Little Secrets--His Unexpected Heir

by Maureen Child

  “Yeah,” he said irritably, “it’s great.”

  “Thanks for inviting me along to see the ship.”

  “I didn’t invite you. You invited you.”

  “True,” she said with a shrug, “but you didn’t fight me on it. That was practically gracious. Congrats.”

  He frowned again and Rita had to fight to hide the smile tugging at her mouth. “So, do you really have to meet with the captain?”

  Still frowning, he glanced around, then up at the bridge. “Just to say hello, let him know I’m doing a walk-through.”

  “Do you want me with you or can I wander?”

  “Come with me, then wander,” he said, heading toward the wide open doors that led to the main lobby and reception area.

  Rita was grinning as she followed him inside, then she stopped dead, her mouth dropped open and she did a slow turn to take it all in.

  The Sea Queen was palatial. A tiled floor was inlaid with a depiction of what looked like a Middle Ages golden crown. There was a staircase that was so wide she suspected trucks could pass through side by side. Copper railings lined the second and third stories that looked down onto the lobby and deep scarlet rugs climbed the stairs. The ceiling was draped with pendant lights in shades of copper and brass and the walls boasted murals of what, again, looked like the Middle Ages. There was a theme here that went toward ancient royalty, with a hint of magic.

  “At night, the pendant lights glow, and starlight flickers against the black ceiling.”

  “Wow.” She didn’t even look at him. “I seriously love this. It’s very...magical. I half expect to see wizards and witches walk through the doors.”

  “Good,” he said, shoving both hands into the pockets of his black jeans. “That’s what we were going for. The club rooms and bars are all done with the same kind of decor. A little mystical. A lot upscale.”

  Now she did look at him in time to see a flash of pride cross his face. “It’s really spectacular,” she said.

  Nodding, he said, “Let’s find the captain, then I’ll show you a few of the staterooms.”

  She took his hand and counted it a victory when he didn’t shake her off, instead holding on to her fingers as if she were a lifeline.

  On the bridge, Rita was stunned. It was a huge room, with windows giving the crew an incredibly wide view of the sea. There were enough computers to make it look like a spaceship rather than a cruise ship.

  Captain McManus, a tall, gray-haired man with sharp brown eyes and an easy smile, welcomed them both then took Jack to one side to go over a few things. Rita didn’t mind. It gave her a chance to look around and appreciate the nearly bird’s-eye view of the ocean and the Long Beach harbor.

  There were two tall command chairs that reminded her of something off the Starship Enterprise’s bridge and counters filled with screens, blinking lights and men and women busily going over everything. She could only imagine how busy they were when they were actually at sea.

  And what would that be like, she wondered. Being on this luxurious ship, sailing off to other countries, meeting new people. She looked up at Jack. “You’ve been on a lot of cruises, haven’t you?”

  “A few,” he said, looking out over the water. “When we were kids, my folks liked to pile us all on one of the ships for a couple of weeks.” His features softened at the good memory. “Mom used to say it was the only way she could get all of us to stay in the same place for any length of time.”

  “That must have been fun,” she said, a little wistfully. “I’ve never been on one myself. Just a little too spooky, I guess. All of that water—”

  He shook his head and said, “Doesn’t seem that way, though. Once you’re on board, it’s like you’re on your own private island.”

  “Well,” she said, glancing around, “this ship is big enough that maybe even I wouldn’t be nervous.”

  “I can’t imagine you scared of anything,” Jack said.

  She looked up into his eyes. If he only knew that the one thing that scared her was losing him again. She’d mourned him once and now she had him back. Rita was determined that she wouldn’t let him go this time.

  “You ready to see other parts of the ship?”

  She half turned to look up at Jack. “Sure. I’d love to. But first let me say, the bridge is amazing. And a little disappointing, too,” she added.

  “Really?” The captain laughed and asked, “Why?”

