A SEAL's Secret Baby. Laura Altom Marie

Pia’s mouth, but she made a sour face.

      Checking the fridge, he found bacon and eggs. Nothing took care of a hangover like a big breakfast. “You’re gonna like my bacon, Miss Pia. Back when me and your dad shared a place, he said I didn’t cook it long enough—actually told me the pig was still oinking. But I told him to—well, never mind what I said. Probably not anything fit for your tender ears.”

      Deacon found a frying pan and started enough bacon cooking for Ellie to have some, too. He wasn’t sure what the munchkin ate. Only knew that as long as he kept talking, she didn’t cry. Using goofball accents even earned him the occasional giggle.

      “What are you doing?” As she marched toward him, wearing black booty shorts and a pink tank top, Ellie’s scowl matched her daughter’s. “You can’t hold her next to the stove. What if the bacon splatters?”

      “Good point,” Deacon said, while Ellie snatched Pia from his arms. “Rookie mistake I hadn’t considered.”

      “A mistake that could land her in the emergency room.”

      “Whoa!” He held up his hands. “Lesson learned. Just trying to help out.”

      “Well, when she woke up, I wish you had come get me.”

      Clenching his jaw, Deacon summoned every ounce of what bit of gentleman remained in him to not let Ellie have it. What was her problem? If she hadn’t left Pia’s monitor in the kitchen, he might still be sleeping. Granted, he shouldn’t have had Pia near the stove. It’d been a mistake, but nothing worthy of this attack.

      After turning off the burner, he dumped the bacon on a plate then tossed the pan in the sink. “Where are my keys?”

      She took them from a teacup in her curio cabinet. “Here.”

      “Not sure what your issue is—” he bounced the keys in his palm “—but you need to get over it. I was only trying to help.”

      Deacon left.

      When the sound of his motorcycle’s powerful engine faded, and the only proof he’d been there was the acrid smell of exhaust drifting through the open kitchen window, Ellie finally allowed herself to exhale.

      “What just happened?” she asked her child, wishing she was old enough to hold an intelligent conversation. But then that would open an entirely new box of issues. When Pia was five or ten or eighteen, what would she think about her mother wanting to hide the fact that Deacon was her real father?

      Setting Pia in her high chair, fixing her oatmeal with raisins, and filling her sippy cup with apple juice sidetracked Ellie’s racing mind for a few minutes. But that was only a temporary fix.

      She feared what had upset her most about finding Deacon holding her daughter—their daughter—had little to do with lethal bacon grease and more to do with the fact that her baby girl had been happy. Grinning in her father’s arms. Though Ellie had known it was past time for Deacon to learn the truth, she’d been naive to assume he’d have no problem hiding the fact that he was a parent. Her carefully balanced pile of secrets was poised to topple, and as much as the thought terrified her, she realized that for Pia’s sake—and Deacon’s—full disclosure was for the best. A girl needed her father.

      Even if, in the process, the fallout destroyed her mother.

      * * *

      “I WAS SO NOT IN THE MOOD for this.” Deacon set his rebreather unit on the aft end of the Mark V Special Operations Craft. Breathing pure oxygen for hours at a time when he’d started his morning with a killer headache had only made his day worse.

      “Come on,” Garrett teased, with an elbow to Deacon’s ribs. “How can you not love practicing for disarming nukes at three hundred feet?” Unzipping his dry suit, he tilted his head back to take in the sun. “It’s the dark that gets me. The black swallows you whole.”

      “Yeah.” Deacon began the long process of disassembling and stowing his gear. They would rinse off the seawater back on base.

      Garrett joined in the mundane task, asking, “What’s up with you? You’ve been off all day—I mean, beyond your hangover.”

      “Remember our last conversation about Pia?” Deacon checked to make sure none of the rest of their team were within eavesdropping distance.

      “Sure. You take my advice and see her?”

      Deacon winced. “Yes and no.”

      Groaning, Garrett said, “Man, you’ve got to lay off the sauce—especially around your kid.”

      “It wasn’t like that.” Deacon bristled. “I wasn’t going to drink at all, but then Ellie made me crazy. One thing led to another and somehow I downed the better half of a bottle. Ellie took my keys and I passed out on her sofa.”

      “This just keeps getting better….” Garrett shook salt water from his fins.

      “So this morning, I hear Pia crying. Wanting to try my hand at the whole responsible dad thing, I handled it. Got the kid scrubbed down, and I would’ve fed her, too, but Ellie flipped. I’m cooking bacon, with Pia in my arms, and she practically accuses me of child abuse. Says I’m gonna burn her with grease. The whole scene was nuts.”

      Garrett didn’t answer, just kept messing with his gear.

      “What? You think I was in the wrong?”

      “No. Just put yourself in Ellie’s shoes. Not only did she lose her husband, but now she’s got this deep dark secret threatening to spill. Tom’s folks think the world of her and Pia. They’re her support system. What happens if she loses them, too?”

      “Hadn’t considered that.” Sitting back on his heels, Deacon strove to balance himself against the Mark V’s 45-knots-per-hour bounce. “But you told me I should take an active role in raising my kid. Now you’re saying, for Ellie’s sake, I shouldn’t?”

      “Not at all. For Pia’s sake, for sure you should. Just maybe take it a little slower. No more passing out on the couch, for one. And two, put the baby in her high chair before handling popping grease.”

      * * *

      “EVERYTHING’S PERFECT.” Tom’s mother, Helen, used a pushpin to add a pink balloon to the last pink streamer. “I doubt Pia will remember any of this, but I’m in desperate need of cheer. My granddaughter’s second birthday couldn’t be a more perfect excuse.”

      “Agreed.” Ellie dropped raspberry sherbet into a bowl of pink lemonade punch. It had been a month since she’d seen Deacon, who’d been off on another mission. It’d been over a year since Tom’s passing. Every day she hoped missing him would get easier, but if anything, the fact that he really wasn’t coming back was sinking in. The heartbreaking finality of his absence, in everything from deciding whether or not to repair the broken washer or buy a new one, to what to have for Sunday supper, was taking an emotional toll.

      Ellie’s only bright spot was Pia. She talked more every day and now had a working vocabulary of about thirty words—mostly commands for what she wanted Ellie to do. Play, hot, cold, food, ouch. How badly Ellie wanted to share these milestones with Tom. How guilt-ridden she was for not sharing them with Deacon.

      She’d invited him to Pia’s big day, but in the same breath prayed he’d stay away.

      “These are delicious.” Tom’s father helped himself to a cherry cupcake with cream cheese icing. “Ellie, you sure know how to cook.”

      “Thanks.” She glowed at the man’s kind words. Her home life had been far from idyllic, growing up, which made her cherish her relationship with Helen and John all the more. “It’s a new recipe, so I’m relieved they turned out.”

      Guests started arriving.

      Ada. Neighbors. Friends from her old Mommy and Me crowd, as well as her widow support group and new alcoholic outreach program. She’d recently begun working with Pandora, a young alcoholic