She reached out to touch the wall as if she planned to use it as support in order to stand. When she did, a slip of paper fluttered to the stoop.
Ryan picked it up. In blue pen was written his name, address and phone number. Had she been given it at the clinic?
He glared at her. “Where did you get this?”
“I think I had better go.” She made a movement toward the steps. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. I’ll go.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“I don’t know for sure what I wanted. I need to go.” Her words came out high-pitched and shaky.
He put out a hand as if she were a skittish animal he was trying to reassure. “Think of the baby.” That must be what this was all about.
Her eyes widened, taking on a hysterical look. She jerked away from him. “I’ve done nothing but think of this baby. I have to go. I’m sorry I shouldn’t have come.” She sniffled. “I don’t know …” another louder sniffle “… what I was thinking. You don’t know me.” Her head went into her hands and she started to cry in earnest. “I’ll go. This is …” she sucked in air “… too embarrassing. You must think I’m mad.”
He began to think she was. Who acted this way?
She struggled to stand. Ryan took her elbow and helped her.
“I’ve never done anything … like this before. I need to go.”
Ryan could only make out a few of her garbled words through her weeping. He glanced around. If she continued to carry on like this his neighbors would be calling the law.
She shivered. What had she said her name was? Phoebe?
“You need to calm down. Being so upset isn’t good for the baby. It’s getting cold out and dark. Come in. Let your jacket dry.” He needed to get her off the street so he could figure out what this was all about. This wasn’t what he had planned for his evening.
“No, I’ve already embarrassed myself enough. I think I’d better go.”
Thankfully the crying had stopped but it had left her eyes large and luminous.
She looked up at him with those eyes laced with something close to pain, and said in a low voice, “You knew my husband.”
“Your husband?”
“Joshua Taylor.”
Ryan cringed. Air quit moving to his lungs. JT was part of his past. The piece of his life he had put behind him. Ryan hadn’t heard JT’s name in seven months. Not since he’d had word that he had been killed when his convoy had been bombed.
Why was his wife here? Ryan didn’t want to think of the war, or JT. He’d moved on.
They had been buddies while they’d been in Iraq. Ryan had been devastated when he’d heard JT had been killed. He’d been one more in a long list of men Ryan had cared about, shared his life with, had considered family. Now that was gone, all gone. He wasn’t going to let himself feel that pain ever again. When he’d left the service he’d promised himself never to let anyone matter that much. He wasn’t dragging those ugly memories up for anyone’s wife, not even JT’s.
Ryan had known there was a wife, had even seen her picture fixed to Joshua’s CHU or containerized housing unit room. That had been over five years ago, before he’d left the service. This was his friend’s widow?
He studied her. Yes, she did bear a resemblance to the young, bright-faced girl in the pictures. Except that spark of life that had fascinated him back then had left her eyes.
“You need to come in and get warm, then I’ll see you get home.” He used his midwife-telling-the-mother-to-push voice.
She made a couple of soft sniffling sounds but said no more.
Ryan unlocked the door. Pushing it back, he offered her space to enter before him. She accepted the invitation. She stopped in the middle of the room as if unsure what to do next. He turned on the light and dropped his bag and dirty clothes in the usual spot on top of all the other dirty clothes lying next to the door.
For the first time, he noted what sparse living conditions he maintained. He had a sofa, a chair, a TV that sat on a wooden crate and was rarely turned on. Not a single picture hung on the walls. He didn’t care about any of that. It wasn’t important. All he was interested in was bringing babies safely into the world and the saws in his workshop.
“Have a seat. I’ll get you some tea,” he said in a gruff voice.
Bracing on the arm of the sofa, she lowered herself to the cushion. She pulled the knit cap from her head and her hair fell around her shoulders.
Ryan watched, stunned by the sight. The urge to touch those glowing tresses caught him by surprise. His fingers tingled to test the texture, to see if it was as soft and silky as it looked.
Her gaze lifted, meeting his. Her cheekbones were high and a touch of pink from the cold made the fairness of her skin more noticeable. Her chin trembled. The sudden fear that she might start crying again went through him. He cleared his throat. “I’ll get you that tea.”
Phoebe watched as the rather stoic American man walked out of the room. Why had he looked at her that way? Where was all that compassion and caring that Joshua had written about in his letter? Ryan obviously wanted her gone as soon as possible. He wasn’t at all what she’d expected. Nothing like Joshua had described him. She shivered, the cold and damp seeping through her jacket. What had she been thinking? This wasn’t the warm and welcoming guy that Joshua had said he would be. He hadn’t even reacted to her mentioning Joshua.
He was tall, extremely tall. He ducked slightly to go through the doorway. Joshua had been five feet eleven. Ryan Matthews was far taller, with shoulders that went with that height.
Though he was an attractive man with high cheekbones and a straight nose, his eyes held a melancholy gaze. As if he’d seen things and had had to do things he never wanted to remember, much less talk about.
A few minutes later Ryan handed her a mug with a teabag string hanging over the side. He hadn’t even bothered to ask her what she wanted to drink. Did he treat everybody he met with such disinterest?
“I’m a coffee drinker myself. An associate left the tea here or I wouldn’t have had it.”
She bet it was a female friend. He struck her as the type of man who had women around him all the time. “You are an American.”
“Yes.”
“Joshua never said that you weren’t Australian.”
He took a seat in the lone chair in the room. “I guess he didn’t notice after a while.”
She looked around. Whatever women he brought here didn’t stay around long. His place showed nothing of the feminine touch. In fact, it was only just a step above unlivable. If she had to guess, there was nothing but a bed and a carton for a table in the bedroom.
Phoebe watched him drink the coffee, the smell of which wafted her way as she took a sip of
