Cara Colter - Major Daddy

The new house was a monstrosity of tasteless white stucco that had changed the landscape of Heartbreak Bay forever, and that Cole heartily resented every time he caught a glimpse of it. Still, it was a long distance up the bay, far enough away that his sense of isolation remained safely intact.

Despite how his reasoning mind tried to tell him he was as safe here as he could ever be anywhere, Cole’s deeper mind—that place of pure instinct that had kept him alive so many times—did not sound the all clear. Cole frowned, and then he heard it, suddenly, again.

His frown deepened, and he reached for the light beside his bed. The lamp clicked but did not come on. No power, not an unusual situation in this remote bay that was subjected to cruel weather from November until February. He reached for the flashlight on his night table and played the beam across the ceiling. The light did not persuade him that he had not heard a sound, frail and pitiful, like the mewing of a kitten.

Restless now, Cole threw back the covers, yanked on a pair of jeans, and went and stood at the window. The air was biting against his naked chest.

Tap. Tap. Tap. The hair on the back of his neck rose. The noise was puny, almost lost in the furor of the storm, and yet there it was again. Tap. Tap. Tap.

He followed the sound out of his bedroom, following the beam of his flashlight over rough hardwood floors, past the ragtag collection of cabin furniture in the living room.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The sound was on the other side of the front door. He told himself a tree branch must be scraping it. He reminded himself he was home, in Canada, safe, and yet it was a warrior who flung open the door, ready and fierce.

At first he saw only the night, felt the sting of rain against his face and the cold fingers of wind in his hair. But then that small sound, the kitten mewing, made him look down, and his flashlight beam illuminated a most startling sight.

His jaw dropped.

A small girl stood there, her white nightdress whipping around her, a doll wrapped in a bright blanket clutched tight to her chest.

Perhaps eleven, the child was painfully thin, and her long dark hair tangled, curly, around her head. Her eyes were huge and blue and frightened, and her teeth were chattering. A fine line of blue was appearing around her lips despite the sweater pulled over the nightdress.

The doll she was holding suddenly let out a fierce yell, as frightening as any battle cry Cole had ever heard. He took an alarmed step back and scrutinized the bundle the girl held.

It squirmed, and he realized it was not a doll. It was a baby! His blood went cold, and his mind tried to sort through the hodgepodge of illogical information that was being thrust on it.

The soldier, the commander, stepped in coolly and took charge. It told him job one was to get these kids out of the cold. No matter how startling their appearance on his doorstep, there would be time, later, to sort through the intrigues.

“Get in,” he ordered and was stunned when the child hesitated before the authority in his voice, a voice that men raced to obey.

He saw suddenly her arms were trembling from the effort of holding the baby, and firmly, a soldier doing the thing he least wanted to do, but recognizing his lack of choices, he plucked the baby from her arms.

It stared at him with huge blue eyes just like the girl’s and screwed up its face until the eyes disappeared into a nest of wrinkles. But then, mercifully, instead of crying the baby nestled into him, sighed, plopped a plump thumb into its mouth.

“Come in,” he said, again, trying to take the military snap out of his voice, trying for a note of kindness that might reassure the trembling waif before him.

She regarded him with huge eyes that stripped him to his soul, and then gave a small satisfied nod. But still, she did not step over the threshold to warmth and safety.

She turned on the step and motioned with her arm. A motion any soldier would recognize.

Come forward. The shrubs that formed a border around the small square of yard that surrounded the house, parted.

Cole almost dropped the baby. A toddler, not more than three, obviously female from the foolishness of the lace-trimmed nightdress that tangled around pudgy legs, emerged from the shrubs and tottered across the leaf-and branch-strewn yard.

As if he was not reeling from enough shock, the shrubs parted again, and two small boys, maybe seven and eight, dark-haired, dirt-smeared and pajama-clad, also emerged into the clearing of his cabin.

Cole Standen had faced the types of terror that make a man tremble and reach inside himself to find his deepest reserves of courage.

He had jumped from airplanes, been shot at, dealt with the dread of an enemy concealed by night but so close you could almost feel his breath upon your cheek.

But as those cold, wet, mud-spattered children tumbled by him into his sanctuary, and the warm puddle of humanity that was the baby squirmed against his bare chest, Cole searched his memory bank to see if he had ever faced a terror quite like the one that hammered in his breast now.

He discovered he had not.

“My granny’s dead,” the girl, obviously the oldest of the five, announced. And then, her bravery all used up, her face crumpled as if the air was being let out of a balloon. She began to cry, quietly at first, big silent tears rolling down her face. The silence was but the still before the storm. She built quickly to a crescendo. She uttered a heartbreaking wail.

The four other waifs watched her anxiously, and her breakdown was a lesson in leadership. All four of them instantly followed her example. Even the baby. They screwed up their faces in expressions of identical distress and began to caterwaul. Awkwardly gripping the baby, which seemed unaccountably slippery, Cole escorted the four other howling children into his living room and planted them on the couch.

The older girl held out her arms, and he carefully placed the screaming baby back in her care. All the children huddled together in a messy pile of tangled limbs and wept until their skinny shoulders heaved and their sobs were interspersed with hiccups.

Cole did not know very much about children, but he hoped hiccup-crying did not induce vomiting.

Quickly, he checked the phone—which naturally was out—stoked the fire and lit his two coal-oil lamps.

He turned back and studied the children in the flickering yellow light. He realized he was in trouble. The crying continued unabated—in fact it seemed to be rising in tempo and intensity. He had no doubt the children were going to make themselves sick if they continued. There was also the possibility that grandma—wherever she was—might not be dead and might urgently require his assistance.

He held up a hand. “Hey,” he said, in his best commander voice, “that’s enough.”

There was momentary silence while they all gazed wide-eyed at his raised hand, and then one of them whimpered and the rest of them dissolved all over again.

He clapped his hands. He stamped his foot. He roared.

And nothing worked, until something divine whispered in his ear what was required to stop the noise and squeeze the story out of the little mites.

Surrender.

The soldier in him resisted. Surrender? It was not in his vocabulary. But he resisted only momentarily. The noise and emotion in the room were going to send him on a one-way trip into the lake if it didn’t stop.

So, summoning all his courage, he took the baby back, discovered why she seemed unaccountably slippery and did his best to ignore it. He wedged himself a spot on the couch between the children. Blessed and stunned silence followed while the little troop evaluated this latest development. And then, before Cole could really prepare himself properly, the two boys and the toddler in the ridiculous dress were all vying for a place on his lap—and found it. The older girl snuggled in so tight under his arm it felt as if she was crushing his heart.