Rachel Lee - An Unlikely Daddy

“Johnny talked about you from time to time, but I gather he said little about me.”

“He mentioned R.T. a couple of times but no, he didn’t say much. But then he didn’t talk much about his friends in the Rangers or later. It was like when he came home, he turned all that off.”

“Probably wise,” Ryker said. He washed down a mouthful of bagel with some coffee. “Compartmentalizing, we call it. Keeping things separate. Why would he want to bring any of that home to you?”

“But he talked about me,” she argued.

“Once in a while. Sometimes everyone talked about home. Sometimes we needed to remember that there was a place or a person we wanted to get back to. The rest of the time we couldn’t afford the luxury.”

That hit her hard, but she faced it head-on. Remembering home had been a luxury? That might have been the most important thing anyone had told her about what Johnny had faced and done.

“I didn’t know him at all,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut, once again feeling the shaft of pain.

“You knew the best part of him. That mattered to him, Marisa. You gave him a place where that part could flourish.”

* * *

Conard County:The Next Generation

RACHEL LEEwas hooked on writing by the age of twelve and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full-time.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To all the heroes whose stories will never be told.

Contents

Cover

Introduction “Johnny talked about you from time to time, but I gather he said little about me.” “He mentioned R.T. a couple of times but no, he didn’t say much. But then he didn’t talk much about his friends in the Rangers or later. It was like when he came home, he turned all that off.” “Probably wise,” Ryker said. He washed down a mouthful of bagel with some coffee. “Compartmentalizing, we call it. Keeping things separate. Why would he want to bring any of that home to you?” “But he talked about me,” she argued. “Once in a while. Sometimes everyone talked about home. Sometimes we needed to remember that there was a place or a person we wanted to get back to. The rest of the time we couldn’t afford the luxury.” That hit her hard, but she faced it head-on. Remembering home had been a luxury? That might have been the most important thing anyone had told her about what Johnny had faced and done. “I didn’t know him at all,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut, once again feeling the shaft of pain. “You knew the best part of him. That mattered to him, Marisa. You gave him a place where that part could flourish.” * * * Conard County: The Next Generation

Title Page An Unlikely Daddy Rachel Lee www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author RACHEL LEE was hooked on writing by the age of twelve and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full-time.

Dedication To all the heroes whose stories will never be told.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

Marisa Hayes stood atop a hill in the Good Shepherd Cemetery in Conard County, Wyoming. The ceaseless spring wind seemed to blow through her hollow heart, sweeping away her life. Johnny’s coffin, wood and brass, sat atop the bier, ready to be lowered. Beneath it a strip of artificial turf covered the gaping hole in the ground that would soon contain him. The green swatch was an affront to the brown ground all around.

She couldn’t move. Pain so strong it was almost beyond feeling, a strange kind of agonized numbness, filled her. Several men were waiting to lower the casket. A few of her friends waited behind her, giving her space and time. Dimly she realized they must be growing impatient as time continued its inexorable march into a future she wished would go away.

Beyond the coffin she saw the tombstones of others who had left this life before Johnny, generations of markers, some newer, some so old they tilted. Plastic flowers brought artificial color here and there to a comfortless landscape. No well-tended ground, this. No neatly trimmed lawns and shrubs trying to create an impression of life amidst death. Just the scrubby natural countryside, tamed to a level one could walk through, but no more. A couple of tumbleweeds had rolled in and hung up just since she arrived here. They’d move on soon. Everything moved on. Time stole everything, one way or another.

Her hand rested against her still-flat belly. She’d never had a chance to tell Johnny. If she believed the pastor, her husband knew. She wasn’t sure if she believed the pastor. Right now she didn’t know if she believed in afterlife, God or anything at all.

What she believed in was her pain. What she believed in was that she was carrying Johnny’s baby. What she believed was that when she had tried to Skype him, to tell him, she had been told he was out, they’d give him a message. What she believed was that the next thing she heard was that Johnny was dead.

No open coffin. They’d warned against it. The funeral director had practically fallen on his knees, begging her not to demand it. Telling her that some images were best not remembered. Telling her to remember Johnny alive.

If the funeral director couldn’t pretty it up...

But, no, she refused to go there. It was the one piece of advice she had taken. Holding the folded flag in her arms, against her baby, she could still hear the ring of “Taps” on the desolate air, could still feel the moment she had accepted that flag, as if it were the moment she had accepted Johnny’s death. Then the man, someone she didn’t know, a State Department official who had given his name, as if she cared, had said, “John was a true hero.”

So? He was a dead hero, and his widow just wanted to climb into that hole beside him.

She lifted her gaze to the insensitive blue sky, wondering why it wasn’t gray and weeping, the way her heart wept. Why thunder and lightning weren’t rending the heavens the way her heart was rent.

She thought about burying the flag with Johnny. Just marching the four steps and placing it on the coffin. He’d earned that flag, not her, and right now it felt almost like an insult, not an honor. But she didn’t do it. The baby. Someday the child within her might want this flag, all it would ever have of its father except a few photographs. Maybe someday it would even mean something to her.

“Marisa.” Julie’s quiet voice, near her. A touch on her arm. “We need to go.”

“Then go.”

“I think I was including you in that.”

She turned her head, her neck feeling stiff, and looked straight into Julie’s worried face. “I...can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Come on, hon. You can come back tomorrow if you want. You can come every single day. But right now...”

Right now people were waiting for her, waiting to take her home, waiting to put Johnny in the ground. When she came back tomorrow, the turf would still be there, covering the bare, freshly turned earth. But Johnny’s coffin wouldn’t be where she could see it. His final home.