If I Need You

Beth Kery

www.spice-books.co.uk

Also available

IF YOU COME BACK TO ME

IF I CAN’T LET GO

IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU

IF I TRUST YOU

BETH KERY holds a doctorate degree in the behavioural sciences and enjoys incorporating what she’s learned about human nature into her stories. To date, she has published more than a dozen novels and short stories and writes in multiple genres, always with the overarching theme of passionate, emotional romance. To find out about upcoming books in the Harbor Town series, visit Beth at her website at www.BethKery.com or join her for a chat at her reader group, www.groups.yahoo.com/group/BethKery.

My thanks to my editor, Susan Litman, for guiding me through this series with a sure hand, and to Laura Bradford, my agent.

As always, huge appreciation and a big hug to my husband for surviving yet another book with typical grace and patience.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

Ryan Itani set down the magazine that he hadn’t really been reading and glanced around the waiting room of the veterinarian’s office. He wondered for the hundredth time if he shouldn’t have tried to call Faith Holmes before surprising her while she was at work. If he were honest with himself, he’d have to admit he was worried that if he had called, she would have made an excuse not to see him.

Not that he blamed her. After what had happened last Christmas Eve, he technically couldn’t hold it against Faith if she avoided him like the plague for the rest of her life. It would have been one thing if he’d stuck to his original mission that night three months ago—drive the twenty miles from Harbor Town to Faith’s country house and pay his respects to his friend Jesse’s widow. He’d been on three tours of duty with Jesse, both of them having served as pilots in the Air Force 28th Fighter Wing. He’d always respected Jesse’s wife, Faith, always liked her openness and kind heart, appreciated her funny, warm letters to Jesse while they’d both been stationed in Afghanistan.

If he’d also thought Faith was one of the most stunning women he’d ever met, and that Jesse didn’t deserve her, given his tendency for womanizing and infidelity, Ryan had kept that to himself.

Or at least he had until Christmas Eve.

Behind a partition, a dog barked loudly and a woman let out a shriek of alarm, bringing Ryan’s straying thoughts back to the present moment. Another dog joined in the fracas. He heard a calm but authoritative woman’s voice and went still. Faith had somehow passed him in the partitioned-off area of the waiting room where he sat. There must be another door leading from the exam rooms to the waiting area.

“Please put Knuckles’s leash in the shortest, locked position, Mrs. Biddle.” Faith’s voice floated above the two dogs’ loud barking. “You really shouldn’t bring Sheba into the office without her container, Mr. Tanner. You can’t blame Ivy and Knuckles for getting excited, seeing a cat unprotected like that. Jane, can you show Mr. Tanner and Sheba back to the examination room right away?”

“Sheba hates that container,” a man grumbled. “Sheba, come back—”

“Wait, Knuckles! Oh, dear!” a woman moaned.

Ryan heard a sound like omff and sprung up from his chair. Rushing around the partition wall, he saw a gray, short-haired cat zooming across the room toward him. He bent and scooped it up into his arms without thinking before it had a chance to tear behind the receptionist’s desk. When he straightened, he saw Faith in profile wearing a white lab coat, a skirt and pumps, her long, curling, dark hair rippling around her shoulders as she tried to restrain a scrambling Dalmatian puppy.

“Oh, no, Faith!” a short, blond-haired woman cried as she raced around the receptionist’s desk. “Put him down. You shouldn’t be holding a big dog like that in your condition.”

“It’s okay, I’m fine,” Faith managed to get out as she soothed the squirming puppy.

“Here, I have the leash. Stupid of me, I somehow disconnected him when I was trying to restrain him by the collar,” a frazzled-sounding, gray-haired woman in her fifties said as she grabbed Knuckles’s collar. She reaffixed the leash, and Faith bent to deposit Knuckles on the floor.

Someone tapped on his forearm and Ryan pulled his glued gaze off the vision of Faith. What had the receptionist meant when she’d said in your condition? Was Faith ill? he wondered anxiously. He handed Sheba-the-cat to a husky black man in his twenties, nodding once distractedly when the man offered his thanks.

Faith was giving the gray-haired woman a weary smile. “Just remember—shortest, locked position for the leash for future office visits, Mrs. Biddle.” She touched her belly as if to reassure herself.

It was a timeless gesture, and one Ryan immediately recognized.

Lightening-quick reflexes were an absolute must for a fighter pilot, and Ryan was known for being one of the fastest responders. In that moment, however, he uncharacteristically froze. An iron hand seemed to have clutched at his lungs, making breathing impossible. A thousand images and memories swept past his awareness as if he were a drowning man. One seemed to linger on the screen of his mind’s eye: Faith answering the front door on Christmas Eve, her long, curling hair spilling around the snowy white robe she wore, her smile radiant, her large green eyes shining with emotion.

Ryan, I’m so happy you came.

Jesse would have wanted me to look in on you, make sure you were safe and sound.

He’d done more than just make sure Jesse’s widow was safe and sound, though. A hell of a lot more.

Faith looked around and saw him standing in the waiting room. The stretched seconds collapsed.

“Ryan,” she exclaimed in a shocked tone. The receptionist and all the patrons in the waiting room turned to gape at him. “What are you doing here?”

“I flew in for business,” he said shortly, referring to the new charter airline business he’d begun after leaving the Air Force last December. His gaze flickered downward over Faith’s belly before he met her stare again. He’d forgotten how vividly green her eyes were.

“I think we’d better talk,” he said.

She bit at her lower lip anxiously and took a step toward him. All the color had left her cheeks.

“Yes. I think we’d better.”

* * *

Faith took off her lab coat and hung it on the hook behind the door of her private office. She cast a nervous glance at herself in the mirror mounted on the wall.

She couldn’t believe Ryan was here. And he knew. Somehow he’d guessed about the baby. She’d seen the stunned realization in his dark eyes as they’d stood there in the waiting room.

She tried to smooth her waving, curling tresses—hopeless cause. She sufficed by pulling the mass up onto her head and clipping it in place. It was probably better to look a little more...professional for this meeting anyway, she told herself as she pulled a few coiling strands down to frame her face.

Ridiculous, the idea of being professional. Her relationship with Ryan might be described as “nearly nonexistent” or perhaps as “friendly acquaintances” or perhaps “odd” but hardly “professional.” Not after Christmas Eve. Seeing him standing there, so tall, so commanding, so intense—it’d brought it all back. How he must be regretting that impulsive, inexplicable moment of blazing lust now.

Afterward he’d suggested they’d acted out of the emotional turmoil of their shared remembrance of Jesse’s death in a chopper accident a year before. He’d also worried that their impulsive tryst had ruined the chances of him being there for her. As a friend.

A dull ache flared in her breast at the memory. It’d hurt, having Ryan say those things. Maybe it was true, that the incredible heat between them had been generated from an emotional backfire. She couldn’t be sure what had happened on that night.

True, he’d been grieving the loss of her husband, in more than the obvious sense. She’d learned in a particularly painful way just months before his death that Jesse had been unfaithful. Yes, she’d been grieving his death, but not in the same way a woman would be if she’d been in a happy, trusting marriage.

Another thought had haunted her after she and Ryan had started to come back to their senses that night. Perhaps Ryan was like a lot of top guns, craving the next female conquest in the same way he might hunger for the jolt of adrenaline that comes from a faster jet?

Maybe Ryan was like Jesse.

She straightened her spine. None of that mattered now, she thought as she touched her stomach. She had more important things to consider—like the future of her unborn child.

Anxious but determined, Faith walked into the waiting room. The first thing she saw upon opening the door was Ryan. He sat facing her, his expression alert and stony. She met his gaze with effort.

His dark brown hair was short, but not military-short. It had started to grow out a bit since he’d become a civilian several months ago. His bangs fell onto his forehead, escaping the combed-back style. His lean jaw was dusted with whiskers. Although he looked entirely sober as he examined her, the lines that framed a firm, well-shaped mouth reminded her he was a man who liked to laugh.

When he wasn’t still recovering from the shock of a lifetime, that is.

“Hi,” Faith said shakily. She sensed an observant gaze and glanced behind the reception desk. Jane ducked her head and pretended to be utterly absorbed in the process of stuffing envelopes.

“We were able to clear about an hour and a half in my schedule, but I’m afraid we couldn’t reach all of my patients’ owners. I’m going to have to come back to work after we talk,” she said nervously.

