Prince Charming in Dress Blues (12 page)

“Hard to have a water fight by yourself,” she muttered and leaned back on her heels. Her shoulders hurt, her knees were aching, but half the flower bed looked decent again. At least she’d accomplished
something.
She certainly hadn’t gotten much work done.

And even winning the contract with the diaper company hadn’t been as satisfying as it should have been, because John hadn’t been there to share in it.

“He’s doing this on purpose, you know,” Annie told Jordan, and her daughter looked at her through wide blue eyes as if asking what in the heck she was talking about. So Annie explained. “He’s staying away on purpose. Making me miss him. He thinks it’ll drive me so crazy being without him that I’ll give in and call.” She waved her trowel in the air like a sword. “But he’s wrong. I won’t call. And I won’t miss him. Not anymore.”

Jordan blew a spit bubble, telling her mother quite plainly what she thought of that statement.

“Okay, so I will miss him. But I’ll get over it. Eventually.” Sighing, she added, “Shouldn’t take more than another twenty or thirty years.”

From inside the apartment the phone rang, and Annie reacted like a firehouse dog. Snatching up the baby, she sprinted for the porch, taking the steps two at a time. Flinging open the screen door, she paused long enough to lay Jordan down in the playpen before racing for the phone, now on its third impatient ring.

“Casual,”
she told herself breathlessly. “Be casual.” She picked up the receiver. “Hello?” There. Warm. Friendly. Casual.

“Anne?” the female voice on the other end inquired through a burst of static. “Is this Anne Foster?”

Annie sighed and leaned against the kitchen counter, trying to fight off a wave of disappointment. “Yes, Mother, it’s me.”

“That should be
I
, dear,” the woman corrected.

“Whatever,” Annie muttered, then louder asked, “How are you and Father?”

“We are both in the best of health, Anne. Your father sends his hellos.”

Hellos, not his love, Annie thought and wondered
when she would ever stop hoping they would change. And a little voice inside reminded her that someone else had offered her love just a couple of weeks ago and she’d thrown it right back in his face.

Ironic, huh?

“I’m calling to let you know that we won’t be home this summer after all.”

The static rattled terribly, and Annie moved around the kitchen, futilely hoping to fix the connection. But her mother kept talking and by the time it was clear, all Annie heard was “…a fascinating discovery, really.”

“That’s wonderful,” she said, because she knew it was expected.

“What’s that?”

“I said, that’s wonderful, Mother.”

“Ah,” her mother said, apparently out of conversation. “Well then, I’ll call again next month.”

Annie gripped the phone more tightly and shouted to be heard over the growing disruption on the line. “I had the baby, mother,” she said, knowing her mother wouldn’t have been keeping track of such minor things as the birth of her first granddaughter. “A little girl. Jordan’s beautiful.”

“Well how nice, dear. I’m sure your father will be pleased.” The line popped, hummed and then sputtered on her mother’s last words. “We’ll be in touch.”

Then Annie was holding a phone listening to nothingness. Useless, ridiculous tears spilled over the edge of her eyes and rolled unheeded down her cheeks. One more time, she thought, feeling the pain of knowing she didn’t matter to the two people she should have mattered to most. With shaking hands, she hung up the
phone and walked into the living room, where Jordan lay on her back, studiously examining her toes.

Dropping to the floor beside the playpen, Annie looked in at her daughter and wished she could have given her sweet baby the family, the father she deserved. But she’d had her chance, her heart whispered, and Annie felt a new, sharper pain replace the old ache.

John had offered her his love, and she’d turned him down. She hadn’t trusted him or herself, and now he was gone. She couldn’t fool herself anymore. He wasn’t going to call. He wouldn’t be dropping by. She was alone. Just her and her baby—and thinking anything else would simply be giving in to fantasy. She’d been stupid. And so damned foolish.

And she was realizing it all too late.

Unless—

She came up on her knees, brushed the backs of her hands across her cheeks to wipe away the tears and looked in at Jordan. “What do you think? Should I call him?”

The baby gurgled something nonsensical that sounded like an agreement to Annie. So before she could change her mind or chicken out or logic herself out of this, she got up and hurried back to the kitchen.

There on a pad beside the phone was the number John had left for her. Snatching up the receiver, she swallowed her pride and dialed the number.

“Staff Sergeant Jackson,” a male voice announced after the first ring.

“Peter?”

“Annie? Hey, how you doing? Lisa’s been wanting to get you and the baby over for dinner and—”

“Soon,” she said. “Is John around? I mean, is he too busy to talk to me for a minute?”

