Buch lesen: «An Unlikely Daddy»

Chapter One

Ryker Tremaine pulled up to the Hayes house on a frigid November night and looked at it from within the warm confines of his car. He needed to go in there, introduce himself to John’s widow and start making amends. He suspected what John’s death had cost Marisa, but it was only when word had sifted back to him that she was pregnant that he realized he had a whole hell of a lot of atoning to do. Because of him there was not only a widow, but a fatherless child.

He had some stains on his soul, but this one felt bigger than most, and some were pretty big.

It was a large house. He knew it had been in John’s family for generations, because John had told him. It was, in John’s mind, a safe place for Marisa to stay. She had grown up around here, too. She had a job at the community college, she had friends to look after her when her husband was away. And neither of them had any family left, odd as that seemed. Even Ryker, at almost forty, had parents who had retired to New Mexico and a sister who had married a sheep rancher from New Zealand. Somehow Marisa and John, through the vicissitudes of illness and life, had been left alone.

And now Marisa had no one but friends. Had she been blessed with a big family, he’d have felt his mission of repentance was pointless. But there was a woman and a baby who John Hayes couldn’t look after. He owed something to John, to that woman and to that baby.

Just what, he wasn’t sure. Conscience and a vague promise to John had driven him here, and now conscience kept him inside the car when he should have just strode up to the door and introduced himself.

She’d had nearly six months. Maybe someone out of her husband’s past would only refresh her grief. And maybe he was making excuses because he dreaded this whole thing.

He wasn’t a chicken by nature.

Sighing, he glanced in the rearview mirror, taking stock as much as he could. He’d ditched the suit because it was too much around here, and had settled on a sweater, jeans and a jacket. He didn’t want this to look official, or remind her of bad things more than necessary.

But he continued to sit in the car a little while longer, wondering if this was just a huge act of selfishness on his part. He’d been wrestling with that since the thought of coming here had first begun goading him.

Penance was fine, as long as it didn’t inflict pain on someone else. Atonement should make things better, not worse. He shouldn’t salve his own guilt by worsening her pain.

He’d finally gotten to the point where he could no longer tell what was right or wrong, whether he was being selfish or paying a debt he owed a friend.

There was only one way to find out. That was to knock on the door and introduce himself. If she told him to go to hell, he’d have his answer. And maybe that wouldn’t freshen her grief too much, just to hear someone say, “John was my friend.”

Finally, he climbed out of the car, crunched his way across a sidewalk covered with rock salt and went up the porch steps. Icicles hung from the eaves, probably from a recent, brief thaw. If she didn’t tell him to get out of her life immediately, he should knock them down. They weren’t huge, but they could be dangerous, and she shouldn’t do it herself in her condition.

At last he could avoid the moment no longer. The doorbell glowed, demanding he punch it and then face whatever came. Usually that wasn’t a problem for him. Most things in his life had come at him the hard way. But this time...well, this time was different.

He rang the bell. He waited as the winter night deepened. She must be gone. Well, he’d come back tomorrow.

Then he heard the doorknob turn and the door opened. He recognized her instantly from photos John had shown him. Long ash-blond hair, eyes that were shaded somewhere between blue and lavender, set in a heart-shaped face. Her lips, soft and just full enough, framed the faintest of quizzical smiles. And her belly... He couldn’t help but look at the mound. John’s baby, due in a few months.

“May I help you?” Her voice was light, pleasant, but cautious.

He dragged his gaze to her face, understanding in an instant what had drawn John to her. Surprise shook him as attraction gut-punched him. He figured he must be plumbing new depths of ugliness. His friend’s pregnant widow? Off-limits. He cleared his throat. “Hi,” he said. “My name’s Ryker Tremaine.”

If he expected her to recognize it, he was disappointed. Her brow creased slightly. “Yes?” No recognition, nothing.

“I was John’s friend,” he announced baldly. “We worked together at...State. Before that, a few times when he was in the Rangers.”

Her smile faded, but at least she didn’t pale. “He never mentioned you.”

He’d anticipated this possibility. The question was whether he should just walk away or press. He nodded. “He used to call me R.T.”

“R.T.?” The furrow deepened, and then recognition dawned. “Oh. Oh! I thought he was saying Artie. Short for...” She clapped her hand to her mouth, as if containing something, and her face paled a little. “You were with him.”

“Not that day,” he said evenly. This wasn’t going the way he’d imagined, good or bad. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave you alone. I just...when I heard you were...” He glanced down.

Her hand dropped from her mouth to the mound of her belly. “Oh.” She sounded faint and closed her eyes. Then they opened, blue fire. “Is there a reason for this visit after all this time?”