Ryan stood abruptly and came toward her. Funny—she’d only just left him in the waiting room forty-five minutes ago, but his height, his strength, his presence struck her anew. She found herself searching his features, trying to find some indication of what he was thinking or feeling. But Ryan wasn’t known for being ice under pressure while performing complicated, dangerous flight maneuvers for nothing. Magnetically attractive and elementally male he might be, but she was learning he could be very difficult to read.

“Are you all right?” he asked tensely.

She blinked at the sound of his quiet, restrained tone. Perhaps he wasn’t as impassive as she’d assumed.

“I’m fine. I’ll explain everything.” She waved toward the front door. She felt awkward and anxious. How did one go about telling a man that he was about to be a father? Not that the words really mattered. It was pretty clear to Faith that Ryan already guessed the result of that impulsive, foolish...unforgettable night.

“If we can just go somewhere private,” Faith said.

He nodded once and touched her shoulder, encouraging her to go before him. Faith led him out the door. In a matter of days Holland, Michigan, would be blazing with color from its famous tulips and orchards, not to mention the brilliant sunsets over scenic Lake Michigan and Lake Macatawa. This afternoon, however, was a watered-down promise of what was to come. Weak sunlight fell on the budding trees and sprouting daffodils edging Faith’s office building. She still felt the chill of winter in the mild breeze that touched her cheek.

“We can take my car,” Ryan said, nodding toward a dark blue sedan in the nearly empty parking lot of her practice.

Faith’s throat was too constricted with anxiety to respond. She said nothing as he opened the passenger-side door for her, although the very air between them seemed charged and electric with tension. They remained quiet as Ryan drove for a few minutes down the rural highway, and then pulled down a gravel lane that Faith knew led to a scenic lookout at Holland State Park. A moment later he stopped the car.

Both of them stared at the pale blue, rippling expanse of Lake Michigan and in the distance, the towering sand dune of Mount Pisgah. Faith struggled to find the right words, but nothing came. Nothing.

“You’re pregnant,” he said succinctly, breaking the silence.

“Yes.”

A muscle jumped in his cheek and his hands tightened around the wheel. “Were you planning on telling me?”

“Of course,” Faith said emphatically. She blinked back the tears that suddenly burned in her eyes and met his stare. “I was planning on calling you and telling you next week.”

He closed his eyes. “So it is mine,” he said in a choked voice.

“Yes,” Faith whispered. “There isn’t...there hasn’t been anyone else.”

“You told me on Christmas Eve that you were on the pill.”

She swallowed convulsively. Here it was—her lie exposed.

“Ryan, I didn’t want you to worry. I knew that if I told you we had unprotected sex that night—”

“That I wouldn’t leave,” he said abruptly. “And that was what you wanted the most, wasn’t it, Faith? For me to vanish from your life?”

She closed her eyelids and a few tears spilled down her cheeks. “It was a mistake. All of it. You know that as well as I do.”

His hands closed around the steering wheel in what looked like a death grip. “I don’t know what the hell I thought it was,” he said tensely. “I still hadn’t gotten my bearings straight when you told me you didn’t think we should see each other anymore.”

“You told me you thought it’d been a sort of...emotional backfire, that we’d acted so impulsively because of Jesse’s death. You were Jesse’s good friend, a comrade in arms. I was—”

“His wife,” he said.

“His widow,” Faith corrected. If he’d lived, I would have been his divorced wife by Christmas, she added in her thoughts. Misery, anger and guilt swept through her—a potent, poison mixture of emotions with which she’d become all too familiar.

She wasn’t sure how much Ryan knew about Jesse’s affairs. Did they talk about them, perhaps share stories of sexual conquests, compare notes? Had Jesse confessed to him about his affair with Captain Melanie Shane? Melanie was a member of their wing, after all. She’d been the pilot and only survivor of the helicopter crash that had killed Jesse. Ryan might know that Melanie had contacted Faith and revealed her affair with Jesse months before the accident. He might already know Faith had filed for divorce at the time of Jesse’s death.

Then again, he might not.

Most importantly, if Ryan had known about Jesse’s infidelities, how much did that figure into what had happened between them at Christmas?

“When I said that thing about what happened between us being an emotional backfire, I was grabbing at straws,” Ryan said in a low, vibrating voice. “I was looking for anything to help me understand how I could have taken advantage of a vulnerable woman—someone I care about. I returned to Michigan on Christmas Eve to offer support to my friend’s widow. You know I always liked you...respected you, even if we’d only met a couple of times. What happened between us was the last thing I’d expected. I meant to make you feel better, but instead, I caused you harm,” he said, wincing.

Her backbone stiffened. “You haven’t harmed me. I’m thrilled about the baby, Ryan.” He glanced at her, quick and wary, and she caught a glimpse beneath his stony, top-gun facade. For a brief second she saw the stark anxiety in his gaze. Her temporary irritation faded. She’d had three months to come to terms with the fact that her life was about to change forever. Ryan had had only an hour to absorb that mind-blowing reality.

“I don’t expect you to be thrilled about it—at least not right off the bat,” she said quietly. “It’s a shock. I know it’s the last thing on earth you thought would happen.”

Her hushed voice seemed to reverberate in the air between them.

“I want you to know I plan on sharing custody with you. I hope we can work together to make things as secure and comfortable for the baby as we can,” she said, breaking the taut silence.

His face looked rigid as he turned and stared out at the great lake. Faith took the opportunity of his averted gaze to drink in her fill of the image of him. He had a great profile—a strong chin, straight, masculine nose; firm, well-shaped lips. Hard. That was the impression one got when they looked at Ryan. Tough as steel, honed, fast nerves, a brilliant mind. His body had been hard and honed as well, but also warm, sensitive, delightful for a woman to mold against...touch.

She inhaled sharply, willing her straying brain to come to order. His aftershave tickled her nose, the subtle, spicy, clean male scent triggering a wave of sensual memories. She knew from that night that the scent clung especially rich there at his nape at the edge of his hairline.

Her cheeks grew warm.

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,” he said after a pause, forcing Faith to focus. “I can’t believe you’re going to have a baby.”

“We are,” she said softly. He turned his head and met her stare.

“Are you really happy about it?” he asked.

“I’ll admit that at first I was pretty bowled over. It didn’t take me long to get used to the idea...become excited,” she said quietly, her fingers brushing against her abdomen instinctively. She paused when she noticed Ryan’s stare on her hand. A warm, heavy feeling expanded in her belly and lowered. Her fingers seemed to burn beneath his gaze. How was it that he so effortlessly had this effect on her? She saw his strong throat convulse as he swallowed.

“So...you’re about three months along?” he asked gruffly.

“I just started my second trimester.”

“And the doctor says—”

“The baby is perfectly healthy. I’ve already had an ultrasound,” she said, wonder filtering into her tone. Some of the miracle of that day came back to her unexpectedly. He was the father, after all, the cocreator of that tiny miracle she’d seen on the screen.

His expression looked flat. Faith realized she was witnessing a highly unlikely event firsthand—Major Ryan Itani in a state of shock.

“Ryan, are you all right?”

“Of course,” he said. He blinked as if to clear the haze from his vision. “And you? You’re healthy, as well?” he asked in a voice that struck her as strained.

She smiled reassuringly. “I’m fine. Completely healthy.”

“What...what do you plan to do?” he asked after a moment.

“Do?” she asked bemusedly. “Well, have the baby, of course. Take care of it. Love it.”

“All on your own?”

“I don’t see why not. I have a good job. My practice is doing very well. I’m just as capable as any adult of taking care of a baby.”

“Your parents moved to Florida a year ago,” he said. “You don’t have any other family remaining in the area, do you?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean much. I doubt my parents would have been super excited to get involved anyway. They’re pretty involved with their own life. But I have good friends in town, like Jane.”

“Your office manager?” he asked doubtfully.

She gave him a surprised glance. “Did you meet Jane while I was seeing patients?” she asked, referring to earlier, when he’d waited for her at her office.

He nodded distractedly. “She introduced herself. Besides, you talked about her on Christmas Eve, remember? You’d spent that evening with Jane’s family.”

“Oh, right.”

