He looked down at Sylvie’s face. So clear, with features so fine and smooth it was hard to believe she’d made a career in the army. “How did my brother die? How long had you two been intimate? Was this baby planned between you two? Or did it just happen? Were you planning to marry?”
She went white. Cursing, he grabbed her arm and steered her past the wild tangle of weeds and up the crooked steps of her verandah. Damn, he should have waited before he lost his cool. But she seemed as likely to brush him off as her commanding officer had, as the escort officer had when Jon had driven up to Ottawa to meet the Hercules aircraft that had carried Rick’s remains back to Canada. That man informed him that an autopsy had been scheduled. Jon had even had to wait to bury him. To grieve properly.
At the front door he steeled himself, wondering briefly if he should push himself into her home. “Let’s get you inside. I’ll find you something to eat, all right?”
She jerked her arm back, her eyes wary yet unwilling to meet his. “I’m fine. Look, I’m sorry Rick died. I really am. Good grief, I’m carrying his baby. I wish I could, but I can’t tell you anything about his death. I signed a nondisclosure agreement, and the investigation—”
With a frown and lips that snapped shut, she stopped. He waited, silently urging her on. “That’s all I can say,” she added.
Too hurriedly, he thought.
She shook her head, finally blurting out, “Bosnia isn’t a placid little country, as much as the Bosnian government wants it to be. It’s a war zone, Jon. Soldiers die in war zones. Rick died in the line of duty. You should try to find some comfort in that.”
“Do you?”
She pulled away from him and stalked into the house. The door would have slammed shut in his face had he not been close enough behind her to throw out his palm and deflect it.
He followed her down the quiet hallway. When they reached the kitchen, Sylvie stopped and Jon nearly ran into her. His own gaze trailed after hers as she looked across the kitchen table to an older man, who stood holding a coffee cup.
“Dad?” she said, obviously surprised. “What are you doing home?”
Sylvie tried to smile at her father, to return the warmth in the grin he offered, but her hunger and Jon plowing into the kitchen behind her weakened her feeble attempt.
She watched her father’s gaze linger on her face a moment, then snap to Jon. She cleared her throat. “Dad, this is Jon Cahill. His brother was Rick Cahill. Remember, the…one who died?”
She needed to say more to her father. But now? She couldn’t just blurt out that she was also pregnant with Rick’s baby and that Jon Cahill had driven her home because she’d fainted on Trail’s main street.
No. Dad deserved to be told in a more private setting that he was going to be a grandfather.
How would he react? Sometimes, when she was young, he peered down at her after a long day outside, with a tired look that seemed to ask who she was. There was always something more important to do than to listen to his daughter’s endless, excitable chatter.
Old news, she told herself. Dad’s happy now.
She looked at Jon. “This is my father, Allister Mitchell.” She bustled past them as they shook hands across the table, not wanting to elaborate on why Jon was here, or why he’d stormed into the house after her. But she couldn’t let Jon tell her father, especially in the no-nonsense terms in which he seemed to express himself.
“Jon came to Trail looking for me. He wanted to discuss what happened to Rick.”
Allister nodded. When she first arrived home, Sylvie had given him and Andrea the briefest of explanations. Rick and she had been driving to one of the outposts when a slide had stopped them. Rick had been injured and unfortunately he’d died.
She swallowed. No thanks to her.
Her father had the wisdom to let it go at that, and Sylvie was thankful the military had shut up on the details. After reporting on the death and the memorial service, the media had turned its focus on the other hot spots around the world.
“So, Jon,” her father was saying, “how did you find Sylvie? She doesn’t go into town regularly.” He turned to her. “Why did you go in? Lawrence noticed you didn’t take the truck, so it wouldn’t have been for supplies.”
Lawrence was their old ranch hand. A second father to her. She straightened her shoulders and smiled at Allister. Without Andrea at his side, her father seemed much more approachable. Andrea would fuss too much and take over the whole conversation.
She drew in a deep breath. Delaying the inevitable had never been her way. She’d already delayed acknowledging her pregnancy longer than she should have. Besides, if Jon wanted to be part of her baby’s life, then he may as well see his whole, “newly acquired family” in a clear, transparent light, warts and all. She had no idea what her father would say, and a part of her hoped, for Jon’s sake, that her father would show some of that blunt Mitchell candor that Andrea seemed to have smoothed out so effectively.
She stared at her father, steeled her shoulders and said, “Dad, I’m pregnant. I went in to make a doctor’s appointment.”
Allister’s face went blank. “Pregnant? Who’s the father? It can’t be him—” He pointed to Jon. “You only just met, didn’t you?”
With a sigh and a stifled smile, Sylvie shook her head and threw open the refrigerator door. “No, it’s not him.” She realized how foolish she’d been, blurting out her condition. She had no desire to discuss the circumstances of the conception with anyone, especially with Jon avidly eavesdropping. “It happened in Bosnia. I’ll tell you all about it later. We’ve got lots of time for that. Now, why are you here?”
Disoriented for a minute, he took his time answering, “One of the campers got ill. We carried him down on one of the pack horses, till we met the ambulance at the edge of the highway. Oh, he’s going to be fine, just some bug. Andrea stayed up at the site with the rest of them. I was planning to go straight back out, but…”
She caught his speculative stare. “Go! There’s not much to say, at least until I get my first doctor’s appointment. I’m fine.”
“You look like death warmed over, girl.” He shook his head and turned to Jon. “Did you bring her home?”
Jon nodded. “As a matter of fact, I did. Personally, I don’t think she can do too much around here. You may want to stay back.”
She slammed the refrigerator shut. “Wait a minute! I said I’m fine. There’s nothing you can do, Dad, so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go straight back up to Andrea. I have Lawrence—”
Allister let out a snort. “Oh, Lawrence is busy enough with the campground. And he’s getting too old. Plus, we lost Tyler last month. He was supposed to help you. Can you haul around fence posts and fix up the house by yourself in your condition?”
Oh, dear. She knew where this conversation was heading, and quickly shook her head. “Of course I can’t, but—”
“No, she can’t,” Jon announced. “But I can.”
Sylvie snatched the swear word before it flew from her lips. Instead she glared at him. “You have another job, remember? You’re a cop in Toronto.”
A hint of regret whisked over his features. Regret? Fear? It had happened so fast, she couldn’t be sure.
“A cop?” her father interjected, making Sylvie wish she’d kept her mouth shut and made him think Jon was nothing but a bum off the street. Yeah, in a fine-looking polo shirt and pants that still bore an arrow-sharp crease. Allister Mitchell lived in his own world, but he wasn’t naive. She could no more make Jon Cahill look like a disreputable drifter than she could undo the horror of this past spring.
“I