Heart of a Hero (2 page)

Her hands trembled as she turned away from the man she’d loved throughout her adolescent years and into young womanhood. The keys were slippery in her sweaty grasp and she dropped them again. Before she could react, Wade came to her side and stretched down for the keys.

“Here.”

“Thank you.” She took the keys carefully, without touching his hand, fumbled the correct one into the lock and opened her front door.

Reality hit her in the face again. Wade Donnelly was alive and waiting to talk to her. And she had to tell him she’d borne his child.

Angie rushed forward as Phoebe came through the door and closed it firmly behind herself. Before the sitter could speak, Phoebe put her finger to her lips to indicate silence. She walked through the front rooms toward the back of the little house and dropped her things onto the kitchen table. “Listen,” she said to Angie in a quiet tone, “there’s nothing to worry about. He’s an old friend I haven’t seen in a long time. Can you stay a little longer in case Bridget wakes up?”

Angie nodded, her eyes wide. “Sure.”

“We’re going to talk outside. “I don’t—I’m not inviting him in and I don’t particularly want him to know about Bridget, so please don’t come out.”

Angie nodded, an uncharacteristically knowing smile crossing her face. “No problem. I wouldn’t want to cause trouble for you.”

Phoebe paused in the act of walking back through the living room. “Cause trouble for me?”

“With people back where you came from.” Angie gestured vaguely. “I mean, I know everybody has babies without getting married these days, but if you don’t want anyone back home to know, that’s your business.”

Phoebe felt her eyebrows rising practically to her hairline. She opened her mouth, then closed it abruptly before hysterical laughter could bubble out. Dear innocent Angie thought she was hiding Bridget because she was ashamed of having an illegitimate child. If only it were that simple!

She swallowed as she slipped through the front door again, closing it securely behind her. Wade was standing now, leaning against one of the porch posts, dwarfing the small space. Lord, she’d forgotten how big he really was.

She drank in his appearance, trying to reconcile the grief she’d carried for the past six months with the reality of seeing him alive and apparently well. His dark, wavy hair was conservatively short compared to the out-of-control locks he’d sported in high school, but quite a bit longer than the last time
she’d seen him, when he’d had a high and tight military cut that had stripped every bit of curl away. If he weighed an ounce more than he had then, it wasn’t noticeable; his shoulders were still wide and heavily muscled, his hips narrow and his belly flat, his legs still as powerful looking as they’d been when he’d been a running back for the high school football team. That had been almost a dozen years ago, and she’d been a silly middle-school teen at the time, already pathetically infatuated with her older, totally hot neighbor.

Then she realized he was watching her stare at him, his gray eyes as clear and piercing as always beneath the black slashes of his eyebrows. She felt her cheeks heat and she crossed her arms over her chest.

Taking a deep breath, she voiced the question burning in her mind. “Why were you reported dead if they weren’t sure?” Her voice shook with the remembered agony of learning that Wade was gone forever. “I read about your funeral…” The sentence died unfinished as she realized she’d read about the
plans
for his funeral. In his obituary.

Wade blinked, but before his gaze slid away from hers, she caught a glimpse of a haunting pain. “Battlefield mistake,” he said. “They found my dog tags but not my body. By the time the
mistake was corrected, word had already gone out that I’d been KIA.”

She put a hand to her mouth, fighting the tears that desperately wanted to escape. All these months she’d thought he was dead….

“I was injured,” he said. “In the chaos that followed the explosion, a friendly Afghani hid me. It took the guy three days to make contact with American troops, and it wasn’t until then that the mistake was caught. The fellow who died whom they’d assumed was me had already been shipped to Germany for autopsy. They’d have caught the mistake eventually, but I sure gave a lot of people a shock. And just for the record,” he added, “Mom and Dad didn’t actually have a funeral. It was planned, then canceled. I guess you didn’t attend or you’d have found out.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again and simply shook her head. She still wanted to cry. Badly.
I was having your baby at the time
was so not the thing to say.

She risked a glance at him and was almost undone by the pain in his eyes.

