smiled. “What have you got in mind?”
“Dating?” she suggested.
This time he laughed. “Kate, we’re a little beyond the dating stage, don’t you think?”
“Okay, sure.” She nodded and started pacing again, the sound of her heels against the linoleum tapping out a rhythm for her thoughts. “I suppose we could tell people that we’ve been seeing each other for three years.”
“A lot of each other,” he added.
“Yes, well, they don’t need to know that, now do they?”
“Kate,” Tom said, and crossed the room to her before she could stop him. “You’re making this more difficult—more complicated than it has to be.”
“I don’t see how.”
“We’ll date,” he said, and smiled down at her when she winced. “And after a whirlwind courtship, we’ll have a nice, quiet wedding a few weeks from now.”
“People will still talk.”
“It won’t matter. We’ll be married. The talk will die down.”
“Until I start showing.”
“You can’t prevent people from counting.”
“I suppose,” she said, and wished he would hold her again.
Tom reached for her, holding her tightly to him. He’d never seen Kate like this. Distracted. Worried—no, scared.
He pulled in a deep breath, enjoying the familiar, floral scent of her shampoo even as his mind told him she had a right to be scared, and if he had half a brain, he would be, too.
He’d done this before. He’d been married and made a damn mess of it. He’d had a child, too, and blown that, as well.
Oh, yeah, he was just the guy Kate needed—an already-proven failure as a husband and father.
His stomach turned over, and a fist tightened inside it.
There were two ways this could go, he told himself. One, it could all blow up in his face, hurting him, Kate and the poor unsuspecting baby stuck with him as a father—or, it could be his chance to make up for doing everything so badly the first time around.
Heaven or hell.
The lady or the tiger.
Tom closed his eyes and held her more tightly.
A pounding headache throbbing behind her eyes, Kate sat at her desk, taking deep breaths and telling herself the worst was over. She’d told him about the baby. Nobody had fainted. He hadn’t held up a rope of garlic to keep her at bay. And most important, she’d managed to keep her stomach from rebelling in the disgusting manner that was becoming all too familiar these days.
So why didn’t she feel better?
Because it wasn’t over. It was just beginning.
She was going to be a mother, God help the poor little thing nestled unknowingly inside her. And a wife. To a man who didn’t want a wife.
Kate groaned out loud, pushed both hands through her short hair and held on to her skull to keep it from exploding. Trying to distract herself, she glared at the mountain of paperwork awaiting her attention. Files and folders and stapled sheafs of papers lay across her desk in what to anyone else’s eye would look like a disorganized jumble. To Kate’s credit, she knew what every single piece of paper was, where it belonged and how to put her finger on whatever was needed at a moment’s notice.
That didn’t mean she liked it.
Thomas was wrong, she thought, stealing a quick glance at the In pile that had grown substantially in the fifteen minutes she’d been gone. The military didn’t run on gossip. It ran on paper. Piles and piles of paper.
A knock at the door delivered her and she looked up. “Yes?”
The door opened and her assistant, Staff Sergeant Eileen Dennis, poked her head in. “Excuse me, ma’am, but the other files have arrived.”
“Perfect,” Kate groaned and leaned back in her chair.
“Can I help, ma’am?” Eileen offered, stepping farther into the room and dropping at least ten more manilla folders onto an already precariously tilted stack.
Kate sighed. Tempting, but no. She might be pregnant and about to marry a reluctant groom, but she was still a Marine. And she could do her job—at least until her belly was so swollen she couldn’t pull her chair in close enough to reach the desk.
She managed to stifle the groan building inside her as she scooted her chair in extra tight, just because she could.
Looking up at the younger woman standing opposite her, Kate figured Eileen Dennis to be about twenty-eight Her bright blue eyes were sharp. Her smart cap of night black hair was regulation, yet somehow managed to look feminine. Spit and polish, the creases on the woman’s uniform had creases. The staff sergeant was young, eager, dedicated and ambitious.
Everything Kate had always been herself. So why then did she suddenly feel like Grandma Moses in comparison?
“Thanks, Eileen,” she said with a shake of her head. “I can manage.”
She actually looked disappointed. “If you’re sure...”
“I am,” Kate said. “But if you can find me a cup of coffee, I’ll put you up for promotion.”
Eileen grinned at the joke. “Black, one sugar?”
“Yeah.” Just as the door started to close, though, Kate said, “No. Wait.” Caffeine. Not a good thing for growing babies. She caught Eileen’s eye. “Make that tea.”
“Tea, ma’am?” Surprise etched itself onto her features.
“Herbal.” Lord, just saying it made her want to retch. How would she ever get through the next six months without a jolt of caffeine every day?
“Yes ma’am,” Eileen said, and slowly closed the door again.
When she was alone, Kate pushed away from the desk and crossed the room to the one tiny window her office provided. Staring out at the busy base, she absently watched her fellow Marines carrying out their everyday tasks. The world was rolling right along, she thought. It didn’t seem to matter that her own personal world lay in shambles at her feet.
Her phone rang and grudgingly Kate turned toward the desk again. She snatched it up on the third ring. “Yes?”
“Colonel Candello on line one, ma’am.”
Her stomach twisted. Had he changed his mind already? Had the idea of a baby and marriage made him want to resign and catch the first sailboat to Tahiti?
A click, a hum, then Thomas’s voice. “Kate?”
“I’m
