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 pa-tients’ 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