Colonel Daddy

Steeling herself with that thought, she unsnapped her seat belt, opened the truck door and swiveled to climb out.

“Kate?”

She turned to look at him. With a helpless shrug she said, “If you start kissing me now, Thomas, we’ll never get anything settled.”

He pulled in a deep breath, held it, then exhaled in a rush. Nodding briskly, he muttered, “You’re right. First things first.”

When they met at the back of the truck and he took her arm to escort her into the restaurant, though, he paused, waiting until she looked up at him. “But you have to know how much I want you, Kate.”

She shivered beneath his touch and the fiery sparks in his eyes. “Believe me, Thomas,” she assured him. “I know.”

The Pasta Pot was small, and the crowd friendly. A veritable jungle of flowers and ivy spilled out of baskets hanging from the wide oak beams overhead. Candles dotted every table and the flickering flames looked like fireflies in the atmospheric gloom.

On a weeknight, there was no wait for a table, and Tom walked behind Kate and the hostess to a corner booth in the back. Once their orders had been taken by a waitress who attended them promptly, Tom turned his full attention on Kate.

“It’s pretty,” she said, glancing around the room as the muted strains of Beethoven floated to them from the overhead speakers.

“Food’s good, too,” he said.

Her gaze slid to his. “This is so weird.”

“Yeah,” he agreed and reached across the gleaming oak table to lay one hand over hers. “But we’ll work it out.”

At that, something inside her seemed to burst. She started talking, and the words poured from her like water from an upended bucket

“I can’t believe this is happening,” she started with a shake of her head. “How can we do this? How can we get married? We hardly know each other.”

“We knew each other well enough to make a baby,” he pointed out.

“A baby.” She propped her elbows on the table and cradled her head in her hands. “Ohmigod. How can I be a mother?” she muttered, more to herself than to him. “I can’t cook, I don’t sew,” she threw him a wild look. “I can’t even bake cookies, for Pete’s sake! Shouldn’t a mother know how to bake cookies? Isn’t that a requirement?”

“I don’t think so,” he said and tried to smile. “As far as I know, you don’t have to be able to chop wood, stoke a fire or slaughter your own meat anymore, either.”

She groaned and shook her head. “You don’t understand, Thomas. I don’t even keep plants. They always die. No matter what I do,” she went on, now tangling her fingers together and squeezing. “Too little water, too much water, no fertilizer, too much fertilizer, sunlight, shade...doesn’t matter. I kill ’em all.”

“Kate...” He smiled. “It’s not the same thing.”

“An indiscriminate plant killer, Thomas.” She met his gaze, and he saw with heartstopping clarity the sheen of tears beginning to well in her eyes. “I’ve been blacklisted in every garden nursery from here to Guam. So I ask you,” she added as she blinked those tears back, “is this the kind of person who should be a mother?”

He slid closer to her on the maroon leather booth seat and pulled her into his arms for a quick hug. Something inside him tightened painfully, then relaxed again with an almost painful release. “You’ll be great” he said confidently.

“How can you know that?”

“Because you care so damn much,” he whispered. “That’s all the baby will need. Heck, that’s all the three of us will need to make this work, Kate. Caring.” He ran one finger along her cheek gently. “If we care enough, everything else will take care of itself.” Tom repeated that last phrase to himself silently and hoped to God he was right. “Trust me, Kate.”