An awkward silence settled. It struck her how bizarre this situation really was. She’d only met Ryan in person on two other occasions before Christmas Eve—at summer picnics for families of members of the 28th Wing while Jesse and Ryan had both been based in the Bay Area. She’d liked Ryan very much, and knew that Jesse’s admiration for him bordered on worship. Ryan and she were both from Michigan, and Ryan had regularly spent his summers in nearby Harbor Town, so they’d had that in common. She’d enjoyed talking to him. She may have been married at the time, but she wasn’t blind. Ryan was a very attractive man. Still, he’d never been in the forefront of her mind. Aside from those casual social events and constantly hearing his name mentioned by Jesse, Faith had known little else about him.

Christmas Eve had brought knowledge, of course, of the lightening strike of passion variety. But sharing a wild moment of lust with a man hardly qualified as true intimacy.

Now they were going to have a baby together. The strangeness of the whole thing was almost mind-numbing.

“You don’t have enough people around you for support, Faith. I’m sure Jane is a good friend, but it’s not the same as a family. We even talked about that very thing at Christmas.”

Her mouth fell open. He’d been so approachable one second, but now his serious tone sent a prickle of alarm through her. Surely he wasn’t going to start dictating terms to her, was he? “I’ll make do, Ryan. I’ll figure things out.”

“I’m all the way out on the West Coast.”

“Well, I’m not moving.”

He blinked, and she realized how emphatic she’d sounded. “Sorry—I know you weren’t suggesting that, but well...please don’t. Suggest it, I mean.” She met his stare, hoping he’d understand. “I like my life here. I grew up in this area and think it’d be an ideal place to raise a child. I missed it during the years I traveled around with Jesse. Plus, I love my job. I’m proud of the practice I’ve built.”

He studied his hands on the steering wheel. “You should be proud of it. You did it all on your own. Starting up this airline charter business, I know how much work that takes. How much dedication.”

“Thank you for saying that,” she said sincerely, some of her former tension draining out of her. “I don’t blame Jesse for his job, or for the fact that it required him to be out of the country for a large chunk of our marriage. It forced me to be independent. I built my practice from nothing into something that’s not only a thriving business, but an emotionally fulfilling one for me.”

He studied her through a narrow-eyed gaze that she couldn’t quite interpret. She avoided his laserlike stare, looking at her hands folded in her lap.

“I probably should get back to work,” she said.

His hands slid along the steering will and he shifted the car into Reverse. He did a neat two-point turn and soon they were once again traversing the gravel drive.

“You mentioned being here on business.” Faith attempted to bring the subject around to less charged topics. “How is your airline company going?”

“Really well. I’ve just been operating with the one plane, with one other pilot besides myself, and an administrative assistant who does booking and some marketing work, but I’m about to expand,” he said as he turned onto the highway.

“Really? That’s wonderful, Ryan,” Faith said enthusiastically. He’d mentioned to her casually while they talked at one of those Air Force picnics that he wanted to start up a charter airline business when he finally retired from the military. She’d been thrilled to hear when he paid her that unexpected Christmas Eve visit that he’d finally begun to live his dream. She was a little surprised at how gratifying it felt to her to know that Ryan was thriving and happy.

He gave her a sideways glance and smiled.

“Yeah. I’ve been flying a woman back and forth from this area to Lake Tahoe and San Francisco quite a bit—she has business to attend to in all those locations. Anyway, because I’ve been flying in and out of Tulip County Airport a lot because of this client, I’ve had my eye on a Cessna a man is selling there. I was going to make an offer on this visit. After I get a second plane, I’ll be able to hire another pilot.”

“That’s great news,” Faith said, even though her brain had gotten stuck on one thing that he’d said. “Tulip Country Airport is so close.”

“Yeah. Only a few minutes from here.”

“So...you’ve been back to this area several times in the past few months?”

He glanced at her, doing a double take when he saw her expression. “Yeah,” he admitted.

Her pulse began to thrum at her throat. “Why did you only come to visit me today?”

He stared straight ahead at the road, but she sensed the tension that leapt into his muscles. “You told me last Christmas you didn’t think we should see each other again.”

“Well, I know,” she said awkwardly. “But you came anyway. I was just wondering—why today?”

His jaw tightened. He didn’t immediately answer her, but focused on pulling into her office parking lot. Faith waited while he whipped the car concisely into a spot and put it into Park.

“I came because I’d hoped you’d had enough time to reconsider what you’d said that night,” he said quietly. “Everything about what you told me today aside,” he said, his gaze flickering down to her belly. “I was never convinced, like you seemed to be, that because of our...lapse, we should never see each other again. I came on that Christmas Eve to offer support to the widow of a good friend. Because it became more than that doesn’t make it wrong.”

Faith swallowed with difficulty, highly affected by the resonant timbre of his deep voice. An uneasy feeling settled in her belly. She shouldn’t automatically assume that Ryan was like Jesse, but the only proof that she had was Jesse’s joking, admiring references to the fact that Ryan could have just about any woman he wanted. He was in his mid to late thirties, and hadn’t seemed to settle down into a monogamous relationship. After their all-too-brief encounter, she’d begun to wonder if he didn’t consider sex in a similar vein to Jesse. Jesse and Ryan were both handsome, dashing pilots—the type of men that made female hearts flutter across the globe.

That was what had been behind her insistence that what had happened between them was a mistake.

That, and his references to their impulsive lovemaking ruining the potential friendship he wanted with her.

She hadn’t changed her mind in the past three months. It seemed a lot more difficult to bolster her logic, however, sitting just feet away from Ryan and inhaling his spicy male scent. The last thing Faith needed was to get involved with another faithless man—not that Ryan was interested. Besides, she had the baby to think about now.

“Faith, what are you thinking?” Ryan asked. She realized he must have seen the turmoil on her face.

“I still think it was a mistake what happened between us. Just because a baby is going to come of it doesn’t mean we should continue going down that wrong road. I know that when you showed up at my house on Christmas Eve, you weren’t thinking about being strapped down with a woman and a baby.”

“I’m not thinking of it as being strapped down,” he said forcefully. “And just because I wasn’t planning what happened doesn’t automatically make it a mistake.”

“I told you that I’m thrilled about the baby,” she said sincerely. “It’s a blessing to me. I’ve always wanted children. But the baby doesn’t make it right for us to...reconnect, does it?”

He touched her jaw, the gesture in combination with his determined stare setting her off balance. His fingers felt warm and slightly calloused against her skin. She blinked in disorientation when he stroked the line of her jaw with his forefinger. “I think what’s right is for us to spend more time together.”

“Because of the baby?” she asked weakly.

His stare bored straight down into the core of her.

“No. Because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since Christmas.”

Chapter Two

Faith’s pulse began to throb at her throat. She wanted to look away, but was ensnared by Ryan’s eyes.

“Let me take you out to dinner tonight. We need to talk more,” he said.

A battle waged in her breast. Part of her—the part that was getting breathless at the sensation of his skin touching her own—wanted very much to agree. Another part was wary, though. Her attraction for him could get her into a lot of trouble, and that was a potential heartache she’d already had enough of to last for three lifetimes.

Her practical side whispered to her that he only couldn’t stop thinking about her since Christmas Eve because he felt guilty.

And yet she couldn’t just ignore him. No matter how confused her feelings, Ryan was the father of her baby. Besides, she thought, breaking contact with his hand, there was a topic she really needed to broach with him.

“All right. As a matter of fact, there’s something I want us to be on the same page about. It’s about Jesse,” she said.

He went still next to her, like a warrior suddenly sensing danger. “Okay,” he replied slowly. “I suppose it’s an inevitable topic, between us. Might as well face it head-on.”

She gave him a puzzled glance.

“I just mean that Jesse’s the common denominator between us.” He hesitated. Faith had the impression he was choosing his words very carefully. “He must be on your mind a lot. That’s understandable, especially now that...” He glanced briefly at her stomach and then out the front window. His jaw tightened.

Her heart went out to him. She knew from some of the things he’d said on Christmas Eve that he’d considered his actions to be the worst sort of treachery toward a friend. It didn’t matter to him that Jesse had been dead for almost a year when they’d gotten together. Anger splintered through her at the thought. Jesse didn’t deserve Ryan’s show of loyalty. Not when Jesse himself had been so faithless.

“The baby has nothing to do with Jesse, Ryan,” she said coolly, reaching for the door handle. “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

He put his hand on her shoulder, halting her exit. For a few seconds she thought he was going to demand that she tell him what she’d meant.

“I’ll stop by your house tonight. Say six?” he said instead.

