Heart of a Hero

Six

Holy hell.

Wade realized he was still standing at the front door. Which, thankfully, he had already closed, since no one passing by could possibly miss his body’s reaction to that memory in the clinging sweatpants he wore. He shook his head ruefully. His system had been at full alert ever since he’d seen Phoebe standing in front of him on her porch Wesnesday afternoon.

It had only been five days ago that he’d found her, he realized with a jolt, and only two since he’d moved in. And yet in some ways it felt very familiar, very comfortable, as if they’d been together a long, long time. Pretty weird considering that they’d never really even dated, much less lived together.

But that was going to change.

He didn’t do such a bad job for a novice on his first day alone with Bridget. Phoebe had shown him the whole diapering deal, and had prepared bottles and baby food for lunch. She’d told him that Bridget did well as long as she was kept to a reliable schedule, so he made sure he followed the instructions she’d left for him.

He’d gotten up early with Phoebe and they’d eaten breakfast while she went over the directions she was leaving for him. And then she’d left.

He knew it had been hard for her to walk out the door and leave them alone. If she’d said, “Call me at school if you have any problems,” once, she must have said it ten times.

He took Bridget to a park at the end of the street in the morning, then brought her home and gave her a bottle. He didn’t even have to rock her, just laid her down in her crib, since her little eyes were practically shut already. Then, while she was sleeping, he opened and dealt with a large envelope of mail that he’d brought with him in case he had time to kill sitting in a hotel room.

Bridget woke up again about two hours later, so he laid a blanket on the living-room floor and played with her there until time for lunch. Phoebe had told him he needed to feed Bridget promptly if he didn’t want her to get cranky.

God forbid the kid should get cranky. He’d hate to have to call Phoebe for help. So he heated the mushy-looking stuff Phoebe had left in a small dish and opened up some pureed apricots to mix in with the cereal Phoebe had left out, all of which Bridget devoured as if she hadn’t had a square meal in a month. Which he knew was a crock because he’d watched her tuck away a similar mushy mess for breakfast. Not to mention the bottle he’d given her before her nap.

After lunch, he walked around the yard with her in his arms, and they played a little more before she went down for her afternoon nap. When she awakened, he brought her out to the backyard to play until Phoebe got home.

“Hello there!”

Wade glanced away from the sandbox. An elderly woman in a faded brown dress covered by a stained gardening smock stood at the fence between the two yards. She resembled a tiny elf, with white hair twisted up in a messy bun and twinkling eyes that crinkled as she smiled at him.

“Hello.” He got to his feet, lifted Bridget from the sandbox and covered the few steps to the fence with his hand outstretched. Before he could elaborate, the elf clasped his hand in a surprisingly firm grip and pumped his arm up and down in vigorous welcome.

“It’s so nice to meet you, Mr. Merriman. I’m Velva Bridley, Phoebe’s neighbor. She’s a dear, dear girl and that little one is too sweet for words.” She poked a gnarled finger into Bridget’s tummy, eliciting the now-familiar squeal. “Phoebe’s never talked much about you. Are you back for good now?”

“Ah, yes. I was in the army in Afghanistan. But yes, I’m here to stay.” He figured he’d better get a word in edgewise while he had the chance. Later he could decide whether or not it had been the right word.

“That’s wonderful! Just wonderful. Bridget’s really at that age now where she needs to have her daddy around. I bet it about killed you to be overseas when she was born. I know it would have done me in for sure, if my Ira had missed an important event like that. Here.” She reached into the basket hooked over her arm without even taking a breath and came up with a handful of some kind of pink flowers. “Last snaps of the season. I was going to bring them over after Phoebe got home but you can take ’em in and set ’em in water. Might earn you some points, you know?”

“Snaps?” She’d lost him a few sentences back.

“Snapdragons. I always start mine indoors. Never bring ’em out until the twentieth of May on account of late frosts, my daddy always said, so I start ’em in the house and set ’em out bright and early on the twentieth. Got the first ones in the neighborhood, and the last ones, too,” she added proudly. “Mine are hardy.”