Unable to bear being the cause of that pain, she said, “I couldn’t come back for the funeral.” She turned away and settled on the porch swing. “It took every penny I had to move here.”
Well, that wasn’t
a lie.
She’d been lucky to find this place, luckier still that, although she had few assets, her credit history was good and with the teachers’ credit union behind her, she’d been able to qualify for a mortgage. It hadn’t hurt that the cost of living in California was so much higher than it was here. She’d never have been able to afford even this modest little home if she’d stayed on the West Coast.

“Why did you move?” he asked suddenly. “All the way across the country? I know you don’t have any family to keep you in California, but that’s where you grew up, where your roots are. Don’t you miss it?”

She swallowed. “Of course I miss it.”
Terribly. I miss the cobblestones on the beaches and the freezing cold water, the balmy days and cooler nights that rarely vary. I miss driving down to Point Loma, or over to Cardiff, and watching whale migrations in the fall. I even miss the insanity of driving on the freeway and the fire danger. Most of all, I miss you.
“But my life is here now.”

“Why?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Why what?”

“What makes rural New York state so special that you have to live here?”

She shrugged. “I’m a teacher. I’ll have tenure in two more years and I don’t want to start over
again somewhere else. The pay is good here and the cost of living is more manageable than in Southern California.”

He nodded. “I see.” He joined her on the swing, sitting close but not touching. He placed an arm along the back of the swing and turned slightly toward her. “It’s good to see you.” His voice was warm, his eyes even more so.

She could barely breathe. He was looking at her the way she’d dreamed of for years. Years when he’d been too old for her to do more than dream of, years when he’d been her sister’s boyfriend, more recently when she’d thought he was dead and she was raising his child alone.

“Wade…” She reached out a hand and placed her palm gently against his cheek. “I’m so glad you’re alive. It’s good to see you, too, but—”

“Have dinner with me tonight.”

“I can’t.” Fear infused her voice with a touch of panic. She started to withdraw her hand but he covered it with his, turning his face into her palm, and she felt the warmth of his lips whispering against the tender skin.

“Tomorrow night, then.”

“I—”

“Phoeber, I’m not taking no for an answer.” The silly childhood nickname gave the moment an
even deeper intimacy. “I’m not leaving here until you say yes.”

She stepped back a full pace as he finally released her hand. Dinner was a bad idea, given the way her heart still pounded at the mere sight of him.

She’d grown up in the months since she’d become a parent. She no longer believed in the kind of love she read about in romance novels. At least, not mutual love that was returned. And she’d stopped allowing herself to believe that what had happened between Wade and her that day at the cabin had been anything but his reaction to the shock of her sister’s death.

Now Wade was here, back from the dead, untying every neatly packed-away detail in her memories. Confusing her, rousing feelings she hadn’t let herself feel in more than a year, the warmth of possibilities in his eyes scaring her to death.

She wanted to go back an hour, to come home as always to an empty porch and no tough conversations.

But she had to tell him about Bridget.

It was the last thing she wanted to do, but she had to. A few weeks before she thought he had died, she’d realized she couldn’t keep Wade’s child from him. Telling him in an e-mail or on the phone was unthinkable, however. She’d been planning
to visit him, wherever he was stationed, as soon as she could travel again, and a promise was a promise. Even if it was only to herself.

But not yet. She could hardly just invite him in, not with the bassinet and high chair, the board books and infant toys, unmistakable signs of a baby in residence. And anyway, Angie had class tonight so she wouldn’t be able to stay much longer. Phoebe needed to get rid of him, plan the best way to tell him of his fatherhood.

“All right,” she finally said. “Dinner tomorrow night because I have something to tell you.” The words nearly choked her.

Wade raised an eyebrow in question, but when she didn’t elaborate he made no comment. All he said was “Shall I pick you up at seven?”

“I’ll meet you,” she said quickly. “Are you staying in town?”

As it turned out, he was staying at a hotel on the other side of town. Attached to it was a restaurant that she knew had somewhat secluded booths along the walls, so she suggested they meet there. Then she stood on the porch and watched as he walked to the gray sedan.

