With Courage and Commitment Page 2

  “Miss Stephanie?” Bobby Richardson looked up at her with sad brown eyes. “I’m sorry I spilled the candle stuff.”

  “It’s all right, honey.” Kneeling, she hugged the four-year-old. He’d been acting silly and knocked over the hot paraffin, which then caught fire. They’d all been lucky no one had been burned. “It was an accident.”

  “You’re not mad at me?”

  “Of course not. Accidents happen.” Just as unintentional pregnancies happen if you get a little careless, like when you’re taking an antibiotic and you’re on the Pill. That combination changes everything. “But we’ve both learned a good lesson about being careful, haven’t we?”

  Solemnly he nodded.

  She squeezed him more tightly, his slender young body molding against hers. Someday soon she’d have a little girl as sweet and cuddly as Bobby, proving that “accidents” could be a blessing.

  BACK AT THE STATION, Danny stripped to his Skivvies and headed for the shower. Greg was already there singing one of his favorite country-western tunes. Nobody had told him his voice was good. Just the opposite, in fact. Not that their kidding had slowed him down much. Hell, he probably would have brought his guitar into the shower with him if he hadn’t been so protective of his precious instrument. Would have worn his Stetson, too, for that matter.

  Truth was, Greg probably could have had a career in show biz but chose firefighting instead. That and helping operate his family’s nearby cattle ranch, located on the rolling hills between Paseo and the coast.

  “So, did you ask that hot-looking teacher out?” Greg asked.

  Danny bristled. He knew who Greg meant, and she wasn’t hot, at least he’d never thought of her that way. She was—hell, he didn’t know what to think now. How could Stephanie have gotten pregnant and not have a husband? She wasn’t that kind of girl. “No.”

  “Then she’s still available, huh? Maybe I’ll just drop by the preschool tomorrow when I—”

  Danny grabbed him by the arm and swung him around. Soap suds flew in the air, spattering the white tile wall and across the floor. “What’s the matter with you, man? Are you blind? She’s pregnant. Didn’t you see that?”

  “Hey, ease up. I only got a glimpse of her, okay? I didn’t know she was married.”

  “Yeah, well…” He wasn’t about to tell Wells that the chief’s daughter was pregnant and not married. It was none of Greg’s business. None of his either. “So she’s off-limits, okay?”

  “Fine by me. I’m not eager to be a daddy anytime soon, anyway.”

  “Me, neither.” And he resented like hell the stab of regret he’d felt when he’d realized Stephanie was pregnant—and he hadn’t been the one to get her that way.

  He had no idea where that thought had come from. It wasn’t as if he’d ever so much as dated her. She’d been too damn young. Eight years his junior. And by the time she’d grown up, he was moving in a lot faster crowd than she could have handled, and her old man was the big boss in the fire department, for God’s sake.

  Which hadn’t stopped Danny from keeping his eye on her over the years. Noticing her sexy little behind as she strolled by. Checking out her breasts when she’d gone from twiggy to nicely rounded.

  Yeah, he’d kept an eye on her. And his hands off.

  That was still a good idea.

  “So,” Greg said as he turned off the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. “What’s it like to kiss a hamster?”

  Jay Tolliver chose that exact moment to come into the shower room. “Looked to me like ol’ hot lips here was enjoying himself. Whaddaya think?”

  Mike Gables sauntered in, buck-naked like the rest of them. “The singles scene must really be getting tough if a hamster is the best our buddy can do. Maybe we oughta fix him up with Emma Jean downstairs. At least she could read his palm while he worked on his technique.”

  Danny groaned and shut off the shower. Emma Jean Witkowsky was the department’s dispatcher and self-appointed gypsy fortune-teller, whose predictions more times than not were a hundred and eighty degrees wrong. Dating her was not an option he wanted to consider.

  And he sure as hell didn’t want to think about the next week or so until his buddies forgot all about the hamster incident. His next few shifts were going to be the pits.

  His days off weren’t going to be too swift, either, knowing Stephanie was living down the block again. And was pregnant with some other guy’s baby.

