An Unlikely Daddy

“Johnny talked about you from time to time, but I gather he said little about me.”

“He mentioned R.T. a couple of times but no, he didn’t say much. But then he didn’t talk much about his friends in the Rangers or later. It was like when he came home, he turned all that off.”

“Probably wise,” Ryker said. He washed down a mouthful of bagel with some coffee. “Compartmentalizing, we call it. Keeping things separate. Why would he want to bring any of that home to you?”

“But he talked about me,” she argued.

“Once in a while. Sometimes everyone talked about home. Sometimes we needed to remember that there was a place or a person we wanted to get back to. The rest of the time we couldn’t afford the luxury.”

That hit her hard, but she faced it head-on. Remembering home had been a luxury? That might have been the most important thing anyone had told her about what Johnny had faced and done.

“I didn’t know him at all,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut, once again feeling the shaft of pain.

“You knew the best part of him. That mattered to him, Marisa. You gave him a place where that part could flourish.”

* * *

Conard County: The Next Generation

RACHEL LEE was hooked on writing by the age of twelve and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full-time.

To all the heroes whose stories will never be told.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

Marisa Hayes stood atop a hill in the Good Shepherd Cemetery in Conard County, Wyoming. The ceaseless spring wind seemed to blow through her hollow heart, sweeping away her life. Johnny’s coffin, wood and brass, sat atop the bier, ready to be lowered. Beneath it a strip of artificial turf covered the gaping hole in the ground that would soon contain him. The green swatch was an affront to the brown ground all around.

She couldn’t move. Pain so strong it was almost beyond feeling, a strange kind of agonized numbness, filled her. Several men were waiting to lower the casket. A few of her friends waited behind her, giving her space and time. Dimly she realized they must be growing impatient as time continued its inexorable march into a future she wished would go away.

Beyond the coffin she saw the tombstones of others who had left this life before Johnny, generations of markers, some newer, some so old they tilted. Plastic flowers brought artificial color here and there to a comfortless landscape. No well-tended ground, this. No neatly trimmed lawns and shrubs trying to create an impression of life amidst death. Just the scrubby natural countryside, tamed to a level one could walk through, but no more. A couple of tumbleweeds had rolled in and hung up just since she arrived here. They’d move on soon. Everything moved on. Time stole everything, one way or another.

Her hand rested against her still-flat belly. She’d never had a chance to tell Johnny. If she believed the pastor, her husband knew. She wasn’t sure if she believed the pastor. Right now she didn’t know if she believed in afterlife, God or anything at all.

What she believed in was her pain. What she believed in was that she was carrying Johnny’s baby. What she believed was that when she had tried to Skype him, to tell him, she had been told he was out, they’d give him a message. What she believed was that the next thing she heard was that Johnny was dead.

No open coffin. They’d warned against it. The funeral director had practically fallen on his knees, begging her not to demand it. Telling her that some images were best not remembered. Telling her to remember Johnny alive.

If the funeral director couldn’t pretty it up...

But, no, she refused to go there. It was the one piece of advice she had taken. Holding the folded flag in her arms, against her baby, she could still hear the ring of “Taps” on the desolate air, could still feel the moment she had accepted that flag, as if it were the moment she had accepted Johnny’s death. Then the man, someone she didn’t know, a State Department official who had given his name, as if she cared, had said, “John was a true hero.”

So? He was a dead hero, and his widow just wanted to climb into that hole beside him.

She lifted her gaze to the insensitive blue sky, wondering why it wasn’t gray and weeping, the way her heart wept. Why thunder and lightning weren’t rending the heavens the way her heart was rent.

She thought about burying the flag with Johnny. Just marching the four steps and placing it on the coffin. He’d earned that flag, not her, and right now it felt almost like an insult, not an honor. But she didn’t do it. The baby. Someday the child within her might want this flag, all it would ever have of its father except a few photographs. Maybe someday it would even mean something to her.

