shifted impatiently. “Why can’t you tell her that?”
“Because I’m not her parent, you are.”
The noise level in the room suddenly rose as the small group of preschoolers sensed their teacher’s distraction and decided to make the most of it. Grabbing the sheep off her desk, the one with a big brass bell around its furry neck, Jessica shook the sheep and made the bell ring.
Recognizing her quiet signal, all the students made the universal shush signal. Except for the class hellion, four-year-old Brian, who rushed forward to tug on Curt’s sleeve. “Do you drive a tank? Are you stronger than Hercules?”
Curt just stared at the boy as if he were an alien creature before saying, “I left my tank at work. And I need to get back to it now,” he added with a pointed look in Jessica’s direction.
“Then we’ll leave you alone so you can talk to Blue for a minute,” Jessica replied with a look just as pointed. “Come along, Brian. Which book do you think we should read for storytelling today?”
Although she stepped aside to give Curt and his daughter some privacy, her class room wasn’t big enough, nor Curt’s voice soft enough to prevent her from hearing what he said to Blue. “Okay, here’s the plan. I’ll be leaving you at this facility and will return to pick you up at fifteen hundred hours.”
It was as if Curt were speaking to one of his recruits, not a child. The man clearly didn’t have a clue how to deal with his daughter, who just stared at him while nervously nibbling her lower lip.
Gathering her up into a hug as Curt made a hurried departure, Jessica said, “You’re going to be having lots of fun with us, and you’ll be seeing your daddy again before you know it.”
“He don’t like me,” Blue whispered un steadily.
“Oh, honey, what makes you say that?”
“He said so.”
Curt was behind schedule and he hated it. He prided himself on getting the mission accomplished—whether it was a mission in Iraq or registering his kid in preschool.
His kid. He still couldn’t get over the fact that he had a daughter.
It had been a hell of a week. On Monday he’d gotten the final report from the medics in forming him that the limp the sniper’s bullet had left him with would most likely be permanent and would result in his being re as signed to a desk job. Frustration at his reassignment gnawed at him. He was a doer, not a damn paper-pusher.
And what had Fate done to help him out in his time of need? Delivered an almost-baby daughter he hadn’t even known he’d had on his doorstep. That had only been three days ago.
The child welfare worker had filled in the blanks. It seems that Gloria, the earthy cocktail waitress he’d had a short interlude with in San Diego nearly four years ago before he’d been transferred and shipped overseas, had had his baby.
Curt was no idiot. He’d known that Gloria had a thing for marines and that he hadn’t been the only man in her life. But it had only taken one look at the little girl to know she was his. The straw berry-colored birth mark just above her knee matched the one he had on his own leg.
The kid was his. He had a daughter.
Presto, he was a father.
Curt knew he was totally unqualified for the job. He hadn’t known his own father, who’d taken off before he was born. But Curt wouldn’t take off on Blue. He wouldn’t desert her. He lived up to his responsibilities. He was a marine, by God.
Not that his uniform had im pressed Blue’s teacher. She’d looked at him as if he were pond scum. And ordered him around. Curt wasn’t used to taking orders from a civilian. And he hated feeling like a raw recruit who was incompetent.
So he was no pro at this pa renting stuff. How hard could it be? He was a member of the United States Marine Corps with a legacy of duty, strength, sacrifice, discipline and determination. He had a feeling he’d need all those things and more to measure up in that disapproving teacher’s book.
The minute Jessica let herself into her Lincoln Square condo, she kicked off her shoes and grabbed her cell phone. She dumped her tote bag filled with school work on the floor before sitting on the denim couch. The blue corduroy jumper she wore was baggy enough that she had lots of room to curl her legs beneath her, a pose she resorted to whenever she was extremely nervous.
Normally she’d change into com fort able sweats as soon as she got home, but today she needed to talk to her best friend, Amy Weissman, before doing anything else. She’d known Amy since they’d shared a freshman English class in high school.
“You’ll never guess who walked into my class room this morning,” Jessica said. “Curt Black well.”
“Curt ‘Bad Boy’ Black well?” Amy’s voice reflected her disbelief. “From high school?”
“The one and only.” And he’d been Jessica’s one and only in more ways than one. The only one who’d captured her heart with the total surrender of first love. The only one she’d given her virginity to. The only one who’d ever kicked her in the teeth afterward.
She didn’t have to vocalize any of those things to her best friend. Amy already knew. “Tell me he’s come crawling back to you after all these years, and you shoved his tonsils down his throat,” Amy growled, never one to be docile in her defense of her friends.
“Not exactly. He didn’t even recognize me. He came to register his daughter in my preschool class.”
“Oh, Jessica, I’m so sorry.”
Jessica closed her eyes and saw herself as a senior in high school, the nerdy brain and social misfit, the only girl in her class who didn’t have a date for the prom. And then there was Curt, the bad boy she’d had a crush on since her freshman year. When she’d run across a tipsy Curt behind the public library on prom night and he’d flashed his wicked smile at her, she’d finally given in to her feelings and they’d ended up making love in the back seat of his beat-up Mustang.
She could still remember the smell of fresh-cut grass drifting through the open window of his car, the scratchy feel of the cracked vinyl of the seat against her bare thigh, the sound of her name on his lips and the heat of his hand on her skin—the for bid den passion and the in credible outcome. Her only thoughts had been of him, her only wish to be with him.
But the next day Curt was gone. The United States Marine Corps had a prior claim on him.
Even though he’d left, Jessica had been sure that Curt would write to her from boot camp. He didn’t. She didn’t panic. Not until she skipped her period. Then she’d panicked.
Curt had come home for a few days after completing boot camp, but she’d only found out he was back thanks to a chance meeting on the street. When he didn’t even speak to her…when he instead turned away from her with an embarrassed look on his face, her heart and her foolish dreams of a future with him had crumbled.
Her period had started the next morning, the pregnancy scare over. She’d eventually gotten over the feeling of betrayal. But when he’d walked back into her life, the past had come rushing right at her. If she really had been pregnant