  “Well, it sounds silly, but I sort of expected to see a wheel up here.”

  Jack smiled and the captain let out a laugh that had several of his officers turning to stare at him in surprise.

  “No,” Captain McManus said finally. “Everything’s done by computer now. Not as romantic but much more efficient.”

  “I suppose,” she said, then held out one hand to the man. “Thank you for letting me look around.”

  “For the boss’s wife?” He shook her hand and winked. “Anytime at all.”

  “Thanks, Captain,” Jack said. “We’ll let you get back to it.”

  “Excellent. We’ll be ready to sail on time, Mr. Buchanan.”

  “Good to know.”

  When they left, Rita took Jack’s hand again and walked beside him on the catwalk surrounding the bridge. The sea air flew fast and furious this high up and gave her a chill that was dispelled by Jack’s big hand holding hers.

  “We’ll take the elevator down and I’ll show you the theatres, the pools and a few of the club and casino lounges.”

  “Okay.” She whipped her hair back to look up at him. “So, you’re glad you invited me along?”

  His lips twitched. “I didn’t invite you.”

  “You wish you had.”

  “Maybe.” He glanced at her, gave her hand a squeeze, then steered her into an elevator.

  There were mirrors on every surface and Rita couldn’t help but look at him. The man was so gorgeous, she could have stared at him for hours. His features were strong and sharp and had been honed down over the last several months, giving him the look of a saint with a wicked side.

  He met her gaze in the mirror and just for a second, the power of his stare was enough to punch her heart into a frantic beat.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine,” she said, though she really wasn’t. How could she be, when she was in love with a man who didn’t want to be loved?

  The elevator stopped with a ding and he announced, “First stop, Deck Three.”

  Just like the rest of the ship, it was elegant and luxurious, from the brass sconces on the walls to the dark ruby carpet on the floor. Then her gaze focused on the solid white surface stretching out in front of them. “There’s an ice-skating rink?”

  He laughed. “We’ve got everything.”

  Her imagination completed the picture, with families moving across the ice, laughing, making memories. She could almost hear them echoing in the now-empty space.

  “Oh, I miss skating,” she said, and rubbed one hand over her belly. “But my center of gravity’s a little whacked right now, so...”

  “Yeah, well, you can always skate when you’re back in Utah after the baby’s born.”

  It was a slap. A reminder. Don’t get comfortable, he was saying. I won’t let you in. I won’t let you stay. I won’t let myself care.

  Rita almost swayed with the emotional impact, but she locked her knees because she couldn’t let him see what he could so easily do to her. She wanted to argue with him, tell him she loved him and she wasn’t going anywhere. But Rita remembered that she’d made the decision to simply not engage when he pulled back. When he tried to shut her out. So she smiled instead, though that small curve of her mouth cost her more than he would ever know.

  “Yes. There’s plenty of time for skating after the baby.” She looked around. “Wher
e’s the theatre? What movie’s playing?”

  “Not a movie theatre,” he said, frowning at her, as if waiting for her real reaction to what he’d said. “It’s for live shows. The movies are up on Deck Eight, along with a spa and a casino and stuff for the kids and—” He broke off. “Hell, who can remember it all?”

  “So, show me.” She started walking in the direction he’d pointed. He was still holding her hand though and tugged her to a stop.

  “Rita, last night, what I told you—”

  “It’s okay, Jack. Whatever you tell me is safe with me,” she assured him.

  “It’s not that. It’s...” He paused, took a breath and then released it again. “I want you to know that I made a vow to myself. You keep telling me how I’m keeping my family—and you—at a distance. You’re right. But it’s with a purpose. I swore I would never put anyone in the position of mourning me—and now I’ve got you. And the baby. And if I let my family get close again, let you get close, then I risk causing pain. I won’t do it.”

  She didn’t even know what to say to that.