“That’s, ah, that’s nice.” He cleared his throat. “So you’ve known Phoebe since she moved in?”

She nodded. “Sweet, sweet girl. I brought her my raisin cake that I always take to new neighbors, and we hit it off right away. I was a teacher a long time ago, before I married my Ira, and my goodness, it’s amazing how things have changed in fifty years.”

He smiled. “You sound just like my father. He’d happily go back fifty years to what he calls ‘the good old days.’”

“Not me!” Velva shook her head. “Give me the age of technology any day. I love being able to instant message my grandchildren and find out what they’re up to right that minute.”

He almost laughed aloud. As it was, he couldn’t hide his grin. “Computers sure have made communication easier.”

“My great nephew is in Iraq,” Velva told him, “and getting e-mails a couple times a week really helps his wife to stay strong. I guess you and Phoebe know all about that, though.”

“Hello there!”

Wade spun around. Phoebe stood on the back porch of her little house. “Hey,” he called back. To Velva, he said, “It was nice to meet you, ma’am. I hope to see you again.”

She looked amused. “Well, I expect if you’re living next door, you’re gonna see me from time to time. Now go greet your wife the way you want to.”

Oh, boy. The lady had no idea what she was suggesting. He strode through the yard with Bridget and stepped up onto the back porch. Phoebe stood there in the navy skirt and the matching sweater with crayons on it that she’d worn to work.

“Hi,” she said. “How did it—mmph!”

The sentence stopped abruptly as Wade hooked an arm around her waist and brought her up against his free side, setting his mouth on hers at the same moment.

He sought her tongue, sucking lightly and then probing deeply as he felt her body yield to his, her tension evaporating. She had put her hands up and clutched his shoulders when he’d grabbed her, and after a moment she flattened her palms, smoothing them over his back and up to his neck. Kissing Phoebe was like a drug, he decided, juggling the baby so that he could pull her closer. Addictive. Very, very addictive.

When he finally gentled the kiss and released her mouth, he blew out a breath. “Wow.”

“What was that for?” She rested her forehead against his shoulder. Her hands slid down his chest and grasped his forearms.

“Ack!” Bridget threw herself forward and Phoebe put up her arms just in time to catch her.

“Hi, sweetie,” she said. “We didn’t mean to ignore you.” Her face was red and she didn’t meet Wade’s eyes as she jiggled the baby and blew kisses against her neck, making Bridget giggle.

“For Mrs. Bridley,” he said.

“Hmm?” She raised her gaze to his, but the connection to her earlier question seemed forgotten.

“The kiss,” he said patiently. “Your neighbor is delighted that I’m home from Afghanistan. I didn’t think we should disappoint her.”

Phoebe’s forehead wrinkled. “Oh.” It was slightly gratifying to see that his kiss had scrambled her circuits so thoroughly. It was nice to know he wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

He reached around her and held the screen door open, ushering her into the kitchen. “Interesting that she thinks you have a husband.”

“I never told her that.” Phoebe sounded startled.

“I guess she assumed. She’s an interesting woman.” He gave the adjective special emphasis, and Phoebe finally smiled.

“She’s unique.”

“Good word for it. How was your day?”

“My—? Oh, fine. How did you two get along?”

“Famously,” he assured her. “I managed to change a couple of diapers and get more food into her than on her, and she took both her naps. So I’d say we were successful.”

“Good.” She looked genuinely pleased. “No emergency calls to Angie, hmm?”

“Nope. Not a one.” He took the baby as she got down two glasses and filled them with ice and sweet tea. She cut a slice of lemon, which she squeezed into his, then stirred with a long spoon. As she slid one across the table to where he’d taken a seat, he said, “You remembered.”

She stopped with her own glass halfway to her mouth. “Remembered what?”

He lifted his glass as if he were toasting her. “My tea. With lemon.”

Her color had almost returned to normal from their kiss on the porch, but it was back in an instant. “Just a lucky guess,” she said.

Right. A warm feeling stole through him. She’d remembered.

