Her Baby and Her Beau

And yes, that would have crushed a part of him.

But even then, even before becoming a marine, Beau had had a marine’s mentality. Honor, courage and commitment—those were the words he’d stenciled over his bed when he’d read that they were the core values that defined a marine. He’d been eleven. And from that moment on they were his values.

Sure, it would have taken courage and stamina to endure losing his opportunity to go to Annapolis. Courage to face all of his family with news that he’d gotten a girl pregnant.

But he would have done it. And he would have honored his responsibility to that girl and to that baby. He would have made the commitment to them that needed to have been made. He would have taken the responsibility that was his.

If he had known, he would never—ever—have abandoned Kyla.

And not only because of those Marine Corps values.

The truth that he alone knew was that he probably would have viewed it all as an excuse to do what he was fighting not to do every day at that same time—get on a bus back to her and Northbridge.

He was seventeen. Flooded with hormones. And a beautiful, smart, funny girl had, suddenly that summer, become what he wanted as much as he wanted to be a marine.

He’d been so in love with Kyla that he hadn’t been able to see straight and he’d physically ached to get back to her.

It had taken the will of a marine to get him to choose, each day, not to turn his back on everything he’d ever been about and just get himself to wherever she was.

If he’d been handed that letter then, if he’d opened it and read it, nothing would have kept him away from her.

It would have been his sign from the universe that he was meant to change his course. Because that was what he’d been wondering at the time—if meeting Kyla had been a fork in the road that fate had created because maybe he was meant to choose her instead...

Hell, even as a marine, every time he’d been in a situation that he might not have come out of alive, he’d wondered if maybe he was supposed to have chosen Kyla and a life with her over a life in the service.

But his great-grandfather hadn’t had any doubt about what choice was to be made.

So Beau had become a marine.

And Kyla had lost the baby.

And gained every reason to think he was the scum of the earth.

That twisted him up inside.

Over the years he’d never forgotten her. She—and that summer with her—were some of his best memories.

Whenever he’d thought of her, he’d wondered what had happened to her, where she was, what she was doing. A couple of times he’d told himself that if he came out alive he was going to look her up. He’d fantasized that when he did she wouldn’t be married or have kids and maybe they’d click all over again.

So much for that.

Although something had clicked for him...

When he’d wondered about her he’d also wondered if she would still look the same, and she did. Better, actually, even bruised and clearly weary and unwell and dressed in sweats that were too big for the body that had rounded only in the right places.

The spark and the glimmer were still in those honey-colored eyes that weren’t like any others he’d ever seen—the dark amber of the beer he liked.

Except for that bad bruise on her temple, her skin was flawless now, with not a single imperfection to distract from lips that were just full enough to make them outrageously kissable. From high, apple-round cheeks that had always had a natural blush to them and made her look as though the sun hadn’t been able to resist kissing her, either. A natural blush that anger had tried to bring back tonight, so he was confident it had only been lost temporarily.

She hadn’t smiled at him earlier, but even so he’d been able to see the hint of the dimples that would appear when she did. Tonight they had only been small indentations that reminded him of what they could become. Of the way they made every smile beam. And how much he’d liked bringing them out.

Her hair was still the same color—reddish-brown, silky and shiny. But she wore it differently than she had when they were teenagers. Now it was shorter and it framed her face—and since it was a face so worth framing, he liked it. He also liked the section that had fallen over that bruise—it added a little spice to that girl-next-door look of hers.

She was just a beautiful woman, blossomed from the beautiful girl she’d been.

And his very first instinct when she’d stepped out of that motel room door had been to wrap his arms around her and hold her so tight she couldn’t get away again.

So, yeah, something had clicked for him.

And why, of all the things that he needed to be fitting into place, that was the one that had, he didn’t understand.

For two months now he’d been struggling to get something to feel right. He was like a fish out of water in civilian life. Everything seemed so unorganized. So inefficient. So undisciplined. People were lax. Too much was at ease too much of the time.

He sure as hell didn’t feel as if he was on the same wavelength as his family. They were trying hard. He was trying hard. Maybe they were all trying too hard. But either way, he felt like an outsider. A stranger. He didn’t know what they were talking about most of the time and he didn’t feel as if he had anything to contribute himself.

He hadn’t found a position he wanted in the business. Everything was running perfectly well without him, and board meetings pretty much went the same way family social events did—he didn’t know what the issues were and he certainly didn’t feel as if he should interrupt what was already running smoothly by putting his two cents’ worth in.

He was just failing at reacclimating all the way around.

And then tonight...

Seeing Kyla again was the first time since he’d taken off the uniform and put on civvies that something had clicked.

It was probably just some kind of throwback to the past. After all, they didn’t really know each other—not the people they’d grown up to be.

And Kyla had had years to hate him after only a few months when things had been good between them. She’d had fourteen years to live with her reality—that he’d left her pregnant and alone to deal with it rather than stepping up, taking his share of the blame and responsibility, and doing the right thing by her. Fourteen years with every reason to hate his guts and for that to have taken deep, deep root. To be ingrained in her.

Which made things a whole lot different than they had been that summer.

But nothing changed the mission, and he told himself to keep his goal in sight, to maintain his focus.

The mission was to make amends by helping her, and that’s what he was going to do.

And if, in the process, it provided him with a temporary distraction from all his failures to assimilate, and he got the chance to let her know that he wasn’t some lowlife who had turned his back on her or on his baby and his responsibilities to them both, the mission would be a complete success.

But as for the clicking?

That was nothing.

That was an emotional component and he knew what to do with it—ignore it. Keep it in check. Proceed as if it didn’t exist.

Which was exactly what he would do.

* * *

Kyla jolted awake at the soft knock on the motel room door at the stroke of 9:00 a.m. She was sleeping sitting up in a chair.

Not that she’d intended to fall asleep. The chair was near the room’s window and she’d been watching for Beau.