An Unlikely Daddy. Rachel Lee
if I get some coffee?” he asked.
“Help yourself. Make fresh if you want. And thanks for your help with the crib.”
“No big deal.” He filled a mug and sat across from her. She appeared pensive, so he waited for her to speak.
“You know, I don’t want to use springs in that crib at all. I shouldn’t need them. They look dangerous to me, and my friends all have mattresses that just sit on brackets around the outside of the crib.”
He summoned a mental picture. “That would work. I could add some more brackets for you easily enough. The way it looks now, you only have four of them.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “I’d need them all the way around so the mattress is higher. You know, so fingers or hands couldn’t poke out.”
“Easy enough.”
Then she smiled faintly. “And that’s part of the reason for crib bumpers, I guess.” A little shake of her head. “I need to get on the stick about this, don’t I?”
“You’ve got a little time.”
“Not a whole lot.” She held out her hand. “Pad? Pen?”
He’d forgotten he’d tucked them into his breast pocket and turned them over immediately.
“So, hardware for angle brackets and screws, right? Say eight of them?”
“Maybe twelve. And they should be wide, not too narrow.”
She wrote. “Then mattress, bumpers, sheets, blankets...” Her voice trailed off. “I let this go too long.”
“You’ve still got time, right?”
“Another ten weeks.”
“That’s plenty,” he said bracingly. “Your friends and I will help if you let us.” Then he took a leap into a potential briar patch. “I don’t like those basement stairs of yours.”
She looked up from her writing. “Why?”
“Too narrow, and the railing isn’t sturdy enough. “You shouldn’t be climbing them right now, but with a baby in your arms or on your hip...” He let it hang, and braced for her justifiable anger. Just who the hell did he think he was? She’d have every right to demand that of him.
She frowned, then sighed. “You’re right. I hate those stairs.”
“I can fix them.”
At that her head jerked back. “Ryker, you just dropped by to do your duty to Johnny. You checked on me. Are you planning to move in?”
A justified question. But he was feeling a need, a strong need to atone and make up for things, including the lies he kept telling by omission as much as anything. His answer, though, surprised even him. “For a change I’d like to actually build something.”
Something passed over her face—whether sorrow or something else, he wasn’t sure. “Why should I trust you?” she asked finally. “You think I can’t tell you’re keeping secrets?”
“John kept secrets, too,” he said. “And by the way, John trusted me, or I wouldn’t be here now.”
She debated. He could see it. He wondered how much faith she’d lost in her husband just by the few things he’d told her. He’d certainly tried to avoid telling her that she’d been fed some outright lies. He didn’t feel good about it, but that was the job. Besides, he owed it to John to protect her from the ugly truths.
“What would you do to the stairs?” she asked.
“For one thing, the steps need to be wider. So it’ll stretch farther into the basement, but there’s room. And I’d give you a rail on both sides strong enough that if you grab or fall against them, they won’t collapse.”
She nodded slowly, giving him his first sense that he might actually be getting somewhere with her. “I’d like that,” she admitted.
He rose and reached for the jacket he’d slung over the back of the chair earlier. “I’ve imposed too much. See you tomorrow.”
Before she could answer, he headed for the door. Coming here hadn’t eased his sense of guilt in the least. He’d better watch his step before he carried that woman into another thicket of lies, a thicket worse than the one left to her by John.
He was, after all, still CIA. And while he might have a few months off, that didn’t mean he should spend them weaving another trap for an innocent woman. She’d paid a high enough price already for loving the wrong man.
Ryker’s departure left Marisa feeling adrift again. Maybe she’d been too quick to take such a long sabbatical. No, she couldn’t have handled teaching in the fall, but now that months had passed, she itched at times to have a schedule, to have things that needed doing. A point, a purpose, beyond wallowing in grief and taking care of her health and the child in her womb.
Johnny’s death had inalterably changed her life, but she had managed his absences before by keeping a busy, full life. These days she’d all but cut off her friends.
And Ryker. He intrigued her. She felt the hardness in him at times, but she felt more there. As if he were reaching out for something, too. He’d helped her with the crib, and he said he wanted to fix her basement stairs. God, she hated those stairs. For years now she’d stood at the top of them and thrown her laundry down because she couldn’t safely carry it.
It would be nice to get them fixed, but his words had struck her even more: Ryker had said he wanted to build something for a change. If that wasn’t one of the saddest statements she’d ever heard...
He’d said he handled security for the State Department. She wondered if that job was even more dangerous than Johnny’s. Johnny, after all, had gone as a translator. But Ryker being involved in security sounded even more hazardous. Yet he seemed to accept those kinds of risks casually, which was chilling, in a way.
But then, hadn’t Johnny done the same?
She tried to fight the downward spiral her thoughts were taking again. Reality decreed she had to carry on. Indulging a grief that would never leave her didn’t seem to get her anywhere. One foot in front of the other. How many times had she reminded herself of that?
Julie showed up again in the late afternoon, an unusual number of visits for one day. Apparently Julie was concerned about something. Her? Ryker’s presence?
Anyway, it was a relief to see her cheerful face breeze into the house. Julie had apparently taken the bit between her teeth. While she gabbed humorously about her day with “those imps,” as she sometimes referred to her kindergarten class, she dove into the refrigerator and started pulling out food.
“I didn’t want to eat alone,” she remarked. “You up to a chicken casserole?”
“Absolutely.” Marisa sat back, enjoying Julie’s minor whirlwind.
“Just us, or will your new friend be here?”
“I’m not expecting him.”
Julie paused, package of skinless chicken breasts in hand. “Why not? Did he leave?”
“I doubt it. He wants to rebuild my basement stairs.”
“I love him already. Those things have been worrying me. So call him.”
“Call him? Why?”
“Because in this case three might be company. I mean, sheesh, Marisa, the guy came to look you up because of Johnny. How rude do you want to be?”
Marisa felt her stomach lurch. What was Julie doing? Was she being rude? She hadn’t asked Ryker to come visit; he’d just arrived without warning. She didn’t