Necessary Secrets

by Barbara Phinney

“What do you think, Sylvie? It’s your ranch, now. If he can do the work, there’s no reason why we can’t hire him for the summer.”

  There were a thousand reasons why they shouldn’t hire Jon Cahill. He wanted the truth from her about Rick, the details of Rick’s last hours, not a sterilized military version.

  All those shameful details.

  And he wanted to be a part of her baby’s life.

  No. This baby was hers, not his. She would give it life, love it and raise it all by herself. She’d managed a career in the military by herself, and she’d managed to grow up without her father being around when she needed him. She would manage her new career as mother equally fine.

  Without Jon Cahill, thank you very much.

  “Well, Sylvie?” her father prompted.

  Sylvie dared another look at Jon, half-afraid his intensity and tenacity might snare her. Those blue eyes seemed stronger, reflecting the determination he practically exuded from every pore on his strong body.

  “Do I have the job, Sylvie?” As if purposely designed to contrast his powerful stare, his tone turned quiet, persuasive.

  There was that silky version of her name, too.

  This was insane. But to protest too much would be akin to suicide. Jon Cahill’s suspicions would soar through the roof if she kept refusing to hire him when she so obviously needed help.

  “All right,” she found herself saying. He wanted the job, well, he could have it. She’d keep him so busy this summer, he’d ache to return to the easy life in Toronto. And every night when his head hit his pillow—out in the bunkhouse with the rest of the men—he’d be out like a light, forgetting, or regretting, that he’d ever told her he wanted to be a part of his brother’s child’s life.

  A smile grew slowly on his face. It wasn’t much, but it did reach his eyes.

  Her skin warmed and tingled in a subtle primitive answer, and those damn horrid hormones prickled under her skin again. For one stunning moment he did look just like Rick.

  What had she got herself into? One night of fear and she’d broken her cardinal rule of never getting involved with another soldier.

  She’d admired Rick, liked him, and had wanted him to excel in his career. But she hadn’t wanted an intimate relationship with him.

  So why did you? Because of that you got him killed. The words arced across her brain, firing up another horrible wash of memories.

  “Excellent.”

  Mercifully, Jon’s words cut through her thoughts, and she blinked up at him. The smile, however, had slid from his eyes, leaving only cool, smug resolve.

  He’d won, and he knew it, the bastard. He indicated the chair in front of her father. “Let’s get you something to eat. Then while you’re showing me what to do, you can tell me all about Rick.”

  Chapter 3

  “So, where are you staying?” Sylvie asked Jon before biting into the sandwich she’d thrown together. Her father had headed back out to Andrea and all the primitive campers. She’d given him a brief kiss and short hug, complete with a reassuring smile. Then she’d practically dived into the refrigerator.

  Expressionless, Jon answered her question. “I’m not staying anywhere. As soon as I pulled into town, I headed into the nearest building to see if I could find out where you lived.”

  Her stomach settling and accepting food now, Sylvie swallowed her bite. “Which was the medical center, right? How convenient I should have just left there.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “It’s the first thing you see when you enter town. And it’s big enough to service the whole community. I took a gamble that you might have gone there to find a doctor for yourself when you retired.”

  She took another hearty bite of her sandwich. He was right about her needing a doctor. Being in the military had meant all her medical needs had been taken care of. “Good guess.”

  Jon took the pitcher of milk and poured a large glass for her. “I never guess. I study people and use common sense.”

  She grimaced at the milk. “Then you should be fully aware how I feel about people pampering me. I can pour my own milk, thank you.”

  One corner of his mouth lifted up. “No need to get in a snit. I’m just being polite. I was hoping to get a cold drink, too.”

  “Help yourself.” With one finger, she shoved the untouched glass toward him. “I guess now that you’re working here, you’re expecting to stay in the bunkhouse. Right?”

  He shoved her glass of milk back in front of her. After helping himself to one of the glasses drying on the rack by the sink, he poured himself the rest of the milk. “Absolutely. Does that pose a problem for you?”

