Mom In Waiting

“I can’t explain it, really,” she said as a single tear sneaked from the corner of her eye. “But it just doesn’t feel right.”

“Right? Of course it’s right,” he argued. “We love each other.”

Meg shook her head. “I can’t marry you. Not now. Not like this.”

“When, then?” he asked, following her as she backed up toward her house.

“Rick, please understand,” she said in a strained whisper. “I don’t...I can’t...” She shook her head, turned around and bolted for the safety of her house.

Left alone in the dawn silence, Rick had taken what was left of his eighteen-year-old heart, wrapped it up in his battered pride and gone home himself. The next day, he’d left early for college, spending the summer working as far away from Juneport, Oregon, as possible.

Meg wrote to him, months later, apologizing again before informing him that she was now engaged to marry his best friend, John Bingham.

By then though, he’d already come to believe that Meg had done them both a favor by backing out of their plans. Love’s wounds are deep, but when you’re young, they heal fairly quickly.

Once out of college, Rick had entered the Marines as an officer. He liked his job. His life. And every once in a while, he silently thanked Meg for having been smarter than he was so long ago.

Besides. Five kids? No matter what dear Aunt Tracy thought, the idea of five kids was enough to give him cold chills. Of course, since he was in no hurry to get married, that wasn’t something he bad to worry about.

He’d managed to avoid any permanent entanglements for thirty-two years. Not that he had anything against marriage as a general rule. Rick squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. He came from a long line of Happily Ever After marriages. Not one couple on either side of his family had ever been divorced, and he had no intention of being the first.

God knew, he’d seen first hand just how tough military life was on spouses. Relationships crumbled with sad regularity. Rick wasn’t about to get married when he knew damn well that he couldn’t give a wife the kind of attention and devotion she had a right to expect.

He was a Marine, first and foremost. And not many women could understand, let alone accept that.

“So,” Tracy asked, and her voice brought him out of his reveries, “what are your brothers up to? Have they made you an uncle yet?”

Rick laughed at the idea. “Heck, no. There’s not a woman alive who’d be willing to put up with either one of them.”

“Oh, very nice,” she said, a soft smile on her face.

Had she always had that tiny dimple? he wondered.

“They’re in the Marines too, aren’t they?” she asked.

He nodded. “Andy’s a lieutenant and Jeff is a gunnery sergeant. They’ll both be home for the reunion.”

“And you’re looking forward to seeing them.”

“Oh, yeah.” The Bennet family hadn’t all been together in one place in years. “It’s been way too long.”

“Imagine. All three of you becoming Marines.”

“Not so hard to figure with a retired sergeant major for a father.”

“No, I guess not.” She laughed, and Rick smiled at the soft, almost musical sound of it. Something inside him tightened as he realized he was really enjoying himself.

With Tracy.

Scowling, he told himself to keep his mind on his driving and off the idle fantasies beginning to swirl through his brain.

“Do you remember,” she asked next, “when Andy swiped your bike, left it on the beach and it went out on the tide?”

Grateful for the distraction, he asked, “Remember it?” Shaking his head, he said, “The guy still owes me thirty-five dollars for that bike. I delivered newspapers for months to earn the money to buy it.”

“Poor baby,” she cooed.

“No sympathy from you, apparently.”

“Of course not,” she said on a laugh. “That’s one of my best memories. Andy gave me a ride on the handlebars that day. I was with him when the bike went for its long last swim.”

“You’re kidding!” He glanced at her, then looked back at the road.

“Would I kid about a thing like that?” She shook her head and laughed at the memory. “We swam out into the ocean, chasing that darn bike, but apparently King Neptune needed some transportation, because it disappeared real quick.”

He tried to imagine the young, hopelessly awkward Tracy, swimming out to sea after a bike, but looking at the woman beside him made it darn near impossible. “He never said anything to me about that.”

She lifted her chin, crossed her heart with her fingertips, then held up the regulation three-fingered salute. “Partners in crime do not squeal on each other.”

“Until now?” he asked.

Tracy nodded. “I think the statute of limitations has about run out.”

“That’s what you think, Spot,” he said, unconsciously using the nickname he’d christened her with one long ago summer. “I’ll be settling up with each of you now. Your share comes to seventeen fifty.”

Tracy didn’t say anything for a long minute.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Going to refuse to pay up?”

She still didn’t speak. He glanced at her and noted the wide, surprised look in her eyes. “You called me Spot.”

“So I did,” he said on a chuckle. Strange. Where had that come from? He hadn’t thought of that nickname in years. But he certainly remembered the reason behind it. Every summer, Tracy’s freckles had dotted her cheeks and nose as if someone had splattered her with soft peach paint. And, as he recalled, she wasn’t very fond of his making fun of that fact. “Huh.” He changed lanes and spared her another look. “Sorry, don’t know why that popped out.”

“Oh, don’t be sorry,” she said and reached out to place one hand on his arm.

Rick’s gaze dropped briefly to her long, slender fingers against his tanned forearm. Hot, jagged bolts of electricity seemed to hum from her touch, reverberating deep inside him. Mouth dry, he told himself it was simply a normal male reaction to a pretty woman. But it was more than that and he knew it. She pulled her hand away too quickly for his tastes. But even after their connection had been broken, the echo of that surprising sizzle of heat lingered.

He rolled his window down, hoping the cool outside air would work on the sexual heat barbecuing him from the inside out.

“God, it’s been years since I’ve even thought of that name,” she whispered, half to herself.

“I don’t know what made me think of it,” he admitted. But being with her like this...memories filled the car like the scent of childhood summers.

He shifted in his seat again. What he was feeling at the moment had nothing whatever to do with the Tracy he remembered from years ago.

“I never told you,” she said, her voice low and thoughtful, “how much that nickname meant to me.”

“What?” He steered the car into the far right lane. Less traffic meant he could shoot her another look. Her blue eyes looked misty, shimmering. And entirely too beautiful. “As I remember it, you were less than happy with me at the time.”