“I couldn’t get away when...” He didn’t want to say funeral. “Then I thought it was too late. And then I heard about... Maybe you have some questions I can answer.” At once he wanted to kick himself, because those were questions he mostly couldn’t answer. He was usually better than this. Smoother. This was turning into a hash. “I’ve been out of the country,” he finished finally. That was absolutely true.

She looked down. He braced for her to tell him to go to hell, a place he was intimately familiar with. But then, with a visible shake, she said, “Come in. I’m going to freeze standing here.” She stepped back, allowing him to pass.

The house was warm and quiet except for the laboring forced air heat. A pleasantly sized foyer welcomed him, speaking of age and care. She pointed to his right. “Get yourself a seat in there. Do you want a hot drink?”

“I’m fine, Mrs. Hayes. If you want something, don’t mind me. I’m not trying to impose.”

But that was exactly what he was doing, he thought as he watched her walk away toward what was presumably a kitchen. She wore jeans and a bulky blue sweatshirt that reached to her hips, with the sleeves pushed up. He would have bet that sweatshirt had belonged to John, and now it was doing double duty as a maternity top.

He stepped into a cozy living room, a collection of aging and mismatched pieces that somehow came together to create a quietly colorful charm. He settled on a goosenecked chair covered with worn burgundy damask, only to pop to his feet again as she returned carrying a glass of milk. She took the other chair, a rocker, probably easier for her to get in and out of these days than the sofa across from them. He sat when she did.

Then the silence grew almost leaden. He let her study him while trying not to return her stare. She hadn’t suggested he remove his jacket, so she wanted to keep this short. Fine by him. He could come back tomorrow.

She broke the silence. “You got him the job with the State Department.”

If she’d etched the words with acid, they couldn’t have stung anymore. “Guilty,” he admitted. And of a whole lot more besides.

“Did he know?” she asked.

“Know what?”

“How dangerous it might be?”

God in heaven, that was a question with no right answer. Truth, he decided. As much truth as he could offer. “Yes.”

“As dangerous as being in the Rangers?”

Again he offered the truth. “It wasn’t supposed to be.”

She closed her eyes again, and he noted that she was rocking a little faster. “They won’t tell me the truth,” she murmured. “They said it was a mugging.” Her eyes snapped open. “I know Johnny. No mugger could have taken him.”

It was true. But it was equally true that they’d given him the same story. “They told me the same thing. A street mugging.” Initially. Unfortunately, he couldn’t reveal the little he’d learned later without revealing operational secrets. God, he’d been a fool not to have considered all the secrets he’d have to continue to keep. But still, he owed this woman and her child something.

Her gaze bored into him. “Do you believe it?”

“I...found it difficult. But...” He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. Some things he knew couldn’t be shared. Other than that, he knew almost nothing. “Muggings, street violence, in other places...well, they aren’t what we know here. And it’s pretty bad in some places here.”

Her rocking slowed, and he watched tension seep out of her. At last she lifted her milk and sipped it. “So you’re as much in the dark as I am.”

He chose not to answer.

Then she smiled faintly. “So you’re R.T. And here I thought you were an Arthur. Why didn’t you ever visit when he was home?”

“Because,” he said with perfect truth, “when John came home, all he wanted to do was be with you. I wouldn’t have intruded even if he had asked me.”

* * *

Marisa felt the words burrow straight to her heart like a spike. Reminding her of her loss, a loss that walked beside her every waking minute and during sleep sometimes, as well. But she heard the truth in them. He had known Johnny, because once she had suggested that he bring home some of his friends to visit. His answer had been, “I’m selfish. When I’m home I want you all to myself.”

She studied this Ryker Tremaine, this ghost out of John’s past. She saw in him the same hardness that she had sometimes seen in Johnny. Men who had faced death in the service of a cause. It changed them, gave them an edge.

A tall man, solid, with a face etched by many suns and hardships into a near rocky definition. A square face, with eyes almost like midnight and a strong jaw. He had been pared, the way she had watched Johnny get pared by his experiences. Honed, like fine knives.

Seeing Johnny in him, seeing a resemblance in their characters, eased her doubts even more. She’d invited a stranger in, and now she recognized him. Johnny’s ilk. Johnny’s friend. Certainly someone who had walked the same difficult, secretive paths.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“John wanted it. Because...” She watched him hesitate, wondering what he was withholding. “Because I care.” That at least sounded true.

“Did he ask you to come?”

Ryker shook his head. “Not exactly. This wasn’t supposed to happen. But after he started working at State, yes, he did ask me to check on you. I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to come or just call you.”

She could believe that. The fist that had been clenching her heart, since she’d realized Ryker was part of Johnny’s history, loosened its grip a bit. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to be cold. It must be hard for you, too.”

Something passed quickly over his face, then he said bluntly, “It’s been hell. Not your kind of hell, I’m sure, but it’s been hell.”

