Laura Altom - The SEAL's Miracle Baby

“I’m down. Only, since I’m already on my second, think you could drive?”

“Deal. I’ll be right back.”

She grabbed her wristlet wallet and keys, then dashed upstairs for a quick change into hip-hugging faded jeans, a white tank and cowboy boots. After yanking out her ponytail to finger-comb her long hair into messy waves, she added lip gloss, then rejoined Grady in the laundry room so the two of them could slip out before their parents had even noticed they were missing.

Twenty minutes later, they occupied two stools at the bar of the Dew Drop Tavern over in Schilling—also unaffected by the storm. The few times Jessie had been there on dates, it hadn’t been this crowded, but then there had also been a dozen other establishments for folks to gather that no longer existed.

After their on-tap Buds had been delivered, along with a basket of hand-cut fries to share, Grady said, “Last time I was in this place was after that homecoming game our sophomore year when it rained the whole damn night. Allen and I thought we had it won, then lost in, what? Like the last ten seconds?”

“Technically, there had been three seconds left on the clock.”

He winced. “Thanks for reminding me. Pretty sure my back still hurts from that game.”

“So this is where you guys went, huh?” Jessie grinned, running her index finger around her glass’s rim. “Corny and I waited for you two losers thirty minutes outside the locker room. When you never showed, we went to the dance alone and pissed. Come to think of it, your whole flat-tire story was pretty dumb, considering you could have just walked to the gym from the field.”

“Sorry. Allen and I needed a guys’ night, so we snuck out of the locker room through the coach’s door.”

“Creep!” She pummeled his chest, never meaning her actions as anything other than playful fun. But when Grady trapped her hands squarely over his heart, she discovered it beat as fast as her own. Suddenly he leaned in for what she hoped, thought, prayed would be a kiss, and she thought her heart would stop altogether.

And then he abruptly backed away to down the remainder of his beer before signaling the bartender for another.

For the second, maybe even third, time that night, Jessie’s eyes welled, but she’d be damned if she’d give him the satisfaction of knowing she still cared. She didn’t. It had been a good long while since she’d been kissed, and that craving—no, more like yearning—tugged at her heartstrings. Nothing more. If he were to dare claim otherwise, she’d slap his no-good, whisker-stubbled cheek for sass.

But he not only didn’t make claims, sassy or otherwise, but wouldn’t even look her way until after she’d eaten all the fries and he’d finished his third beer.

Mortification and loneliness didn’t begin to cover the way she felt all crammed in next to him in the crowd, with their thighs, hips and shoulders brushing, and that achingly familiar attraction she held for him humming, when he seemed oblivious to her. In fact, when he went so far as to ask an old classmate of theirs—who’d wedged in on his other side in her too-tight jeans and a rodeo buckle practically bigger than her pile of fake red hair—to dance, Jessie threw up a little in her mouth.

After the twosome left, she might have gained breathing room, but she’d lost her ever-loving sanity.

The dimly lit joint was humming with energy as the whole place sang along to Toby Keith’s “Red Solo Cup.” The air was thick from smoke and far too many tall tales.

“Hey, little lady.” A cowboy sporting a brown leather hat and obligatory Wranglers held out his hand and smiled. “Wanna proceed to party ?”

“Sure.” Why not?

It wasn’t as if she had any reason to stick around the bar. She only carried her wristlet wallet, into which she’d stashed her keyless remote, credit card, cash and lip gloss—not that she’d even had need for the latter, since her first coat of the night was sadly in place even after munching all those fries.

She took the cowboy’s hand, letting him guide her through the crowd to the dance floor, where she spied Grady and his redhead. He held his hands low on her hips, and had hooked his thumbs over the top edge of her leather belt. The girl from high school, whose name Jessie couldn’t even remember, had tucked her hands into Grady’s back pockets.

“What’s your name?” the stranger asked.

Jessie told him, and they somehow made small talk over blaring, old-school Johnny Cash.

At the end of the song, her stomach sank when she realized that Grady was no longer on the dance floor. Had he taken the redhead outside for air ? The very thought of him kissing another woman turned her stomach almost as much as thinking of herself lip-locking with another man did—ridiculous, in light of the fact that unless she intended to die alone, one day she would kiss another man and like it!

But not tonight...

“Thank you,” she said to Bobby, a nice guy whose only fault was that he wasn’t Grady. “This has been fun.”

“Who says it has to end?”

She laughed. Great question. And so she danced with him again to a slow Garth Brooks tune about heartache and pain. Grady appeared through the shadows, as if the song had summoned him, and he asked Jessie’s current partner if he minded if he cut in.

The pass-off was amicable enough.

The way her pulse raced like a caged hummingbird’s was not.

“What’re you doing, Grady?”

“Seems obvious, Jess.” His breath smelled familiar and sexy and laced with just enough beer that she credited Budweiser for any sweet-talking rather than him. “I saw the prettiest girl in the room and claimed her.”

“Oh, you did?”

“Hell, yeah...” He leaned his head low, nuzzling her neck, downright stealing what little strength remained in her knees. “And now I’m gonna kiss her.”

“And just how do you figure on doing that when she wants nothing to do with you?”

“She might say that.” He backed away just far enough for her to catch his sloppy wink. Sadly, this wasn’t him talking, but too much beer. “But deep down, there’s no hiding the fact that we share unfinished business.”

“Oh?” She gulped.

He skimmed her hair back behind her ears, then framed her face, brushing her full lower lip with the pads of his thumbs. “See, I know a secret. She happens to love makin’ out on dance floors.”

Lord help her, but from the jukebox Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood launched into “Remind Me,” and Jessie was reminded of just how good it had once felt being held in Grady’s arms. As for the possibility of him kissing her? The thought turned her all hot and achy and wanting. And she hated it almost as much as she craved even more from him. But being held by him was the emotional equivalent of letting a flame lick too close and then burn. No matter how beautiful and seductive Grady’s flame was, she couldn’t risk being burned again.

“Y-you don’t know anything,” she somehow managed, nudging him a safe distance from her. “And anyway, it’s late, and I have to be back at school in the morning.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re a buzzkill?”

Mainly just herself.

* * *

GRADY HAD A tough time opening his eyes the next morning.

Complicating the issue was the fact that not only had he made a drunken pass at the woman he’d sworn to steer clear of, but she now stood at the head of his bed, hands on her hips, scowling. “Get up.”

He groaned, giving himself a leisurely scratch as opposed to leaping to attention like Miss Bossy Pants would have no doubt preferred. He could deny it all he wanted, but last night at that bar, they’d shared a moment—until she’d gone and dumped the verbal equivalent of ice water on his head.