She made spaghetti for dinner while he set the table and changed Bridget. It was just bizarre, Wade decided. To go from not even knowing how to find her to living with her in less than a week.

He had anticipated—hoped—that she would still be free and still have feelings for him when he finally tracked her down. And he’d thought about the rest of his life and he’d known he wanted it to include Phoebe. But he’d expected to court her, to date until she felt comfortable with him. So much for expectations, he thought, eyeing the cozy table, the baby in the high chair at one end, and the easy way Phoebe moved around him as if he’d always been there to get in the way.

He’d take this any day, although it certainly hadn’t been anything he’d imagined in his wildest dreams.

While they ate, he told her about the other dad with the eight-month-old son he’d met at the park earlier, and she recounted her day. He set Bridget in her infant seat while he helped Phoebe clear the table, and then he said, “I’d like to invite my father to visit at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Do you have a preference?”

She was still looking at him and her eyes went wide. “Thanksgiving or Christmas?” she said faintly. “The holiday season is more than a month away.”

He was puzzled. “Yeah. And…?”

“Exactly how long are you planning to stay in my house?” There was a note of what sounded like panic in her voice.

He looked at her closely, unsure he’d heard her right. “I don’t have any plans to leave,” he said evenly.

“But…but you can’t just live with us forever! What if I wanted to—to get married or something?”

“To who?” He couldn’t have kept the note of naked aggression out of his voice if he’d tried. He hadn’t seen any signs of a man in Phoebe’s life, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. “Is there somebody I should be worrying about?”

“No.” As soon as the word popped out, she closed her mouth abruptly, as if she was aware that she’d just given him a major tactical advantage.

“Good.” He stepped closer and she backed away, but the table was behind her and she couldn’t go any farther. And he stepped forward again, until they were almost nose to nose. He reached for her wrists and captured them with his hands, then very slowly leaned forward until their bodies were pressed together from neck to knee. And just like the first time on the dance floor, he felt that little frisson of awareness, that feeling that this was right, click into place. “If you want to get married, that’s fine. But the only man who’s going to be putting a ring on your finger is me.”

She gaped at him. Literally stood there with her mouth hanging open. “Marry…you?” Her voice was faint.

“Yeah.” Dammit, she didn’t have to act so repelled by the idea.

“No way.”

Her instant refusal rattled him, but he wasn’t about to let it show. “Why not? We share a child.”

“That’s not a reason to get married!”

“It is in my book,” he said, struggling to keep his voice even. “You and I grew up in the same community, we have a lot of memories in common. We owe it to Bridget to give her a solid foundation.” His eyes narrowed. “Don’t you ever wish your childhood had been a little different?”

“I—no.” She shook her head, avoiding his gaze, and he wished he knew what was going on behind those blue eyes.

“Why not?” he asked again. “Give me three good reasons why you won’t marry me.”

She was silent, looking aside with her head tilted down.

“You can’t, can you?” He still held her hands and he slowly raised them, pulling them around his neck. She didn’t embrace him but she didn’t drop them when he released her hands and slid his arms around her, settling her more tightly against him. “We are good together, Phoeber,” he said in a lower tone, “and you know it as well as I do. We know each other so well. We could make this work.”

He put one hand beneath her chin and lifted her face to his, slowly setting his lips on hers. Her mouth was warm, her lips pliant as he kissed her, but slowly she began to respond, kissing him back with an ever-growing fervor that he remembered from the single time he’d made love to her. The response awakened the need for her that always lurked just beneath the surface, and he growled deep in his throat as he gathered her even more closely against him, pressing her head back against his shoulder as he sought the depths of her mouth.

She clung to him, giving him everything he demanded. Sliding one hand up her hip, he slipped it beneath the bottom of her sweater. The skin above the waistband of her skirt was warm and silky, and an even stronger surge of desire shook him.

“Marry me,” he muttered against her mouth.

“This isn’t fair,” she said, pulling her mouth back far enough to get the words out.

