The Marine's Baby. Deb Kastner

than that. Brimming with joy. He thought the look in her eyes exactly matched her spacious, heart-stealing smile.

      How could anyone be truly happy working as a clerk at Morningway Lodge? Despite the fact that he was glad to be coming back home at last, Nate couldn’t think of anything he’d rather not do other than work here. Tucked inside the foothills of the great Rocky Mountains, this place was officially the middle of nowhere.

      Nate had always been a social person and loved being part of a crowd. It had been that way since he was a small boy.

      He couldn’t imagine spending his whole life working in such an isolated area. Coming home to the lodge now was a temporary solution to his immediate problem, until he could work out something more permanent—and more agreeable to his outgoing nature. If it weren’t for his father’s possibly life-threatening stroke, Nate wouldn’t be here at the lodge at all.

      Anywhere was better than this.

      He glanced down at the baby, who was wiggling in his arms and babbling sweet, nonsense syllables that reminded Nate of the call of a dove. Gracie leaned her whole tiny frame toward the woman behind the desk, her arms outstretched to the lady. To Nate’s surprise, the baby was smiling—the first time he could remember seeing Gracie smile since her parents had passed.

      He swallowed past the lump in his throat. Gracie certainly never smiled at him that way.

      Nate wrapped his other arm around the baby and pulled her close to his shoulder, feeling oddly possessive of the still-wiggling infant, who protested audibly at his restrictive action.

      The clerk had, perhaps instinctively, reached toward the baby, but when Nate adjusted Gracie onto his shoulder, the woman dropped her arms, choosing instead to reach for a large date book on the counter and flip through the pages to the appropriate date.

      “What name is your reservation under?” she queried in a soft, sweet voice that matched her looks exactly.

      “I—er—don’t have a reservation,” Nate stammered, thrown off by her question.

      The woman’s smile wavered. “Oh, I’m sorry, sir. We don’t take walk-ins. Do you have someone staying at the physical rehab center? I can put your name on our waiting list. I know it’s around here somewhere.” She fumbled around the desk, rifling through piles of papers in search of the elusive file. “I’m sorry if I appear disorganized. I don’t usually run the desk.”

      “That’s okay, ma’am. I’m just here to see Vince,” Nate informed her. “Could you get him for me?”

      “I’m sorry, sir,” she apologized again. “Mr. Morningway asked not to be disturbed. Would you like to leave him a message?” Mr. Morningway?

      Nate frowned and shook his head to dislodge the uncomfortable image which had formed there, the caricature melding of his pop’s and brother’s faces. His brother was getting formal in his old age, two years older than Nate’s own twenty-eight years.

      “He’ll want to see me,” Nate insisted.

      The woman glanced uncertainly over her shoulder toward the back office.

      Smiling inwardly, Nate was about to give his name when a harried-looking Vince slipped behind the booth, pushing his rectangular glasses up on his nose and then scrubbing a hand through his already ruffled hair. A surprising thatch of gray fell across his forehead, a shockingly light streak through his otherwise dark brown hair.

      “Is there a problem out here?” Vince queried the woman before he spotted Nate.

      Nate could tell the very moment his elder brother saw him, as Vince’s face creased into a frown, his brow furrowed. Nate smiled, but Vince only grunted and continued to glower.

      “Hello, brother,” Nate said, ignoring Vince’s sour-lipped expression.

      “Nate,” Vince replied, his blue eyes narrowing and shifting between Nate and little Gracie.

      Leaning close to the baby to inhale her sweet, unique and somehow calming scent, Nate fidgeted, waiting for Vince to take the lead. Even after all these years away from the lodge and his brother, Vince somehow unsettled him, which only served to annoy Nate more.

      The good son glowering at the black sheep of the family. Nate couldn’t help but think this whole idea was a gigantic mistake and wondered for the hundredth time why he had decided to come.

      “What are you doing here?” Vince asked after a long pause. His voice was a severe monotone that Nate remembered well.

      “This is my home, too,” Nate reminded him gruffly, though that wasn’t completely true. Morningway Lodge had been his childhood home, but he’d been gone for nearly ten years now. And here he stood, lingering at the front desk like a regular patron. It was hardly the same thing. “Your home?” the woman standing next to Vince echoed, her voice laced with surprise. “You never told me you had a brother, Vince.”

      “This was your home, Nate,” Vince said, glancing between Nate and the woman at his side and shrugging apologetically to her before turning his gaze back on Nate. “You left, remember?”

      Nate did remember. And he hadn’t regretted it for a single moment. He had his reasons for leaving, and Vince of all people knew what they were.

      “Jessica, this is my brother, Nate. Nate, Jessica,” Vince offered curtly, almost as an afterthought.

      Nate nodded at Jessica, wishing the woman wasn’t present to hear this interchange between him and his brother. It was humiliating.

      Grasping in desperation, Nate switched tactics. He didn’t want to argue with Vince, especially in front of a woman who was nothing more than a stranger to him. “Don’t you want to meet your new niece?”

      Vince’s expression instantly went from angry to astonished, his eyes widening to enormous proportions as he looked at the baby with new eyes. His mouth opened and closed several times without sound.

      “My what?” Vince squeaked, his voice a good octave over its usual deep tone.

      Nate chuckled. He hadn’t planned to spring this news on his brother in quite this way, but it was worth it just to see the look on his face. “Your niece. Vince, this is Gracie.”

      “I didn’t know you had a child,” Vince grated, but he reached out a tentative finger, which Gracie promptly clasped and pulled toward her mouth. Vince smiled at the baby.

      “She’s not mine,” Nate amended. “I mean, she’s mine. But she’s not mine.”

      Vince’s eyebrow shot up in surprise. He reached for Gracie, softly cooing to her. Nate was surprised at how easily and naturally Vince held little Gracie. Nate always felt like a big, uncoordinated gorilla with the baby in his arms.

      He shrugged as emotion welled in his throat. Explaining the situation to Vince was going to be the most difficult part of an entirely excruciating exchange.

      “Hi there,” Vince said, directing his words to the baby. “I’m your uncle Vince. I’m afraid your daddy didn’t tell me anything about you.”

      Daddy. Nate wasn’t sure he was ready for that word yet—or if he ever would be.

      “Like I said, she’s not mine. She is my friend Ezra’s daughter. Ezra was my battle buddy in the marines—and my best friend. He had my back in Iraq. I would be dead a dozen times over if it wasn’t for him.”

      Nate paused when his voice cracked. Shaking his head, he cleared his throat and tried again. “When Gracie was born, Ezra and his wife, Tamyra, asked me to be Gracie’s godfather. Two weeks ago, Ezra and Tamyra were involved in a fatal car accident. Tamyra died on the scene. Ezra was in critical condition for twenty-four hours before he passed.”

      Vince frowned, his blue eyes surprisingly empathetic. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

      When Nate didn’t immediately continue his story, Vince pinched his lips together for a moment, debating,