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She didn’t have to think about Danny Murphey again until 0730.
“WHEW.THAT WAS CLOSE,” Danny told himself as he passed Ally’s house. He made a U-turn farther down the street, then cruised back up and idled in front of a house a couple of lots down from hers. He figured he’d best reconnoiter the situation first. If there really was a man in Ally’s life, he wanted to know about him. He damn sure didn’t want to intrude on somebody else’s domestic tranquility. If there was any.
For a woman who’d placed her career before him, Ally sure had a homey little house. Hell, it was everything any woman would want, except for, maybe, the missing picket fence. But then, he wasn’t sure they even made them anymore.
The lawn was neat and tidy, and mounds of brightly colored flowers lined the sidewalk. Window boxes dripped with some ivylike stuff, and the tiny front porch had one of those clay pots with the holes in the sides. He couldn’t see what she’d planted in it, but he’d bet something was there.
He watched as the lights went on, making the cozy-looking house look even warmer, more welcoming. First in what must have been a kitchen, then the living room and then in a room toward the far end of the house, which must have been her bedroom.
A quiver of envy for the man who had slept with her crept to the front of his mind, but Danny pushed it back. He was here to see if anyone else came home before he confronted Ally one more time.
As much as she had protested that the child she was carrying was not his, something in his gut told him it was. If another man did show up at her house tonight, then Danny would quietly back away and no one would be the wiser. If she was alone, then he’d take his chances.
Tonight might be the only chance he’d get.
Danny waited until the sound of his stomach grumbling seemed to drown out the radio. So far, no man had driven up, and he figured that both he and Allison still had to eat. He might be eating for one, but Ally was eating for two.
He could go pick up a pizza. If a man did turn up, he’d be able to tell because Ally’s garage was made for one car. If there was another car in the driveway when he got back, he’d drive on by.
Besides, if the way to a man’s heart was through the stomach, surely it was the way to a pregnant woman’s, Danny thought as he pulled away from the curb and headed back to a strip mall he’d passed on the way. He’d noticed a pizza place there. He just hoped they were quick.
WAS THIS WHAT PEOPLE MEANT by nesting? Ally wondered as she contemplated lighting the gas logs in the living room. Maybe September was a little early for a fire, but the gray sky outside and the promise of rain made her long for the coziness a fire in the fireplace provided. She liked the notion of being cocooned and safe and warm.
With the sudden appearance of Danny Murphey in town, her comfortable world seemed threatened. She shivered with unease and hugged herself to ward off the uncomfortable feeling. Then she lit the fire. She had a gas fireplace so she could easily turn it off if the room got too hot.
She settled down on the couch, comfortable now in cozy socks and an extra-large sweatsuit, and tucked her legs beneath her. She’d eaten her soup, and she was enjoying a cup of hot chocolate, her one indulgence for today—not counting the chocolate cheesecake she’d shared with Kathie at lunch. The fire, the chocolate, the comfy clothes made her feel safe and secure.
Then somebody rang the doorbell.
Reluctantly, Ally uncurled from the couch and made her way to the door. For a moment, she regretted not having a peephole or a window near the door. It was probably just one of the local kids selling candy for fund-raising or something like that. She’d always supported their causes, and saw no reason to stop now. Plus, she’d have a sweet on hand when the urge struck.
But something made her pause before she opened the door. Some little shred of caution made her call out, “Who is it?”
“Delivery service,” came from a muffled voice to the other side of the door.
Ally wrinkled her brow. She didn’t remember ordering anything recently. “Are you certain you have the right house?” she called through the still-locked door. “I’m not expecting a delivery.”
“Is this 924 Allegheny?”
“Yes.”
“Your name Carter?”
Whoever it was knew her name. She wasn’t certain whether to acknowledge that or not. “Just leave whatever it is on the step,” she suggested. That was what they usually did.
“Look, lady. I gotta get a signature here. You either sign, or I take it back. Makes no difference to me. I gotta get moving, though. You ain’t the only delivery I got tonight,” he added, a note of irritation entering his voice.
Allison hesitated, undecided what to do. She often got deliveries this late and, on occasion, out-of-stock items that had finally arrived so long after she’d ordered them that she’d forgotten all about them. She supposed it could be one of those.
“All right.” She pretended to call toward the back of the house. “It’s okay, Fred. It’s just a delivery-man.”
She opened the door, and Danny Murphey, carrying a pizza box, stepped inside.
“Why don’t you invite Fred to join us,” he said sarcastically as he lowered the box. His tone told her he wasn’t fooled by her ruse, and his cocky grin, so familiar and endearing, opened his handsome face.
“You know there’s no Fred,”Ally said. She couldn’t decide whether to be pleased or annoyed at Danny’s ingenuity. And she was flattered at the same time. All she knew was that she had eaten a light dinner and right now the pizza smelled awfully good. Her mouth watered, and her stomach clamored in agreement.
Still, she stood her ground by the door, held it open and pointed outside. “There’s the exit,” she said. “Please use it.”
Danny simply strode past her, placed the pizza box on the coffee table by the half-empty mug of chocolate and lifted the lid. The rich aroma of tomatoes and spices, stronger now that the box was open, filled the room.