She nodded once, willfully ignoring her heart pounding in her ears, and stepped out of the car.

* * *

Ryan watched her through the window as she walked toward her office. Her figure still looked graceful and slender—from the back, anyway. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from noticing as they sat in the car, however, that her breasts appeared fuller than he recalled beneath the fitted, belted jacket she wore. His thoughts strayed to what she’d felt like on that night—petal-soft, exquisitely sensitive skin sliding beneath his fingertips...his lips.

The sound of the office door shutting behind Faith made him blink. His erotic memories scattered. What was he doing, sitting here fantasizing about Faith when he’d just gotten some of the most shocking, amazing news of his life?

His mind went over their conversation. He’d wondered incessantly if Faith knew about Jesse’s womanizing. Something about her tension-filled reference to Jesse just now had sent a warning bell going off in his head. Was Faith planning to tell him that Jesse would forever be the love of her life, that she deeply regretted their volatile, unexpected lovemaking?

Or was she going to tell him that she knew about Jesse’s infidelities?

Damn.

He didn’t know which possible truth pained him more. He dreaded the possibility of hearing that Faith would eternally be loyal to a man who was gone. He despised the idea of how much Faith would have suffered at the knowledge that Jesse had been unfaithful to her.

He took a moment to try to absorb everything that had happened to him in the past few hours. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t do it.

Faith was going to have a baby, and he was the father.

She planned to raise the child here in Michigan, thousands of miles from where he worked and lived.

Being that far away suddenly become a reality he couldn’t bear.

It was bizarre to realize that just last Christmas, his sister Mari had announced she was going to have another baby. Until a few years ago Mari had been Ryan’s only living family. Mari and her husband Marc Kavanaugh had had a daughter, and Ryan had felt blessed to add another name to the family list. Soon, he’d have another family member. It’d been amazing news to receive, even if there had been a hint of sadness mixing with his jubilation. He was thrilled for Mari, of course, but hearing about her pregnancy had made him wonder if he’d ever experience the same joy firsthand. Romance and women had come easily to him. Finding someone with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life and build a family had proved to be much more elusive.

Strange, to consider in retrospect, that the same night Mari had announced she was going to have another baby, he’d driven the twenty miles from Harbor Town to Faith’s house and done the unthinkable. He’d created his own.

He’d beaten himself up for losing control that night, but Faith had been so lovely, so fresh...so sweet. Had his admiration for her just been the surface of a much deeper attraction, feelings that had to be repressed given her marriage to his good friend?

He suspected that was the case. The only thing he knew for certain, Ryan thought grimly as he turned the ignition, was that there had been an inevitable quality to what they’d done on Christmas Eve. There was no changing it now. He wasn’t sure he would, even if he could.

Instead of pulling out of the parking lot, he dialed a number on his cell phone.

“Deidre? It’s Ryan,” he said when Deidre Kavanaugh Malone, the client he’d flown to southwestern Michigan answered. Deidre was technically more than a client; she was extended family. Her brother Marc was married to Ryan’s sister, Mari. He’d known Deidre since they were kids spending their idyllic summers in Harbor Town. Deidre had recently inherited a large fortune and was currently one of the wealthiest women in the country, but she remained the friendly, brave girl he’d always known.

Several months ago, Deidre and Nick Malone, the CEO of DuBois Enterprises, had set the business and social world ablaze with the news of their marriage. The financial world had assumed that Deidre and Nick, co-owner and leader of the DuBois conglomerate, would be natural adversaries. As an insider and friend to the couple, however, Ryan knew that immense wealth, media speculation and glitz and glamour aside, Deidre and Nick were deeply devoted to one another.

“Hi, what’s up?” she asked.

“If it’s all right with you, I’m going to have Scott fly in commercial to take you back to Lake Tahoe in a few days,” he said, referring to Scott Mason, the other pilot that worked for his company, Eagle Air.

“That’s fine with me,” Deidre replied. “But is everything all right?”

“Yeah. I just got some news that is going to make it necessary to spend more time here in Michigan.”

“Good or bad news?”

Ryan considered the question as he put the car in Reverse.

“Shocking...confusing...but good,” he said. “Definitely good.”

“I can’t wait to hear about it.”

“You will, eventually. It’s not the kind of news that can stay a secret for long,” he said dryly before he said his goodbye.

* * *

At six that evening Faith smoothed the black skirt over her hips and turned to examine herself in profile in the bathroom mirror. She hadn’t gained a single pound so far with her pregnancy, something that her obstetrician insisted was perfectly normal for the end of the first trimester. Nevertheless her body weight seemed to be redistributing. There was a subtle curve to her once-flat belly and her breasts were starting to threaten to burst out of her bras. Faith kept having the strangest sensation that she was transforming...blooming like a flower.

She heard a knock at her front door. Topsy, her new puppy, began to yap loudly from the utility room. Her reflection in the mirror had previously been rosy-cheeked in anxious anticipation at going to dinner with Ryan. At the sound of his knock all of the color drained away.

She left the bathroom and hurried down the hallway to the front door. She couldn’t help but relive racing toward the front door to greet him on Christmas Eve. Tonight’s anxiety was worse, though. Much worse.

She swung open the front door. “Hi,” she greeted upon seeing his tall, broad shouldered shadow on her stoop. “Come on in. I’m sorry about the racket.”

“You got a dog?” Ryan asked, stepping into the foyer. Faith backed up, making room for him.

“Yes. A few weeks ago,” she said, switching on the foyer light. For a split second they both examined each other. Faith blushed. Was he, too, recalling the other time he’d entered her house and they’d stood in this exact spot, inspecting each other with a sort of breathless curiosity? He looked fantastic—male and rugged, wearing a pair of jeans that emphasized his long legs and narrow hips, a white shirt and a worn dark brown leather flight jacket.

“You look great,” he said.

“Thanks. You like nice, too,” Faith murmured, feeling embarrassed. She’d worried she’d overdressed in the black skirt, leather boots and forest-green sweater. They weren’t going on a date, after all. Despite that, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from taking extra time with her grooming, even spending the ridiculous amount of time it took to straighten her hair with a flatiron.

She waved toward the interior of the house. “I just have to put Topsy in her crate, and I’ll be ready to go.”

“Topsy?” he asked, and she realized he was following her. She glanced over her shoulder.

“Yes, she was the runt of the litter from one of my oldest patients, a golden retriever named Erica,” Faith explained breathlessly as they walked through the dining room and entered the kitchen. “All of Erica’s purebred puppies went like hotcakes, but we had more trouble finding homes for this litter. Erica had an unexpected love affair with a local playboy—a spaniel-poodle mix. I was able to find homes for all of Topsy’s brothers and sisters, but poor Topsy remained unclaimed.”

“And so you couldn’t resist adopting him...her?”

“Yes. Topsy’s a she.”

“You told me on Christmas Eve that you had a strict rule about pet adoption.”

Faith paused next to the gaited entryway to the utility room. She blinked when she saw Ryan’s mouth curved in a grin, his gaze warm on her face.

“If I took in every patient who needs a home that comes through my practice I’d be out of a home myself,” she said.

Ryan didn’t speak, just continued to study her with that knowing, sexy smile. Topsy yapped impatiently behind her.

Faith sighed and shrugged sheepishly. Ryan had her number, all right. “Well, I had a moment of weakness when I looked into Topsy’s brown eyes. And like I told you,” she said, her cheeks turning warmer even at the memory of their former meeting here in this house, “I had to take in Cleo—she’s diabetic, and I couldn’t convince anyone to do her injections every day. Smokey doesn’t count, either, because who wouldn’t give a home to a little thing like that?” Faith said, waving at the three-legged, pale gray cat that hobbled fleetly into the kitchen after them.

“There’s no reason to be apologetic because you have a kind heart,” he said quietly. He glanced down to his feet when Smokey brushed against his ankles. He bent and stroked the affectionate feline. Faith had been so offset by his candid compliment that she was glad for the interruption.

“Are you still serving as the president of the Animal Advocates Alliance?” he asked a moment later, standing.

“Oh, yes,” Faith said enthusiastically, glad for a safer topic. Ryan knew about her charity work from Jesse. She’d been extremely touched when he’d made a generous donation to both the Armed Forces Foundation and the Animal Advocates Alliance in Jesse’s name following the chopper crash that had killed him. She unhooked the gate that kept Topsy in the utility room. “The annual fundraiser ball is next week. I put a lot of hard work into it. Well?” she asked, glancing back at him. “Would you like to meet the Queen of Cute?”

