Carol found the trio in the baby’s bedroom. The oblong shaped box was propped against the wall. "A Jenny Lind crib," she murmured, reading the writing on the outside of the package. For months, every time she was in the J.C. Penney store she’d looked at the Jenny Lind crib. It was priced far beyond anything she could afford, but she hadn’t seen any harm in dreaming.
"Excuse me," the delivery man said, scooting past Carol.
She hadn’t been able to afford a new crib and had borrowed one from a friend, who’d promised to deliver it the following weekend.
"Lindy, I can’t allow you to do this," Carol protested, although her voice vibrated with excitement.
"I didn’t." She looked past Carol and pointed to the other side of the bedroom. "Go ahead and put the dresser there."
"Dresser!" Carol whirled around to find the same two men carrying in another huge box. "This is way too much."
"This, my dear, is only the beginning," Lindy told her, and her smile was that of a Cheshire cat.
"The beginning?"
One delivery man was back, this time with a mattress and several sacks.
Rush followed on the man’s heels, carrying a toolbox in his hand. "Have screwdriver, will travel," he explained, grinning.
"The stroller, high chair and car seat can go over in that corner," Lindy instructed with all the authority of a company foreman.
Carol stood in the middle of the bedroom with her hand pressed over her heart. She was so overcome she couldn’t speak.
"Are you surprised?" Lindy asked, once the delivery men had completed their task.
Carol nodded. "This isn’t from you?"
"Nope. My darling brother gave me specific instructions on what he wanted me to buy for you – right down to the model and color. Before the Atlantis sailed he wrote out a check and listed the items he wanted me to purchase. Rush and I had a heyday in that store."
"Steve had you do this?" Carol pressed her lips tightly together and exhaled slowly through her nose in an effort to hold in the emotion. She missed him so much; each day was worse than the one before. The morning he’d left, she’d cried until her eyes burned.
He probably wouldn’t be back in time for the baby’s birth. But even if he was, it really wouldn’t matter because Steve Kyle was such an idiot, he still hadn’t figured out this child was his own.
"And while we’re on the subject of my dim-witted brother," Lindy said, turning serious, "I think you should know he was the one who bought you the maternity dress and the rattle, too."
"Steve did?"
Lindy nodded. "You two were going through a rough period and he didn’t think you’d accept them if you knew he was the one who bought them."
"We’re always going through a rough period," Carol reported sadly.
"I wouldn’t say that Steve is so dim-witted," Rush broke in, holding up the instructions for assembling the crib. "Otherwise, he’d be the one trying to make sense out of this instead of me."
"Consider this practice, Rush Callaghan, since you’ll be assembling another one in a few months."
The screwdriver hit the floor with a loud clink. "Lindy," Rush breathed in a burst of excitement. "Does this mean what I think it does?"
Steve wrote a journal addressed to Carol every day. It was the only thing that kept him sane. He poured out his heart and begged her forgiveness for being so stupid and so blind. It was his insecurities and doubts that had kept him from realizing the truth. Now that he’d accepted what had always been right before his eyes, he was astonished. No man had ever been so obtuse.
Every time Steve thought about Carol and the baby, which was continually, he would go all soft inside and get weak in the knees. Steve didn’t know what his men thought. He wasn’t himself. His mood swung from high highs to lower lows and back again. All the training he’d received paid off because he did his job without pause, but his mind was several thousand miles away in Seattle, with Carol and his baby.
His baby.
He repeated that phrase several times each night, letting the sound of it roll around in his mind, comforting him so he could sleep.
Somehow, someway, Steve was going to make this up to Carol. One thing he did know – the minute he was back home, he was grabbing a wedding license and a chaplain. They were getting married.
The last day that Carol was scheduled to work, the girls in the office held a baby shower in her honor. She was astonished by their generosity and humbled by what good friends she had.
Because she couldn’t afford anything more than a three-month leave of absence, she was scheduled to return. A temporary had been hired to fill her position and Carol had spent the week training her.
"The shower surprised you, didn’t it?" Lindy commented on the way out to the parking lot.
"I don’t think I realized I had so many friends."
"This baby is special."
Carol flattened her hands over her abdomen. "Two weeks, Lindy. Can you believe in just two short weeks, I’ll be holding my own baby?"
"Steve’s due home around that time."
Carol didn’t dare to hope that Steve could be with her when her time came. Her feelings on the subject were equally divided. She wanted him, needed him, but she would rather endure labor alone than have Steve with her, believing she was delivering another man’s child.
"He’ll be here," Lindy said with an unshakable confidence.
Carol bit into her lower lip and shook her head. "No, he won’t. Steve Kyle’s got the worst timing of any man I’ve ever known."