  When he returned to his quarters on the third floor of the main fire station, he discovered someone had cut out a big cardboard star and propped it on his bed. Across it they’d written #1 Rodent Kisser.

  He groaned again. This was going to be a very long shift.

  THAT EVENING, AFTER HOURS of scrubbing soot-stained walls, Stephanie placed a bubbling dish of vegetable lasagna on the table in front of her father. As a trade-off for her room and board, she was keeping house for her dad. Which had the added benefit of preventing his lady friend, Councilwoman Evie Anderson—a widow and Paseo del Real’s worst cook—from bringing him meals. Tonight, though, Stephanie was so tired she would personally be willing to give Evie’s culinary efforts a try.

  “I understand you had some excitement at the preschool today.”

  Her hands stilled on the salad bowl she was about to deliver to the table. Had the word gotten back to him about the Great Hamster Rescue?

  “We had a small fire,” she said casually. “Nothing too dramatic.”

  “Two engines and a rescue unit rolled on the call.”

  She set the salad down and took her seat across from her father. “Good response time, too. You can be pleased about that.”

  He nodded and dished some lasagna onto her plate then served himself. At age sixty-three, he was still as fit as he had been at thirty, Stephanie suspected, although his hair was gray now and he wore it in a short butch cut.

  “Evidently Alice was happy,” he commented.

  Stephanie’s brows shot up. “She called?” When? They’d both been scrubbing—

  “Yep. Seems the kids were so impressed with my firefighters they want to give one of them an award. Danny Sullivan, as a matter of fact.”

  Fortunately Stephanie hadn’t taken a bite of food yet because she would have choked. She forced a smile. “Really? How nice.”

  “That’s right.” He forked some lasagna into his mouth. “Seems he saved Arnold’s life. Pretty courageous of him, I’d say.”

  She nodded, thinking it was time for her to get an apartment of her own—before her father threw her out for putting one of his men at risk.

  “I’ve always liked Danny, even when he was a little wild as a kid. You know, he’s our top man on the department’s triathlon team.”

  “I guess I hadn’t heard that.” Although she did know fire departments across the country were always coming up with one athletic contest or another in order to encourage physical fitness.

  “Yep. Without Danny, Paseo wouldn’t have a chance of winning the state finals this spring.”

  “Interesting.” All the more reason her father was about to hand her her head on a platter for making Danny rescue a hamster.

  Harlan Gray glanced up from his meal and gave her a fatherly smile. “Why don’t we do something nice for him, like invite him over for dinner some night?”

  She gaped at her father as he resumed eating his meal with obvious relish. That was it? She wasn’t going to get the lecture on fire prevention? Safety first? The importance of human life, which included his men?

  A seriously uncomfortable feeling raised the hackles on the back of her neck. Her father couldn’t be doing a little matchmaking, could he? In cahoots with her friend Alice? She knew her father was distressed about her not being married. But she was in no condition to be matched with anyone.

  Besides, what man in his right mind would be interested in a woman whose silhouette would soon resemble a blimp?

  When she finally took a bite of dinner, the taste was bitter, much like the kno
wledge that if Danny hadn’t been interested in her years ago, he certainly wouldn’t be now.

  Chapter Two

  “You shouldn’t be doing that.” Danny wheeled his racing bike up behind Stephanie’s ancient Honda, which was parked in her driveway, the trunk open. He’d been about to go out for a training run on his day off when he’d spotted Stephanie hauling heavy sacks of groceries into the house.

  She straightened with a sack in her arms. “Doing what?”

  “Lifting heavy stuff. Pregnant women aren’t supposed to do that.”

  “So now you’re an expert on pregnant women?”

  “Evidently I know more than you do.”

  “Being pregnant is not a physical disability. I’m fine.”

  More than fine. She had the usual fire in her eyes, golden embers and hot sparks shooting in his direction. She’d been an imp as a youngster. As a woman, she was—

  On a sudden surge of irritation, he unsnapped his bike helmet, rolled his bike out of sight behind some bushes near the back door, then took the sack from her arms. “You go sit somewhere. I’ll bring in the groceries.”

