His Baby Bonus. Laura Marie Altom

about it.

      It was four thirty-seven by the digital clock on his dash when he pulled into the rear of a relic of a motel with individual cabins for rooms. On the outskirts of the Mendocino National Forest, the place was surrounded by more of the dark, eerie, dense forest that was starting to be a major pain in his ass when he spotted Gracie’s car behind the last unit.

      He killed his lights and engine a few cabins back. Took his time getting out of his car, rolling his shoulders, trying to work out Gracie-induced kinks.

      Every cabin save for one was dark, so he headed toward Cabin Eight with its bluish TV glow.

      When she’d been little, and sick or upset from a bad day at school, his sister Gillian had liked to fall asleep in front of the living room TV.

      Maybe Gracie was the same?

      He peered through the inch or so between the curtain and wall. A lone man sat up in bed, sipping a Coors.

      Great. Now what?

      Beau yawned. Rubbed his eyes. Headed for the motel office.

      Of course, at this time of the morning it was closed, but he wailed on the bell regardless.

      “I’m comin’, I’m comin’.” A wisp of an elderly woman who didn’t at all match her booming, gravelly voice flicked on lights in a shabby reception area. “You want me to open the door,” she shouted through thin glass, “show me you got money for a room.”

      “How much?” Beau asked.

      “Forty.”

      He flashed two twenties.

      She unlocked the door.

      “I’ll need your license,” she said from behind a counter she could barely see over.

      “Here’s the thing,” he said, setting the cash on the counter. “My wife is already here, so I’ll just need the number of her room.”

      The clerk raised her eyebrows.

      “She forgot to charge her cell, otherwise, I’d just call.”

      Tapping a vintage black rotary-dial parked beside his left elbow, she said, “Here you go. Each cabin has its own line. Only one single gal girl staying with us tonight.” She wrote a number on a pad that said Alpine Lodge across the top.

      Beau flashed his star, then smiled. “You know, I really hate waking her. How about you please tell me which cabin is hers.”

      “How do I know that badge is real? For all I know, you bought it off the Web. You could be some serial killer.”

      Beau sighed. “Never mind, ma’am. Thank you for your time.”

      He turned to leave.

      “Take your money. I don’t deal with any of you late-night sickos.”

      Tucking the money in his wallet, Beau headed back out into the night.

      One by one, he knocked on cabin doors. “Housekeeping!”

      “Get a life, bud!”

      “Maintenance! I’ve gotta unplug your john!”

      “Screw you!”

      Five doors later, a cop pulled into the dirt lot, lights and siren blazing.

      “Good girl,” Beau said under his breath about the desk clerk he’d apparently correctly pegged as the type to call the law on him.

      “Freeze!” the cop said, gun and flashlight aimed at Beau as he emerged from his car. “Okay, now slowly raise those hands.”

      Wincing from the blinding light, Beau did as he’d been told.

      Glancing off to his left and right, out of the light’s glare, he saw that just as he’d hoped, lamps flicked on and draperies parted in all but cabins Three and Fifteen. The former had been the one Gracie’s tank was parked closest to, so Beau deduced Cabin Three was hers.

      The cop asked, “Mind telling me what you’re doing out this hour of the night, knocking on sleeping citizens’ doors?”

      Beau said, “I’m a deputy U.S. Marshal down from Portland.”

      “Right.” Rolling his eyes, the cop said, “And I’m Santa. Let’s see some ID.”

      Beau obliged, and five minutes later, after the officer made a few calls and found his story checked out, Beau was free to go.

      “Ho, ho, ho,” the now jovial cop said. “Sorry to rain on your parade.”

      “Not a problem,” Beau said.

      Once he was again alone, and all those lamps had gone out, Beau trudged to Cabin Three.

      He gave Gracie the benefit of a courtesy knock, then worked magic on the lock with equipment he didn’t officially have.

      Inside, he quietly shut the door.

      Gracie was sitting up in bed, hands curved around her bulging stomach, looking prettier, softer, more fragile than she ever had.

      For an instant he looked away, hating to think himself the cause of her grim expression. If only she’d get it through that thick head of hers that he wasn’t the problem, but the solution.

      “I’m so tired of this,” she said softly. And she did look tired. Even in the dim light leaking in from the Alpine Lodge’s blue neon sign, he saw circles under her eyes. “Can’t we just be friends?”

      “I wasn’t aware we weren’t.”

      She sighed. “Come on, Beau. Enough games.”

      “We’re now on a first-name basis?”

      “You know what I mean.”

      “Yeah,” he said, drawing the room’s one chair up to the head of the bed. “I do.”

      “So then this is it? You agree to let me go on to San Francisco? Alone?”

      He laughed.

      “This isn’t funny, damn you, it’s my life.”

      “I’m not disputing that.”

      “Then why are you acting this way? Like my wanting to take my hard-earned spot in a prestigious competition is wrong? I mean think about it, this is the Olympics for cooks. People kill for chances like…” As her words trailed off, she tucked her lower lip into her mouth.

      “Oh man,” he said with a groan. “You’re not going to cry, are you?”

      “Maybe.” She looked up, slaying him with her baby blues. Only in this light, he couldn’t even really see them, just a shimmer. It was only in his mind those eyes could hurt him. And because he knew that, because he was savvy to her every trick, he pulled his cuffs from his back pocket and slapped one on her wrist.

      This time, she laughed, only it wasn’t at all funny sounding, but laced with raspy tears. “I was trying to be serious. You know, open up. But it’s obvious you couldn’t care less how I feel. All you care about is getting your man.”

      “Yeah, but you’re a woman,” he said. All woman. Which was why he had to stay strong.

      “I’m not going to run again,” she said.

      “I know.”

      Her face brightened in a smile so hopeful, so lovely and pure that it clenched his gut with ridiculous desires. Silly stupid things like wanting to hold her and protect her and beat the crap out of anyone who dared ruin her pregnancy’s peace. “Does that mean you finally trust me? That you agree I should do the competition?”

      “No.”

      “Then what? It has to mean something that you finally believe I’m done running.”

      “Oh.” He flashed her a slow grin. “It means something, all right.” He slapped