But hell, he'd made this baby; now he was going to have to live with it. Literally.

Cowboy gently set the bear back in the crib.

Right now, he had to go downstairs and fetch Melody some ginger ale and crackers from the kitchen. And then, despite his own doubts, he had to go out on that porch and convince her to do right by this baby and marry him.

Except every time he sat down next to her, every time he gazed into her heaven-blue eyes, every time he as much as thought about her, he wanted to skip the negotiations. He wanted nothing more than to swing her up into his arms and carry her into the house. He wanted to take her into her bedroom and show her exactly how well they could get along. He wanted to bury himself inside her, to lose himself in the sweetness he'd only known in his dreams for the past seven months.

Despite the fact that her near-perfect body was swollen with child, he wanted her so much he could barely breathe. He'd never even glanced twice at a pregnant woman beforea"in fact, he'd considered the lack of an hourglass figure to be something of a major turnoff. But now he found himself fascinated by the changes in Melody's body. And he couldn't deny the extremely primitive rush of masculine pride he felt every time he saw her.

He had done that. He had possessed her and made her his own.

In everything but name.

Of course, that insane sense of pride was accompanied by a healthy dollop of toe-curling fear. How on earth was he going to be a good father when he didn't have a clue as to how a good father acted? And how the hell was that enormous, destined-to-be-six-feet-three-inches, Harlan Jones-sized baby going to be delivered from petite little Melody Evans without putting her at risk and endangering her life?

And how was he going to react on his next counterterrorist mission with Alpha Squad, knowing he had a wife and son waiting for hima"depending on hima"at home?

He went down a few steps and pushed the nursery door open, then found himself in what had to be Melody's bedroom.

It smelled like the perfume he'd caught a whiff of both yesterday and today. It smelled like Melodya"sweet and fresh. The room was a little messy, with clothes flung over the back of a chair, and the bed less than perfectly made.

Her sheets had a floral print that matched the bedspread. Throw pillows spilled over onto the hardwood floor. Her bedside table was cluttered with all kinds of thingsa"books, a tape player, CDs, bottles of lotion and nail polish.

It was a nice room, pretty and comfortable and welcominga"a lot like Melody herself.

Cowboy caught sight of his reflection in the full-length mirror attached to the closet door. The starkness of his dress uniform accentuated his height and the width of his shoulders, and surrounded by the tiny rose-coloured flowers and the lacy curtains, he looked undeniably out of place.

He tried to picture himself dressed down in civilian clothes, in jeans and a T-shirt, with his hair loosened from its rather austere-looking ponytail, but even then, he didn't seem to fit into the pretty picture this room made. He was too big. Too muscular. Too male.

Cowboy squared his shoulders. That was just too damn bad. Melody was going to have to get used to him. Or redecorate. Because neither of them had any choice. He was here to stay.

He went down the stairs and found the kitchen.

The entire house was decorated in a pleasant mixture of both antiques and more modern furnishings. It was neat, but not obsessively so.

He searched the cabinets for some crackers and found a box that boasted unsalted tops. He grabbed the package and a can of ginger ale from a refrigerator that was nearly filled with fresh vegetables and went down the hall to the front door. He opened it, making sure it was unlocked before he stepped out onto the porch.

Melody was sitting, bent practically in half, her head between her knees. The position was awkwarda"her belly made it difficult to execute.

"Sometimes this helps if I feel as if I'm going to faint," she told him without even looking up.

Cowboy crouched next to her. "Do you feel like you're gonna faint?"

"I think it was the thought of you climbing all the way up to that third-floor window," she admitted. "I figured that's how you got into the house." She turned to look at him through a veil of golden hair, her eyes wide and her lips questioningly pursed. "Am I right?"

"It was no big deal." Cowboy wanted to kiss her, but he opened the can of soda instead.

She sat up, pulling her hair back from her face. "Except if you slipped and fell. Then it would be a very big deal."

He had to laugh, handing her the can. "There's no way I would slip. It just wasn't that tough a climb."

Her eyebrow went up into a delicate, quizzical arch as she took a sip of the ginger ale. "No? What exactly is a tough climb?"

Cowboy found himself looking at the freckles that were sprinkled liberally across her cheeks and nose. Her skin looked so soft and smooth, and he could smell the sweet freshness of her clean hair. Great big God, he wanted to kiss her. But she'd asked him a question.

