Riley's Baby Boy. Karen Smith Rose
parents skip out altogether. We both know that. That’s not going to happen here.” There was a very good reason he didn’t trust women. His mother had left Miners Bluff for the “good” life. Essentially Brenna had done the same. She wouldn’t go public with what they’d felt when they were young. She wouldn’t defy her parents and admit her feelings about him. She’d felt leaving was better than staying. He wondered if she knew that’s what had eventually led to him joining the marines.
This time, without any hesitation at all, she reached over and touched his thigh. Her fingers on his skin were a searing heat. “Riley, I didn’t mean to suggest—”
To his relief, Derek started fussing again. This time he was grateful and didn’t croon or rock. He wasn’t going to revisit his broken-up family life with Brenna. He wasn’t going to let her touch turn him inside out.
When she reached for Derek, Riley let her lift the baby from his arms to walk with him.
He was gripped by longing he didn’t begin to understand. He rose to his feet and with his best military voice, asked, “So will you stay here tonight? Stay here while you’re in Miners Bluff?”
Brenna seemed to weigh all of her options. Finally she responded, “I’ll stay tonight, then we’ll go from there.”
One night. He had one night to convince her he could be a proper father … one night to convince her he wasn’t and would never be like his dad.
Brenna had just finished fastening Derek’s diaper, when a tingle ran up her spine. Keeping one hand on Derek, she glanced over her shoulder and there was Riley, all tall and brawny and broad-shouldered … watching her. She felt hotter than she should have for May in Miners Bluff.
He came into the room and she saw he was carrying what looked to be a dresser drawer.
“What’s that?” She was still nervous about coming, still uncertain she’d done the right thing. The bad feelings between her family and Riley’s had caused their breakup in the past and could complicate their decisions now.
“Derek needs a bed. You can’t just put him beside you and roll over on him.”
“I would never—” She stopped, seeing the glint of humor in Riley’s eyes. He was trying to lighten the situation and she really did appreciate that. Why she was questioning her decision to come here, she didn’t know. Her life had been full of decisions. Leaving Riley had been heartbreaking, but it had been the right decision. Her career had been solid. One bad decision still haunted her, though. She’d become romantically involved with the wrong man—Thad Johnson—and had ended up emotionally bruised. But Thad had taught her men couldn’t be trusted … not any more than Riley, whose motives had always been in question.
“For a bed, it’s kind of hard, don’t you think?” she asked, trying to forget the past … at least, for the moment.
“Oh ye of little faith,” Riley said with a shake of his head. “Just watch.”
When he exited the room again, she watched all right. She watched the straightness of his spine and the play of his muscles under his T-shirt. His jeans fit him really well. She knew what he looked like without those jeans. That was the problem with staying here.
By the time she’d scooped Derek off the bed, Riley had returned with an armful of linens. First he took what looked like a mattress pad and folded it in half. Next he tucked a sheet around it and smoothed it out in the drawer, ensuring the surface was tight.
“What do you think?”
With Derek on her shoulder, she crossed to his side of the bed and stood next to him. Way too close, she decided, but that’s where the drawer was so she had no choice.
She pushed down on the makeshift mattress. “You’re inventive.”
“I was a marine.”
He hadn’t said much about being in the service, but at the reunion, she’d heard chatter before he’d arrived about his tours of duty, about his Purple Heart and Bronze Star. As they’d danced he’d explained about how he’d become Clay Sullivan’s partner in his wilderness guided tour business, about how he was glad to be home with his family. But their conversation hadn’t delved deeper than the surface of their lives. His dad had been an alcoholic. Had that changed?
She’d never really gotten to know Riley’s brothers and sister because their high school affair had been a secret. That summer after their high school graduation, Riley had wanted to go public with their relationship. But her dad and Riley’s dad had felt nothing but bitterness toward each other. She’d been torn by her feelings for Riley and her desire to leave Miners Bluff and become the independent woman she wanted to be—by her sense of loyalty to her family and her love for Riley.
Family and independence had won and she’d gone to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York with her heart aching, her appetite gone, her nights filled with dreams of Riley and what they’d had. Yet she doubted what they’d had, too. Had Riley really fallen for her? Or had he just wanted revenge on her father for what her father had done to his?
“Did you learn to cook in the marines?” He’d made them a quick supper of grilled burgers, oven fries and fresh green beans.
“I learned almost everything I know as an adult in the marines.”
That sentence carried a lot of weight and she wasn’t going to ignore its importance. She patted Derek’s back as she rocked back and forth a little, more for her sake than his.
“When did you enlist?”
“The November after we graduated.”
“What made you decide? You’d never mentioned wanting to serve.”
He smoothed the padding in the drawer again, straightened, looking uneasy. “It’s not important.”
“It changed the course of your life and made you who you are. I think it is.”
“I got into trouble.”
That wouldn’t have been the first time Riley had been in trouble. Before she’d met him, before she’d dated him, she’d known he was wild. Liam O’Rourke’s kids had never had restrictions, and Riley had taken advantage of that. Sure, after his mom had left, he’d had to help with his brothers and his sister. But when he wasn’t doing that, he was raising Cain. She’d been told to stay away from him for more than one reason. But this raven-haired bad boy, with eyes as blue as the winter sky, had been temptation personified when he’d seemed interested in her.
He and some friends had been caught stealing another school’s mascot. He’d also been caught binge drinking with those same buddies in a neighbor’s barn.
“This time it was worse than school suspension,” he admitted finally, guessing what she was thinking. “I had a few beers. I drove Dad’s truck and crashed it into a fire hydrant.”
He’d had no plans for the future when they’d dated. He’d had no goals as she’d had. “What happened?”
“My case was assigned to a judge who did more than look at me as a number. He told me to shape up or die young. He advised me to visit the offices of recruiters. He told me if they accepted me and I signed up, he’d forget the fire hydrant and the damages. So I signed up.”
“You were a marine until last year?”
“Until a few months before the reunion. Since I’m skilled at computer intel, I did consulting work when I got back. But I was looking for something different. When I heard Clay was searching for a partner, guiding work seemed perfect. And it is. I know this area as well as he does and my training just adds skills that I can use when I take tours fishing or riding out to Horsethief Canyon or rock climbing near Sedona. The marines made me a man of many talents.”
“I don’t think it was just the marines. You must have been willing to learn.”
Their