She felt a little warmth for him then. Though she hadn’t thought much about it, Johnny must have left other people grieving, too. Like an old friend named Ryker Tremaine. “You want to talk about him?”

“If you want to.”

“I have some gaps I’d like filled in.”

Again that odd hesitation from him, but then he explained, “Within the bounds of operational secrecy. You must have heard that from John.”

Words she had come to hate, because they had left her with huge holes in her memory of Johnny. Things she would never know, things he couldn’t share. Maybe even some things he didn’t want to share, which she could understand. But now, with an empty future in front of her, she was hungry to fill in that unknown past. Things he had done and seen but had never mentioned.

She rocked a little more, feeling her child stirring inside her. She laid her hand over her belly, feeling the active little pokes. A girl. She’d kept that to herself, as well.

“Johnny didn’t know we were going to have a baby,” she said. One of her greatest pains, laid bare now to a stranger. “I called to tell him, but he wasn’t there, and then...”

“I just heard about it recently. Evidently John wasn’t the only one who didn’t know.”

She nodded, absorbing the betrayal again. He should have at least known about his baby before he was killed. It seemed so wrong that he didn’t.

“He’d have been happy,” Ryker offered.

“I suppose.” Another resentment bubbled up inside her, one she tried to bury, but one she couldn’t quite quell. “He was gone a lot. Did he tell you how we met?”

“You grew up together.”

“Not quite. He was older. A senior in high school when I was in seventh grade. I had a crush on him, but he didn’t know it until much, much later. I was in my last year of college when he came home on a visit and noticed me. Really noticed me. We were married the day after I graduated. Then he was off again.”

“It was hard on you.” It didn’t sound like a question.

“Of course. But he laid it all out. I knew what it would be like. What mattered was that we loved each other.”

Ryker nodded. “Of course. I know he loved you more than anything on this earth.”

She felt her mouth twist. “Not quite. The Rangers were his first love. No competition there.”

Ryker surprised her then. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “I wouldn’t say that. I listened to him talk about you. Man, did he brag when you got your master’s degree. When you started teaching at the college here. He was so proud of you.”

“I was proud of him, too,” she answered simply. “I still am.” Then the grief speared her again. “When he took the job with the State Department, I thought he’d be safer!”

“He should have been, Marisa.”

Anguish twisted her gut. The baby reacted, kicking hard. “Well, he wasn’t.”

Ryker didn’t answer, not that she could blame him. How did you respond to that? She had no answers for herself, so how could anyone else? She leaned back in the rocker, giving her lungs a little more room, feeling the baby’s agitation like scalding criticism. She had to remain calm for her daughter.

Ryker remained silent, a sphinx full of secrets he was no more likely to share than Johnny had been. Why had he come? Because of Johnny? Probably. But to what purpose? What could he possibly do to make any of this better? “I don’t see the point of you coming.”

“To help in whatever way I can. Just to talk if that’s all you want from me. But I’m going to stay in town for a while, Marisa. I know my arrival is a shock, and I’m sorry. But I owe something to John.”

“John’s past caring,” she said bitterly.

“Not for me he isn’t. And if there’s anything I can do for you, I’ll do it, even if it’s just knocking down the icicles out front.”

She looked at him again and couldn’t mistake his determination. Wherever Johnny’s loss had forced her, it was clearly pushing this man, too. So they had something in common. Little enough.

She closed her eyes again, rocking gently, feeling her baby settle down, the pokes lessening. Peace returning. A hard-won peace. Acceptance hadn’t come easily, but it had come, although it hadn’t eased her grief one bit yet.

If there was any blessing in all of this, it was that during her marriage she’d grown accustomed to Johnny’s long absences. She didn’t expect to see him around every corner, didn’t expect to wake to find him beside her in bed, didn’t keep listening for the sound of his voice. Not every waking moment prodded her with reminders of his absence.

But the grief, anger and sometimes even despair often rolled over her like a tsunami, irresistible and agonizing. For all the holes in the past, there was a bigger one in the present.

Let it go, just let it go. The man nearby was grieving, too. Maybe together they could find some answers for each other. Not that life offered many answers. Things just seemed to happen.

She looked at Ryker again. He studied his hands, or maybe the floor. She couldn’t tell which. “How long will you be in town?”

“I don’t know. I do know that I’m not leaving immediately. And I have quite a bit of time.”

Meaning what, exactly? “So you were with Johnny in the Rangers, too?”

“We worked together on a number of missions.”

She accepted that, for now at least. “When he joined the State Department, I thought we’d be traveling a lot. I was looking forward to it. Only he got sent somewhere families can’t go.”

“I know. There are a lot of those places, unfortunately.”

“So what do you do?”

His smile was almost crooked. “Security. Keeping the embassy or consulates safe, and most especially the people who work there.”