A long pause ticked past, and she wondered if John was standing there in the office, coaching his friend into lying to her on his behalf. Finally, though, Peter said, “Uh, Annie, John’s in Florida. Didn’t you know?”

Her heart sank. Funny, she’d read that description in countless books and never really knew what it meant. Now, she knew all too well. A black hole opened up at her feet, and she felt herself slipping into it. “No,” she said numbly. “No, I didn’t.”

“Geez, honey, I thought sure he would’ve told you. His dad had a heart attack.”

She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. He’d had a family crisis and he hadn’t called to tell her. To let her offer to help. “Is he—”

“He’s all right. Hell, it’d take an act of God to kill a Paretti.”

She was pretty sure a heart attack
was
an act of God, but that wasn’t the point, now was it? The point was, John had obviously done what he’d said he was going to do. He’d left the Corps. He’d gone to Florida to run the Paretti Computer Corporation. And he’d left her behind without so much as a goodbye.

“Annie?” Peter asked, and his voice sounded far away, buried beneath the thundering in her ears. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said, and hoped to heaven her friend believed the lie. Then she added, “Say hi to Lisa for me, all right? Bye, Peter.”

“Sure,” he answered, “talk to you soon.”

Carefully, deliberately, she hung up the phone, severing her last connection with John Paretti. Then, her
back braced against the wall, she slid down, down, until she was sitting on the cold, linoleum floor. Drawing her legs up, she wrapped her arms around them and buried her face there.

And John’s face rose to the surface of her mind, and she clung to it like a life raft tossed into a churning sea.

“W
hat do you mean, you don’t want the job?”

John stared at his father’s flushed face and fought down a stab of guilt. Hell, the old man had only just survived what his doctor was referring to as a wake-up call. The mild heart attack hadn’t been enough to put the fear of God into Dominick Paretti, but it had given him some pretty strong ammunition. And he wasn’t above using it now.

The old man laid one hand on his desk and opened the other against his chest, grimaced tightly and sent John a glance from beneath half-lowered eyelids. When he saw that his youngest son wasn’t panicking, he let his hand drop to the arm of the chair and dropped the pretense as well. “Even a heart attack’s not enough to get you back here to help out, eh?”

Ah, guilt. His parents’ preferred weapon of choice. And damned if they didn’t fire it accurately.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” John asked, and took a seat opposite his father’s desk.

“Yeah,” Dom said on a sigh as he pulled open the bottom right drawer of his desk, “but you’re not staying.”

He’d planned to, John thought. He really had. Figured that his father’s heart attack was a sign, telling him that he should leave the Corps. Run the family business.

But then on the flight to Florida, he’d had time to think. And when he’d arrived to find his father already recovering and as ornery as usual, he’d done even more thinking. Now that the trouble was past and his brothers had gone back to their homes, John was still here, taking another week or so of personal leave to sort things out.

And the simple truth of the matter was, Annie was right. She’d accused him of not following his own advice, and damned if she didn’t have a point. His heart would never be in the computer industry. He was a soldier, a professional military man, and that’s how he liked it. His life was built around the Marines, and changing it would only make him—and anyone around him—miserable.

“No,” he said softly as he watched his father pull a bottle of bourbon from the drawer and set it, along with a couple of glasses onto the desk. “I’m not. And you’re not supposed to be drinking.”

Dom shrugged, pulled open the top drawer and dug out two cigars. Handing one to his son, he kept the other and clipped the end off. “It’s not the bourbon and cigars that brought that twinge on.”

“It wasn’t a twinge,” John told him, leaning forward to accept a light, “it was a heart attack.”

“Angina.”

“Same thing.”

“Christ, who’s the father here?” Dom asked, and leaned back in his chair. Puffing on the cigar, he smiled to himself, then waved a hand at the bottle. “Maybe it’s just as well you’re not staying. Bad enough I have to hear lectures from your mother. Damned if I’ll take ‘em from you.”

“You don’t listen to anybody,” John told him. “Never have.”

“Then we’re a lot alike now, aren’t we?” Dom asked, one dark eyebrow lifting. Then he looked at his youngest son for a long minute before saying, “Pour us a drink, son. You look like you’ve got something to say that’ll go down a lot easier with aged whiskey.”

Late-afternoon sunlight peeked between the folds of the curtains hanging across the wide window overlooking the front yard. Dust motes danced in the sliver of light that played along the spines of the books lining the walls in tall shelves. It was a man’s room, John thought, and knew his mother probably never ventured into Dom’s inner sanctum. Which was, no doubt, why the older man felt completely safe indulging in his favorite vices.