  “What if I said the bunkhouse was full?”

  “I’d buy a tent and stay at the campground.”

  Of course he would. “I’ve told you all I can about Rick. So what do you hope to achieve here? It’s not to earn any extra money. Your job in Toronto must pay five times what I can pay you.”

  “I told you I want to be a part of Rick’s baby’s life. But you don’t want me around. If I work here all summer, maybe I can convince you I’m sincere.”

  She laughed, despite herself. “I knew that much. I can see you’re sincere at everything you do.”

  He didn’t share her laugh. Which was just as well. Her sarcasm hadn’t meant to be one of those cute, tension-breaking quips.

  He drained his milk. “Sylvie, your baby needs a father in its life. Its own father is dead, your father could do the job, but a child needs more than a grandfather who likes to camp and is ready to retire with his younger wife. I want the chance to prove to you I can be that father figure for your baby.”

  She gaped at him. A father? The idea of a cozy trio bombarded her, smashing the comfortable discussion. She swallowed down her latest bite. Jon, a father to her child? He didn’t have a clue what he was saying, or the extent of what had happened to bring him here. He wouldn’t be offering if he did. “How are you going to do that? You’re the uncle who lives in Toronto. And what makes you think I can’t provide a father figure for this baby?”

  His eyes narrowed. “How, by scouring the high school for another kid Rick’s age?”

  She shoved back her chair and stood. “You’re talking yourself out of a job, Cahill.” She swung away from him, snatching her plate as she went. Only when she’d reached the sink and had fired the plate into it, did she count to ten.

  Every swear word she’d ever learned rose in her, but she continued counting. Eight, nine…

  “I’m sorry.” Jon walked around the table and stopped beside her at the sink.

  She looked at him, battling the fury roiling inside her.

  “I was out of line.”

  She swung around to find him frowning at her. When he turned his attention to the vista seen from her kitchen window, she grabbed an opportunity to study his profile.

  A straight, strong nose centered his even features. Rick had that same handsome profile, but his face hadn’t had the age and life experience to season it, as Jon’s had.

  Good grief, Rick had been so young. For a second she could so clearly picture him, right where Jon now stood, his whole body focused on his task as he drove through the wet snow and mud….

  Moments before they slammed into the landslide that had been deliberately set.

  An hour or so before they’d done the unthinkable. A few hours before he’d died.

  Before she’d gotten him killed, just to satisfy a selfish, ludicrous desire.

  Sylvie swallowed the hard lump in her throat and fought off another stinging round of shameful memories. From the moment they scrambled into the back of the truck, to await the Quick Reaction Force, the truth and the official report diverged widely.

  She would never bridge them, either.

  Jon turned to face her once more. Mercifully, Rick disappeared from her mind as she watched Jon’s eyes moisten and cloud over. “Sylvie, I’m really sorry. I should never have said that crap about high school. You and Rick must have cared for each ot
her. A lot, if you’re carrying his baby. And to watch him die….” His voice faded into a hoarse whisper. “You two were lovers. I’m only the brother.”

  Something clamped hard around her heart. She wanted nothing more than to corral the ache and the shame and all the guilty memories that dogged her every minute. She clenched her jaw, fighting the mix that wouldn’t be corralled.

  Seeing the torment, Jon swore and hauled her into his arms. She went stiff, taken aback by his sudden compassion, but he did not relent. He pulled her tighter still, pressing her head into the side of his neck, as he drove his hands and face into her short, unruly hair.

  She could smell the faded scent of his soap. He’d missed a spot when he’d shaved that morning and it scraped her temple. For one instant Jon Cahill was human, suffering like her. She’d known him for two hours and already unwanted empathy forced her arms to wrap around him.

  She tried her best to comfort him. He tightened his grip on her further, and strangely the embrace eased the aching within her instead.

  “Thank you,” he said into her hair. “Thank you for giving me this chance.”