“I can’t wait,” he said, walking toward her.

She started to open the gate wide enough for both of them to squeeze into the utility room without releasing the excited puppy, but noticed Ryan stared at her back door.

“What happened here?” he asked, pausing to look at the improvised “lock”—a thick piece of wood nailed to each side of the door. His eyebrows slanted in worry. “Nobody tried to break in, did they?”

“Oh, no. It’s nothing. The old lock came loose, and I haven’t had a chance to hire a locksmith to come and replace it yet.” She shrugged. “It’s not very pretty, but it’ll keep things out. I’ve had a real rush of patients at my office as the weather warms up, and I just haven’t had a chance to get it fixed.”

“I’ll come and put a lock on it tomorrow.”

“Ryan, that’s not necessary,” she said, set off balance by his steadfast offer.

“It’s not a big deal.” Instead of waiting for her to inch back the gate—or to protest his offer—he just stepped over it.

“Hi, Topsy,” he said.

Topsy wiggled in irrepressible excitement. She looked like a caramel-colored powder puff.

“I introduce you to Her Highness, Topsy-Turvy Blackwell.”

“I was hoping she’d be a little bigger,” he said.

“Oh, she’ll still grow quite a bit.”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t look like she’ll ever be much of a watchdog, does she?” he asked dubiously. He noticed her equally confused expression. “It is awfully isolated out here on this road.”

He was obviously worried about the baby, Faith realized. “It’s very safe here in the country, Ryan. I grew up in this house, and we’ve never had any problems. This area has one of the lowest crime rates in the state. It’s quite safe and close to the population I serve, as well. Lots of my patients live on farms hereabouts.”

Ryan didn’t seem entirely convinced, but he refrained from disagreeing with her. Instead he bent his tall frame to pet the vibrating puppy. “How come you named her Topsy-Turvy Blackwell?”

“Oh. It’s my maiden name. I plan to use it again, I just haven’t gotten around to having it legally changed yet.”

He looked up, his eyelids narrowing on her. She felt x-rayed. “I see,” he said quietly, resuming petting Topsy.

“Do you?” Faith asked cautiously.

He didn’t answer for a moment as he stroked the wriggling puppy. “I think I do. That’s what you wanted to talk to me about tonight, isn’t it?”

Faith swallowed thickly. A heavy sensation pressed down on her chest. Ryan knew that Jesse had been unfaithful to her. How else to explain his shuttered gaze and apparent discomfort? She experienced a wilting sensation. It was illogical and stupid, she knew, but it shamed her, to suspect he knew of Jesse’s infidelities. No matter how much she rationally knew that Jesse had been in the wrong, she still felt vaguely substandard as a female, knowing he’d found other women more exciting than her, that she hadn’t been sufficiently worth it for him to deny temptation and remain faithful.

“Yes, it is what I wanted to discuss with you. Among other things,” she admitted, glancing away from his stare.

He nodded once and stood. “I guess we better get going, then.”

She agreed. He helped her to put the squirming puppy into the crate.

“Topsy may not be ferocious, but you were right. She’s the cutest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on,” he observed a moment later as he opened the front door for her. Faith damned her pounding heart when he casually touched her waist as they walked together to his car.

“What are you hungry for?” she asked a few seconds later when he backed out of her driveway onto the rural road.

“I’ve already made reservations for dinner at Butch’s Dry Dock, downtown.” He glanced in her direction when she didn’t immediately respond. “Is that all right?”

“Oh...yes,” she said, flustered. “I love Butch’s.”

She couldn’t tell him his response had set her off guard because he’d planned dinner with her at one of the nicest restaurants in the area. Despite her self-admonishments to remember that this was an opportunity to settle business with the father of her baby, the evening was, indeed, starting to feel more and more like a date.

* * *

An hour later Faith watched as Ryan leaned against the high-backed booth at Butch’s, the remains of their delicious meal still on the table. Ryan had seemed intent on making her comfortable during their dinner, and his efforts were paying off. Her nervousness had slowly faded as the meal progressed and Ryan regaled her with some inevitable funny mistakes he’d made in starting up his business from scratch. It suddenly struck her that they hadn’t yet landed on the topic of Jesse. She wondered if Ryan was avoiding the issue purposefully.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” Ryan asked, his eyes warm on her.

“It depends,” she said, a smile flickering across her mouth.

“What’s it been like for you? Being pregnant?”

“Oh,” she said, her eyes going wide. “It’s been...nice.”

“You haven’t been getting sick or anything?”

She nodded. “Yes, I got nauseous almost every day around the seven week mark, but believe it or not, I never threw up. It usually faded when I ate some crackers. I just had to make sure I didn’t let my stomach get empty. It’s gotten much better in the past week.”

“And fatigue?”

Again, she nodded, this time more emphatically. She paused while a busboy came to clear their table. “That was probably the worst of it.” She resumed when they were alone again. “Once I figured out why I felt like taking a nap by ten o’clock every morning, it seemed to help things, though.”

“When did you find out? That you were pregnant?” he asked.

“When I was about five weeks along.”

“I wish you would have called me.”

The back of her neck prickled with awareness at the sound of his low, resonant voice.

“I meant to tell you all along, Ryan. Please believe that. I was going to tell you at the same time I told my parents.”

“I believe you. You’re much too honest to make me think otherwise.”

She gave him a thankful smile. “I just wanted to get through my first trimester safely.”

“I understand,” he said. She searched his face. Seeing not a hint of anger, she sighed in relief.

“Ryan, there’s something I want us to be on the same page about,” she approached the topic cautiously after the waiter brought them coffee and tea. She sensed the tension that flew into his muscles.

“About Jesse?” he asked.

She nodded, took a deep breath for courage and blurted out the details of discovering Jesse’s infidelities. She was learning to read him, she realized after a minute or two of talking almost nonstop. Most people would have called his flat expression impassive, but that slight widening of his eyes meant all-out shock on Ryan’s face.

“I can’t believe it,” he said. “Melanie Shane contacted you, and told you about her affair with your husband?”

Faith nodded and poured hot water over her tea bag. The pain that went through her at the vivid memory was lessening now, altering from the stab of betrayal to the ache of regret. Mostly she was mad at herself for not facing the truth earlier. Jesse was charming and funny and dynamic, but he was not a one-woman man.

Nor a two-woman man, for that matter.

Sometimes it was just easier to be blind to the obvious.

“It was a few months before the crash. She found me through my veterinary practice’s website,” she said. She set down her spoon and met Ryan’s stare. “I’m just thankful that I happened to open the emails that morning. Often, Jane does it before me.”

Ryan shut his eyes briefly. Pain flickered across his hard face and was gone. “They had the most volatile relationship. Jesse and Melanie were either fighting like cats and dogs or they were—”

He stopped abruptly. Their stares held as she finished his sentence in her mind.

“When Melanie first wrote me, she was in quite a state,” Faith said after a long pause. “Apparently she’d discovered that Jesse had slept with a lieutenant who trained airmen on computers at the airport. Melanie was pretty upset by it.”

Ryan grimaced. “Damn. I can’t believe Melanie did that.” He exhaled heavily. “Strike that. I can. She’d get herself into a real state at times, when it came to Jesse. I suppose she had herself convinced she was doing you a favor by pouncing on you with the news?”

Faith nodded. “Bingo. You’d think we were blood sisters, both betrayed by the devil.”

Ryan grunted. “When in reality, Melanie was feeling furious and rejected by what Jesse had done. She ran blabbing to you because she knew it would hurt Jesse. She never gave a thought or care about what she was doing to you. I’m sorry, Faith.”

“It’s not your fault. You have nothing to apologize for.”

A muscle flickered subtly in his cheek. She shook her head sadly.

“You are not responsible for Jesse’s actions,” she stated the obvious.

“I’m responsible for my own.”

Faith swallowed uneasily. Is that how he thought of her and the baby? A responsibility? A burden?

“What was Melanie like?” she asked shakily after a moment, trying to divert his attention.

Ryan shrugged and poured some cream into his coffee. “A good chopper pilot. Volatile. Bit of a daredevil. Feisty exterior with a vulnerable core,” he mumbled succinctly.

“She was...pretty?”