“Marisa.” Julie’s quiet voice, near her. A touch on her arm. “We need to go.”

“Then go.”

“I think I was including you in that.”

She turned her head, her neck feeling stiff, and looked straight into Julie’s worried face. “I...can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Come on, hon. You can come back tomorrow if you want. You can come every single day. But right now...”

Right now people were waiting for her, waiting to take her home, waiting to put Johnny in the ground. When she came back tomorrow, the turf would still be there, covering the bare, freshly turned earth. But Johnny’s coffin wouldn’t be where she could see it. His final home.

Numbly she nodded, facing the inevitable. Everything seemed inevitable now. She felt like a leaf caught in a rushing river’s grip, unable to stop anything, unable to catch her breath, unable find the shore. Adrift, banging from one rock to the next, helpless.

Despite Julie’s entreaties, she walked up to the coffin and laid her hand on the cold, polished wood. “I love you,” she whispered, hoping he could hear, fearing he couldn’t.

Then, jerking with every single movement as if her body belonged to someone else, she allowed Julie to lead her back to her friends and the row of cars.

It was over. Tomorrow loomed like a devouring dragon. She hoped it devoured her.

Chapter One

Ryker Tremaine pulled up to the Hayes house on a frigid November night and looked at it from within the warm confines of his car. He needed to go in there, introduce himself to John’s widow and start making amends. He suspected what John’s death had cost Marisa, but it was only when word had sifted back to him that she was pregnant that he realized he had a whole hell of a lot of atoning to do. Because of him there was not only a widow, but a fatherless child.

He had some stains on his soul, but this one felt bigger than most, and some were pretty big.

It was a large house. He knew it had been in John’s family for generations, because John had told him. It was, in John’s mind, a safe place for Marisa to stay. She had grown up around here, too. She had a job at the community college, she had friends to look after her when her husband was away. And neither of them had any family left, odd as that seemed. Even Ryker, at almost forty, had parents who had retired to New Mexico and a sister who had married a sheep rancher from New Zealand. Somehow Marisa and John, through the vicissitudes of illness and life, had been left alone.

And now Marisa had no one but friends. Had she been blessed with a big family, he’d have felt his mission of repentance was pointless. But there was a woman and a baby who John Hayes couldn’t look after. He owed something to John, to that woman and to that baby.

Just what, he wasn’t sure. Conscience and a vague promise to John had driven him here, and now conscience kept him inside the car when he should have just strode up to the door and introduced himself.

She’d had nearly six months. Maybe someone out of her husband’s past would only refresh her grief. And maybe he was making excuses because he dreaded this whole thing.

He wasn’t a chicken by nature.

Sighing, he glanced in the rearview mirror, taking stock as much as he could. He’d ditched the suit because it was too much around here, and had settled on a sweater, jeans and a jacket. He didn’t want this to look official, or remind her of bad things more than necessary.

But he continued to sit in the car a little while longer, wondering if this was just a huge act of selfishness on his part. He’d been wrestling with that since the thought of coming here had first begun goading him.

Penance was fine, as long as it didn’t inflict pain on someone else. Atonement should make things better, not worse. He shouldn’t salve his own guilt by worsening her pain.

He’d finally gotten to the point where he could no longer tell what was right or wrong, whether he was being selfish or paying a debt he owed a friend.

There was only one way to find out. That was to knock on the door and introduce himself. If she told him to go to hell, he’d have his answer. And maybe that wouldn’t freshen her grief too much, just to hear someone say, “John was my friend.”

Finally, he climbed out of the car, crunched his way across a sidewalk covered with rock salt and went up the porch steps. Icicles hung from the eaves, probably from a recent, brief thaw. If she didn’t tell him to get out of her life immediately, he should knock them down. They weren’t huge, but they could be dangerous, and she shouldn’t do it herself in her condition.

At last he could avoid the moment no longer. The doorbell glowed, demanding he punch it and then face whatever came. Usually that wasn’t a problem for him. Most things in his life had come at him the hard way. But this time...well, this time was different.

