An Unlikely Daddy

by Rachel Lee

  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.

  Ryker drew her attention back to him by rising. “I didn’t mean to intrude for so long. I just wanted you to know that I’m here. If it’s okay, I’ll stop by again in the morning.”

  She didn’t move. “Where are you staying?”

  “At the motel.”

  She sighed. “Lovely place.”

  “I’ve stayed in worse.” He moved toward the door. “Don’t see me out. And like I said, I’ll stop by in the morning. I don’t know about you, but I need some rest. Still adjusting to a major clock change. Jet lag.”

  She looked up at him. “Where did you fly in from?”

  A half smile. “Quite a few time zones to the east. Even more if you count to the west.”

  A pang struck her. “Johnny used to say something like that. Really helpful.”

  “I told you...”

  She waved a hand. “I get it. Operational security.”r />
  He paused and offered his hand. Reluctantly she took it, feeling warm, work-hardened skin. So familiar, but from a stranger. “Ryker...”

  “We can talk more tomorrow.” He gave her hand a squeeze, then let himself out.

  When Marisa heard the front door close, she felt at once a sense of relief and one of disappointment. There was more she wanted to ask. A lot more.

  Well, he said he’d come back. Then she sat rocking and thinking about Ryker Tremaine. She didn’t quite trust him, even if he had been Johnny’s friend. How could she? He wouldn’t give her any more answers than her husband had.

  Men who lived in the shadows, both of them. After all these years she was just beginning to understand how much.

  Finally she rose, rubbing her back a bit, and went to lock the front door, something she didn’t usually do.

  But the simple fact was, a stranger had come to her door, claiming to know Johnny. Maybe he did, but that alone didn’t make him trustworthy.

  In all, the situation felt wrong. After all these months? Out of the blue without warning? Not even a condolence card? While she wasn’t yet prepared to reject the possibility that he was the “Artie” Johnny had sometimes mentioned, even that alone wasn’t enough to create trust.

  He was a stranger. And while she might not care all that much about her own life, she did care about her baby.

  When at last she went to bed, she rested on her side, feeling her daughter’s gentle stirrings, and staring into the darkness. She thought of Johnny, which was slowly growing easier, she thought about the child who would soon join her in this world and she thought about Ryker Tremaine.

  Her sense of him was that he was a lot like Johnny in some ways. But different, too. Maybe even harder.

  Or maybe this visit had been as difficult for him as it had been for her. She couldn’t imagine why he was planning to stay, was troubled by the fact that he wouldn’t say for how long, and realized that another box of secrets had just walked into her life.

  Like she needed more of that. At last sleep freed her, giving her gentle dreams for a change, offering escape from a world that had too many hard edges.