  “Rita—” His eyes were shadowed. “Bottom line, I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Foolish man. Couldn’t he see that’s exactly what he was doing? Did he really believe that causing pain now was better than later? His family was already in pain because they couldn’t reach him. And she knew just how they felt. But Rita knew he wouldn’t want to hear that.

  “Good.” She nodded sharply. “I don’t want to hurt you, either.”

  “Great. But my point is...”

  “Oh, don’t worry so much, Jack.” She looked at him and the sunlight filtering through all the windows threw golden light across his face. “I get it. Nothing’s changed. You’re still locking yourself away from the world to save the rest of us.”

  He didn’t want to hurt her, but he didn’t want to love her, either. She had to force a smile again and he would never know how much it cost her.

  He frowned. “That’s—”

  Rita kept her voice light, as she added, “Not important right now. I said I don’t want to hurt you, but I might if you don’t show me where the closest bathroom is. Honestly, this baby must be camped out on my bladder.”

  “Oh. Right.” With the subject neatly changed, he led her down one side of the ship and waited as she went inside.

  Rita hadn’t really needed the bathroom, for a change. What she’d needed was a minute or two to herself. To think. To search her heart and find the strength to keep pretending that he couldn’t rip a chunk out of her soul with a word.

  She gripped the edge of the black marble countertop and stared into the mirror at her own reflection. Her eyes had so many things to say and she didn’t want to hear any of them. Maybe she was being foolish for loving a man who so clearly wasn’t interested in making the same kind of commitment.

  But how could she simply stop?

  Besides, the very fact that he was trying to warn her off, save her from him, told her that he did care. More than he wanted to.

  “And, it’s not like you get a choice about who you love,” she told her reflection. And scowled a little when her mirror image mocked her. “Fine,” she admitted, “even if I had a choice, I’d still choose him.”

  Did that make her a martyr? An idiot? “Neither,” she decided, staring into her own eyes. “It makes me Rita Marchetti Buchanan. I love him. It’s as simple as that, really.”

  Nodding to herself, she shook her hair back, gave her baby belly a consoling rub, then lifted her chin and went back to face her husband with a smile.

  * * *

  The next few days weren’t easy. Jack had expected Rita to be a little more...depressed, he guessed, about the fact that he’d brushed off their night of sex as changing nothing.

  Of course, it had, he just couldn’t admit that. Not to himself and certainly not to her. But the truth was, now that he’d been with her again, that was all he could think about.

  Apparently, though, Rita was having a much easier time of it. She’d moved on as if she’d felt nothing and that he knew was a damn lie. He’d watched her, heard her, felt her response to their lovemaking. But she’d set it all aside and rather than being relieved, Jack was just a little ticked off. What the hell?

  She wasn’t talking about it and he’d fully expected her to go all female on him. Women always wanted to talk. To share. The fact that Rita wasn’t bugged him. He couldn’t put his finger on what was happening and that bothered him, too. Jack felt off balance somehow and he wasn’t sure when that had happened.

  His new reality was simply marching on as if nothing had changed at all. Every morning, since he refused to have her drive across town all by herself at four thirty in the morning, he was up and taking her to the bakery. Where she made him coffee and fresh pastries and they had breakfast together while she talked nonstop, telling him stories about her family, talking about her plans for the bakery, refusing to accept his silence.

  She pushed him for his opinion and when she didn’t agree with him, she goaded him into an argument. Hell, he hadn’t talked this much in the four months since he’d been home.

  Every night, she was right there, whether she was cooking in the penthouse kitchen or they were ordering takeout. Rita made him a part of it. She poked and prodded at him until she got him to talk about his work, about their tour of The Sea Queen, readying to set sail. She poked her nose into his relationship with his brother, sister and father. Nothing was sacred, Jack told himself. The woman was making herself such a presence in his life, he couldn’t ignore her in spite of how hard he tried.

  And every night, when she was in the guest room and he was alone in his huge, empty bed, he really tried. But her face was uppermost in his mind all the damn time. He closed his eyes to sleep and she was there. The pillow she’d used still carried her scent.