The pizza was tempting, but she had to get Danny to leave. Again, she pointed the way. “I said, get out.”
Her effort was futile. Danny ignored her and made himself comfortable on the couch. He selected a wedge of pizza and took a bite.
“It’s really good,” he said, his mouth full.
He chewed for a moment while Allison stood by the door and wondered what to do.
Danny patted the couch cushion beside him and took another bite. “There’s plenty for both of us,” he said, gesturing toward her with his half-eaten slice.
An empty spot in her stomach that she hadn’t realized she hadn’t filled earlier, plus the fragrant steam coming off the pizza, weakened Allison’s resolve. She closed the door, careful not to turn the lock in case she needed to open the door in a hurry.
The pizza ploy had finally worn her down. Darn it. And as much as Danny’s attitude annoyed her, she still loved the man. In spite of herself. In spite of everything. Of course, Ally was aware that Danny might be irritating and exasperating at times, but he was a good man. He would never hurt her. Not physically, anyway. It was what he might do to her heart that really worried her.
“Thank you for the pizza, Danny,” she said, using sarcasm to disguise her gratitude as she reached into the box and selected a piece. She settled into a chair across from the sofa where Danny sat.
“I figured I could get you with black-olive-and-mushroom pizza,” Danny said, looking smug.
But Ally was too hungry to argue; she let his remark ride.
Neither of them spoke as they ate. Finally, there was one piece left. “Do you want it?” Allison asked.
Danny shrugged. “Nope. I’ve had plenty. You’re eating for two, remember?”
It was the first mention of the baby. However, the comment seemed innocuous enough. Ally shrugged. “All right, I can put it in the fridge for later. Are you going to leave now?” Maybe her question was rude, but the tension of having Danny so close was wearing on her. She had to consider the baby.
“Won’t be long,” Danny said with a satisfied expression. He held out his hands. “I have to wash up.”
“Oh. Sure,” Ally said, pointing toward the back of the house. “Second door on the left.”
Wondering why she hadn’t just sent him to the kitchen, Ally watched Danny go. She couldn’t help noting his well-shaped butt as he went, and she mentally chastised herself.
Danny wasn’t gone long. “You sure you’re not gonna eat that piece?” he said as he sat back down.
“You can have it if you want it,” Ally replied, loath to admit that she really could have downed that last piece.
“And I said you were eating for two and you need it,” Danny reminded her. “Take it.”
As she did, Danny reached for her wrist and held her fast by the hand.
“Wh-what do you want?” Ally stammered as she let go of the slice and tried to free her trapped hand.
Danny held on and looked at her with angry green eyes. “Come off it, Allison. You know exactly what I want. And if you don’t, let me spell it out for you. I know you well enough to be damned sure that you wouldn’t have tumbled into bed with me if there had been anyone else in your life. I also know that you don’t leap casually from man to man and bed to bed.
“I did a little recon while I was in your bathroom,” he continued. Danny released her hand, and Ally rubbed it reflexively. “I saw no evidence of a man having been there. Not on even a semipermanent basis,” he said with satisfaction. “And unless you’ve had a personality transplant since we went our separate ways, you haven’t been sleeping around. I figure you didn’t hook up with anyone soon enough after we were together to already be having his baby.”
“Get to the point, Danny,” Allison managed to say, though she was pretty sure she knew what he was about to say. How she found her voice or the strength to get up off the couch, she didn’t know.
“That baby is mine,” he said with as much certainty as he would his own name. “I figure we have a few things to settle.”
Allison paled visibly, her olive skin taking on a greenish cast, and Danny figured he’d hit the truth right on the mark.
He should have felt good about that, but it wasn’t the triumph it might have been. After all, the woman had lied to him, even though it had been by omission. And if he hadn’t just happened to walk into her classroom this morning, she might have kept right on doing so.
Ally swallowed, or maybe she gulped, then she swallowed again. “What do we have to settle?”
Ally wasn’t that dense, so obviously she was still trying to stonewall him. “Give it up, Ally. That’s my baby you’re carrying.” He’d wanted Ally from almost the moment they’d met, and now he wanted the child. And it would require more than an on-the-knee proposal to get that to happen. Hell, he’d been there, done that, and the wedding hadn’t happened.
Ally grew paler yet, if that was possible. “No,” she protested. “She’s mine.”
“She? You mean you already know what you’re having and you hadn’t even bothered to tell me I am going to be a father?” Danny said, disgusted.
“I’m not sure what sex the baby is, but I thought it would be easier to think of it as a her.”
She stopped. Why was she explaining to him? “It takes more than being a sperm donor to be a father,” Allison countered.
She might not have realized it, but that pretty much cinched things for Danny. She had all but admitted the baby was his.
“So, is that what you had in mind the night you paid for my services?” He didn’t know whether to be insulted or flattered.
Appearing none too steady on her feet, Allison sank slowly back to the couch. “I didn’t pay for…services,” she said weakly.
Danny arched an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah. You might not have paid me, but you damn sure paid somebody. Did you get your money’s worth from that bachelor auction?”
