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