He glanced up, pausing in the action of setting down the small pitcher. “Some men might have found her attractive,” he said with what struck Faith as forced neutrality.

She stared at the snowy-white tablecloth. Much to her surprise, given the topic, she wasn’t that upset. She’d suspected all along she wasn’t as devastated by the news as she should have been that Jesse was unfaithful. She’d been hurt. Jesse had been her husband, after all, and she’d planned to spend the rest of her life with him—before she’d discovered his infidelities.

But deep down she knew that if Jessie’d been the love of her life, that email from Melanie—and Jesse’s eventual admission that Melanie’s accusations were valid—wouldn’t have just been an unpleasant shock. It would have been a lancing, debilitating blow to her spirit.

Jesse had been so full of life. She’d often reflected after she’d learned of his infidelity that she didn’t want to be Jesse’s wife anymore, but she would have wished him well. Always. It hurt, to think of him not out there in the world somewhere...raising hell, warming someone with his smile and his jokes, hopefully finding the happiness she couldn’t give him.

She became aware of Ryan’s gaze on her—warm, concerned, wary. So, he had known all along about Jesse’s womanizing. How did that knowledge factor into their impulsive, impassioned tryst on Christmas Eve? How would it play into the fact that they were going to have a baby together? It was becoming increasingly clear that Ryan felt some sort of misguided responsibility toward her.

“Don’t pity me,” she said.

“I don’t pity you,” he said, his eyebrows pinching together in apparent bewilderment at her quiet forcefulness.

“No?” she asked, calmly removing the chamomile teabag from her cup. “You don’t have some kind of knight in shining armor syndrome going on for the scorned wife? You said that you visited me last Christmas Eve because you wanted to make sure I was okay...safe. Now that I’m pregnant, I don’t want you feeling regretful, Ryan. I need a father for my baby, not a guilty lover. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”

The spoon he’d been using to stir his coffee fell several inches to the saucer with a loud clinking sound. “That’s insulting.”

She met his stare levelly, difficult though it was. His eyes blazed like black fire. “Then why did you act so guilty about Christmas Eve? I’m not the fragile victim you’re imagining. If that was part of the appeal that night, you were misguided,” she said quietly.

He placed his forearms on the table and leaned toward her, his nostrils slightly flared. “I didn’t know whether or not you knew about Jesse and Melanie on Christmas Eve. For all I knew, you were still grieving the love of your life. I wanted you so much, I went ahead and did what I did anyway. So much for the idea that I’m pitying you.”

The anger clinging thickly to Ryan’s words didn’t have quite the effect on her that she would have thought. For some reason, the memory of their fevered joining chose that moment to bombard her consciousness like rapid-fire bullets—Ryan’s hands moving over her in carnal worship, his mouth closing over the tip of her breast and the answering sharp pain of longing in her womb, the feeling of him filling her until she was inundated by him, ready to burst with her desire.

By slow degrees she became aware that the blend of voices and clanking cutlery and china had become a distant buzz in her ears. Ryan blinked as if awakening from a trance and sat back in the booth.

“I am far from thinking that you’re a weak victim.” His gaze flickered up to meet hers. “I like you. I have from the first time Jesse ever read me one of your letters. I liked you even more when I finally met you. I respect the way you’ve built up your business and your life, even though you were a military wife and alone a lot of the time. I admired how you always managed to be so cheerful...convey so much warmth. I used to get resentful when Jesse didn’t return your letters regularly. I used to get resentful toward Jesse for a lot of things,” he mumbled under his breath, looking angry...torn.

“Can I bring you any dessert?”

Both of them blinked and stared at the waiter like he was an alien.

“Faith?” Ryan asked.

“No, nothing for me,” Faith said.

Ryan also declined and the waiter left. Faith took a long drink of her ice water.

“That all still sounds like you’re feeling sorry for me, Ryan,” she said shakily.

“I don’t pity you, but I do feel bad about some things that have happened,” he said quietly. “I feel like a heel for barging in on you and laying you down on a couch and having unprotected sex with you after I’d been in your house for all of a half hour.”

Her mouth fell open at his blunt words. Once again the remembered images and sensations swamped her awareness.

“Let me get this straight,” she said slowly. “You like me, and you respect me, but because you wanted to have sex with me that night, that’s a problem. Is that because you usually don’t like and respect the women you sleep with? Attraction and respect don’t go together in your mind?”

“That’s a hell of a thing to say.”

“Jesse used to imply that you liked female companionship, but weren’t much for a serious relationship with one woman.”

Realization subtly settled on his features. His eyelids narrowed. Faith caught an edge of the diamond-hard focus that had made him such a valuable officer and pilot. “Are you implying I’m like Jesse?”

She tilted her chin up, refusing to be intimidated. “Maybe.”

“Well I’m not,” he stated flatly. “I’m not saying Christmas Eve was a mistake because I’m a womanizer. I’m saying it was a mistake because it was so abrupt...strange...irrational...”

Mind-blowing, Faith added in her private thoughts. His gaze flickered up to meet hers, as if she’d spoken aloud.

After a tense moment she exhaled and sagged in the seat. “I’m sorry. It’s not my place to judge you one way or another. That part of your life is none of my business.”

She glanced up in surprise when he reached across the table and grasped her hand.

“Just because I haven’t found the right woman yet doesn’t mean I haven’t been looking. I don’t thrive on conquest. Christmas Eve was not about that.”

She couldn’t look away from his eyes. His hand tightened on hers, his fingers brushing her wrist. She wondered distantly if he could feel the throb of her pulse.

“What was it about then?” she whispered.

Something flickered across his rugged features she couldn’t quite identify. “I’m not entirely sure. It just felt...unstoppable. Like I said that night, all that emotion must have been building.”

“You do hear about it happening after a tragic death,” Faith admitted. “Stuff builds up and then...bang. A lightening strike.”

They stared at each other across the table. Was he, like her, recalling what it’d been like as the electric desire blazed in their flesh, enlivened them, fused them?

“We’re going to have a baby together,” he said. “All of my life is your business now. Fate has seen to that. Whether we planned it or not, whether you like it or not, we’re family now, Faith.”

Chapter Three

When they walked out onto Eighth Street later, the sun was setting.

“How about a drive? There are a few things I’d still like to talk to you about,” Ryan added when she gave him a doubtful sideways glance. He’s sensed her wariness ever since he’d said that thing about them being family.

“Okay,” Faith replied, although she looked uncertain.

He grabbed her hand and gave it a small squeeze as they walked toward his car. He waited for her to look at him.

“Why are you so uncomfortable around me? Is it just because of the baby?” he couldn’t help but ask.

“You’re not entirely comfortable around me, either, Ryan. I think we both know this situation is...unusual.”

He grimaced slightly. He’d been more than a little confused about his feelings for Faith for a long time now. Finding out she was carrying his baby only amplified his bewilderment along with a lot of other emotions.

He’d never been able to tell anyone he had a sort of secret...thing for Jesse’s wife for years now. It was too mild to be a crush. Ryan had secretly found his partiality for news about Faith or hearing her letters a little amusing in a self-deprecating sort of way. His feelings for her had never gone anywhere beyond admiration.

But as he drove through picturesque downtown Holland with Faith in the seat next to him, he’d have to admit it in hindsight that he’d been a little envious of Jesse for having a wife like Faith. It wasn’t just that Faith was beautiful in the natural, girl-next-door, very sexy kind of way. He was drawn to her freshness, her intelligence, and most of all, her kindness.

He’d been highly irritated at Jesse for proving time and again that he didn’t deserve her.

The fact of the matter was, until Christmas Eve, he’d never given his admiration for her much thought. She’d been off-limits for almost the entire time he’d known her. Maybe Jesse wasn’t the ideal husband, and perhaps Ryan had questioned his judgment as an officer for getting involved with women during deployments, but Jesse had never done anything overtly to make Ryan question his ability to do his job. As a matter of fact Jesse had been a fine pilot, and in the friendship department at least, loyal to the bone.

The sun blazed bright orange, about to make its fiery plunge into the silvery waters of Lake Michigan when Ryan pulled the car into a lot at Laketown Beach. Because of the dunes, they were on a high vista. The beach itself was at the bottom of a long staircase. He shut off the ignition and glanced at Faith. He found the black leather, calf-hugging boots she wore extremely sexy, but wasn’t so sure the heels were walking-friendly.

“There’s a paved path along the bluff. Are you up for a walk?”

