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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.
She’d been up with Immy four times during the night. Four times when Immy had again been unhappy, crying and refusing to take much formula.
And even when the baby had finally gone back to sleep and Kyla had been able to return to bed herself, she’d had trouble dozing off again. Thinking about Beau, about the past, and trying to figure out any way she could refuse his services had kept her up even more than Immy had.
Unfortunately she’d arrived at the same conclusion each and every time—for Immy’s sake she had to accept Beau Camden’s help. Temporarily.
And now that was upon her.
Stiffly, she pushed herself out of the chair and went to open the motel room door.
She’d been hoping that he might have looked better in the darkness last night than he would in the stark light of day. Instead the reverse was true and summer sunshine just emphasized how incredibly handsome he’d grown up to be. And one glance at him instantly thwarted her best intentions not to notice it.
Freshly showered, his strikingly angular face cleanly shaven, dressed in jeans and a simple white crew-neck T-shirt that hugged each and every one of his finely honed muscles, it wasn’t humanly possible not to notice that he was one very, very hot man.
“Hi,” he greeted her, sounding tentative.
“Hi,” she responded with resignation and no warmth whatsoever.
“Bad night?” he guessed after giving her the once-over.
Just what every girl wanted to think—that it showed. Especially when she was facing a drop-dead-gorgeous guy.
“Pretty bad,” she confirmed without going into detail. Poor Immy was going to get the full blame because Kyla wasn’t about to let him know he’d contributed to her sleeplessness.
He peered over her head at the crib inside the room. “Is she asleep now?”
“For a little while. It won’t last—she isn’t eating. I think she needs the formula she’s used to instead of what I have.”
“We’ll stop and get some on the way,” Beau was quick to assure her, as if her wish was his command. “I’ve got a state-of-the-art car seat ready and waiting, belted in by people who knew how to do it the right way, in the backseat. Think we can move her into it without waking her up?”
Kyla shrugged. “Rachel and Eddie could pull it off sometimes. I know I can’t—I’m really clumsy when it comes to lifting her with this wrist.”
“I’ll give it a try. Let me load up your stuff first. Why don’t you sit down again and—”
“There’s just this,” she said, pointing to the white plastic trash bag beside the door. “That’s everything.”
“Okay.” He reached in and grabbed it, taking it to the rear of the SUV and depositing it there. Then he opened the door behind the driver’s seat—apparently that’s where the car seat was—and leaving the door open, he returned to her.
“The guy who set up the car seat talked me through where the belts and straps go. If I just get her into it I think I have that part straight. How hurt is she?”
“The doctors and nurses said she isn’t injured at all. I’ve been worried about it, but I haven’t seen any sign that it hurts her to pick her up or hold her or change her diaper or anything. I...” This was going to sound crazy. “I actually rolled her in bubble wrap to get out of the fire and I guess it helped. The hospital was mostly worried about her lungs—from the smoke. But as of yesterday her lungs got a clean bill of health, too. And the way she’s been exercising them, I’d have to say that they’re fine.”
“Bubble wrap?” he repeated, almost cracking a smile.
Stuck on the crazy part. That figured.
“I had it to wrap a pitcher I was going to take home to Darla, so it was right there and...I just rolled Immy in it—everything but her face—in case I dropped her or something, then I wrapped another blanket around the bubble wrap and out we went...”
“Fast thinking,” he said as if that was something he approved of.
“That happens when the place is on fire and the roof is caving in,” she said, deflecting his approval.
He nodded. “So it won’t hurt her to pick her up?”
“It doesn’t seem to, no.”
“And...like I said, I don’t have any experience with babies... Do I just scoop her up?” he asked, demonstrating by holding out both of his hands, palms up, and thrusting them forward.
“She’s not hurt, but she’s kind of delicate just because she’s only eight weeks old,” Kyla warned, alarmed by the force in his demonstration. “You have to be careful with her—one hand under her head, neck and shoulders to support them, the other under her rear end.”
“Got it.”
Kyla felt less confident than he sounded, but she made way for him to come into the room and followed him to the crib, mentally willing the infant to stay asleep. And Beau not to drop her.
She kept an eagle eye on him, but unlike his bravado at the door, he was infinitely cautious when he actually reached for Immy. In fact, he went at a snail’s pace, easing his big hands under her and raising her from the mattress as if she were a bomb that might go off at the slightest jarring.
Which actually wasn’t far from the truth, in Kyla’s experience.
But this time Immy didn’t so much as whimper even as Beau straightened up and pulled her close to—though not completely against—his flat belly.
It was awkward and not pretty, but from the sight of his bulging biceps and forearms it was a weight he could bear without bracing her against him, so Kyla didn’t say anything.
He gave Kyla an almost imperceptible shrug and nod that said he guessed he’d pulled it off, and took the baby out to the car, with Kyla again following close behind.
Immy went on sleeping like an angel as he laid her very gently in the car seat that had a soft, fleecy head support at the ready. Then he strapped the infant in and closed the door firmly but without slamming it.
“Okay,” he said, as if the first of many steps had been accomplished. “Now you.”
“I can take care of myself,” she assured him curtly, returning to the motel room to close the door.
Still, Beau was waiting, standing sentry-straight with the passenger door open for her when she turned back to the SUV.
“It’s a pretty high step up—you should let me help you,” he said, holding out his hand to her.
There was no way Kyla was accepting it.
“I’m fine,” she said, gritting her teeth to hide the pain it caused her to get into that seat on her own and hating that she was less than graceful doing it. But she still made it and managed the seat belt with her left hand only.
Beau’s expression was completely blank when she caught sight of his face, so she had no idea what he thought of her stubbornness or her lack of agility—or if he’d even registered any of it. But once she was belted in he closed her door the same way he had Immy’s.
Who remained asleep through Beau getting into the car, too, and starting the engine.
Kyla had already called the front desk to let them know she was leaving, so there was no need for anything but to get on the road.
As Beau merged onto the highway, Kyla took note of too much about him. More even than how great-looking he was. The SUV was big and yet she couldn’t see him in anything smaller. Not only had he bulked up considerably, but he exuded so much power and presence that it just seemed to take a large space to accommodate it. He was like a brick wall of man—a force to be reckoned with. Quite a change from when they were teenagers.
He also smelled fabulous—a clean, citrusy scent that gave him an added appeal to go with how mind-blowingly handsome he was now. Altogether it made for a heady mix that was getting to her. A little.
Until she reminded herself that fourteen years ago he’d lied about what had happened between them and denied it all.