  For the next few minutes they did nothing but hold each other. Every part of his front touched her. He’d managed to shift his feet to enclose hers, and from his ankles up, his body fed hers with comfort. The whole long, firm length of him.

  She sighed. Too soon to be offering such personal comfort, a part of her warned. He pulled back, only enough to see her face. She lifted her head, expecting to see tears still welling inside of his eyes.

  But the look wasn’t angry or grieving or anything she’d expected. Her heart reacted first, tripping up into a higher gear, as though it knew exactly what the look on his face meant before she even understood it herself.

  His eyes, already dark in color, deepened, heating and stirring embers inside of her that should be left to grow cold. They’d sparked to life once, and look where she now found herself?

  Jon’s gaze dropped to her parted lips, and then back up, slowly roaming her face, as if in search of something.

  Then, with smooth precision, Jon lowered his head. He was going to kiss her. And she wanted to feel those smooth, firm lips on hers.

  Panic burst inside of her. He didn’t want to kiss her. He couldn’t. They shouldn’t. He wasn’t thinking about it. Was he?

  As if arcing across to him, the panic flared in his own eyes. He pushed her away, driving his fingers into his hair, looking around the kitchen at everything except her.

  He cleared his throat. “Why don’t you show me what you want me to do? You can ask this Lawrence guy to show me the bunkhouse later, okay?”

  He’d nearly kissed her! What the hell was he thinking of?

  He wasn’t sure if he even liked her, for Pete’s sake. She was far from the woman he’d mentally pictured Rick would end up with. On the exterior, Sylvie seemed like most single women in positions of authority.

  But there was also a part of her that kept pushing him, provoking him…telling him both openly and subliminally that he would never learn what really happened the night Rick died.

  And still, he’d wanted to kiss her?

  Jon followed Sylvie out the door, the horror of his intentions smacking him like the dry, mountain air.

  At home, he and Rick had never been competitive. He’d been preparing for college when his mother had announced her pregnancy. He’d just turned seventeen when Rick was born, his arrival a joy in the household. Jon had accepted his younger brother from the moment Rick first spat breast milk down the back of his favorite shirt.

  This sudden need to kiss Sylvie wasn’t born of jealousy. He refused to believe that. So what the hell was it born of, then?

  Outside, the sun beat down on them. Squinting at Sylvie, he asked, “Do you have a hat? It’s hot out here. You don’t feel faint, do you?”

  Sylvie stopped at the fence that enclosed the nearest paddock. She spun her heel in the dirt to face him. “Let’s get one thing clear. First up, pregnant women can vomit at the drop of a hat and then feel like heaven for the rest of the day. I know. I’ve had eight weeks of doing just that. And secondly, I’ll let my doctor and my own good sense tell me what I should and shouldn’t do. All right?”

  Good. She’d raised that defensive wall again. He needed that. “I don’t want you to embarrass yourself in your own backyard, that’s all.”

  She returned to her walking. When they reached the small barn closest to the house, she threw open the door and stepped into the dark building. He followed.

  “I’ll give you one thing, Jon. You’re not intimidated by a tough woman, are you?”

  He stepped into the dimness after her. “There won’t be much you can do or say that will faze me, sweetheart, so don’t bother scaring up all your worst military habits to try and oust me. My ex-wife was a social worker in Toronto’s Chinatown. She was every bit as tough as you and I managed to hold my own with her.”

  “Before or after you two divorced?”

  If he’d expected capitulation, he’d have been as big a fool as he’d been during his farce of a marriage. His ex-wife had been pregnant, into her second trimester and he hadn’t even noticed. Had she hidden it that well, or had he just stopped caring?

  Ahead, Sylvie had become a shadow in the dimly lit barn. But he saw enough to notice her hand stray to her still-flat belly.

  He crushed the urge to swear. Loudly. At Sylvie. She had exactly what he wanted. She could give him Rick’s last hours, make that connection—be that connection—to his lost brother. She carried his only living relative and…she was also keeping a secret. He’d worked with enough suspects to know the difference between those who openly admitted they weren’t going to talk, and those with a secret to keep.