“Yes,” she agreed.

She smiled at him a moment later when he came around the car to meet her. “I know you spent your summers in Harbor Town, but you seem very familiar with Holland, too.”

He shrugged as he zipped up his jacket. There was a cool breeze coming off Lake Michigan. “My mom and dad used to bring us to Holland occasionally for dinner or a day at the beach.”

“I think you said your parents have passed?” she asked softly. He recalled he’d mentioned to her that his parents were no longer living at one of those Air Force picnics, but hadn’t given her any details.

“Yeah. They died while I was still at the Air Force Academy in Colorado. Dad used to like to explore the area when he’d come down on the weekends from Dearborn, so Mari—that’s my sister—and I have seen pretty much every beach on the Michigan shoreline. I’ve done some exploring on my own in Holland for the past couple months, though,” he said as he took her hand and they made their way down the sidewalk that trailed along the edge of the bluff. “When Deidre comes in for an overnight visit, I stay at a hotel near the airport.”

“Deidre is the client you fly to this area?”

“Yeah, Deidre Kavanaugh Malone. When we were kids, the Kavanaughs lived on the same street as us in Harbor Town.”

He glanced around in surprise when Faith suddenly came to an abrupt halt.

“Deidre’s not Brigit Kavanaugh’s daughter, is she?” Faith asked.

“Yeah. Faith?” he prompted, slightly alarmed when he saw her flattened expression.

“But that means...Ryan, was it your parents that were killed in that terrible car wreck all those years ago?”

Ryan inhaled slowly. “Yeah. How did you know?”

“I know Brigit Kavanaugh.”

“How?”

“She’s a member of the Southwestern Michigan’s Women’s Auxiliary. It’s one of their missions to offer deployed military family members support. She came to visit me after Jesse died last year, and we’ve become friends.” He saw Faith’s throat tighten as she swallowed. Her face looked stricken. “She told me about her husband getting drunk and causing that accident. She told me that a couple had been killed that had lived just down the street from her. Oh, Ryan,” she finished in a whisper. Tears filled her green eyes. “I’m so sorry. We heard about that crash here in Holland when I was a teenager, but I didn’t recall any specific details. Brigit never mentioned names. I never realized...your parents.”

“It’s okay, Faith,” he said, concerned by her pale cheeks and obvious distress. He didn’t have to think twice about taking her into his arms. She came willingly, hugging his waist as if to give him comfort. He lowered his head and pressed his mouth to her hair. He inhaled the achingly familiar scent of citrus and flowers. “It happened a long time ago,” he murmured, lifting his head and willing her to look up at him. When she did, he used his thumb to gently wipe off several tears from her cheek.

“But you and your sister were so young. Did you have other family?”

“Only an aunt in San Francisco,” Ryan murmured distractedly as he continued to touch her cheek. Her skin was incredibly smooth and soft. “She passed away a few years ago, though.”

“I’m so sorry, Ryan,” she said in a choked voice.

His heart squeezed a little in his chest. She seemed genuinely pained by the news that his parents had passed away almost seventeen years ago. He stopped drying her cheeks and palmed her delicate jaw.

“You’re an amazingly nice woman, do you know that, Faith? Jesse never deserved you.”

She blinked. Ryan realized how intense he’d just sounded. He hadn’t meant to speak his thoughts out loud, but seeing Faith’s lovely, troubled face and experiencing her compassion had caused the words to pop out of his throat. He regretted it when she released her hold on him and took a step back. A lake breeze whipped past them and Faith tightened the belt on her coat.

“Maybe we ought to skip the walk,” Ryan said.

“No. No, let’s walk over to that bench and watch the sunset,” she said. “It’s funny,” she said a moment later as they sat side by side on the wooden bench next to the path. “I grew up watching these sunsets, but I never get tired of them.”

“Kind of hard to get tired of something like that,” Ryan agreed. For a few seconds they both watched silently as the ball of fire began to dip below the horizon, shades of magenta, pink and gold splashing across the sky in its wake.

“It’s not too hard to believe you’re pregnant,” he said, studying her delicate, lovely face cast in the pink and gold shades of the sunset. Her face didn’t “glow” like the stereotypical pregnant woman, but there was a sort of soft luminescence to her that he found compelling. “You’ve never looked so beautiful.”

The pink in her cheeks wasn’t caused by the sunset, he realized. Another breeze whipped past them, this one chillier. He leaned back on the bench and put his arm around her. Much to his satisfaction, she let her head rest on his shoulder. For several seconds they watched the sunset in silence. He felt entirely aware of her in those moments, of her firm, curving body, of her sweetness, the scent of her hair, the lock that fell just next to the pulse at her white throat. He brushed away the lock, stroking her skin in the process. Her shiver vibrated into his flesh. He braced himself for her reaction to what he was about to say.

“I can’t leave you alone here, Faith,” he said gruffly.

She lifted her head and studied him dazedly. “What do you mean?”

“I respect the fact that you want to raise the baby in Holland. It’s your home. But I’m not comfortable with living three thousand miles away while my child is here.”

Regret swept through him when he saw alarm flash into her eyes. She straightened, breaking the contact of their bodies.

“What do you plan to do?” she demanded.

“I’ll move back to Michigan,” he replied simply.

She blinked. “Ryan, you can’t be serious. You’ve lived in San Francisco for years now. You started your new business out there. You can’t expect to just pack up and move to Holland.”

“It’ll take some doing, I’ll grant you that. But it’d be better to do it now, before the business grows any larger. I can even rent hangar space at Tulip County Airport. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought since this afternoon. It might be better for me to be centrally located versus on the West Coast, given the nature of my business. Actually, the beach area of Michigan is an ideal location to serve business people in Detroit and Chicago, and I’ve already make loads of contacts out west.”

Faith stared at him like he was slightly mad as he spoke his thoughts out loud. “Ryan, that seems so...sudden. Impulsive.”

“Despite all the evidence against me from Christmas Eve, I’m not an impulsive person. But I do trust my instincts.” He traced the line of her jaw with his forefinger.

She met his stare. He didn’t bother to guard his desire for her. Her eyes widened slightly, and he knew she’d seen it. Was she, like him, thinking of those ecstatic moments when they’d both acted on glorious instinct? He hoped so. He wished like hell those memories had been permanently scored in her brain like they had been in his.

“I think we should talk about it more,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I’m not so sure instinct is the wise guiding principle for the future, given the fact that a baby is involved.”

“I think it’s the perfect principle.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It got us here, didn’t it?”

She stared at him in mute amazement.

Ryan scowled at the sound of voices in the distance. He turned his head and saw another couple approaching on the walk.

“Come on. It’s almost dark,” he said. “We can talk more in the car.”

* * *

Faith’s mind was a confused hodgepodge of thoughts, feelings and concerns as Ryan drove through the now dark streets of Holland. While they waited at a red light, Ryan turned toward her.

“You’re vibrating with worry over there. Why don’t you vent some of what you’re thinking?”

She met his stare. His rugged features looked shadowed and compelling in the dim light.

“Are you really serious about moving back to Michigan?” she asked in a voice that sounded unnaturally high to her own ears.

“Is it really that unbelievable?”

“I just...I just hadn’t expected that you might want to do that.”

“Why not?” he asked, looking slightly puzzled. The stoplight turned green and he began to drive. “Did you really think I was going to be blasé about the fact that I was going to have a child?”

“I don’t know,” Faith stated honestly. “I guess I just assumed you’d...”

“Be satisfied seeing the baby a few times a month and on half the holidays?” Ryan asked when she faded off uncertainly.

“Well...you’re a pilot,” she said, as if that explained something.

“And?”

“Pilots are always on the go. One place is as much home as another. I just assumed you wouldn’t consider the distance between Holland and San Francisco as significant as most people would.”

He came to a stop at an intersection of a quiet residential neighborhood. “Family is very important to me, Faith. It always has been. That value was instilled into me a long time ago by my parents.”

Her throat grew tight. “And then you lost them at such a young age,” she whispered feelingly. Of course family was important to him.

“Besides, if I move back to Michigan, I’ll be closer to my sister and her family. Mari is in Chicago. She’s going to have another baby, too.” He blinked as if in realization and gave her a small smile. Her heart seemed to throb as if in answer. “As a matter of fact, she’s only a few months ahead of you.”

“The baby will like having a cousin of the same age,” Faith said, returning his smile.