"Let's see...." He cleared his throat. "Tough is going up the side of an oil rig in freezing weather, coming out of a forty-five degree ocean, carrying more than a hundred pounds of wet gear on my back. Compared to that, this was nothing. Piece a cake." He looked down at his uniform. "I didn't even get dirty."

She took another sip of her soda, gazing at him pensively. "Well, you've certainly proved my point."

Cowboy didn't follow. "Your point...?"

"Climbing three stories up the outside of a house isn't a 'piece a cake.' It's dangerous. And it's on the absolute opposite end of the spectrum from average and normal."

He laughed. "Oh, come on. Are you saying I should have just let you lie here and feel sick even though I knew it wouldn't take me more than three minutes tops to get inside the house and get you the ginger ale and crackers?"

Melody pressed the cold can against the side of her face. "Yes. No. I don't know!"

"So what? So I can do some things that other guys can't do," he countered.

She stood up. "That's like Superman saying 'So whata"I can leap tall buildings in a single bound.'"

She was preparing to go inside. He should have locked the door behind him when he came outside. "Melody, please. You've got to give me a chancea""

"A chance?" Her laughter was tinged with hysteria. "Asking someone to fly to Vegas to marry you isn't exactly what I'd call a chance!"

He straightened up. "I can't believe you don't even want to try."

"What's to try? Your leave is up tomorrow morning. God only knows where you'll be going and for how long! If I marry you tonight, I could be a..." She stopped herself, closing her eyes and shaking her head. "No," she said, "forget it. Forget I said that. That doesn't matter, because I'm not going to marry you." She opened the screen door. ''Not now, not ever. It's as simple as that, Jones. And there's nothing you can do to make me change my mind, short of mutating into a nearsighted accountant or a balding computer programmer."

Cowboy stopped himself from taking a step toward her, afraid to push her farther into the house. "I'll make arrangements to get more leave."

"No," she said, and she actually had tears in her eyes. "Don't. I'm sorry, Jones, but please don't. The next time I need rescuing, I'll call you, all right? But until then, do us both a favour and stay away."

"Mel, waita""

She closed the door firmly in his face and he resisted the urge to swear and kick it down.

Now what?

Short of going inside after her, Cowboy was stuck waiting for her to come back out. And something told him that she wasn't likely to do that again today.

He needed more time. Lots more time.

And he knew exactly the man who could help him.

Chapter 7.

"Somebody spend the damn hundred bucks to get me more memory for this thing? It's like trying to surf the net on one of those kiddie kickboards. I swear to my sweet Lord above, if this takes much longer, I'm not going to be responsible for my actions!" Wes was giving the computer screen his best psychotic-killer glare when Cowboy tapped him on the shoulder.

"Have you seen the senior chief?"

Wes didn't even look up. "Yo, Bobbya"is H. here?" he shouted across the busy Quonset hut before muttering to the computer, "Don't you hang on me. Don't you dare."

"Nope," Bobby shouted back.

"Nope." Wes finally glanced up. "Oh, hey, Cowman! You're back. Feeling better?" His smile turned knowing. "Finally get some?"

Cowboy swatted the smaller man on the back of the head. "None of your damned business, gutterbrain. And by the way, I could see with my own eyes that Harvard isn't here. I was wondering if you knew where I could find him."

"Cowboy didn't get any," Wes announced in a megaphone voice that belied his compact size as Cowboy moved farther into the Quonset hut, searching for a free desk and a telephone. Somebody on this base had to know where Harvard was. "Look out, guys. It's like the groundhog seeing his shadow. Cowboy goes on leave and doesn't score and we're in for another six months of winter."

"It's October," Blue McCoy pointed out in his slow Southern drawl. "Winter's coming anyway."

"Good thing something's coming." Lucky cracked himself up.

Cowboy pretended not to hear as he picked up the phone and dialed Joe Cat's home number.

"Maybe it's the hair," Wes suggested. "Maybe she'd go for you if you got it cut."

"Maybe you need a distraction," Bobby chimed in. "Wes and I hooked up with some really amazing-looking girls who hang out at the Western Bar. Problem is, there's three of 'em, so you'd actually be doing us a favor ifa""

"No, thanks," Cowboy said, listening to the phone ring. "I'm not interested."

"Yeah, that's what I said, too." Lucky put his feet up on his desk. "I figured since it was Bobby and Wes, they didn't mean amazing-looking like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, but amazing-looking like someone from the bar scene in Star Wars."

Bobby shook his head. "You're wrong about this one, O'Donlon. I'm talking potential supermodels."

