The Marine's Baby. Deb Kastner

women shared.

      He’d seen the ravages of war firsthand. He knew better than to believe in fairy tales.

      He nearly blurted out that he wasn’t looking for God, but caught himself before he said the words out loud and couldn’t take them back.

      There was no sense being rude, especially since her faith was clearly very dear to her. He retreated to his usual mode of dealing with issues he didn’t really want to address—he clammed up.

      Jess didn’t appear to notice his sudden silence, and continued thoughtfully.

      “Growing up, I lived in Los Angeles. Far too much noise and pollution for me. I’d rather have the clear, beautiful Rocky Mountains any day of the week, thank you very much.”

      “Is your family still in California?”

      She hesitated and her smile faltered, then dropped. Her gaze became distant for a moment, as if she had traveled in her mind to some other time or place; but at length she nodded.

      Nate had the impression he’d just intruded where he was not wanted. There was much Jess was not telling him, but he would not presume to pry based on their very short acquaintance. He didn’t care for others disrespecting his privacy, and he wasn’t going to disrupt her.

      He thought the best thing to do would be to change the subject. Baby Gracie’s soft babbling had turned to crying, so he reached into the playpen and plucked her into his arms. She quieted at his touch, but her eyelids were heavy and drooping.

      “Gracie needs a nap,” he commented, bouncing the little girl on his shoulder to soothe her as he crooned. “Don’t you, sweetie pie?”

      “Looks like,” Jess agreed.

      “She won’t go down unless I rock her,” Nate said, nodding his head toward the small living room, where an old wooden rocking chair stood in one corner.

      “May I?” Jess asked softly.

      “Be my guest.” Nate handed Gracie off to Jess, who seated herself in the rocker and began to hum a quiet lullaby.

      Even after a week with the baby, Nate still wasn’t comfortable when Gracie was fussy. He marveled at how quickly Gracie settled down in Jess’s arms. The woman was a natural with children.

      He leaned his shoulder on the door frame separating the kitchen from the living area and folded his arms across his chest. There was something just right in the way Jess held the baby, he observed; even Gracie instinctively reacted to it.

      Nate smiled at the pretty picture Jess and the baby made. Like a little family, almost. Ezra would have been glad to see it, he thought with a mixture of joyfulness and sorrow.

      “You’ll be a wonderful mother to your own child someday,” he murmured.

      It was the highest compliment Nate could think to give her, so he was stunned at her reaction.

      She turned eight shades of rose before her face bled to a deathly white.

      “Are you okay?” he asked when she shot to her feet, swaying precariously. Her grip on Gracie was firm, but he could see that she was shaking.

      “I—I’m sorry,” she stammered, thrusting the baby at him. “I have to go. Now.”

      With Gracie wiggling and kicking in his arms, Nate watched helplessly as Jess bolted out the front door and up the path leading away from his cabin. She was running—literally running—away.

      He shook his head, bemused. What had he said that had set her off that way? And more to the point, he thought perplexedly, how was he going to fix it?

      Jessica’s cabin was only a few doors down from Nate’s, though it was a steady, uphill climb. She walked—nearly ran—the distance in half the time it usually would have taken her.

      By the time she entered the emotional haven of her own small cabin, her chest was heaving and she was gasping for air. Her heart was racing so quickly she could hear it pounding in her ears, but it wasn’t only—or even mostly—the physical exertion causing the excruciating pain in her chest.

      She was embarrassed and shamed by her actions with Nate, running out on him as she had, without a single word of explanation.

      It was just that Nate’s off-the-cuff comment had hit her right between the eyes. He couldn’t possibly have known what he was saying, and he had most certainly meant his observation as a compliment.

      Jessica hadn’t been prepared for the maelstrom of emotions that barraged her when she once again held baby Gracie in her arms. The scene had somehow transformed into something pseudo-intimate—domestic—between the three of them.

      Nate. Jessica. Gracie.

      A home and a family had once been the greatest desire of Jessica’s heart. But she’d already gone that route, and with devastating results. If she was now alone in the world, it was because she wanted it that way.

      As much as she loved being around the baby—or more accurately because she loved being around the baby—it would be better for all concerned if she altogether avoided Gracie and her handsome marine guardian.

      If she was not careful, her heart would be shattered again, perhaps this time beyond repair.

      No, Jessica thought, not even consciously aware she was clenching her fists. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let it happen again.

      Chapter Four

      After Nate put Gracie down for a nap, he slung a dish towel over his shoulder and filled the kitchen sink with hot, soapy water.

      That was another thing about caring for an infant—the amount of dishes and laundry increased exponentially with the addition of just that one tiny baby girl. He had always had simple needs. This was way out of his realm of experience.

      Nate set to work scrubbing out baby bottles and bowls of caked-on baby cereal, but his mind was quick to wander back to earlier that afternoon, and the bizarre way Jess had acted.

      What was with the woman, anyway?

      Nate had noticed her odd behavior from the first time they’d met—the on-again, off-again, hot/cold way Jess acted whenever she was around him. Or perhaps more to the point, when she was around Gracie.

      The worst part, though, and the thing, if he was being honest with himself, that stymied Nate the most, wasn’t Jessica’s unfathomable actions at all. He might not yet understand it, but he could explain it away fairly simply. There must be a reasonable, rational explanation for whatever it was that was bothering her, and eventually, he would figure out what that reason was.

      But at the moment, he was dwelling on something else entirely—that flash of time frozen in his mind when the three of them were together in the living room. Jessica’s presence had formed it into a homey, domestic atmosphere unlike anything Nate had ever experienced before.

      Well, maybe that description was pushing it. His cabin was no more than bachelor’s quarters littered with a brand-new smattering of baby items. Not exactly what anyone would describe as homey.

      But it wasn’t so much how the situation had looked. It was how it had felt.

      And Nate really liked that feeling.

      He realized he was daydreaming and snorted at his own silly behavior.

      What was he thinking?

      He used the dish towel to scrub his face and force his mind back to the present. His cheeks carried a week’s growth of beard on them—because, for the first time in ten years, he could go without shaving.

      He shook his head. He’d been alone for far too long to be conjuring up fantasy families in his mind, where none existed in reality.

      Still, the idea of a family wasn’t completely without merit.

      Tamyra, Nate remembered, had rounded out Ezra, taken the rough edges