to the door, knocking hard.

It flung open an instant later.

And his breath punched out of his lungs.

She looked incredible. More incredible than she had during those two weeks. His heart pounded like a hammer in his chest. His gaze ripped and dipped over her body. Jeans never looked so good on a woman. A T-shirt never looked so sexy. Red hair spilled over her shoulders, and if he hadn’t been staring at her body he would have noticed the look of surprise and anger on her face.

Then he did. Well, so what, he thought. She was the liar. She was the one who’d denied him his rights to his own child. “I hear you have something to show me.”

Her features yanked taut. “I’m gonna beat your sister up, just so you know.” The day in Charleston when his sister had walked into her bank, her whole world had crashed. Melanie had been feeling so alone then, and seeing her best pal had opened a floodgate of anguish she hadn’t known she’d held back. She’d missed Jack so much. Really missed him.

“Yeah, well. That won’t compare to what I’m ready to do to you.”

Her look was leery. “Perhaps you should come back when you’ve calmed down a bit.”

“I am calm.”

She arched a brow, trying not to let her heartbeat shoot through her throat at just the sight of him. “Try again, Jack. You look ready for battle.”

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.”

She looked down, her throat tight. She’d been angry with him then, she remembered. Angry because he wasn’t there to see his daughter being born, that he wasn’t there sharing the responsibility thrust on her. But he was off fighting evil, being the hero, a higher purpose, she’d finally reasoned. And she’d just…accepted. Oh, she knew she should have never let this man touch her. Not because of Juliana, but because his touch left an imprint that went clear down to her soul.

“If I’d known, I would have let you.”

“But the Navy wouldn’t have. I know, having a child is no big deal in the military. Women do it alone all the time. But I knew that the first chance Lisa blabbed, you’d be here.”

“And now that I am, we’re getting married.”

“Oh, so now it’s ride-to-the-rescue Singer? Do I look like a damsel in distress?”

“You look like the mother of my child, and that child needs my name.”

“Mine’s been doing quiet well for me for twenty-nine years. It’s good enough for her.”

“Why are you being so stubborn?”

“I don’t want a husband who would marry me for the sake of a child.”

“Why? Is that so archaic to you?”

“Yes.” And it’s full of doubts to start with, she thought. She couldn’t go through life, through a marriage, with him, a man she barely knew. And she didn’t want to live with the constant uncertainty of does he want me for myself, or me because I’m the mother of his child? Or because it’s the right and honorable thing to do? And Jack was up to his eyeballs in honor and duty.

Jack let her go, dragging his hand over his head, then his face. “You are about the strangest woman I know.”

“Isn’t that why we jumped into bed in the first place? Because I wasn’t falling all over you like the other women?”

“No, it’s not, and if you can’t see that, then it’s probably good that I wasn’t around when you learned you were pregnant with my child.”

“Why?”

“Because I would have made certain you knew the truth of my feelings for you, Melanie.”

“You don’t love me, Jack, so don’t say it.”

“I won’t. It’s not true.”

Her heart fractured. Well, that was honest, anyway.

“But whatever it is I feel for you is strong enough that thoughts of you have been dogging me for months.” He headed to the hallway and Melanie was still reeling in reaction to that.

“Excuse me? Where do you think you’re going?”

“I need to see my baby.”

“Jack, wait.”

He stopped short, his features sharpening with anger. “I’ve been waiting. I’ve missed six months of her life. I’m not going to miss another minute.”

A soft cry filtered from the hall and Jack froze.

“Now you’ve done it,” Melanie snapped, then shifted past him and headed down the hall.

His temper defusing like a puff of smoke, Jack followed, but she was already out of sight. He listened for sounds, following them, and stepped into a small room decorated with pink and lavender fairies. But he wasn’t interested in wallpaper and mobiles, but the woman who stood near a crib.

There was a coolness about her, a reserve that hadn’t been there before. He could feel a wall neatly erected between them and she was doing her best to keep it strong. Was it to keep him from her or his daughter? Things were too brittle between them right now for Jack to make huge waves in Melanie’s life, but he wasn’t going anywhere. He was well-known in his unit for his patience, and he’d exert some of it now. Because she still set him on fire with just a glance, it was all he could manage not to grab her in his arms and kiss the living daylights out of her. His memory was damn good, and he pushed down the need to satisfy the hunger that had simmered for nearly a year and a half. Patience, he warned himself, his gaze sliding over her as she hung over the crib.

Everything in him went still as she reached inside. She lifted the baby, fat little legs pumping the air. The child squealed and Melanie held her close.

Jack felt his heart fill and explode at the sight of his daughter.