  How the hell was a man supposed to do the right thing when everything in him was demanding he do the wrong thing?

  “Hey, Jack?”

  He closed his eyes and sighed a little. Even shutting himself up in his home office the minute he got home didn’t work. Rita would not be stopped. “What is it?”

  “Someone’s here to see you.”

  What was she up to now? he wondered. Had she brought his whole family over? Hers? Were they all going to sit in a circle and hold hands? Frowning, he pushed up from the desk, crossed the room and stalked out into the living room, half-ready for battle.

  Rita was sitting on the couch, smiling at the man opposite her. Jack stopped dead when he spotted the man’s wheelchair. Kevin. Had to be. His chest felt tight as if something was squeezing his lungs like a lemon trying for as much juice as possible. His gaze snapped to Rita. Had she done this? No. Of course not. He hadn’t even told her Kevin’s last name. There was no way she could have found him and arranged to get him to the penthouse.

  So what the hell was going on?

  “There he is!” Rita shot him a wide, bright smile of welcome. “Jack, look who’s here.”

  The guy in the chair turned to face him and suddenly, time did a weird shift and it was nearly five months ago. The sun felt hot, oppressive. Screams tore at the air and Kevin’s curses were loud and inventive as Jack worked to stop the bleeding. He felt again the raw desperation and the sense of helplessness as he shouted for a medic.

  He was standing in the penthouse and yet he had one foot firmly planted in the past and no idea how to escape it.

  “Dude,” Kevin said on a laugh. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

  In a way, he had, Jack told himself and shook his head, trying to clear the images rising up in his mind. For just a second, he’d seen Kevin as he’d been before that last mission. Tall, strong, laughing. Now reality was back and he didn’t know what to say. “Surprised to see you is all.”

  “Yeah. It’s
been a while.” Kevin rested his forearms on the arms of his chair and folded his hands together. His blond hair was just a little longer than it had been in the corps and his blue eyes were sharp, shrewd and locked on Jack. He’d lost some weight, but the real difference was the pinned-up legs of the slacks he wore.

  Kevin Davis had lost both legs on that mission, in spite of the medics delivering fast, heroic care. And Jack hadn’t talked to him since the morning he’d been evacced to a hospital ship. Even then, it had been less of a conversation and more of Kevin damning Jack to hell for saving him. Not something he liked to think about.

  “You gonna say hello anytime soon?” Kevin asked with a tilted grin.

  “Yeah. Sure.” Jack crossed the room, held out one hand and looked down at his friend. “Good to see you, Kev.”

  After shaking hands, Jack sat on the couch beside Rita and asked, “So what brings you here?”

  “Cut right to the chase, no bull,” Kevin said, smiling even wider. “Haven’t changed much, Sarge.”

  For a second, Jack felt a twinge. He’d been in the military for so long that becoming a civilian again had been a stretch. Now he wasn’t sure where the hell he belonged. Then he felt Rita’s hand sneak into his and though he told himself not to accept the comfort she was offering, his fingers linked through hers and locked them together.

  Guilt pinged around the center of his chest like a Ping-Pong ball on steroids. Here he sat. Beautiful, pregnant wife. Elegant penthouse. Successful business. His life hadn’t been shattered. He’d simply stepped back into it and though it hadn’t been an easy adjustment, it had been nothing compared to what Kevin had no doubt gone through. Jack’s tours of duty hadn’t cost him what they had Kevin. And he couldn’t make himself be okay with that.

  His back teeth ground together and he fought against the rising tide of regret within. This was why he hadn’t answered Kevin’s email. Hell, why he hadn’t even opened it. His memories were thick and rich enough that he didn’t need a reminder—being with Kevin in person—to make them even more so. And hell, what could he say to the man? Kevin had lost his legs. Jack had come home whole, if changed. How was that fair?