Sighing to himself, John surrendered and poured each of them a short drink, splashing the amber liquid into crystal glasses. When he passed one to his father, he shook his head as the old man tossed the liquor down his throat in one gulp.

Dom saw the expression on his son’s face and muttered, “Don’t look so damn grim. Crisis over.”

“This time.”

“Hey, nobody lives forever.”

“Great attitude.”

“You know,” Dom said, shifting to lean both forearms on his desk, “if I wanted another lecture, I could just call your mother in here and have done with it. So how about you just say what you have to say.”

“I already did,” he said. “I’m not staying. I can’t take over the company.”

“Don’t suppose it’d help if I clutched at my chest and moaned?”

Had to give the old man credit. “No,” he said, smiling, “it wouldn’t.”

“Yeah,” Dom muttered. “Didn’t work with your brothers, either. Bunch of hardheads, the lot of you.”

“Wonder where we got it?”

The older man smiled slightly.

“You don’t need me, Dad. You need someone who knows computers. Someone with ideas for the company’s growth,” he reached into his memory for everything Annie had shouted at him just a week or so ago. “Like installing faster modems, building a more user-friendly Internet home page…”

Dom leaned in and gave his son a narrow-eyed, suspicious stare.

So John kept talking. In a few minutes he’d rattled off every idea Annie had had. At least, the ones he could remember. And as he looked at his father, he knew he had Dom’s attention.

The old man tapped his fingers along the edge of the ox-blood leather desk blotter until the tapping sounded like the drum section of the Corps band. Finally, though, he stopped, tilted his head to one side and looked at his
son. “Thought you said you didn’t know anything about the business.”

“I don’t,” John said, leaning forward himself. “But I know someone who does.”

“This is a
family
company,” his father reminded him.

“She’ll meet that criterion soon enough,” John told his father, hoping to hell he’d be able to convince Annie once he got hold of her again.

“Is that right?”

A gleam of interest sparked in Dom’s eyes and John knew he had him. Nothing the old man liked better than fresh ideas and someone to talk about them with.

“So who is this computer wizard?”

“Her name’s Annie…”

Summer was just around the corner. Already the days were getting warmer and longer. The kids in the neighborhood were out on their skateboards, and the older ones were strapping their surfboards into their car racks.

The ocean breeze winding its way down the narrow street carried the scent of summer on it and seemed to be enticing everyone to come to the beach. From her spot on the tree-shaded front lawn, Annie paused in her weed pulling to ease back and watch the Hollis kids from across the street playing catch with their dad.

A small nudge of regret poked at her heart as she tore her gaze from her neighbors to look at Jordan, lying on the quilt beside her. The baby was so big now. So much her own person. At three months old, Jordan was wide-eyed and interested in everything. What would
she be like at three years? At thirteen? Would she still be happy? Would she miss having a father?

She certainly wouldn’t have any memories of the man who’d loved her so much. And that didn’t seem fair. Or right. John Paretti had stormed into their lives in the nick of time. And just like a fairy-tale Prince Charming, he’d been there whenever they’d needed him.

And then, rather than acting like the princess in the story, Annie had turned into a wicked witch on him. She’d closed the door on a future, thrown his declaration of love back into his face and sentenced herself and Jordan to a life without him.

“I really screwed up, sweetie,” Annie said, and dusted her hands together, getting rid of most of the dirt. “You love him. I love him. And I let him walk away—no, I did worse than that. I ran him off.”

Jordan gurgled and Annie kept talking. Not that she was saying anything new here. She’d been telling herself these same things for the past few weeks. Every day that passed and the phone didn’t ring. Every time the mailman didn’t deliver a letter from John. Every time she drove past the gates of Camp Pendleton.

She’d had it all, and she’d been too stupid to see it. And why? Because she’d assumed John was no better than Mike Sinclair. She’d condemned him on no evidence, mind you. Just the fact that they were both men. Well, male, at any rate, since John Paretti was three times the man Jordan’s father had been.

Too bad she hadn’t realized that in time.

“You know,” she said aloud, considering, “we could always fly to Florida. Go visit John. Talk to him. If he doesn’t throw Mommy out of his office. Maybe if I just went to him, told him that I love him, maybe—”

“It’s worth a shot,” a deep voice from directly behind her said.

Jordan giggled, one of those deep-down from the belly giggles that only babies seemed to have mastered.

“John?” Annie pivoted on one knee and watched him approach, smiling. And, oh, boy, did he look good in his uniform. Her heart thundered in her chest, her throat tightened and still she managed to squeeze out two words. “You’re here,” she said, unnecessarily.

