Barbara Phinney - Necessary Secrets

With a frown and lips that snapped shut, she stopped. He waited, silently urging her on. “That’s all I can say,” she added.

Too hurriedly, he thought.

She shook her head, finally blurting out, “Bosnia isn’t a placid little country, as much as the Bosnian government wants it to be. It’s a war zone, Jon. Soldiers die in war zones. Rick died in the line of duty. You should try to find some comfort in that.”

“Do you?”

She pulled away from him and stalked into the house. The door would have slammed shut in his face had he not been close enough behind her to throw out his palm and deflect it.

He followed her down the quiet hallway. When they reached the kitchen, Sylvie stopped and Jon nearly ran into her. His own gaze trailed after hers as she looked across the kitchen table to an older man, who stood holding a coffee cup.

“Dad?” she said, obviously surprised. “What are you doing home?”

Sylvie tried to smile at her father, to return the warmth in the grin he offered, but her hunger and Jon plowing into the kitchen behind her weakened her feeble attempt.

She watched her father’s gaze linger on her face a moment, then snap to Jon. She cleared her throat. “Dad, this is Jon Cahill. His brother was Rick Cahill. Remember, the…one who died?”

She needed to say more to her father. But now? She couldn’t just blurt out that she was also pregnant with Rick’s baby and that Jon Cahill had driven her home because she’d fainted on Trail’s main street.

No. Dad deserved to be told in a more private setting that he was going to be a grandfather.

How would he react? Sometimes, when she was young, he peered down at her after a long day outside, with a tired look that seemed to ask who she was. There was always something more important to do than to listen to his daughter’s endless, excitable chatter.

Old news, she told herself. Dad’s happy now.

She looked at Jon. “This is my father, Allister Mitchell.” She bustled past them as they shook hands across the table, not wanting to elaborate on why Jon was here, or why he’d stormed into the house after her. But she couldn’t let Jon tell her father, especially in the no-nonsense terms in which he seemed to express himself.

“Jon came to Trail looking for me. He wanted to discuss what happened to Rick.”

Allister nodded. When she first arrived home, Sylvie had given him and Andrea the briefest of explanations. Rick and she had been driving to one of the outposts when a slide had stopped them. Rick had been injured and unfortunately he’d died.

She swallowed. No thanks to her.

Her father had the wisdom to let it go at that, and Sylvie was thankful the military had shut up on the details. After reporting on the death and the memorial service, the media had turned its focus on the other hot spots around the world.

“So, Jon,” her father was saying, “how did you find Sylvie? She doesn’t go into town regularly.” He turned to her. “Why did you go in? Lawrence noticed you didn’t take the truck, so it wouldn’t have been for supplies.”

Lawrence was their old ranch hand. A second father to her. She straightened her shoulders and smiled at Allister. Without Andrea at his side, her father seemed much more approachable. Andrea would fuss too much and take over the whole conversation.

She drew in a deep breath. Delaying the inevitable had never been her way. She’d already delayed acknowledging her pregnancy longer than she should have. Besides, if Jon wanted to be part of her baby’s life, then he may as well see his whole, “newly acquired family” in a clear, transparent light, warts and all. She had no idea what her father would say, and a part of her hoped, for Jon’s sake, that her father would show some of that blunt Mitchell candor that Andrea seemed to have smoothed out so effectively.

She stared at her father, steeled her shoulders and said, “Dad, I’m pregnant. I went in to make a doctor’s appointment.”

Allister’s face went blank. “Pregnant? Who’s the father? It can’t be him—” He pointed to Jon. “You only just met, didn’t you?”

With a sigh and a stifled smile, Sylvie shook her head and threw open the refrigerator door. “No, it’s not him.” She realized how foolish she’d been, blurting out her condition. She had no desire to discuss the circumstances of the conception with anyone, especially with Jon avidly eavesdropping. “It happened in Bosnia. I’ll tell you all about it later. We’ve got lots of time for that. Now, why are you here?”

Disoriented for a minute, he took his time answering, “One of the campers got ill. We carried him down on one of the pack horses, till we met the ambulance at the edge of the highway. Oh, he’s going to be fine, just some bug. Andrea stayed up at the site with the rest of them. I was planning to go straight back out, but…”

She caught his speculative stare. “Go! There’s not much to say, at least until I get my first doctor’s appointment. I’m fine.”

“You look like death warmed over, girl.” He shook his head and turned to Jon. “Did you bring her home?”

Jon nodded. “As a matter of fact, I did. Personally, I don’t think she can do too much around here. You may want to stay back.”

She slammed the refrigerator shut. “Wait a minute! I said I’m fine. There’s nothing you can do, Dad, so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go straight back up to Andrea. I have Lawrence—”

Allister let out a snort. “Oh, Lawrence is busy enough with the campground. And he’s getting too old. Plus, we lost Tyler last month. He was supposed to help you. Can you haul around fence posts and fix up the house by yourself in your condition?”

Oh, dear. She knew where this conversation was heading, and quickly shook her head. “Of course I can’t, but—”

“No, she can’t,” Jon announced. “But I can.”

Sylvie snatched the swear word before it flew from her lips. Instead she glared at him. “You have another job, remember? You’re a cop in Toronto.”

A hint of regret whisked over his features. Regret? Fear? It had happened so fast, she couldn’t be sure.

“A cop?” her father interjected, making Sylvie wish she’d kept her mouth shut and made him think Jon was nothing but a bum off the street. Yeah, in a fine-looking polo shirt and pants that still bore an arrow-sharp crease. Allister Mitchell lived in his own world, but he wasn’t naive. She could no more make Jon Cahill look like a disreputable drifter than she could undo the horror of this past spring.

“I can easily get the summer off,” Jon said. “There are plenty of auxiliary officers looking for extra hours. Remember what I said, back there in the clinic, don’t you?”

The air, warmed by the sun streaming in the window above the sink, stuck hard in her throat. She could read so very easily the warning in Jon’s expression. He will be a part of her baby’s life. Get used to it, his eyes added.

But also, a suggestion of what he’d not said seemed to linger in the air. Who the father of her baby was.

Time stalled. Was he going to tell her father? She wished, however briefly, she’d told him the truth back there in the clinic. Every last detail that would have seen him storming out of Trail and straight to a good lawyer. The military could use a good lawsuit for all they’d done to Rick. Unless Jon chose to sue her, instead.

Sylvie tore her gaze from Jon, catching her father’s raised eyebrows and questioning smile.

“What do you think, Sylvie? It’s your ranch, now. If he can do the work, there’s no reason why we can’t hire him for the summer.”

There were a thousand reasons why they shouldn’t hire Jon Cahill. He wanted the truth from her about Rick, the details of Rick’s last hours, not a sterilized military version.