Jamie Sobrato - Baby Under The Mistletoe

“You’re right. I kept putting off deciding how to tell you, another day, then another and another until all of a sudden there you were driving down the road toward my goat.”

His expression turned wounded. “Did you really plan to tell me?”

Busted.

Her mouth went dry, and she worked to find the ability to speak again.

“Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to do. I knew it would be wrong to keep it from you, but I…I put off deciding. That’s the truth.”

“Okay.”

She could see him processing the information, trying to decide on his next course of action, which was what she feared most.

Captain West Morgan would have a very narrow idea of the right way to handle this situation. Get married. Settle down. Make the best of it. She’d become the target of his next mission: Operation Family.

With the echoes of their last argument and his 1950s clichés ringing in her head, she had no interest in becoming a cozy family of three. She had no interest in any of the things that would entail-the compromises, the subjugation, the loss of freedom.

“I decided on my own to have the baby, and I don’t expect anything from you. Just so you know.” Though she knew these words were wasted and unnecessary.

“Of course I’m going to be involved,” he said.

“Of course,” she echoed weakly.

“I’m the father. I won’t let my own child grow up without a father.”

He looked stunned but determined, and Soleil knew she wasn’t going to convince him of anything now. But she couldn’t help standing her ground-she was just as unyielding as he when it came to her ideals.

“You live in Colorado, and I live in California. So what? You’re going to commute here to do diaper duty and midnight feedings?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. You’ve had months to think about this, and I’ve had a couple of minutes.”

Right. It wasn’t fair of her to be sticking it to him now.

“Maybe I should skip lunch and go,” he continued. “We’ve both got a lot to think about.”

She cast a glance at him, so much larger than her, so much more male. So foreign, so other…

He both intrigued and repelled her, even now. She wanted to run away from him, and she wanted to reach out and knead the tension from his shoulders.

“I’ll be around. You’ve got my number,” she said. “Feel free to call if you want to discuss this further.”

His posture, beneath the gray wool fisherman’s sweater he wore, remained slumped. She hated to acknowledge that she’d been the one to take that toll on him. Even at her best, she’d never felt as if she’d beaten him. Until now. It was a bitter win, if it could even be called that.

He turned to go, and as she watched him walk toward the door, she had a bewildering urge to grab hold of him and beg him not to leave. But she didn’t.

Of course not.

It wasn’t in her vocabulary to ask for help.

Except now, walking out the door was the man she had a sneaking sense of dread she might need, whether she wanted to need him or not.

JULIA MORGAN had never set out to try online dating.

And as she sat in the Guerneville coffee shop, nervously scanning the passersby outside the window for a familiar face, she could hardly recall why it had ever seemed like a good idea.

It had all sort of, well…happened. First came the laptop computer her three sons had given her for her birthday. She’d never been a computer person, and she didn’t really see the need for it since she’d managed to teach for thirty years without one.

Then came her newfound love of e-mail. Who knew it could be so much fun. Instant communication with her friends, children and grandchildren. It was almost too good to be true. She could even get pictures of them on the computer, just like in all those commercials.

And, she’d figured out how to upload the pictures to the Internet and order prints from a Web site.

Amazing.

But that was what had led to the whole online-dating embarrassment. She didn’t dare tell anyone, because who would approve? Certainly not her friends, most of whom were either married, or if they were divorced like her, they were content or resigned to being alone. And she couldn’t tell her kids, who’d likely worry about her or decide it was time she move in with one of them for closer supervision.

Really, it had started so innocently. She’d accidentally clicked on an online-dating ad a few weeks ago, and before she knew it, she was putting in her zip code and looking through a list of single men her age. Then a little box had popped up telling her that all she had to do was upload her own photo, fill out a profile form, and she’d be able to contact any man she wanted.

She’d immediately turned off the whole computer and went to do some gardening, horrified at herself for even considering such a thing.

But there was one man she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about.

His screen name, letsbefrank, had made her smile for no particular reason, and she’d very much liked his eyes-kind and brown, the sort of eyes that looked right at you, in, well…a frank expression.

Turns out, his real name was actually Frank Fiorelli, and he was now late for the meet-for-coffee date they’d scheduled after exchanging e-mails.

Okay, maybe he wasn’t actually late. Julia couldn’t remember if she’d set her silver watch five minutes fast the way she did the clocks in her house, and being the perpetually early person she was, she’d gotten to the coffee shop a full half hour before the date. So, she’d been waiting a while, growing more and more anxious as each second ticked by.

Her green-tea latte, neglected on the table, was still full. She took a sip and discovered it had cooled to room temperature.

Then a buzzing sound came from her purse-the cell phone set to vibrate so as not to interrupt her coffee date-and she let out a sigh of relief, thinking it must be Frank calling to cancel.

Which would be great, since she now understood from her terrible case of nerves that she wasn’t cut out for this Internet-dating stuff after all.

But the name on the cell phone’s little screen was West, her middle son.

She answered with a tense-sounding hello.

“Hey, Mom,” he said.

Was it her imagination, or did he sound a little distressed, too?

“Oh, West, honey, how are you?”

“I just got into town, actually.”

“What?” Julia blinked in surprise. “Today? I thought you weren’t arriving for two more weeks.”

A pause, during which she wondered if he’d somehow discovered her Internet dallying.

“It’s Dad,” he finally said, his voice tight.

Julia had been divorced from the General long enough that mention of his name didn’t evoke any particular emotion, but she certainly didn’t wish him any harm, and her stomach flip-flopped at West’s tone.

“What is it? Is he okay?”

“He’s having some problems I need to deal with in person,” he answered vaguely. Julia knew for sure something was wrong, but she decided it was better not to push.

West would tell her the whole story when he was ready. But her mother radar was picking up signals. Something was definitely wrong, with the General, or West, or both.

“Will you be staying with me? Can you come for dinner tonight?”

Her gaze fell on a tall, well-built man with close-cropped gray hair and kind brown eyes, headed toward her, and she barely heard what her son said next.

“I need to stay with Dad for now, but I may want to move to your guest room once I’ve got him squared away. And I’d love to have dinner with you, but I’ll have to let you know later, if that’s okay.”

“Sure, dear,” she said hurriedly. “I have to go now. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.”