At Her Service: His Baby! / Major Attraction. Julie Miller

she told him. “It says right on the box that they’re ninety-eight percent effective. They gave themselves an out clause.”

      “Hmm … clever and ineffective.”

      Stewing about how and why a condom failed was useless. She’d learned that herself eighteen months ago. Better to just deal with the reality and accept it. “Jeff, what happened, happened for a reason.”

      “You believe that?”

      “I do,” she said, and put every ounce of her conviction into the words. She meant it. Every time she looked into Emily’s little face, that feeling grew. There was a reason for that baby. A reason she’d been conceived against all odds. A reason she’d come into the world at all.

      Just because Kelly didn’t know what that reason was, didn’t negate it.

      “Wish I knew what it was,” he murmured.

      “Does it really matter?” she asked, and hoped he’d say no. For Emily’s sake, she didn’t want her baby’s father to be regretting the child’s existence.

      A long minute passed before he answered her, and Kelly didn’t realize she was holding her breath until it whooshed out of her chest when he spoke.

      “No, it doesn’t.”

      “Good,” she said, feeling relief sweep through her. For Emily’s sake, she told herself. It was only Emily’s feelings she was concerned with here.

      Turning her around in his grasp, Jeff faced the ocean again and drew her close, her back to his front. Wrapping his arms around her, he held her tightly and said, “Tell me about it.”

      “It?” she asked, reaching up to lay her hands on his crossed forearms.

      “Your pregnancy. Labor. Delivery.” He shrugged and she felt the motion ripple through her. “I want to know everything. Everything I missed.”

      His voice carried a silent plea that arrowed into her heart in a swift, sure thrust. He had missed so much, she thought. He’d come home from a series of dangerous missions to discover a daughter he’d known nothing about. And now he was trying, the only way he could, to become a part of that little girl’s life. To know her as her mother did. To be more than the man who’d created her.

      To be her father.

      Kelly’s heart ached sweetly, and she caressed his arms with gentle, soothing strokes.

      Somewhere off to the east, the sun was rising, reaching out with warm hands to caress the night sky and draw pale, soft colors onto its surface. Five stories below them, a handful of surfers in wet suits were already in the cold water, paddling out on the glassy ocean, waiting, hoping for waves to begin a slow curl toward shore.

      And while the world woke up, Kelly talked.

      Jeff listened and as she spoke, his mind created images to go along with the words. In his imagination, he saw Kelly, round with his child. Going to work, playing with the kindergartners she so clearly adored. Unwrapping clumsily wrapped presents for the baby. Hearing the baby names twenty five-year-olds had come up with.

      He saw her in the doctor’s office. Felt her excitement at her first ultrasound when she actually saw Emily inside her. And he also felt a flash of regret that he hadn’t been there, holding her hand, staring at that screen and trying to make out the features of his child on a fuzzed-out screen. He listened to her talk about her brothers and tried not to resent the fact that it had been the Rogan brothers who’d been there to help her, not him. They’d mowed her grass, taken her grocery shopping, set up Emily’s crib and painted the nursery. They’d been there for their little sister at the most important time of her life, while Jeff hadn’t even had a clue as to what was going on.

      A flash of useless, directionless anger shot through him with the force of mortar fire, lighting up his insides. Even knowing that it wasn’t his fault … that he hadn’t known … didn’t seem to help.

      When she described her labor, though, Jeff was torn between being grateful he’d missed the opportunity to see her in pain and more regret that his hadn’t been the hand she’d clung to. No, that job had fallen to Kevin Rogan. The oldest brother. The man who’d taken his first opportunity to punch Jeff dead in the face.

      And damn if Jeff could find it in him to blame the guy.

      “Then,” Kelly was saying, and he gave his attention back to her, “Emily was there and the doctor was holding her up like a bowling trophy.” She laughed and Jeff smiled to hear it. “And Emily, she opened her eyes and I swear, Jeff, she looked right at me. The doctor swore that she couldn’t see anything, but I know different. Emily looked at me as if asking, ‘What the heck is going on around here, Mom? What’s all the noise about?”’

      He chuckled and rested his chin atop her head, seeing it all through her eyes, wishing he’d been there to see it all for himself.

      “Then he laid her across my chest,” she said, her voice so soft he had to strain to hear it. “And she stared into my eyes, took hold of my finger in the tightest grip you could imagine and in that instant, she slipped right into my soul.”

      Tears stung his eyes and Jeff was so surprised, he blinked frantically to keep them at bay.

      A long minute passed before she sighed and told him fondly, “Kevin was crying like a baby.”

      Jeff scowled at the thought of the man who clearly hated the sight of him, being the one to witness the miracle of Emily’s birth.

      “He pretended he wasn’t, of course,” she was saying. “No Marine, on pain of death, would ever admit to that, but then you know that, don’t you?” “Damn right,” he agreed, and blinked more quickly.

      “I wish you could have been there,” she murmured.

      A cold, tight fist squeezed his heart until it felt as though it were being wrung from his chest. “So do I, baby,” he said softly, and kissed the top of her head. In fact, he knew that for the rest of his days, he would be sorry he’d missed out on so much. It was a time that could never be recaptured. The magic couldn’t be revisited.

      No. There was nothing he could do about the past.

      But the present and the future were up for grabs.

      His mind raced, going first in one direction, then another, trying to find places, spots where he could infiltrate Kelly’s and his daughter’s lives. He wanted—no, needed—to be involved in what was happening now.

      God knew, he didn’t know anything about family life. And even less about children. But that little girl was his baby. A part of him. And he wouldn’t be denied the chance to be in her life. To have her know him. To be something more than he ever had been before.

      And then it hit him.

      Keeping his voice even, he asked, “Who watches Emily when you’re at work?”

      She stiffened slightly in his arms, and Jeff knew she was all set to get defensive. Well, he’d just have to disarm her. Shouldn’t be any more hazardous than dealing with a land mine.

      “Don’t you start, too,” she warned, her voice as stiff as her posture.

      “Start what?”

      “Kevin is forever giving me grief about Emily being in day care for half a day. I don’t need the two of you double-teaming me.”

      “Hey, hey. Don’t shoot!”

      “What?”

      “Take your finger off the trigger, baby,” he said quietly, turning her in his arms again until he could look down into her eyes. No way was he going to be set alongside Kevin Rogan in her eyes as though they were a team or something. “I’m not in a position to give you grief over any decision you’ve made for Emily.”

      She relaxed just a bit, but not by much. “Okay,” she said,