Allison gasped and reacted as though he’d slapped her in the face, but the color that had drained from her cheeks had begun to return. “That auction was for charity,” she protested.
“Oh, so you’re telling me that your showing up to bid on me was a convenient accident. There’s no way you can convince me that you just happened to be hundreds of miles away from here and in Florida the very Friday I was drafted into that…” He groped for the right word. “That…blasted auction.” To even finish the thought was too absurd.
“‘Coincidence’? Is that the word you’re looking for, Danny?” His indecisiveness had apparently allowed Ally to find her voice. She went on. “Yes, it was a pure coincidence. I was in Florida, at Hurlburt Field, for a conference. I just happened to run into an elderly lady as I was on the way into the dining room for dinner. She said that her niece was supposed to have come with her and couldn’t come. She offered me her extra ticket.
“It seemed like fun,” she added, shrugging. “I was facing a long night alone in the hotel before I could get my flight out in the morning, so I took the ticket. I didn’t know you’d be there. If I had, I would never have…” She let her voice trail off.
“I just wanted a way to kill an evening. I didn’t have anything to read, and I’d gotten tired of staying inside and watching television…to keep from running into you,” she added in a voice so low that Danny almost didn’t hear it.
That admission proved to him that Allison wasn’t nearly as over him as she claimed to be. “So you decided it was time to have a baby, and you knew that I’d be a willing sperm donor. Well, I have a news flash for you, Allison. I didn’t donate anything to you. What you took, you took under false pretenses. My half of the DNA of that baby—our baby—was stolen! I wonder what a judge would have to say about that!”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I wouldn’t what?”
“You wouldn’t take this to court,” Ally said weakly. How had it come to this? What had seemed like such a simple solution to her need to be a mother had suddenly become very complicated. There was no way she was going to give Danny any more ammunition to use against her. “Besides, we used protection.”
“Which you could easily have sabotaged!” Danny countered.
Ally rolled her eyes. She started to say something, but bit back her retort. She didn’t want to argue. “Go away, Danny. Leave me alone,” she said tiredly.
She had to get herself together. Maybe she had been wrong in sleeping with Danny when they were no longer together, but she’d sensed that they’d still had a connection even after two long years apart. She’d hoped that they might be able to reconnect, create a future for themselves this time.
Then he’d ruined it all, assuming that by sleeping with him, she had suggested that she would change her mind about giving up her career and all that she held important. He’d told her that he wanted to take care of her, as if she were a child, incapable of thinking and doing for herself. The pure arrogance of the man!
Until that moment, Ally’d had such high hopes that they might still have a future. Then she’d heard him utter those words. He didn’t know that she’d heard his confident declaration that night while she was asleep—or so he’d thought. In the cold light of the morning after, she’d known that they weren’t going to make it as a couple.
Until Danny changed his attitudes, they couldn’t be together.
“Please, Danny. Leave us alone. All this anger and stress aren’t good for…the baby,” she murmured. She hated to play the baby card, but it was the only thing she had left. And she didn’t have the energy to deal with anything else tonight.
Maybe not ever.
“Okay, Allison. You win for now, but this is in no way over. Not by a long shot.” Danny pushed himself to his feet and headed for the door, but then he turned back and looked at her over his shoulder. “I will be back to finish this.”
That was what Ally was afraid of, but she wasn’t going to say it. She didn’t need to provide Danny Murphey with any clues to what she was thinking, anything that he might use against her later on.
She watched, vainly trying to keep her lips from trembling. She managed to keep from breaking into tears until he’d gone, then she hurried to the door and locked it.
As she walked away, thinking she should have been relieved that Danny was gone, a sudden barrage of pounding against the door almost gave her a heart attack, and she clutched at her throat as she tried to get her heartbeat to return to normal.
“Come on, Ally. Open up.”
“No,” she shouted through the door. “I can’t deal with anything else today.”
“I forgot something,” Danny called.
Ally closed her eyes and drew in a deep, weary breath. If she didn’t let him in, he’d make enough noise to disturb the neighbors. They’d been okay with her unwed status, but she wasn’t sure her standing in the neighborhood would be enhanced by Danny’s making a scene.
She glanced around the room for what he might have left. “I don’t see anything, Danny. What is it?”
“Let me in.”
She just couldn’t continue to let Danny bother the neighbors, so she reluctantly opened the door. He seemed to fill the doorway with his handsome presence, and Allison instinctively stepped back. “All right, get it and get out. What did you forget, anyway?”
“This—” he said, grabbing her by the shoulders and hauling her to him.
Chapter Three
Of course he shouldn’t have done it, but the moment he stepped out the door, he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight until he’d tasted her lips again. By God, he was going to kiss her. Considering he was about to be shipped out to the Middle East soon, this might be his last chance.
He had looked down into Ally’s dark gray eyes and saw fear. Her heart had beat frantically against him as he pressed her to his chest. She’d balled her fists, but she hadn’t struggled. He hated that he’d made her afraid, and he had to try to assure her that he had no evil intent. But, how the hell did he do that? If he tried to explain, she’d only argue with him. Ally had always been so much better with words than he was.