"Potential. That means either they're twelve or in need of plastic surgery." Lucky rolled his eyes.

"One of these days, O'Donlon," Blue said in his soft voice, "you're going to come face-to-face with the one woman on this earth who alone has the ability to make your sorry life complete, and you're going to walk away from her because she's not an eleven on a scale from one to ten."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Poor, pitiful me." Lucky pretended to wipe tears from his eyes. "I'm going to die alonea"an old and broken man."

Over at Joe Cat's house, an answering machine picked up. "Capt. Joe Catalanotto," Cat's New Yawk-accented voice growled into Cowboy's ear. "I'm not available. Leave a message at the beep."

"Yeah, Skipper, this is Jones. If you see the senior chief, tell him I'm looking to find him ASAP."

"This ol' bar we go to is right up your alley, Texas-boy," Wesley said with an exaggerated Western drawl when Cowboy hung up the phone. "There's line dancin' and boot scootin' and everything short of a rodeo bull."

"Including Staci, Tiffani and pretty little Savannah Lee," Bobby said with a sigh. "Course with our luck, Wes, Jones'll hit the dance floor and walk out with all three of 'em on his arm."

"I'm not interested," Cowboy said again. "Really."

On the other side of the Quonset hut, the door burst open.

Joe Cat entered with Harvard right behind him. Neither of the two men looked very happy. "Pack it all up, guys, we've been reassigned. We're getting the hell out of here."

Reassigned. Cowboy felt his heart sink. Damn, the last thing he wanted to do was be forced to ask for a transfer away from the Alpha Squad. But if they were being sent overseas...

He had responsibilities now. Responsibilities and different priorities.

Two days ago, his number-one goal would've been to stay with Alpha Squad for as long as he possibly could, no matter where they went, no matter what they did.

Today, his number-one goal was very different.

"What the hell, Cat?" Bobby spoke up. "I thought this FInCOM agent training gig was our silver bullet"

"Yeah, this was the perfect cushy assignment," Lucky added. "Lots of R and R with the added bonus of a chance to really mess with some Finks' minds."

Joe Cat was steamed. "Yes, pulling this assignment was supposed to be a reward," he told them. "But silver bullet or not, our job was to train a team of FInCOM agents in counterterrorist techniques. We can't possibly train these people effectively if our hands are completely tieda"which is the only way the top brass will let us do it."

"Aw, come on, Cat. So we let the Finks sleep in their fancy hotel and we let them do their twenty-mile run from the back seat of a limo," Wes urged. "It's no skin off our noses."

"Yeah, Captain, we can cope with their rule book." Lucky pulled his feet down off his desk. "It's no big deal."

"It'll probably make the job that much easier for us," Bobby argued.

"These agents we were supposed to train," Harvard countered in his rich bass voice, "are going to be used in the field to back up or work with SEAL units. I sure as hell wouldn't want to go up against a crazy-assed pack of 'Brothers of the Light' terrorists with some badly trained FInCOM team of fools as the only thing preventing Alpha Squad from being shipped home in body bags."

There was no argument anyone could make against that.

"So where's Alpha Squad going, Cat?" Cowboy broke the gloomy silence.

The dark-haired captain looked up at his men and exhaled a single burst of extremely nonhumourous laughter. "Barrow," he enunciated with extra clarity.

"Alaska?" Wesley's voice cracked. "In the winter?"

"You got it," Cat said, smiling grimly. "The pencil pushers upstairs are not happy with me right now, and they're making sure I know ita"and you poor bastards pay."

Alaska. Cowboy closed his eyes and swore.

"Not planning to come with us, Junior?" Harvard never missed a thing, no matter how subtle the comment. And Cowboy had said "Alpha Squad," not "we."

Cowboy lowered his voice. "I have a situation, Senior Chief. I was hoping to talk to you privately. I need to take an extended leave. A full thirty days if possible."

Wesley overheard. "Leave? Hell, yeah, H., I need to take some, too. Anything to get out of going to Alaska."

"Let's get this gear packed and stored," Joe Cat ordered. "Our new assignment has us going wheels up in less than two hours."

Harvard shook his head. "Sorry, Jones. There's no time. We'll have to deal with it after we get to Barrow."

"Senior Chief, wait." Cowboy stopped him short. Suddenly, the answer to this top-brass-induced snafu seemed obvious. "Don't you see? That's the solution. Leave. For everyone."