at least was honest. And he did desire her. Plus he genuinely liked her. Wasn’t that better than some indefinable emotion that broke as many hearts as it healed?
Stroking her cheekbone with the pad of his thumb, he said quietly, “Love’s not all it’s cracked up to be, Kate. I believe we can have a better-than-average marriage just by keeping love out of it. We’ll still manage to raise our child in a happy enough environment.”
Kate stared up at him for a long, thoughtful moment. The knot in her throat seemed to grow to colossal proportions, threatening to choke off her air entirely. His words keep repeating themselves over and over in her mind, like a tape stuck on Playback. “Keep love out of it. Happy enough environment. Better than average marriage.”
Not at all what she’d secretly yearned for the moment she’d first laid eyes on Colonel Thomas Candello. But fantasies and dreams had to give way to the realities of life...didn’t they?
And the cold, harsh reality was...she was pregnant. She was a Marine. And without the Corps she would have nothing to offer either herself or her child.
Because she really did have no choice at all here, she finally said, “All right, Thomas. I will marry you.”
He let out a pent-up breath and pulled her to him. As he wrapped his arms around her, Kate let herself lean against him, drawing on the strength he was offering her. Hoping they were doing the right thing.
For the baby and for them.
All she knew for sure was that the man she loved was marrying her—not because he couldn’t live without her—but because of a baby neither of them had counted on.
Two
“Now that that’s settled,” he whispered against the top of her head, “how about dinner tonight? We can talk about the specifics.”
Kate pulled back from him, despite the reluctance to leave the circle of his arms. Staring up into those dark brown eyes, she repeated, “Specifics.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Wedding date. Place. Time. Guests.”
“Oh, my,” she muttered, and shook her head. “Suddenly this is getting so involved. So complicated.”
“Would you prefer a whirlwind trip to Vegas?”
“Do I detect a hint of surliness in your tone?” she countered.
He frowned, walked to his desk and leaned one hip against the edge. “Not surly. Confused.”
“Join the club,” she muttered. For pity’s sake, she’d hardly gotten used to the idea of being pregnant. Not to mention his spur-of-the-moment proposal. Now she was supposed to pull out a pad of paper and eagerly make out a guest list?
Come on. Even Wonder Woman would have needed a few days.
He folded his arms across his chest, cocked his head to one side and looked at her as though she was a particularly intriguing germ on a glass slide under a microscope. “I don’t get it.”
“What?” Stupid question.
“This about-face,” he said. “A minute ago, we agreed that a marriage was the only answer. You did say yes, didn’t you?”
She reached up and tucked her hair behind her ears. “Of course I said yes...”
“Then what’s the problem?” he asked.
“How much time do you have?”
He smiled, God help her, and that lone dimple in his right cheek made its first appearance. Damn it. Why was she such a sucker for that dimple?
“All the time you need, Kate. Talk.”
Talk. Easy enough for him to say. Hands locked tight behind her back, she paced again, feeling the need to burn off the excess energy that had her stomach roiling and her mind spinning. Back and forth, up and down, she looked at his office, the plain beige paint, the picture of the president, the dried-up splotches of the last rain on the windows and the halfdead ficus tree in the corner.
Talk. Where should she start? With ridiculous dreams or the painful reality?
She’d been hoping for so much more when she had put in a request for a transfer to Camp Pendleton.
For three years, Kate had loved Thomas Candello. And for those same three years, she’d kept quiet about it. She knew all too well his thoughts on marriage and love and happily-ever-after. He’d made no secret of the fact that his first marriage had been a disaster from the word go and that he had no intention of ever committing that particular mistake again.
So, wary of scaring him off, she’d patiently swallowed the three little words every time they threatened to roll off her tongue. She’d pretended to be as satisfied with their once-a-year tryst as he was. And she’d hoped that one day he would look into her eyes and see the love shining there and want to claim it.
So much for “hope springs eternal.”
“Kate?” he prompted from his place by the desk. “What’s going on?”
“Too much,” she said and came to a stop by his office door. Turning around, she braced her back against it and looked at him from across the room. Unfortunately, distance didn’t help. The liquid warmth in his eyes, that blasted dimple, his mouth, even several feet of empty space couldn’t dilute their power. “Thomas,” she said at last, “we can’t just up and get married.”
“Why not?” He pushed off the desk and started for her.
She held up one hand, stopping him in his tracks. If he expected her to think, then he needed to give her some breathing room.
“We’re both single adults. Unattached.”
“Exactly.”
He laughed shortly and shook his head. “Sorry, you lost me.”
She sighed heavily. “In the month I’ve been here, we’ve hardly spoken more than once or twice.”
“So?”
“So, don’t you think people will be just a little bit curious if we announce our imminent wedding?”
“And if we don’t get married, in a couple of months,” he snapped a look at her still flat abdomen, “they’ll be curious about a whole lot more than that.”
“I know.” She buried the flash of nerves that leaped into life in the pit of her stomach. “But still, we can’t go from supposed strangers to newlyweds overnight.”
He thought about it for a minute or two, then shrugged again. “Does it really matter? Is it anyone’s business?”
“Yes,” she said. “And no.”
“Huh?”
“Yes, it does matter and no, it’s not their business. But that won’t stop the gossip and you know it.”
“Military