The moment stretched as they sat there in the running car in the silent neighborhood, staring at one another and considering the future.

Ryan finally cleared his throat and resumed driving.

“You never told me if you knew the sex of the baby,” he said.

She shook her head. “Not yet. I hadn’t decided yet if I wanted to know or be surprised. Do you?” He glanced at her quickly. “Want to know?”

She watched as his expression went blank. He looked almost grim as he stared out the front window.

“I don’t know,” he said hoarsely after a moment. “One second, I think this whole thing has settled in, and the next I feel...”

“Overwhelmed?” she wondered.

He nodded once.

“I understand. It takes a while to fully absorb it,” she said quietly. She studied his profile as he drove, wondering over the fact that she was sitting in the car with Ryan Itani—her former husband’s good friend, the father of the child that grew in her womb...one of the most magnetically attractive and masculine men she’d ever encountered.

Maybe she was still overwhelmed, as well.

He pulled into her driveway a few minutes later. Faith studied her hands in her lap as he put the car in Park. She needed to banish this pervasive nervousness. She needed to get used to dealing with Ryan, with being around him.

“Would you like to come in and have a cup of coffee?”

“Yes.” The bluntness of his reply made her head come up. In the dim dashboard lights, she could see him studying her. “But I’m going to say no, nevertheless,” he added.

“Why?”

He abruptly turned in the seat as far as he could, given his big body and the confining space of the car. He took both of her hands in his. Spikes of pleasure prickled up her arms when he caressed her wrists with slightly calloused thumbs.

“I still want you, Faith. I think it’s only fair to tell you that.”

She started, shocked by his bold statement. She stared out the window to her neat, attractive ranch house, trying to gather her thoughts. It was hard with him stroking her skin and what he’d just said echoing around in her brain. She reached wildly for the threads of logic spinning around with a vortex of doubts and desire.

“You’re just saying that because you’re confused about the baby,” she said.

“You said I was saying it last time because I was confused about Jesse’s sudden death. When are you going to believe that I’ve always found you attractive, Faith?”

She looked at him in alarm.

“I never would have done anything while Jesse was alive. That’s not my style. I know it’s not yours, either,” he said in a low, compelling voice. “The truth is, I didn’t allow myself to think about it very much. You were another man’s wife. Off-limits. I wouldn’t even call my feelings toward you attraction. They were respect. Admiration. I liked you a lot.”

She stared at him, her throat and chest feeling full—achy. She couldn’t look away from his stark, handsome face.

“My feelings for you would have stayed in that holding pattern if circumstances hadn’t changed. But they did change. You discovered Jesse wasn’t faithful to you.”

“I was filing for a divorce at the time he was killed,” she said, shocking herself.

Ryan’s expression tensed. His caressing fingers paused. “You were?”

She nodded. A tear spilled down her cheek. She was angry at Jesse for his infidelity. Furious. So why did guilt still rear its ugly head inside her when she thought of the fact that she’d been planning on leaving him when his life was cut unexpectedly short?

“I told him that I planned to divorce him when he admitted to his affairs with both Melanie and that other officer that worked at the airport. He was so upset about the divorce. He never told you?” she asked shakily, searching his face.

“He never said a word about you two breaking up,” Ryan said. His flat expression told the absolute truth. Jesse had kept the impending end of their marriage to himself. Maybe he’d hoped she’d change her mind. He might have died with that secret. The realization caused a pain of regret to go through her. She shuddered. Damn these hormones. Since her pregnancy, she cried at the drop of a dime. Suddenly Ryan’s arms were around her. She clutched on to his shoulders and wept.

“It’s just...you knew Jesse. He was like a kid at times. I know he wasn’t capable of being faithful. I know I wasn’t meant to be his wife. But I cared about him.”

“I understand,” Ryan soothed, stroking her back. “Maybe he wasn’t capable of being faithful to you, but I do know that Jesse cared about you, too.”

“I hate to think of him dying, knowing that I was leaving him,” Faith managed between bitter tears.

“I’m sure he was feeling regretful about having hurt you.”

That made her sob harder.

“I’m sorry,” he said, stroking her arms and back. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No. No, it’s true. I suppose some people would feel vindicated that he felt guilty on the day he died, but I think it’s just...”

“Terrible,” Ryan finished for her. “I understand.”

“Do you?” she asked wetly, leaning back slightly in order to see his face. His features looked like they’d been carved from rock in the dim lights emanating from the dashboard.

“Yeah. I think we both know that while Jesse might not have been ideal husband material, he was a good guy in a lot of other areas of life. It’s got to be hard for you, thinking of him dying knowing that he’d done you wrong.”

“Exactly,” she whispered shakily.

“It’s still not your fault, Faith. You didn’t do anything wrong. You had every right to file for divorce once you learned he’d cheated on you, not once, but several times. It’s just that life took a rotten turn in the interim, and Jesse was killed. You have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.”

“I know,” she said weakly. She touched the side of his neck along his hairline. His hair was a pleasure to her fingertips—crisp and soft at once. “I’m always telling myself I didn’t do anything wrong. I just wish I hadn’t told him about the divorce when he was about to...”

Ryan shook his head, his face now rigid with compassion. “You’re not all-seeing.” He cradled her jaw gently. She went still, utterly aware of the intimate contact. “Death is the same way. You can’t beat yourself up for things you don’t have any control over. All we can do is take what we’ve been given and make the best of it.”

His breath was warm and fragrant against her upturned lips and nose.

“I want to make the best of this, Faith—for whatever is happening between you and me,” he said, his voice like a rough caress. “Part of me feels guilty for making love to you last Christmas Eve, but I’m tired of apologizing for it, sick of beating myself up about it. How can I apologize when it felt so damn good...so damn right?”

And suddenly his mouth was covering hers, warm, firm and once again, Faith was lost in the sensual storm that was Ryan.

Chapter Four

No one kissed like he did, Faith thought dazedly. His mouth felt like it was made to fit hers. He plucked at her with movements that struck her as languorous and demanding at once; he sandwiched her lower lip between his and bit at the sensitive flesh lightly, making her gasp. When she opened her mouth, he slid his tongue between her lips, a sleek, sensual invader. Ripples of pleasure cascaded down her spine.

He made a sound of male gratification as he tasted her, sweeping his tongue everywhere, exploring her...possessing her. Faith responded in the only way her muddled brain and buzzing body seemed to know how to respond to Ryan’s sensual assaults—wholeheartedly. She tangled her tongue with his, absorbing his flavor, feeling their kiss in the very core of her being. She’d noticed that pregnancy had made her body extra sensitive, her sense of smell and taste more acute, her breasts plagued by a dull, not unpleasant ache.

Adding Ryan to the formula only seemed to amp up her sensitivities to a whole new level of feeling.

She tightened her hold on his hard shoulders, pulling herself toward him, pressing their upper bodies together. Feeling her breasts press against the solidness of his chest made her moan softly into his mouth. As if electrified by the sound, Ryan leaned into her further. His hands moved along the side of her body, molding his palms over her rib cage as if he wanted to feel her heartbeat. He touched the sides of her breasts and gave a low, tense moan, deepening their kiss. Pleasure rippled through her, the strength of it shocking her. Even through her coat and clothing, his caress had the power to make her forget her inhibitions and recall her elemental femininity all too well.

A shock went through his body. They broke apart. He cursed a second later when his thigh hit the gearshift.

“Are you all right?” Faith asked anxiously.

“Yeah. This just isn’t an ideal location for this,” he muttered, trying to arrange his long body in the seat. What this actually meant penetrated Faith’s lust-befuddled consciousness.

“It’s not the ideal situation for it, either,” she said starkly, leaning back, breaking their contact. She stared out the front window, letting her arms fall to her sides, regretting the loss of Ryan’s hard male body almost as much as she did the feeling of his hands sliding off her torso. She breathed deeply, trying to find some sanity. One second they’d been pressed together too tight to slip a match between them, and the next, they were separate...

...alone.

She suffered through a tense moment of silence before he spoke.

“Just because the situation is unusual doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

She couldn’t help but give a bark of hysterical laughter. “Unusual? Don’t you think you’re stating it a bit mildly? I’m pregnant with my dead husband’s friend’s baby, whom I hardly know. I’d say that’s a bit more than unusual. Ryan? What are you doing?” she asked in amazement when he unfastened his seat belt and reached for the door handle.

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