An Unlikely Daddy

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.

Morning would come. Somehow, to her everlasting sorrow, it always did.

Chapter Two (#ulink_4b61b7dc-6b3d-5ee2-8df7-c75430c6ebce)

Rising before the sun. The phrase had amused Marisa since childhood, especially since she was climbing out of bed at the same time as usual. The sun’s winter-delayed arrival always made her feel cozy somehow, and this morning was no different. By the time she finished showering and dressing in one of Johnny’s old flannel shirts and maternity jeans, faint gray light began to appear around the edges of the curtains.

In the kitchen she made her allotted few cups of coffee and decided to eat cinnamon oatmeal for breakfast. With a glass of milk, she swallowed her prenatal vitamin while she stirred the oatmeal.

She had just poured the oatmeal from the pan into the bowl when she heard a knock at her side door. Looking over, she saw Julie standing there and waving. Immediately she went to let her in.

“Gawd, it’s cold out there this morning,” Julie said, pulling back her hood and shaking out her long auburn hair. Green eyes danced. “Be glad you don’t have to be anywhere. After that thaw last week, it feels like an insult. Oatmeal, huh?”

“Want me to make you some?”

“Sweetie, I already gorged on Danish and coffee. Unlike you, I don’t have to worry about healthy eating.”

Marisa laughed lightly. “Not yet, anyway.”

“I know, I know, it’ll catch up with me. All our sins do. So, dish.”

“Dish?”

Julie pulled out a chair without unzipping her jacket and sat, arching a brow at her. “Did you really think a mysterious man could show up on your doorstep last evening and that your neighbor Fiona would miss it? Or that she wouldn’t call me and probably half the rest of the town? Sit, eat.”

Marisa brought the bowl of oatmeal and a milky mug of coffee to the table. Julie eyed the coffee. “Still on restriction?”

Marisa shook her head. “Not now. The doc says I can have more, it’s not risky. But now...I don’t want any more.”

“Hah. They retrain us. Anyway, the guy last night.”

“Fiona. Does she report on every breath I take?”

“You know her better than that. But last night was something new. Everyone needs something new to talk about. So, who was he?” Julie waited eagerly.

“He says he worked with Johnny for years.”

Julie’s smile faded. “What’s wrong, Marisa? Did he scare you?”

“I don’t know what to make of him, that’s all. He said a few things, so yes he knew Johnny but...it seems kind of late to be making a social call. He certainly doesn’t know me. And he’s talking about Johnny wanting him to check on me.”

“Well, that sounds like Johnny.”

Marisa’s head popped up, a spoonful of oatmeal in her hand. “What do you mean by that?”

Julie bit her lip, finally shrugged and said, “Johnny asked me to keep an eye on you if... Well, you get it.”

“He did?” Anger billowed in Marisa. “He asked you that, and you never told me?”

Julie put up a hand. “He asked me not to. Don’t bite my head off. But, frankly, I could see his point.”

Marisa put down her spoon and gripped the edge of the table. “See what point?”

“The point that he was going away for months at a time to do a dangerous job, and sometimes his feet touched ground long enough to worry about you. He didn’t want to share that with you because you might worry about him more. It was always understood, wasn’t it, that Johnny would come home?”

The oatmeal was beginning to congeal. Marisa pushed it to the side, her appetite utterly gone. More secrets, now one that had been shared with her best friend. What else hadn’t Johnny told her? She guessed at some of it, but now she wondered. “What else?”

“That was it,” Julie answered quietly. “You know Johnny. He made light of it when he asked me, but I could tell he was serious. I’d have looked after you, anyway. You’re my best friend.”

Numbness was slowly replacing anger. Julie popped up. “Let me make you some fresh oatmeal.”

“I don’t want it anymore. Maybe I’ll make some later.”

Julie paused beside her, squeezing her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I honestly didn’t think that telling you that would.”

“No?” Craning her neck, Marisa looked up at her. “How many other things didn’t he tell me?”

“God,” Julie breathed. Slowly she returned to her chair. “Don’t take it like that. We all know he couldn’t talk about his work. It wasn’t like he was running around confiding in everyone except you. That was it, Marisa, I swear. Given that he had a dangerous job, why should it surprise anyone that he asked a handful of close people to help you out if something went wrong? Seems more thoughtful than secretive to me.”

Maybe Julie was right. Gripping her mug in both hands, Marisa tried to swallow the coffee before it cooled down too much and warmed her not at all. But this on the heels of last night...she felt alarm flags popping up inside her. Had she ever known her husband at all?

“Damn it,” Julie muttered. “The last thing on earth I wanted to do was make you feel bad. I just came over to hear about Mr. Mysterious, and look what I’ve done.”

Marisa didn’t answer immediately. Julie had been her friend since kindergarten, and she had to believe her. So Johnny had been worried. Well, he’d kind of explained the possibility when they were dating. He’d been in the Rangers, after all. Going into combat and who knew what else. She certainly didn’t. How would anything have changed if he’d told her he’d asked friends to check on her if something happened? Not at all. She would still have moved forward with the certainty that he would always return, because any other possibility was unthinkable. Johnny had seemed to believe that himself. Maybe she was more troubled by the realization that he’d been acutely aware that he might not come back. If so, he hadn’t shared that with her. Another in his long line of omissions, most of which hadn’t bothered her. So why was this getting to her?

“So,” Julie said eventually, “I’ve got only a few minutes before I have to get to work. I want to hear about this friend of Johnny’s.”

Marisa struggled back to the present moment. “Not much to say. He’s in town for a few days. He wanted to see how I was doing mainly because Johnny asked him to at one time or another.”

“But it took him six months to get here?”