  “Oh, for pity sake! I’m not disabled.”

  “Sit,” he ordered and marched inside, as familiar with the Gray’s house as he was with his own. Not much had changed since he’d been here as an adolescent—Harlan Gray as close to a father as he’d had in those days, Mrs. Gray like a doting aunt. And Stephanie a pesky little sister.

  Naturally Stephanie hadn’t listened to him any more today than she had when she’d been younger. Instead she’d picked up another bag of groceries and followed him inside. She gave a little toss of her hair that set the waves bouncing and put the groceries on the counter. “There are two more bags in the car,” she said with false sweetness. “If you really think poor little me can’t handle it.”

  He glowered at her. “I’ll get ’em.”

  “Oh, my, such a big, brave man,” she crooned.

  On the way past her, he almost gave her a friendly little swat on her backside as he might have when she was a kid. But she wasn’t a kid anymore. She was a woman. A pregnant woman wearing a bright red oversize T-shirt with a yellow target in the middle. Suddenly he didn’t know what to do with his hands except stick them into his pockets. Except his bicycle shorts didn’t have pockets.

  He grimaced as he walked back to the car to get the last of the groceries. He never should have stopped to help her. He’d known that. Perversely he hadn’t been able to stop himself.

  STEPHANIE SQUEEZED HER EYES shut and took a deep breath. If she’d thought Danny was overwhelmingly masculine in his bunker pants and turnout coat, she was blown away by him in a skintight riding shirt and thigh-hugging shorts. Every muscle from shoulder to calves was well defined. A classic sculpture created in the flesh. No doubt warm flesh.

  None of which gave him the right to boss her around. She’d had enough of that with Edgar, both at the office and in their relationship. Served her right for getting involved with her employer. But he’d been so smooth, so sophisticated—

  So uninterested in becoming a father until the twenty-second century.

  “Where do you want this stuff?”

  She whirled toward him. “Anywhere. I can handle it from here on my own.” Because that’s how she was going to be from now on—on her own with a baby to raise.

  And no one to tell her what to wear to the opening night of the San Francisco opera or what she should prepare for a dinner party for seventeen of his closest friends, all of whom were big clients of his advertising agency, not friends at all.

  “Great. I’ll be on my way then. I’ve gotta workout for a big race.”

  “I know. A triathlon.” She plucked a gallon of nonfat milk from the first sack and put it in the refrigerator. Danny lingered by the back door. Maybe if she got out the fly swatter—

  “When did you get back in town?”

  “About a week ago. Alice needed a part-time teacher. All things considered, it seemed like a good time to come home.” There hadn’t been any point in remaining in San Francisco longer. Edgar wasn’t going to change his mind about the baby. After the way he’d acted these past few months, she didn’t even want him to.

  Danny’s gaze slid to her belly. “So you’re going to be staying a while in Paseo?”

  She refused to flinch. “Indefinitely.”

  “That’s great. Uh, I’m sure your dad’s happy to have you home.” He made a show of glancing around the room as though her pregnancy made him uncomfortable, which it probably did. “The place looks pretty much the same as when I was here last. I remember when your mom framed that painting.”

  Involuntary Stephanie glanced at the wall above the kitchen sink that displayed her blue-ribbon high school painting—a helter-skelter modern cubist affair of reds and blues with streaks of virtually every color to be found in a box of crayons. It was awful.

  “Mom thought I was going to be the next Rembrandt.”

  “You got a scholarship. How wrong could she have been?”

  In spite of herself, Stephanie smiled. It had been nice to have parents who believed in her, and she still missed her mother, who had died four years ago during Stephanie’s senior year in college. “Commercial art was the best I could do.”

  He leaned against the doorjamb as though he had nowhere else to go. “I’m pretty good with stick figures if you need some help with any of your projects.”

  She laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “The only art I’m doing these days is the four-year-old variety. Mostly finger painting and setting candle wax on fire.”