He smiled at her over the roof of the car before he climbed in. “See you tomorrow night.”

She nodded, her heart stuttering at the warmth
in his eyes, even though she reminded herself it wasn’t anything more than friendship she saw there. “See you then.”

But as she watched him drive away, she wondered if it wouldn’t just be easier to vanish, the way people in the witness protection program did. Anything had to be easier than telling Wade he was the father of a child. Her child.

Memories bombarded her….

She was twelve. Her twin sister Melanie perched beside her on a pink bike exactly like Phoebe’s purple one, and they both watched the neighborhood boys playing baseball on the local park’s grassy ball field.

“I’m gonna marry Wade when I grow up,” Melanie announced.

Phoebe frowned. “He’s going to be grown up before we are. What if he marries somebody else?” The thought of Wade Donnelly marrying anybody made her feel all twisted up inside. Wade lived across the street from them, and he was four years older than they were. Phoebe had had a crush on him since before she could remember.

“He won’t marry anybody else,” Melanie said confidently. “I’m going to make him love me.”

And she had.

When they were seniors in high school,
Melanie had initiated her move. Phoebe went to the prom with Tim DeGrange, a friend from her Latin class. Melanie had asked Wade, even though he had just graduated from West Point that year, and to Phoebe’s shock he had said yes. Prom night had been long and miserable. Melanie had clung to Wade all evening. He’d looked so handsome in his brand-new dress uniform that he’d made Phoebe’s heart hurt, and she’d been suddenly so shy she could barely force herself to talk to him.

That had been the beginning. Melanie and Wade had dated through the early summer until his leave had ended and he’d headed off for his first assignment at a training school. It had been hell for Phoebe, seeing them together. But it had grown much, much worse when Melanie had begun seeing other guys while Wade was away….

“We’re not exclusive, Phoebe.” Melanie’s voice was sharp as she responded to the censure in her twin’s eyes.

“Wade thinks you are.” Phoebe was certain of that. She’d been all too aware of Wade’s devotion to her sister throughout the early weeks of the summer.

“I’m sure he doesn’t expect me to just sit at home while he’s gone,” Melanie said. “It’s not like he’s on a short vacation. He’s in the army.”

“If you’re going to date other people, you should tell him.”

But Melanie hadn’t listened. Which was nothing new. Melanie had never listened to Phoebe’s words of warning since they’d been very small girls.

It hadn’t taken Wade long to realize that Melanie’s affections for him were…something less than he clearly wanted. And it had wrung Phoebe’s heart when he’d come home on leave to find that Melanie wasn’t waiting for him. The two had had fight after fight. They’d finally broken up for good a year and a half later, after Christmas of the girls’ sophomore year in college. Phoebe only knew the details from a distance, since she’d gone to school at Berkeley, hours north of their home in Carlsbad, California. Melanie had stayed closer to home and, although the sisters had stayed in touch largely through e-mail and instant messaging, Melanie hadn’t volunteered much about Wade. Phoebe, always terrified her attraction to him would be noticed, had never asked.

After Wade and Melanie had broken up, Phoebe had noticed Wade came home less and less often over the next few years. His parents, who lived two doors down the street, had occasionally mentioned his travels to her mother, but they never
shared enough information to satisfy Phoebe’s hungry heart. And after her mother had passed away at the end of her junior year at Berkeley, she’d heard even less.

Then came her high-school class’s five-year reunion. Melanie had invited Wade…and everything had changed forever.

T
he following evening, Wade was ready a full fifteen minutes early. He went down to the bar in the restaurant and took a seat facing the door. And barely ten minutes later, Phoebe arrived. Also early.

He took the fact that she was early as a good sign. Did she still want to be with him the way he wanted her? Yesterday’s conversation on her porch had been confusing. One moment he’d have sworn she was about to fall into his arms; the next, she seemed as distant as the moon, and only slightly more talkative.

How had he missed seeing how beautiful
Phoebe was all those years they’d been living on the same damned street?