Laura Altom - The SEAL's Baby

“You’re one lucky fella,” said Cassidy Mitchell, the town veterinarian, while applying the last of Sam’s bandages. She’d given him pain meds and antibiotics, and at the moment, with his giant pink tongue lolling and tail lightly thumping the metal exam table, the dog looked about as happy as could be expected. To Heath, the vet said, “Since you live a ways out, I’ll send you home with supplies to clean and change these bandages. Once he starts feeling better, he’s gonna want to go straight back to his normally wild ways, but just to be safe, I’d keep him inside and resting as much as he’ll let you.”

“Will do,” he said, scooping Sam into his arms.

Gretta had left right after hearing Sam was okay. The commode in room ten had overflowed, and she’d had to meet the plumber. Heath would have called her, but he’d left his cell back at the cabin.

“Think you can handle carrying Sam’s supplies?” the vet asked Libby.

Libby nodded, taking the multiple packages Cassidy’s assistant had assembled.

“Sure you’re okay?” the vet asked Libby. Heath had made brief introductions upon their arrival. “You’ve paled about ten shades since you first got here.”

“I’m fine,” Libby said, but having witnessed her previous faint, and seeing her expression look similar now, Heath wasn’t so sure.

“Just in case...” The vet’s teen assistant trailed them outside. “Let me take Sam’s bandages and meds, and then you just open the truck door.”

“You’re both being silly.” Libby made the trade-off, then opened the door. “I’m abso-lute-lee...”

Fine? Heath finished her sentence just as her legs buckled from beneath her.

Chapter Five

With Sam centered on the truck’s bench seat, Heath shot into action, now hefting Libby up next to the dog.

“She okay?” The pimple-faced teen assistant couldn’t have been over sixteen. He’d paled as much as Libby.

“Hope so.” Heath took Sam’s supplies. “I’ll run her to the clinic, though, to make sure.”

Just as she had during her previous fainting spell, Libby woke within a few seconds. At which point, Heath, for the second time that morning, felt crazy-relieved. And guilty. If she hadn’t followed him to the beach to get Sam, would she have passed out?

“Whoa...” She’d rested her head against the seat back, and now pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “What happened?”

“You fainted again.”

She groaned. “That’s not good.”

“Nope. Which is why I’m running you to the doc.”

“I’m all right. Please—” she stroked Sam’s sleepy face “—take me to my room at the motel. I just need a nap.”

“Probably, but I don’t want it on my already full plate if it turns out there’s something more wrong.”

“Look...” Sighing, she hugged her belly. “The truth is, I can’t afford to pay a doctor. I’m good. I have to be, because really, I don’t have another choice.”

“There’s always a choice—this time, it’s doing the responsible thing for your baby by letting me pay for your treatment.”

“That’s not necessary. I’m already feeling better.”

“Perfect. Then you won’t mind me wasting my own money to prove it.”

Other than her pressing her lips together a bit tighter, Libby showed no other emotion. He was glad, because the day had been draining enough without her launching another fight.

He pulled to a stop at the red light on Archer.

With the Fourth of July so close, carnies were hard at work assembling rides on the elementary school’s soccer field. The Tilt-a-Whirl resembled a praying mantis with its legs still folded on the flatbed trailer where it lived when it wasn’t at play.

Back when he’d been a kid visiting his grandparents over the holiday while his dad was on leave, the annual carnival that started on the first was everything. Corn dogs and funnel cakes. Losing a month’s allowance worth of quarters on the Coin Dozer game. Best of all, spending time with his family, back when they really had been a family.

The light changed and he made a left, heading toward the clinic.

With Sam peacefully napping and a warm summer breeze riffling his hair through the open windows, Heath could’ve almost been at peace if it weren’t for the faint sniffles of Libby crying.

In no way prepared to deal with drama in the form of female tears—especially the pregnancy tears his married friends warned him were particularly potent—he tightened his grip on the wheel.

A few minutes later, past the fire station and library and the retirement home where, on a trip home for Easter, he and Patricia had teased each other about moving into when they both grew old, Heath pulled into the clinic’s freshly blacktopped parking lot. The asphalt sounded sticky beneath the truck’s tires and the pungent smell had Libby crinkling her nose.

“This is an all-around bad idea. I feel great. And what’re we going to do with Sam?”

Heath drove to the far side of the lot, parking beneath a row of Douglas firs on a section of pavement still old and sun-faded.

Sam was fast asleep, and judging by his snores, would be for a while. The day was fine. The temperature was in the mid-seventies. With the windows down, he’d be equally as content in the truck as he would’ve been on the living room couch.

“He’s gonna nap, just like the vet wanted.”

One hand on her belly, the other on her door, Libby still looked unsure. In that instant, she looked so alone and afraid, something in his long-frozen heart gave way.

He wasn’t a monster; he was just a man who’d essentially given up on his own life, but that didn’t mean he had the right to inflict his messed-up shit on this lost soul.

He tentatively reached out for her, for an endless few seconds, hovering his hand in the neutral zone over Sam before reaching the rest of the way to Libby’s forearm. Upon making contact, her vulnerability made him want to be strong. Not for himself, but for this fragile woman with an innocent child growing inside.

After giving her a gentle and what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze, they made eye contact for only an instant. He couldn’t have stood more, so he looked away, swallowing hard, wishing his pulse to slow. He was afraid, so very afraid, but of what he couldn’t comprehend. “Let’s, ah, head inside. Get you checked out.”

Her eyes shone, and she also shifted her gaze, sniffling before opening her door.

Heath hustled to her side of the vehicle in order to help her down.

It had been years since he’d been to Doc Meadows, but everyone in town knew appointments were welcome, but if you had something come up, the doctor and his nurse would stay as late as necessary to ensure everyone with a need was seen.

“Sure is pretty for a clinic....” Libby said, peering up at the three-story Victorian.

“Used to belong to one of the summer people.”

“Summer people?”

“Rich folks from Portland, even San Francisco, who used to come here to spend their summers on the shore. After the 1942 fire, hardly any homes were left. This one was owned by a bank president whose wife fancied herself to be a shade tree architect.” Heath was glad for the story. It distracted him from Libby’s slow pace—more guilt stemming from the realization that he should have driven her to the door. What kind of idiot was he to have made her walk? “Want me to go get the truck?”

“For what?” She pressed her hands to the small of her back.

“So you don’t have to exert yourself.”

She waved off his concern. “You worry too much. And what’s up with this new, polite travelogue version of your formerly crotchety self?”

“I’m not crotchety—reserved, maybe. Definitely not crotchety.”