  “Yeah, well, they tell me primitive styles are back in vogue.”

  She lifted her brows. “What do you know about primitive art styles?”

  “Hey, I watch a lot of PBS when I’m riding my stationary bike, okay? Broadens the mind.” He touched a two-finger salute to his forehead. “Unless you need some other heroic deed done, I gotta go. You know what they say about practice, practice, practice.”

  She swallowed another smile. The last time she’d heard that remark she’d been sixteen years old and it had been a comment about sexual prowess. She hadn’t gotten the meaning then. She tried not to now, though the heat of a blush crept up her cheeks, and she became defensive. “I think I’ll be able to manage without you—barely. You might want to leave a couple of quarts of blood and your cell phone number just in case some grand catastrophe happens and you’re not here to rescue me.”

  “I recommend you call 911.”

  Now, that conjured an interesting image. Frustrated pregnant woman puts in an emergency call to the fire department to quench her hormonal upsurge—Daniel Sullivan specifically requested to fill the bill.

  She couldn’t even begin to imagine what Chief Gray would do about that kind of call coming into dispatch. Although Emma Jean at the station would probably be able to handle it with considerable aplomb, her silver gypsy bracelets jingling as she did.

  Sighing, Stephanie wondered what Emma Jean would see in her crystal ball about her future. Right now the best Stephanie could see was that the chocolate ice cream she’d purchased—purely for medicinal reasons, of course—was melting. She reminded herself to worry about only one thing at a time.

  Instinctively she slid her hand across her belly. The future would take care of itself whether she wanted it to or not.

  STEPHANIE POURED SMALL amounts of blue paint into four paper cups, setting them on the miniature easels in preparation for the children’s arrival at school.

  “I don’t see why you had to make such a big deal out of Danny Sullivan rescuing the hamsters,” she complained to Alice, who was unstacking pint-size chairs from the play table. “It’s not like he did anything all that brave.”

  “The children think he’s a hero. And you do have to give him some credit for kissing a hamster.”

  “He did mouth-to—”

  “Besides, I was talking to one of the other fireman after all the excitement was over. Turns out he’s
single, and the way he was looking at you I got the distinct impression—”

  “Aha! You are trying to do some matchmaking. For your information, Danny and I go back a long way and there hasn’t been a single ounce of chemistry between us.” Not on his part, at any rate. Her adolescent angsting didn’t count.

  The angelic smile on Alice’s face didn’t quite match the devilment in her gray eyes. Happily married women with devoted husbands and the standard two-point-seven healthy children were the bane of all single women. Constitutionally unable to pass up an opportunity to matchmake.

  “Well, you do need a daddy for your baby and if you two have a past—”

  “No past, not like you mean. No future, either.” She dumped red powder into a clean cup and mixed in some water, stirring more vigorously than was wise. “I’m probably the last woman on earth he’d want to get involved with, even if I wasn’t pregnant. Which I am. So just cool it, okay?”

  Alice’s retort was cut off by the arrival of the first two children of the day. She lifted her shoulders in an unconcerned shrug, then hurried to greet the preschoolers.

  Stephanie frowned at the spatters of red across the newspaper she’d been using to protect the table—and at the matching spots on her blouse. Fortunately she liked wearing bright colors. The print on this particular maternity blouse was of a flower garden in full bloom with the words, “From little seeds grow the most beautiful things.”

  She sighed. At least the paint was washable.

  For the next hour, she supervised outdoor play, the February morning so mild the kids only needed a light sweater to keep them warm. Then she brought the youngsters inside for juice and show-and-tell. Jason Swift announced that he’d stuck an ant up his nose yesterday, and Tami Malone shared the news that when her daddy slept on top of her mommy, her mommy made funny noises, but it was all right because they loved each other.

  Stephanie ruled out both topics from any further discussion.

  She was about to send them off for free play with blocks and plastic dump trucks and the indoor playhouse, when the front door opened. She looked up and her heart did a ridiculous stutter step.