Beth Kery – If I Need You (страница 8)

“I can’t leave you alone here, Faith,” he said gruffly.

She lifted her head and studied him dazedly. “What do you mean?”

“I respect the fact that you want to raise the baby in Holland. It’s your home. But I’m not comfortable with living three thousand miles away while my child is here.”

Regret swept through him when he saw alarm flash into her eyes. She straightened, breaking the contact of their bodies.

“What do you plan to do?” she demanded.

“I’ll move back to Michigan,” he replied simply.

She blinked. “Ryan, you can’t be serious. You’ve lived in San Francisco for years now. You started your new business out there. You can’t expect to just pack up and move to Holland.”

“It’ll take some doing, I’ll grant you that. But it’d be better to do it now, before the business grows any larger. I can even rent hangar space at Tulip County Airport. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought since this afternoon. It might be better for me to be centrally located versus on the West Coast, given the nature of my business. Actually, the beach area of Michigan is an ideal location to serve business people in Detroit and Chicago, and I’ve already make loads of contacts out west.”

Faith stared at him like he was slightly mad as he spoke his thoughts out loud. “Ryan, that seems so...sudden. Impulsive.”

“Despite all the evidence against me from Christmas Eve, I’m not an impulsive person. But I do trust my instincts.” He traced the line of her jaw with his forefinger.

She met his stare. He didn’t bother to guard his desire for her. Her eyes widened slightly, and he knew she’d seen it. Was she, like him, thinking of those ecstatic moments when they’d both acted on glorious instinct? He hoped so. He wished like hell those memories had been permanently scored in her brain like they had been in his.

“I think we should talk about it more,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I’m not so sure instinct is the wise guiding principle for the future, given the fact that a baby is involved.”

“I think it’s the perfect principle.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It got us here, didn’t it?”

She stared at him in mute amazement.

Ryan scowled at the sound of voices in the distance. He turned his head and saw another couple approaching on the walk.

“Come on. It’s almost dark,” he said. “We can talk more in the car.”

* * *

Faith’s mind was a confused hodgepodge of thoughts, feelings and concerns as Ryan drove through the now dark streets of Holland. While they waited at a red light, Ryan turned toward her.

“You’re vibrating with worry over there. Why don’t you vent some of what you’re thinking?”

She met his stare. His rugged features looked shadowed and compelling in the dim light.

“Are you really serious about moving back to Michigan?” she asked in a voice that sounded unnaturally high to her own ears.

“Is it really that unbelievable?”

“I just...I just hadn’t expected that you might want to do that.”

“Why not?” he asked, looking slightly puzzled. The stoplight turned green and he began to drive. “Did you really think I was going to be blasé about the fact that I was going to have a child?”

“I don’t know,” Faith stated honestly. “I guess I just assumed you’d...”

“Be satisfied seeing the baby a few times a month and on half the holidays?” Ryan asked when she faded off uncertainly.

“Well...you’re a pilot,” she said, as if that explained something.

“And?”

“Pilots are always on the go. One place is as much home as another. I just assumed you wouldn’t consider the distance between Holland and San Francisco as significant as most people would.”

He came to a stop at an intersection of a quiet residential neighborhood. “Family is very important to me, Faith. It always has been. That value was instilled into me a long time ago by my parents.”

Her throat grew tight. “And then you lost them at such a young age,” she whispered feelingly. Of course family was important to him.

“Besides, if I move back to Michigan, I’ll be closer to my sister and her family. Mari is in Chicago. She’s going to have another baby, too.” He blinked as if in realization and gave her a small smile. Her heart seemed to throb as if in answer. “As a matter of fact, she’s only a few months ahead of you.”

“The baby will like having a cousin of the same age,” Faith said, returning his smile.

The moment stretched as they sat there in the running car in the silent neighborhood, staring at one another and considering the future.

Ryan finally cleared his throat and resumed driving.

“You never told me if you knew the sex of the baby,” he said.

She shook her head. “Not yet. I hadn’t decided yet if I wanted to know or be surprised. Do you?” He glanced at her quickly. “Want to know?”

She watched as his expression went blank. He looked almost grim as he stared out the front window.

“I don’t know,” he said hoarsely after a moment. “One second, I think this whole thing has settled in, and the next I feel...”

“Overwhelmed?” she wondered.

He nodded once.

“I understand. It takes a while to fully absorb it,” she said quietly. She studied his profile as he drove, wondering over the fact that she was sitting in the car with Ryan Itani—her former husband’s good friend, the father of the child that grew in her womb...one of the most magnetically attractive and masculine men she’d ever encountered.

Maybe she was still overwhelmed, as well.

He pulled into her driveway a few minutes later. Faith studied her hands in her lap as he put the car in Park. She needed to banish this pervasive nervousness. She needed to get used to dealing with Ryan, with being around him.

“Would you like to come in and have a cup of coffee?”

“Yes.” The bluntness of his reply made her head come up. In the dim dashboard lights, she could see him studying her. “But I’m going to say no, nevertheless,” he added.

“Why?”

He abruptly turned in the seat as far as he could, given his big body and the confining space of the car. He took both of her hands in his. Spikes of pleasure prickled up her arms when he caressed her wrists with slightly calloused thumbs.

“I still want you, Faith. I think it’s only fair to tell you that.”

She started, shocked by his bold statement. She stared out the window to her neat, attractive ranch house, trying to gather her thoughts. It was hard with him stroking her skin and what he’d just said echoing around in her brain. She reached wildly for the threads of logic spinning around with a vortex of doubts and desire.

“You’re just saying that because you’re confused about the baby,” she said.

“You said I was saying it last time because I was confused about Jesse’s sudden death. When are you going to believe that I’ve always found you attractive, Faith?”

She looked at him in alarm.

“I never would have done anything while Jesse was alive. That’s not my style. I know it’s not yours, either,” he said in a low, compelling voice. “The truth is, I didn’t allow myself to think about it very much. You were another man’s wife. Off-limits. I wouldn’t even call my feelings toward you attraction. They were respect. Admiration. I liked you a lot.”

She stared at him, her throat and chest feeling full—achy. She couldn’t look away from his stark, handsome face.

“My feelings for you would have stayed in that holding pattern if circumstances hadn’t changed. But they did change. You discovered Jesse wasn’t faithful to you.”

“I was filing for a divorce at the time he was killed,” she said, shocking herself.

Ryan’s expression tensed. His caressing fingers paused. “You were?”

She nodded. A tear spilled down her cheek. She was angry at Jesse for his infidelity. Furious. So why did guilt still rear its ugly head inside her when she thought of the fact that she’d been planning on leaving him when his life was cut unexpectedly short?

“I told him that I planned to divorce him when he admitted to his affairs with both Melanie and that other officer that worked at the airport. He was so upset about the divorce. He never told you?” she asked shakily, searching his face.

“He never said a word about you two breaking up,” Ryan said. His flat expression told the absolute truth. Jesse had kept the impending end of their marriage to himself. Maybe he’d hoped she’d change her mind. He might have died with that secret. The realization caused a pain of regret to go through her. She shuddered. Damn these hormones. Since her pregnancy, she cried at the drop of a dime. Suddenly Ryan’s arms were around her. She clutched on to his shoulders and wept.

“It’s just...you knew Jesse. He was like a kid at times. I know he wasn’t capable of being faithful. I know I wasn’t meant to be his wife. But I cared about him.”

“I understand,” Ryan soothed, stroking her back. “Maybe he wasn’t capable of being faithful to you, but I do know that Jesse cared about you, too.”