  But Sylvie fitted both and it pissed him off.

  Inhaling the smells of hay and animals, he became thankful that she couldn’t make out his features and guess his thoughts, in case she could read him as easily as he read her.

  As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he searched for the words to gloss over the memory of that day his ex-wife announced she was carrying some other social worker’s child. “My ability to hold my own with my wife had no bearing on our marriage or our divorce. We simply grew apart, living separate lives until she announced one day she was moving out. I couldn’t think of a single good reason for her to stay.”

  She studied his face, exactly as he expected her to. “And you’re telling me this because you want to show me you’re sincere, right?”

  For a moment he wasn’t sure if she believed him or not. His words didn’t even ring true in his own ears. “I’m not telling you this to prove anything. You asked,” he finally answered.

  She shrugged and turned her attention to a small room nearby.

  Anger swelled in him. All of this foolishness could be avoided, if Sylvie would tell him what he wanted to know. “How did Rick die?”

  Sylvie stiffened as she swung away from him. “I told you I can’t talk about it. I signed a nondisclosure agreement. You’re familiar with those, aren’t you? Legally binding documents that say you can’t say anything—even if you want to? Look, I know you’re hurting, but recounting Rick’s last hours isn’t going to bring him back. It’s only going to torture you.”

  She didn’t meet his steady gaze. She was hiding behind a rule, a contract, just like his ex-wife had hidden behind her own privacy when he’d asked her who the father was.

  Sharply, he pulled the anger in. He wasn’t angry with Tanya. She’d been lucky enough to find love again quickly. Her baby had been a shock and a complication, and he still wasn’t sure how to take it, but now he focused on the fact that the kid would be loved and cared for.

  Would Sylvie’s baby have that good fortune? Of course. Whether she realized it or not, Sylvie was already displaying strong protective instincts. She wanted Rick’s baby…and she didn’t want him.

  A knot formed in his stomach. “Your candor isn’t going to shock me, Sylvie, so don’t tr
y to use it as a weapon.”

  Her expression suddenly softened. “Rick was like that, too. Never bothered by my forthrightness. I admired that in him. A lot of soldiers resented me and my attitude. I could never figure them out. They didn’t mind women in the army, and would say we had to be ‘one of the guys.’ So I was one and they resented that. But Rick didn’t care. He was—” she paused “—reasonable.”

  The knot tightened. “Reasonable? That’s all you have? Rick was a hell of a lot more than reasonable. He had to have been to father that child of yours!” He tried to clip his growing irritation, but hell, how could she just tag on some blasé term?

  Sylvie reddened, a reaction he hadn’t expected to see. He plowed on, regardless. “Rick must have cared for you. He wasn’t the kind of person who would screw a woman simply because it felt like a good idea.” The coarse words tasted bitter on his tongue. He hated them. But looking at her go from red to white, he was glad he’d struck a nerve.

  “I know what Rick was like. We did talk when we were stuck alone in that truck.”

  “You did more than talk.”

  “What we did and why we did it are none of your business.” She narrowed her eyes. “Who are you really mad at, here? Me, Rick, or the ex-wife you grew apart from?”

  Any sharp retort he had inside snapped back at him like a taut rubber band. She spun away from him and bustled into a small room.

  “We keep all the tools in here,” she gritted out. “I need you to fix the zoo paddock first. Bruce, he’s the pot-bellied pig, keeps slipping under the fence. He’s already dug through a camper’s garbage. I’m thinking that if you take some of the wire that’s behind the barn and bury it where he’s been digging, we should thwart him good. When you’ve done that, the front steps need nailing down again.”

  She was ready to leave him to his chores, stalk right past him, in fact, when she frowned at his clothes. “You should change.”

  He looked down at his shirt. He had packed one set of old shorts and a couple of T-shirts, in case he could squeeze in some jogging, but that was all. He hadn’t figured he’d be sticking around all summer.