“Juliana,” he said, and Melanie looked at him. “Lisa told me, and…” He gestured to the name in stuffed letters hanging on the wall and held by two pink fairies. He stepped closer, his gaze moving over his daughter. Round-faced and healthy, she had dark hair like his, eyes like his, but her beauty was all her mother’s. Her head tucked under her mother’s chin, she stared at him with wide eyes the color of cornflowers. Jack had never seen anything so beautiful. And he loved her instantly.

“Hey, princess.”

Melanie watched Jack, the wariness she’d never thought to see in him coming to the surface. He faced bullets like most people faced the morning. But he approached his daughter with a gentle hesitancy that touched her heart.

“She’s beautiful.”

“Yeah,” Melanie replied as he ran a fingertip along Juliana’s arm. The baby simply stared at him, as if familiarizing herself with his face.

Jack moved as close as he could, their baby between them. “Look what we made, Melanie.” He leaned down to kiss the top of his daughter’s head, thinking she smelled of powder and innocence.

Melanie’s heart melted just a little. She’d been alone with Juliana so long that sharing her with Jack felt strange…and sweet. She hadn’t known what to expect from Jack Singer, Navy SEAL, but watching him fall in love with their daughter in less than a second wasn’t it.

“I want to hold her, but I know I’ll scare her,” he said softly.

“She’s still sleepy.”

“I’m sorry if I woke her. I didn’t think.”

“It’s okay,” Melanie said, watching his eyes, the way he touched Juliana, as if coaxing her into accepting him a little bit at a time. Yet when his fingertips slid up Juliana’s arm tucked against her mother, they brushed Melanie’s breast. Heat ripped through her, and her breath snagged.

He looked at Melanie, his gaze moving over her with the same intensity as it did with their child. “I’m here. I’m staying, and I’m in her life whether you want it or not.”

“I know.”

“You don’t like it.”

“Nope.”

He arched a brow, stroking the top of Juliana’s head and loving the sounds she made. “Then it’s war, huh?” He tipped his head, catching Melanie’s chin and tilting her face till she looked him in the eye. “I think you’ve forgotten why we came together in the first place.”

“We were both randy.”

The corner of his mouth curved. It scared her. He looked more dangerous at that moment than he would have if he’d been armed with an assault rifle and wearing camouflage paint.

“Yeah, sure.” He brushed his mouth over hers. She tried to retreat, but he wrapped his arms around her and held tight. Their daughter fussed and gripped his shirt, one of his medals. Jack felt something new and strong rocket through him, and he increased the pressure on Melanie’s mouth, molding her lips to his, and wanted to shout when she responded.

The instant she did, he drew back. She was breathing a little harder, her eyes a little glassy. Victory loomed on the horizon, he thought. He had to have patience for the long journey. “Expect me in your life, Melanie. Constantly.” He grinned. “Daddy’s home.”

He looked down at Juliana, touched the top of her head and suddenly knew this little girl was the best part of his life. Yet knowing Melanie was like a lioness protecting her cub right now, defensive and distrusting, Jack didn’t try to take his child into his arms. Yet they fairly ached to hold her, to feel her little body against his chest, hear her heart beat.

Instead, he said, “I’ll see you both real soon,” then spun around and left the room.

Melanie gripped the crib rail. Because her knees had melted. Her heart had stopped. She looked down at Juliana. The baby gurgled, and blew bubbles.

“That was Daddy. What did you think?”

Juliana jerked in her arms and smiled.

“Yeah, he does that to women. He’s going to be a real pain, honey. What are we going to do?”

Her daughter didn’t offer a solution and Melanie didn’t have one, either. All she knew was that Jack Singer could turn her inside out and upside down with a glance. And with a kiss…oh, she was useless.

But she wasn’t going to marry him. So it would be best just to keep him out of her life completely. Big talk, she thought, when just now his presence turned you into a puddle. Well, she wouldn’t let that happen again, nor would she give him any ideas that she’d agree to marriage. Going into a marriage with such low expectations wasn’t her dream of a future. She had a future. She and Juliana would be just fine.

Part of her dreaded Jack’s showing up again. And he would. She might not know a lot about the man, but one thing was for sure. He’d drawn a battleline in the dirt and she was scared of the first attack. Because Lt. Jack Singer, Navy SEAL and handsome as the devil, was a gentleman.

His attack would be subtle. But she didn’t doubt that when it came to something he wanted, he’d fight dirty.

Three

Jack drove his sports car around town for an hour with no destination in mind. He thought about calling his buddy, Reese, then decided that he didn’t want anyone ever to get the wrong idea about Melanie or his child. Not like they’d had about him when he was a kid.