The Sergeant's Baby. Bonnie Gardner

last seen her six months ago. Except for her swelling belly, she was still petite and slim. Her jet-black hair was pinned up in a businesslike manner in deference to her job, but Danny remembered that it shone like black silk and smelled of roses when he pulled out the hairpins and let it tumble loose around her shoulders. How he’d loved to rake his fingers through her long locks.

      He shook the image out of his head. No, he couldn’t keep thinking of her that way. Ms. Carter—he had to think of her as that—had finally excused the class, giving them a little over an hour to eat at either the base chow hall, the Servicemen’s Club or some other nearby eating establishment before class reconvened. Jake Magnussen, the guy who had walked in late with him, had jerked his head for Danny to come on, but Danny waved him off. “I want to ask the instructor something,” he had said, and Magnussen went on without him.

      Danny was now alone in the room with Allison Carter, the woman who’d been a major player in his dreams for the future. “I guess congratulations are in order,” he said slowly, trying mightily to temper his anger and disguise his pain. He hated like hell that Allison—his Ally—might realize just how much her rejection had hurt him.

      Ally looked up from busily policing her stuff. Obviously startled by the sound of his voice, she nearly dropped the notes she’d been gathering. “Oh,” she squeaked, “I thought I was alone.”

      “I said,” Danny repeated, pausing for effect, “that I thought I needed to congratulate you.”

      Her expressive, dark eyebrows knitted in consternation above her gray eyes. “For what?”

      “Your marriage…so soon after leaving my bed.” The Ally he knew might have wanted a career and family, but he didn’t think she would want it alone. He hadn’t meant to mention his bed, but his hurt had won in the battle between manners and truth.

      How could she have gone from him to another man so quickly, and seemingly without a second thought? Not the Ally he loved.

      “Your husband doesn’t mind that you haven’t taken his name?”

      “Husband?” she asked. “I’m not married. What made you think I was married?”

      Danny arched an eyebrow and glanced pointedly at her swelling stomach. She might still be wearing regular clothes, but the way her skirt was hiked up over her rounded belly was a sure indication that maternity clothing was not far away. “I’ve never known you to overeat, so I don’t think that bulge around your middle has anything to do with the usual kind of weight gain.”

      “No…it doesn’t,” Allison said.

      She paused, and Danny wondered if she would deny it.

      “Yes, I am pregnant,” she finally admitted.

      “When are you due?” Danny asked bluntly. He might have a stake in this. After all, he was as capable of counting as anybody else. Though six months had passed since he and Ally had been together and they’d used protection, accidents did happen. From what he could see, six months was about how far along she was. After all, he came from a large family, and he’d seen a lot of pregnant women in his thirty-three years. But then, he reminded himself, Ally was a small woman and any weight gain would be magnified on her tiny frame.

      “That, Sergeant Murphey, is none of your business.” Allison snatched her papers off her desk and scurried out a side door, closing it firmly behind her.

      “None of my business, my ass,” Danny muttered as he stared at the door. He’d wanted to spend his life with this woman. He deserved to know the truth. “I will find out if you’re carrying my baby if it’s the last thing I do.”

      Then he pivoted sharply and headed after Jake Magnussen.

      Even though he wasn’t the least bit hungry. At least, not for food.

      ALLISON SANK into her desk chair and tried to slow her racing heart. Her fingers trembled as she fumbled with a stack of notes on her desk. Finally, she gave up any pretense of trying to pretend that Danny’s…reaction had surprised her.

      She’d never imagined that Danny might turn up in her classroom. He’d caught her off guard.

      If she’d been thinking at all, she would have thanked him for his congratulations and let him go on assuming what he had. It would have saved them both a lot of heartache. But no. She had pretty much given him more reasons to wonder.

      She’d once expected to make a life with Danny. Had dreamed of growing large with his child. But when he’d issued that stupid macho ultimatum that she relinquish her job once they were married, she had walked away.

      Funny, she had known that he’d had a traditional, blue-collar upbringing, and she’d certainly enjoyed some aspects of his protectiveness toward women. But she’d always assumed that she’d be able to persuade him to see her side of the issue. His refusal to bend on that one important aspect of her life, however, had definitely been a deal breaker. There was no way she’d ever spend her life dependent on a man who intended to orchestrate her life in the manner her mother had always believed was proper.

      Raneea Hassim Carter had met and married Allison’s father when he was an exchange student at the university in Tamahlya, Raneea’s home. In spite of her traditional upbringing, they’d fallen head-over-heels in love, and Raneea’s forward-thinking, college-professor father had given them his blessing. Though Raneea had attended university, she’d been content to take on a passive role in their marriage, as her grandmother had, and her mother, and her mother before her, even after she and her husband had come to the United States. She’d seldom ventured from the house and hadn’t made much of an effort to learn the language of her new country.

      Ally’s father died when Ally was a senior in high school in Chicago, and Raneea had been unable to accept the idea of getting a job and supporting her child. Even if she had wanted to, the language barrier would have been insurmountable. For that matter, she hadn’t even been able to manage something as simple as paying the bills or balancing her checkbook. That had been a real eye-opener for Allison. Finally, her mother had gone back to Tamahlya to live with her family, and only the fact that Allison had, by that time, already entered college, kept her from being forced to leave the country herself.

      Yes, she had loved her mother, but she would never allow any man to rule her life. She’d found her mother’s behavior so abhorrent that she’d never really wanted to understand her or her Tamahlyan family. Courses in college had given her some appreciation of the culture she’d come from; but by then it had been too late. Her approach to life had been formed.

      Allison sighed, realizing that her memories had replaced her upset. Fortunately, she did not have to teach the afternoon session. But she did have to eat lunch. Even if she wasn’t hungry, she had someone else to think about.

      Rapping on the jamb of her opened door startled her, and Allison looked up with a jerk.

      “Sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you,” Kathryn Palmore said. “When you didn’t come to my office, I thought you might have forgotten our lunch date. Is there a problem with your class?”

      Boy, was there! But no way would Allison drag Kathie into it. She simply shook her head. “Just tired, I guess.” She placed her hand over her expanding belly. “I didn’t think carrying an extra little person around, even one this tiny, would be so exhausting.” It was the truth, just not the answer to the question that Kathie had asked.

      “Been there, done that,” Kathie said with a laugh. “And you’ve been deprived of the pleasure of coffee, to boot. I swear, that was the hardest part of having all my kids. Well, the last two, anyway. The first time, they still hadn’t come up with the no-caffeine rule. Or maybe I just ignored it.” She made a dismissive motion with her hands.

      Allison pushed herself up out of the chair. “I’m with you on that one. Decaf’s better than nothing, but barely. And I’m already sick of being so tired that I have to go to bed early. That is definitely for the birds.”

      As she took her jacket off the chair back, realized that Danny