Carol let herself into the house and set her purse down. She ambled across the living room and caught a glimpse of herself in the hallway mirror as she walked toward the baby’s bedroom. She stopped, astonished at the image that flashed back at her.
She looked as wide as a battleship. Everyone had been so concerned about the weight she lost when she’d been so sick. Well, she’d gained all that back and more. She’d become a walking, breathing Goodyear blimp.
Her hair needed washing and hung in limp blond strands, and her maternity top was spotted with dressing from the salad she’d eaten at lunch. She looked and felt like a slob. And she felt weird. She didn’t know how to explain it. Her back ached and her feet throbbed.
Tired, hungry and depressed, she tried to lift her spirits by strolling around the baby’s room, gliding her hand over the crib railing and restacking the neatly folded diapers.
According to Lindy and Rush, the Atlantis was due into port any day. Carol was so anxious to see Steve. She needed him so much. For the past two years, she’d been trying to convince herself she could live a good life without him. It took days like this one – when the sky had been dark with thunderclouds all afternoon, she’d gained two pounds that she didn’t deserve and she felt so… so pregnant – to remind her how much she did need her ex-husband.
The doorbell chimed once, but before Carol could make it halfway across the living room, the front door flew open.
"Carol." Steve burst into the room and slowly dropped his sea bag to the floor when he saw her. His eyes rounded with shock.
Carol knew she looked dreadful.
"Honey," he said, taking one step toward her. "I’m home."
"Steve Kyle, how could you do this to me?" she cried and unceremoniously burst into tears.
Chapter Twenty
Steve was so bewildered by Carol’s tears that he stood where he was, not moving, barely thinking, unsure how to proceed. Handling a pregnant woman was not something listed in the Navy operational manual.
"Go away," she bellowed.
"You want me to leave?" he asked, his voice tight and strained with disbelief. This couldn’t be happening – he was prepared to fall at her knees, and she was tossing him out on his ear!
With hands held protectively over her face, Carol nodded vigorously.
For three months he’d fantasized about this moment, dreamed of holding her in his arms and kissing her. He’d envisioned placing his hands over her extended belly and begging her and the baby’s forgiveness. The last thing he’d ever imagined was that she wouldn’t even listen to him. He couldn’t let her do it.
Cautiously, as though approaching a lost and frightened kitten, Steve advanced a couple of steps.
Carol must have noticed because she whirled around, refusing to face him.
"I…I know the baby’s mine," he said softly, hoping to entice her with what he’d learned before sailing.
In response, she gave a strangled cry of rage. "Just go. Get out of my house."
"Carol, please, I love you… I love the baby."
That didn’t appease her, either. She turned sideways and jerked her index finger toward the door.
"All right, all right." Angry now, he stormed out of the house and slammed the door, but he didn’t feel any better for having vented his irritation. Fine. If she wanted to treat him this way, she could do without the man who loved her. Their baby could do without a father!
He made it all the way to his car, which was parked in the driveway. He opened the door on the driver’s side and paused, his gaze centered on the house. The frustration nearly drowned him.
Hell, he didn’t know what he’d done that was so terrible. Well, he did… but he was willing to make it up to her. In fact, he was dying to do just that.
He slammed the car door and headed back to the house, getting as far as the front steps. He stood there a couple of minutes, jerked his hand through his hair hard enough to bruise his scalp, then returned to his car. It was obvious his presence wasn’t sought or appreciated.
Not knowing where else to go, Steve drove to Lindy’s.
Rush opened the door and Steve burst past him without a word of greeting. If anyone understood Carol it was his sister, and Steve needed to know what he’d done that was so wrong, before he went crazy.
"What the hell’s the matter with Carol?" he demanded of Lindy, who was in the kitchen. "I was just there and she kicked me out."
Lindy’s gaze sought her husband’s, then her eyes widened with a righteousness that was barely contained. "All right, Steve, what did you say to her this time?"
"Terrible things like I loved her and the baby. She wouldn’t even look at me. All she could do was cover her face and weep." He started pacing in a kitchen that was much too small to hold three people, one of whom refused to stand still.
"You’re sure you didn’t say anything to insult her?"
"I’m sure, dammit." He splayed his fingers through his hair, nearly uprooting a handful.
Once more Lindy looked to Rush. "I think I better go over and talk to her."
Rush nodded. "Whatever you think."
Lindy reached for her purse and left the apartment.
"Women," Steve muttered. "I can’t understand them."
"Carol’s pregnant," Rush responded, as though that explained everything.
"She’s been pregnant for nine months, for God’s sake. What’s so different now?"