He rang the bell. He waited as the winter night deepened. She must be gone. Well, he’d come back tomorrow.

Then he heard the doorknob turn and the door opened. He recognized her instantly from photos John had shown him. Long ash-blond hair, eyes that were shaded somewhere between blue and lavender, set in a heart-shaped face. Her lips, soft and just full enough, framed the faintest of quizzical smiles. And her belly... He couldn’t help but look at the mound. John’s baby, due in a few months.

“May I help you?” Her voice was light, pleasant, but cautious.

He dragged his gaze to her face, understanding in an instant what had drawn John to her. Surprise shook him as attraction gut-punched him. He figured he must be plumbing new depths of ugliness. His friend’s pregnant widow? Off-limits. He cleared his throat. “Hi,” he said. “My name’s Ryker Tremaine.”

If he expected her to recognize it, he was disappointed. Her brow creased slightly. “Yes?” No recognition, nothing.

“I was John’s friend,” he announced baldly. “We worked together at...State. Before that, a few times when he was in the Rangers.”

Her smile faded, but at least she didn’t pale. “He never mentioned you.”

He’d anticipated this possibility. The question was whether he should just walk away or press. He nodded. “He used to call me R.T.”

“R.T.?” The furrow deepened, and then recognition dawned. “Oh. Oh! I thought he was saying Artie. Short for...” She clapped her hand to her mouth, as if containing something, and her face paled a little. “You were with him.”

“Not that day,” he said evenly. This wasn’t going the way he’d imagined, good or bad. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave you alone. I just...when I heard you were...” He glanced down.

Her hand dropped from her mouth to the mound of her belly. “Oh.” She sounded faint and closed her eyes. Then they opened, blue fire. “Is there a reason for this visit after all this time?”

“I couldn’t get away when...” He didn’t want to say funeral. “Then I thought it was too late. And then I heard about... Maybe you have some questions I can answer.” At once he wanted to kick himself, because those were questions he mostly couldn’t answer. He was usually better than this. Smoother. This was turning into a hash. “I’ve been out of the country,” he finished finally. That was absolutely true.

She looked down. He braced for her to tell him to go to hell, a place he was intimately familiar with. But then, with a visible shake, she said, “Come in. I’m going to freeze standing here.” She stepped back, allowing him to pass.

The house was warm and quiet except for the laboring forced air heat. A pleasantly sized foyer welcomed him, speaking of age and care. She pointed to his right. “Get yourself a seat in there. Do you want a hot drink?”

“I’m fine, Mrs. Hayes. If you want something, don’t mind me. I’m not trying to impose.”

But that was exactly what he was doing, he thought as he watched her walk away toward what was presumably a kitchen. She wore jeans and a bulky blue sweatshirt that reached to her hips, with the sleeves pushed up. He would have bet that sweatshirt had belonged to John, and now it was doing double duty as a maternity top.

He stepped into a cozy living room, a collection of aging and mismatched pieces that somehow came together to create a quietly colorful charm. He settled on a goosenecked chair covered with worn burgundy damask, only to pop to his feet again as she returned carrying a glass of milk. She took the other chair, a rocker, probably easier for her to get in and out of these days than the sofa across from them. He sat when she did.

Then the silence grew almost leaden. He let her study him while trying not to return her stare. She hadn’t suggested he remove his jacket, so she wanted to keep this short. Fine by him. He could come back tomorrow.

She broke the silence. “You got him the job with the State Department.”

If she’d etched the words with acid, they couldn’t have stung anymore. “Guilty,” he admitted. And of a whole lot more besides.

“Did he know?” she asked.

“Know what?”

“How dangerous it might be?”

God in heaven, that was a question with no right answer. Truth, he decided. As much truth as he could offer. “Yes.”

“As dangerous as being in the Rangers?”

Again he offered the truth. “It wasn’t supposed to be.”

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.”