He kissed the line of her jaw. “I don’t care about fair. All I care about is making us a family.”

Was it his imagination or did her body tense the slightest bit?

It was definitely not his imagination that she withdrew from the kiss slowly but surely, stepping back and straightening her sweater. “Give me time to think about it. This is the rest of my life we’re talking about here.” Her voice was quiet but he recognized that tone. When Phoebe dug in her heels about something, there was no budging her short of using dynamite. And he had the sneaking suspicion that might not even do it.

“It’s the rest of all of our lives,” he reminded her.

“I know.” She sounded weary. “Let me think about it.”

“When can I expect an answer?”

She spread her hands. “I don’t know. We can talk again…when we come back from California. All right?”

He nodded grudgingly, not happy about it but unwilling to push further in case he really annoyed her and she decided she couldn’t stand him for the rest of her life. “All right.”

The following weekend, Wade made the travel arrangements for their California trip. The weekend after that, they left right after Phoebe took leave from school at lunch on Friday.

Bridget fussed for a bit early in the flight but, after a bottle and some cuddling, she settled down and went to sleep for a while. As Phoebe looked down at the beautiful baby girl in her arms, she was amused again by the determined little chin…oh, that was Wade all over.

Wade. Amusement faded as she thought of his marriage proposal, if it could even have been called that, and the fist squeezing her heart tightened painfully. He wanted to marry her to make a home for their child, and because they knew each other well enough to make it work. But he hadn’t said anything about love.

Could she marry him, knowing that he didn’t love her the way she wanted? Oh, he cared for her, she didn’t doubt that. And he clearly desired her. But he’d loved and desired Melanie once, and she knew that her sister would always hold his heart. She, Phoebe, had never expected that she’d have any part of him, much less marry him and bear his children, so how could she complain?

As the jet began its landing descent, Phoebe hungrily gazed out the window. There was Mission Bay, the water sparkling in the sunlight, and the golf course of La Jolla. The university, the naval base, the zoo. The lighthouse, high atop a cliff.

The freeway heading north was packed with traffic all rushing to exit the city, all driving at typical breakneck speed California-style. She could hardly wait to be in the middle of it.

And before she knew it, they were. Wade had rented a car for the long weekend since he didn’t have a car of his own. He’d never seen the need before, he’d told her. When he’d come home, he’d just driven one of his parents’ vehicles.

As they entered the outskirts of their old neighborhood, Phoebe realized she was holding her breath.

It still looked much the same. Small yards shaded by flowering trees; tricycles, bikes and skateboards littering yards and driveways; brilliantly colored flowers fronting many of the carefully kept small homes.

You could see the ocean from the end of their block, she knew. And as Wade drove to the end of the dead-end street and turned around so that he could stop the car along the curb in front of his father’s house, she craned her neck to look out over the steep cliff just beyond the barrier the city had placed there.

She couldn’t see the beach, which had to be reached by going down a steep, winding road from the top of the hill, but the vast expanse of the ocean lay before her. Today it was a deep, dark blue, with bouncing whitecaps tossing spray into the air in all directions. A wave of nostalgia hit her like a rough breaker, smashing over her, swamping her.

She’d missed that view so much. Who was she kidding? She wasn’t an East Coast girl. She loved the wild, untamed Pacific. She wanted Bridget to grow up with memories of smooth, rounded cobblestones littering the beach, of water so cold it made your teeth chatter. She wanted to take her daughter to the pretty beach in Laguna Niguel where they had spent a day each year on a sort of family mini-vacation, to tell her stories about her grandmother and her Aunt Melanie….

But it was harder here, Phoebe thought, swallowing. Here where all the memories of her sister and her mother lurked, it was harder to ignore her grief and go on. That had been one of the main attractions about the job in New York. But now the past she’d run from had caught up with her, and because of her own stupidity, she owed it to Wade to stop running and let him get to know his daughter.

Phoebe turned her gaze to her old home, four doors down the street, wondering about the family who lived there now. Did they have a pet? Her mother’s poodle, Boo-Boo, had dug holes all over their backyard until he’d gotten too old to do more than lie on the porch and yap at the neighborhood kids on their bikes.