“Johnny was a translator.” But of course he knew that. Her husband had a gift for languages. He soaked them up the way the grass soaked up the rain. She’d never found out exactly how many of them he knew. But then she’d never asked him to count them for her. When they’d been together, other things had seemed so much more important, the sharing and caring and lovemaking. The occasional time with old friends, but mostly... She lifted her head. “Our marriage was like one long honeymoon. When he was home we might as well have been on our own planet.”

Ryker’s face shadowed. “That’s wonderful.”

“I thought so. We never had enough time to take one another for granted.” Why was she telling him this? Was she reminding herself? Was it important somehow? “But one thing I took for granted was that we’d have a future. No matter where he went, I always believed he’d come home. I was a fool.”

“You were an optimist,” he corrected firmly. “How else could you do it?”

Good question, she supposed. No answer, but still a good question.

He spoke again. “Some of us do things with our lives that are very unfair to the people we love.”

“Are you married?”

He shook his head. “I envied John. He was happy with you, he trusted that you were strong enough to handle all this. I could never trust that much.”

“Maybe you were kinder.” She hated herself for saying it, but there it was. Johnny had trusted her to be able to handle this?

“No, I wasn’t kinder,” he said. “More selfish. Love ’em and leave ’em, that was me. My romantic past is strewn with ugliness. John at least made a commitment, tried to build something good. I not only envied him, I admired him for it.” Then he offered her something approximating a smile. “But then I never met a woman like you.”

“Meaning?”

“One who could put up with this. They always wanted me to change. You didn’t try to change John. Pretty special.”

“Trying to change someone is pointless.” Of this she was certain. “We are who we are, and if you can’t love someone just the way they are, then you don’t love them.”

“There’s a lot of wisdom in that.”

“Just truth.” She sighed. Facing up to reality again. Always painful these days. “So you weren’t with John when this happened?”

“I was in another country. A little far away to be of any use.”

“Johnny could take care of himself,” she said. “I guess that’s what’s bugging me as much as anything. He could take care of himself. This shouldn’t have happened.”

Ryker stirred. “No, it shouldn’t have. But a lot of things shouldn’t happen. I live in a world where things that shouldn’t happen often do. I’m just sorry you got dragged into it. I’m sorry John didn’t make it. I’m sorry as hell I got him the job. And I wish it had been my funeral, not his.”

She couldn’t doubt him, but this wasn’t right. She felt a stirring of self-disgust. All her dumping had done was make this man feel worse about something that had been out of his control. What kind of shrew was she becoming?

“Don’t say that, Ryker. Please. I’m not attacking you.”

“Why not? I deserve it. I saw my good friend talking about changing careers, and I found him a job. It’s my fault you’re grieving, and I know it. I should have just told him to come home to you and become a shopkeeper or something.”

That had the oddest effect on her. It booted her right out of her misery to a place where she could actually see some humor. The shift was instantaneous and shocking. She actually laughed. It sounded rusty, but it was real. “Tell me,” she said, “do you really think Johnny would have done that? Do you think he’d have taken that job you got him if it wasn’t what he really wanted to do? Come on, Ryker. Let’s be honest here. Johnny was Johnny, and he’d have made a lousy shopkeeper.”

Astonishingly, he smiled. It was a beautiful expression, erasing all the hardness from his face, nearly lighting up the room. Her heart quickened, but she barely noticed. “You’re right,” he said.

“Of course I’m right. He was an adventurer at heart. I knew it. I walked into it with my eyes open. That’s not making this hurt any less, but there was no way I was going to keep him stapled to my side for fifty years. If not this, then something else.”

He sat up, half nodding, half shaking his head. “Probably,” he agreed, then made an effort to change the subject. “Are you still teaching?”

“I’m on sabbatical until next fall.” She paused, then decided her reasoning needn’t be kept private. “It felt like too much to deal with—the baby, Johnny’s death. I couldn’t have focused on teaching. So I decided to focus on getting through this year, having the baby and taking some time to be a mother. Fall will be soon enough.”

Soon enough to try to resume a full life. Right now she wanted no part of it. Her life was all in a shambles, and she felt like she had to glue some of the pieces back together before she’d be any use to anyone. She tried to think of it as convalescence. Maybe it was sheer cowardice. An unwillingness to face more of the world than she had to, to deal with constant reminders that life went on. To deal with students who were young enough to be cheerfully falling in love or agonizing over not being asked for a date. For young people, even minor things were magnified. For her, she didn’t need a magnifying glass. She doubted she’d have patience for all that. She even doubted whether she’d be focused enough to be a good teacher.

Life had become an unending blur of pain punctuated by moments when she felt the joy of the coming child. A stark contrast that left her feeling continually off balance.