His Girl Next Door: The Army Ranger's Return / New York's Finest Rebel / The Girl from Honeysuckle Farm

Jess pushed her hair behind her ears and tried to shut off the voice in her brain telling her to run. No matter what happened today, she had to remember it was worth it. Ryan had made her feel incredible last night. He had made her realize that she could be wanted and loved again. Just because he was going away did not mean it wasn’t worth every moment. Because it was.

She’d been so scared of showing a man her body, of opening up again and putting her heart out there. But Ryan had helped her through something she had thought was impossible to recover from. Once she’d gotten over the initial shock of him seeing her breasts, she hadn’t thought about it again all night. After months of worrying, he’d made her thoughts vanish in less than a heartbeat.

Just thinking about him like that put a smile back on her face. Until she spotted them. And her anxiety came back like a troop of butterflies playing in her stomach.

Ryan raised a hand to wave. They were walking along by the pond. She could see his son smiling, then watched as his face fell when he saw her. She wanted to run. But it was too late to back out now.

Instead she sucked up her courage and bent to let Hercules off the lead. The least she could do was let the dog have fun, chase some ducks while she tried not to find a hole to crawl and hide in.

“Jess!” Ryan called out and she mustered up a big smile again. Forced it on her face.

She waved back and watched as Hercules bounded up to them, before taking off to do laps back and forth along the water’s edge.

“Hi, guys.”

Ryan walked toward her and kissed her on the cheek. She tried to enjoy it, to experience that magical breathlessness she usually felt when his lips touched her. But instead all she saw was the flush of George’s cheeks as he looked the other way.

“I was telling George what happened with your dog the last time we were here,” Ryan said.

The boy nodded, face still stained a patchy red.

Jess shook herself out of the slump she was in. She was the adult here, the least she could do was make it as easy on George as she could.

“Little Herc means the world to me,” she said, taking a step away from Ryan, needing the breathing space as his boy watched them. “I can’t believe I was so caught up in getting to know your dad that I almost lost him.”

“Why did you start writing to my dad?” The boy’s face flushed a deep red just asking her.

“Well …” She paused and looked at Ryan. He nodded at her to continue. “I wanted to show that I cared about what our soldiers were doing for us, for our country. I heard about a pen-pal program that was being run with the army, and somehow I ended up writing to your father, out of all the soldiers serving overseas.”

Ryan moved closer to his son, hand on his shoulder. “When I told you that Jess made a huge effort to write to me, I meant that she wrote to me all the time. Every week. She helped me to see why I needed to come back home.”

George took a few steps back then turned to face the water again. “What did she tell you?”

Jessica didn’t know what to say. She was uncomfortable being made to feel like she was somehow a surrogate mother for the day. It wasn’t a role she wanted to fill. She wasn’t ready to face that kind of commitment.

“She guided me through dealing with my problems, we talked about everything and it gave me the strength to face what I’d left behind,” Ryan explained.

“Did you talk about Mom?” George asked.

Jessica wanted to back away but she couldn’t. She just stood there, feeling like an intruder.

“Yeah, about you and your mom.”

George turned away, like he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. It hadn’t gone down that badly, but it hadn’t exactly been great, either.

“Lunch?” She made the suggestion as the air became stale between them all.

Ryan looked at her gratefully. “Yeah, good idea.”

She sat beneath a nearby tree on the grass and Ryan did the same. George didn’t move.

Jess didn’t want to be here any more than she guessed the boy did. It felt like she was intruding on something she had no right to be a part of.

“I hope you like sushi.”

She nodded. At least lunch was going to be good. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Ryan gave her a relieved look, reaching out to squeeze her hand before calling to his son. “You joining us, George?”

He slowly turned toward them, his eyes telling his entire life story. They looked sad, haunted almost, and Jess fought the sudden tug deep inside her that made her want to hold him, to comfort this boy who was so confused.

He just shrugged, but she knew he probably wanted to cry. To yell at her and ask his dad why he had to meet her at all.

“Hey, George, why don’t you go get Hercules for me?” she suggested.

There was a small light in his eyes as she gave him the Get Out of Jail Free card.

“Either throw sticks into the water for him, or just get hold of him and bring him back,” she told him.

George went off straight away and Ryan reached for her knee, his hand closing over it. “Thanks for that.”

She took a deep breath. “I don’t know if meeting George today was the best idea.”

Ryan grimaced. “I know, but I did have a big talk with him before we came. Explained why I wanted him to meet you.” He paused. “Sometimes the hardest thing is the best thing to do, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time, right?”

“I think him having to deal with me when you guys are only just starting to sort things out is too much.” But part of her felt dishonest—because maybe, just maybe, it was just too much for her and yet exactly the right thing for George.

Ryan shook his head, jaw suddenly clenched a bit tighter, making him look more determined. His hand hovered then came to rest on her cheek.

Jess sighed at his touch.

“You mean something to me, Jess, and I don’t want to keep things from him.”

She turned her face to kiss his palm, wishing things could be more simple between them. That he wasn’t going away, and that she didn’t have to keep huge secrets from him.

“Ryan, you’re going away soon.” Jessica paused. “There’s no need to cause complications when they don’t even need to exist.”

Now it was Ryan shaking his head. “I should have told you that I’m not leaving for good, Jess. If I didn’t think we had a chance, that this didn’t mean something, I wouldn’t have let things go this far between us.”