Were there children? She couldn’t tell from the outside. The garage door was down and there were no bikes or kid equipment littering the yard. And a tall hedge made it impossible to see into the backyard. Was the lemon tree her mother had planted still there?

“Hey.” Wade’s voice was quiet. “You okay?” He touched her back lightly.

“I’m okay.” She squared her shoulders. “It’s odd to come back here and not be able to go home, if you know what I mean.”

He nodded. “I can imagine, even though I’ve never experienced it.”

But in a way, he had. “How different is it without your mom?”

He shrugged. “Not so. Dad always did give her a hand with the housework and cooking, so it’s not like he was helpless.”

“But the dynamics change.” Oh, did they ever. Some of the most miserable times of her life had been the weekends and college breaks she’d spent at home in the first year after her mother had passed away. It wasn’t like it had once been before between Melanie and her. They’d each been grieving, but instead of drawing closer, their grief had isolated them and she’d found herself reluctant to visit as much. It was easier to stay on campus and immerse herself in her life there than it was to go home and enter the silent world of grief that she and Melanie had shared. Mel had stayed in their house, gone to a community college. She’d never really gotten away from the memories and Phoebe had sometimes wondered if Mel resented her for that. It had been Melanie’s choice to keep living there, but had it kept her grief from lightening?

Phoebe grieved, too, but life had gone on and, somewhere along the way, she’d made the decision to do the same thing.

“I guess you know all about the way a family changes,” he said quietly.

She nodded.

“When your mom died, things changed. But after Melanie died, your whole world was different, wasn’t it?” The quiet sympathy in his voice was nearly her undoing.

She swallowed. “Yes. Losing Mom was hard. But losing Mel…Logically, I know that her death wasn’t the catalyst for my life taking such an unexpected turn, but sometimes it seems as if one thing just led to the next.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw and she realized he had clamped his teeth tightly together. “I guess it must.” He sounded as if his words were being dragged from him and she glanced at him, wondering what on earth was wrong.

“Are you feeling well?” she asked as she unbuckled Bridget’s car seat.

That appeared to startle him. “Yeah.” He indicated the child still sleeping on her mother’s shoulder. “Let’s go in and introduce Sleeping Beauty here to her grandpa.”

Phoebe’s stomach was in knots as Wade guided her to the side porch door that the family always used. He opened the door and gestured for her to precede him. As he entered behind her, he called, “Hey, Dad. Where are you?”

“Hello.” A deep rumbling voice much like Wade’s came from the direction of the kitchen.

Wade stepped around her and headed down the hallway leading to the kitchen, and a moment later his father appeared. “Well, this is a surprise! I thought you were going to be on the East Coast for at least a month.” The two men grabbed each other in a typically male, back-pounding hug.

Phoebe stood, rooted to the spot in horror. A surprise? Hadn’t Wade told his father about Bridget yet?

“…someone here I want you to meet,” Wade was saying as the men walked toward her.

Reston, Wade’s father, did a double take when he saw her standing there. “Phoebe Merriman. I didn’t know you were back in town, honey! It’s great to see you—and who’s this?” His tone was filled with delight. “I didn’t even know you’d gotten married and here you’re a mama.”

An immediate silence fell, awkwardness hanging in the air like thick smoke.

“Aw, hell.” Reston scrubbed a hand over his face. “Forget I just said that. Mothers don’t have to be married these days, I know.” He stumped on toward Phoebe, and she remembered that his uneven gait was the result of arthritis that forced him to favor one hip. When he reached her, he peered down at the sleeping child she had shifted to hold in the cradle of her arm. “Aren’t you a beauty?” he asked, his tone tender as he brushed a finger along Bridget’s cheek, catching one fiery curl on his fingertip. He chuckled. “Got that Merriman red hair, didn’t she?”

Phoebe nodded, forced herself to smile. “When she was born, all the nurses laughed because it was sticking straight out all over her head.”