“Came straight from the airport,” he told her, dropping his duffel bag onto the lawn. His gaze shifted toward the baby, then back to Annie. She almost
felt
his stare, like a touch. It had been so long, she thought. And it had almost been forever. She didn’t know why he’d come back. Didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Didn’t want to waste what might be her last chance.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, standing up and brushing at the dirt clinging to her knees. Wouldn’t you know that when she saw him again she’d be sweaty and dirty from the garden? Ah, well, she wouldn’t let opportunity’s knock go unanswered again.

“Are you?”

“Oh, yeah,” she assured him, as she silently pleaded with the butterflies in her stomach to take a seat. “But I’m sort of surprised, too. Peter told me you went to Florida. That your dad had had a heart attack.”

“All true.”

“How is he?”

“Cranky as ever,” John said with a smile.

“I’m glad.”

“Thanks.”

Well, she thought, this was going nicely. They’d
talked more in the first few minutes when they’d met. Although she had been throwing a lamp at him at the time.

Where were all her brave ideas now, huh? She’d been longing for the chance to talk to him. To tell him that she’d been stupid and cowardly. That she loved him and wanted him. That she wanted them—the three of them—to be a family.

And now that she had the chance, her tongue felt too thick to form the words.

“I had to see you,” John said, breaking the silence between them, for which Annie was grateful.

“You did?”

“Yeah,” he said, bracing his legs wide apart and folding his arms across a chest that looked even broader than she remembered. “I’ve got a job offer for you.”

“A
job?
” she repeated, feeling twin peaks of disappointment and anger jab at her insides. This is why he’d come to her? About a job? She’d been missing him, realizing she loved him and he wanted to hire her for some dumb job?

Her own fault, Annie thought. She’d taken his love and tossed it. John was a proud man. No way would he come back and give her a second chance to brush him aside. Nope. Now it was up to her to win him back.

“I don’t care about the job,” she said, taking a step toward him.

One black eyebrow lifted. “You don’t?”

“Uh-uh.” She shook her head, then pushed her hair out of her eyes with one grubby hand. “When I found out you went to Florida without even saying goodbye…”

“There wasn’t time,” he said.

“That’s when I realized something I should have
known all along,” she said, interrupting him and not caring. “I love you, John. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to. And God knows,” she added with a strained laugh, “I’d be a lot less scared if I didn’t love you—”

“I hear a
but
coming,” he said, watching her through wary eyes.

“But,”
she said, “I’d be a lot less alive, too.”

One corner of his mouth quirked into a half smile, but he didn’t say a word. He just waited.

She couldn’t blame him. He’d already proclaimed himself, and she hadn’t exactly greeted that proclamation with open arms.

“I love you,” she said again, relishing how the words felt on her tongue, hoping he would believe her. Hear the truth in her voice, see it in her eyes. She’d never thought to say those words again in her life, and the fact that she was being given the opportunity was the greatest gift she’d ever received. “Jordan loves you. We missed you so much when you were gone.
I
missed you so much. We weren’t complete anymore without you. And we don’t ever want to lose you again. So I guess what I’m saying is, we want to marry you.”

At last she’d surprised him. She saw it in his expression, and she took heart in the gleam of hope she saw shining in his eyes.

“You do, huh?”

“We do,” she said firmly. “We want to marry you and move to Florida and help you with the family business and we want to have more babies. We want to be a family. A
real
family.”

“And what if I’m not running the family business?” he asked, reaching out to stroke one hand down the length of her arm.

“Huh?” She blinked up at him. “But you went to Florida—you said that you were going to leave the Corps and—”

“I know what I said,” John told her, his voice tight with the want that had brought him here as soon as his plane had touched ground at Orange County Airport. “But I did some thinking, too.”

“Yeah?” she asked, stepping up closer still, laying her hand on his chest. He felt warm for the first time in weeks.

“Yeah.” John swallowed hard, laid both hands on her shoulders and promised himself to never let go again. A soft ocean breeze ruffled her hair, stirring the curls into a dance about her dirt-streaked face. She’d never looked more beautiful to him than she did at this moment. “You were right, you know.”

“About what?” Her gaze moved over his features and he caught the sheen of unshed tears in those lake-blue depths.

“About me taking my own advice. I told you to follow your heart, but I wasn’t listening to my own.” He shook his head slowly and smiled just a little. “I’m no business man. Not even for my father can I leave the Corps. I have to be who I am—or I’m no good to anyone.”

She lifted one hand and touched his cheek. “Who you are is plenty. For anyone.”